A Fate Inked in Blood

Freya follows the specter. It leads her to a hill overlooking an island in the stream and tells her to watch where a campfire burns on the island. Freya sees a cloaked figure carve something into a tree near the fire, then leave. The specter disappears. Freya goes to investigate further and finds runic circles carved on the tree, with an eye at the center. When she touches the eye, she sees a vision of Snorri making his speech about abandoning Halsar and attacking Grindill. Someone who witnessed the speech left this message to reveal Snorri’s plans, acting as a spy. Ylva seems the obvious suspect, since she appears to be in league with Harald, knows runic magic, and was unhappy about abandoning Halsar. Bjorn arrives, having followed Freya to keep her safe. She tells him what she found but cannot show him because the runes have vanished.

Bjorn accuses Freya of avoiding him. She lies at first but admits that her distance is because of what happened between them, physically, in Fjalltindr, and because she wants him. Bjorn admits to wanting her from the first moment he saw her. He kisses her passionately, and their physical interaction escalates, but a sudden noise makes them pause. Rationality returns, and Freya cites the consequences when—not if—they get caught. She tells him to stay away from her because his life and the lives of others depend on her good behavior.

Freya tells Snorri and Bodil about the specter and the runic message. Snorri claims that the specter must be Saga, Bjorn’s mother. She was burned alive—explaining the specter’s burning appearance—and had the same green eyes. Freya draws the runes she saw. Ylva reads them, sees the vision, and confirms Freya’s report. She says the runes are simple magic that could be taught to anyone. The runes then disappear, indicating that Freya replicated the magic from the runes on the tree—a fact that supports Ylva’s claim about their simplicity. They devise a plan to have Bodil question everyone who witnessed the speech, because she can detect lies. Ylva claims her innocence immediately, and Bodil determines that she is being truthful. Snorri rejects the idea of an investigation, saying that Saga’s intention was not to reveal a traitor but to show Freya her path forward. Gnut will soon know their plans, so they have to attack now.

They take an arduous path through the mountains, where heavy winds, sleet, and freezing temperatures at night threaten their survival. Freya is overcome by cold and exhaustion but is unwilling to let Bjorn help her more than the bare minimum. When they finally make camp after dark, Snorri refuses to make a fire, preferring to avoid detection by Gnut’s scouts. He is confident that the gods will protect Freya against any risks to her health and safety. That night, she nearly freezes to death. Barely conscious, she wants to succumb, to stop fighting. Bjorn holds her against his body to warm her and forces her to stay conscious.

As blood returns to Freya’s nearly frostbitten limbs, she experiences agonizing pain. She feels guilty when she realizes that many of Snorri’s warriors are helping her to recover, because she believes she is supposed to overcome her trials alone. Bjorn whispers to her that she is never alone because he will protect her until he goes to Valhalla. A new certainty that he won’t abandon her topples the walls around her heart. She awakens again near dawn, still snuggled against Bjorn and finally warm. Thinking of the battle to come and realizing that she might die in it, she decides to act on her feelings for him so that she will have no regrets. She teases and arouses him, and he brings her to climax with his fingers. He whispers that she is his, even if only the two of them know it.

Freya’s hands have recovered, but her feet and toes are still purple and painful. She can barely walk, but she insists on going to battle as planned because their success depends on the elements of speed and surprise. They trek three more hours to reach the forbidding fortress of Grindill. A decoy force attacks the south gate while Freya and the main army wait behind the tree line on the east side. Bjorn cuts down a massive oak tree for a battering ram. As they use it on the gate, Snorri orders Freya not to use her magic until the last possible second so that she will not reveal her presence. She finally calls Hlin’s shield to surround them. It protects them from a flood of boiling water and new onslaughts of arrows. However, when Freya trips over a body, the shared shield breaks. Bodil and many others are hit by the enemy’s weapons.

Snorri calls a retreat when he realizes that Gnut’s forces boast “a child of Thor” (307) who can call lightning and use it as a weapon. Bjorn drags Freya away from her futile attempts to save Bodil. She spots the child of Thor over the gate, and escapes Bjorn’s grip to avenge Bodil’s death. She uses Hlin’s shield to deflect a lightning strike, and it destroys the fortress gate. Snorri orders a renewed attack now that the wall is breached. Inside the fortress walls, Freya’s rage at Bodil’s death numbs her pain and fuels her bloodlust, and she fights viciously. She becomes so lost in this bloodlust that she is unaware of her surroundings and doesn’t realize how many warriors Bjorn must kill to prevent them from attacking her from behind. She wills herself not to lose her rage as she hunts for Gnut. When she finds him being guarded by a dozen warriors, she tries to attack him. As she charges, Bjorn throws his fire axe and cuts off Gnut’s head. The rest of the warriors surrender. Freya accuses Bjorn of stealing her vengeance, but he makes it clear that Gnut was luring her in to be killed by hidden archers. He stresses that she is naïve and is not sufficiently trained in battle tactics.

In the following days, Freya isolates herself in her designated quarters at Grindill, unwilling to face her memories of the battle and her destructive rage. Steinunn tries to ask Freya about the battle for her ballad, but Freya struggles to control her temper and responds rudely, insisting she has nothing to add. Then Steinunn reveals that Freya’s brother Geir and his wife Ingrid have come to Grindill. Freya leaves her room for the first time in days and realizes that Bjorn has been sleeping on the floor outside her door. He says that Geir came begging to return to his place in Snorri’s war band now that his leg has healed. Snorri has agreed, calling it a reward for Freya’s successes. Two more jarls have sworn allegiance to Snorri since the battle. Freya visits Geir and Ingrid in their new home and tells them that Snorri wants to use them as leverage to compel her compliance. Geir disagrees and chastises Freya for complaining when she has all she wants. They argue bitterly, and Geir insults Freya, leading Bjorn to assault him. Freya tells Bjorn to let Geir go, saying that he and Ingrid can deal with the consequences of their stupidity.

At Bjorn’s urging, Freya agrees to listen to Steinunn performing her story, though she knows it will be painful to relive. She sees her actions from the viewpoints of other warriors, and this rendition helps her to understand why everyone suddenly seems so afraid of her. In battle, she was a different person, almost unrecognizable as herself, as though she had become part animal. In the moment, she believed she was meting out justice, but now she is horrified by her brutality. She knows that she has the power to fulfill the foretold destiny, but Bjorn wants her to realize that in order to follow that path, she must become a killing machine that spreads terror. He wants her to choose another path, to change her destiny.

Bjorn urges Freya to let him take her away, saying he would leave his life behind for her. She wants to go, but her sense of duty to her family and the people of Halsar hold her back. Bjorn says they can’t be together if she won’t leave. He refuses to live a lie day after day while watching his father’s ambitions change her. Anger surges in Freya. She feels as though someone else is inside her, doing and saying things that she wouldn’t. Bjorn says that part of her is Hlin. There are few stories about Hlin, so Freya decides to gain some clarity by talking to her mother.