Page 4 of Vow of the Undead (The Bloodrune Saga #1)
Freya’s Trial
T he forest’s darkness enveloped me, stark and cold but protective. Shadows gave me cover from the executioners who hunted me. After foraging food from this forest for two decades, I knew every tree, every spot to hide.
I ducked to the right, forcing my feet to keep moving, keep running.
I would not stop.
The flap of a bat’s wings fluttered overhead. I could no longer hear the beat of the executioner’s boots striking the earth, but I knew they were close behind and I’d yet to break down my body. I’d only lose them by winding my path, because they’d quickly outpace me.
I weaved through a maze of trees and ignored the thwack of branches hitting my body as I pushed through.
Mercy would come from the forest itself, even if it wasn’t a safe place.
I usually only dared take to the shadows of trees in the daytime with the other gatherers, many of whom were women who’d just bested me in the race.
Witches knew wild animals were not the only threat in these trees.
Ragna had sworn she heard the footfall of a giant deep in the forest. Others had reported sightings of fanged people, but my father promptly shut down such claims. Bears and beasts existed, but not giants or the undead— called Draugr—mentioned in Thor’s saga.
For once, I prayed my father was right.
I ran until black spots dotted my vision.
The king wouldn’t let me live, whether that death came swiftly or achingly slow through starvation in the wasteland.
Witches weren’t supposed to exist because Gods weren’t supposed to exist. I suspected the king didn’t appreciate villagers worshipping Odin and Freya instead of him.
As the Gods’ chosen vessels, a witch’s very presence in Vylheim proved him and the rest of his beliefs wrong.
We were here, and though we were in hiding, we existed, some of us seerborns, others with the power to heal, or manipulate the elements.
I sucked ragged breaths into my burning lungs. Cramps seized my legs, but it was my heart that hurt the most. The beats thumped off rhythm, and it threatened to give out at any moment. It would soon stutter into a brief stop before reawakening.
In the interim, perhaps I’d hear Freya’s voice or glimpse through Odin’s single eye and see what he saw.
I drove my feet forward, step by step, despite the ache radiating up from my heels.
Glancing above, I caught sight of the heavens between branches. Soon ribbons of purple and pink, and blue as stark as King Drakkar’s eyes, would dance across the sky—a colorful reminder from the Gods that even in the depths of winter, there was hope.
They were there, waiting for witches to reach out to them for guidance and help.
Tell me what to do. Where can I go? How can I help my mother? Myself? I begged silently. Frustration mingled with desperation as my tongue swelled, my mouth growing drier.
How would I survive now? If the king knew I was a witch, his pursuit would be relentless. I could never go back to Skaldir. I couldn’t dare to commune with other witches in the hopes of digging out an answer that would free my mother from exile.
Give me a vision!
I trusted the Gods would reach me if they could. When I lacked visions it was because of my own failure, my resistant fear of the inevitable collapse. I hated that I wasn’t pushing myself hard enough.
Cold sweat trickled down my forehead, slipping between my brows. Salt stung my eyes. I squeezed my eyes shut for as long as I dared. Peeling them open again, I saw only darkness and the vague shapes of tree trunks.
The bushes rustled with a wild animal startled by my presence.
A thin stream of moonlight broke through patchy branches, and the dim light illuminated a black bird flying in front of me.
The raven cawed and I took the sound as a cheer, as if Odin himself had sent his precious Huginn or Muninn to watch over me.
Icy air crackled in my chest. Every breath left my throat raw as my body slowly failed, my throat squeezing tighter and tighter.
Help me.
Soon I would collapse, but that didn’t always guarantee a connection with the Gods. I’d need days of recovery before I could push myself again in hopes of another vision.
I didn’t have days.
Survival in the forest, alone, at the dawn of autumn wasn’t an option. Especially not after I ran myself ragged.
The black clouds at the edges of my vision grew. Heat flamed over my neck and into my spinning head. Collapse was imminent, and I prayed it was enough for them to reach me .
I blinked again, and when I opened my eyes I didn’t see the raven, the trees, or the shadowed forest. My world shifted into an all-consuming vision.
Before me stood a grand castle with stone turrets.
Rose bushes twined and tangled over the walls, their thorns as sharp as the look on the king’s face.
King Drakkar stood at the top of the steps in front of towering double doors. His lips shaped around words I could not hear yet somehow understood.
“Come to me. I have what you seek.”
My foot caught a root or rock and my body was thrown forward.
The vision vanished and night filled in around me.
I expected to slam into the ground, but hands gripped my arms and wrenched me backward, forcing me upright again.
The water I’d gulped before the race sloshed in my stomach with the sudden recoil.
A man and a woman’s voice floated, disembodied around me. My head spun because I couldn’t draw enough breath into my lungs. Through the haze of pain and confusion and desperation, a single thought struck me.
The executioners had caught up to me, and I was collapsing in their arms.
Heat and darkness encased me.