“I’m not sure,” I breathed, feeling an inexplicable desire to touch him to see if he was real or if I was imagining him. “When I saw you coming out of the water, I thought for a moment that Baldur had escaped Helheim, for you couldn’t possibly be human.”
“I think your bit of smoke has done its duty, Liv,” Bjorn said. “Best get on with things, right?”
“Are you blushing, Bjorn?” The healer gave a sly smile. “I hadn’t thought it possible…”
“It’s hot in here.”
“It’s not,” I corrected him, admiring the slight flush of his cheeks. “It’s cold. But you always feel warm, like there is a fire burning inside of you. A fire I’d like to—”
Bjorn lifted my arm, and I broke off, staring with fascination at the red skin marked with blisters, feeling none of the nausea I had earlier at the sight of my charred and blackened palm. Liv picked the worst of it off with tiny silver tweezers, revealing parts of my hand that should not feel the touch of air. Then she smeared honey across my injuries before plucking up the moss and pressing it into the sticky mess on my palm. “Eir,” she whispered, “cast your eyes down upon this woman. If she is worthy, allow me to help her.”
Nothing happened.
Even through the haze of the narcotic, I felt a twinge of fear. Had I been judged unworthy? It would make sense, for had I not hidden my own gift rather than using it, as Hlin intended? Had I not murdered in cold blood the one who’d revealed my secret? Perhaps this was a sign I was not blessed but cursed. A sign the gods had turned their backs on me.
Bjorn’s grip on my elbow tightened almost painfully, and I slowly shifted my gaze to find him staring at my palm, his jaw tight and his eyes filled with…panic? “Don’t be petty, Eir,” he said between his teeth. “You know who deserves the punishment, and it is not her.”
“Bjorn…” Liv’s voice was warning. “Don’t challenge the gods else they might—”
The moss began to grow.
At first, I thought I was seeing things. Yet within heartbeats, the dense green plant covered my palm, circling its way around the back of my hand and swiftly covering my fingers and wrist, not ceasing until all my burns were concealed. “Gods,” I breathed, staring at my moss-covered limb as Bjorn carefully lowered it to rest on my stomach. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Liv was watching Bjorn, her brow still furrowed, and I was not certain whether she was addressing me or him when she said, “Eir has allowed me to heal you, but what form that takes is up to her. When the moss withers, what we find beneath may be flesh as pure as a newborn babe’s or the gnarled limb of an ancient crone.”
“I understand.” A lie, because while Snorri said I was favored, I did not feel so. “Thank you.”
Liv inclined her head. “I serve Eir. Now you must rest, Freya. Let yourself sleep so that your body heals.”
Indeed, I felt the weight of the smoke I’d imbibed dragging me deeper, as though I were sinking into a warm lake, sunlight filling my eyes. I smiled, allowing my lids to shut as I drifted…
“She’ll stay under for hours,” I vaguely heard Liv say. Then, in little more than a whisper, she added, “Is it true? She’s the shield maiden?”
Bjorn made a noise of confirmation. “I struck her shield with my axe and her magic threw me a dozen paces across the clearing and into a tree. On which note, my arse is going to be black and blue for days. You wouldn’t mind—”
“Incentive to keep your trousers on for once,” Liv retorted. “Her arrival means war, and you know it.”
“War is inevitable.”
Liv didn’t answer, and feet thudded against the wooden floor as someone strode away. Curiosity pushed back some of the fog, and I peeled open my eyelids. Liv was gone and Bjorn stood next to my cot, his gaze fixed on my hand. “Why is she so angry?” I asked.
Bjorn jerked as though he’d been caught doing something he should not have been. After a heartbeat of silence, he finally said, “Liv dislikes violence—she’s seen too much of what is left in its wake—and your appearance means more will come.”
A shiver passed over me. “Because of the seer’s prophecy? She thinks I’ll cause a war?”
He was silent for a long moment, then said, “The seer saw a future where you unite all the people of Skaland beneath one king. In our world, power is most often achieved with violence.” He hesitated, then added, “And Hlin is a goddess of war.” He drew the furs higher up my chest, cocooning me in warmth. “But she also protects.”
Frustration wormed its way through the haze. “What does that mean?”
“You are unfated, Freya. Nothing the seer foretold is set in stone.”
Without another word, he walked out of sight.
A beam of light stabbed me in the eyes, and I silently cursed Vragi for leaving the door open when he went outside to piss. Groaning, I rolled away from the light, then froze as my cheek brushed over fur of unfamiliar texture.
Memory slammed into me: Vragi’s laughter as he betrayed me, Geir crawling on the ground, my hand consumed by the fire of a god, and pain…pain like nothing I’d experienced before.
Pain that was now…gone.
I sat up, the furs covering me falling away. My clothes were my own, marked with blood and bits of ash, stinking of sweat and fish, but that was the least of my concerns as I stared down at my hand.
It was still wrapped with moss, but the plant was now dry and dead. I tentatively touched the moss with my left hand, equal parts desperate and terrified to see what lay beneath.
“I told you the gods favored you,” a voice said, and I straightened to find Jarl Snorri standing next to the hangings separating the space from the rest of the hall. “They wished for you to be revealed by fire, not to be consumed by it.”
I wasn’t convinced that was true, given my circumstances, but I kept my mouth shut as he crossed over to the bed. Without asking, he pulled the moss free, bits of dead plant and ash falling onto the dark furs. My breath caught as I saw what lay beneath.
“Make a fist,” he ordered.
I dutifully did so, muscles and tendons obeying with minimal protest.
“Ugly,” he said. “But strong enough to grip a weapon, and the seer said nothing of you uniting Skaland with your looks.”
I tried and failed not to flinch, hunting for gratitude that I hadn’t lost use of my hand and finding it lacking. For I saw what Snorri saw. Scars. The skin was twisted and stretched, in some places pink and in others completely white. Turning it over revealed that Liv’s magic had replaced the skin that the fire had melted away, but it was thick and almost devoid of sensation. My eyes burned with tears, and I blinked rapidly, not wanting Snorri to see that his comment had stung. Not wanting anyone to know how vain I truly was.
Snorri retreated from the room and returned with a shield painted bright yellow and red. “Get up.” He held out the heavy wooden circle. “Prove that you can call Hlin’s magic when your life isn’t on the line.”
The floor was cold beneath my bare feet as I slid off the bed and accepted the shield, the muscles of my left arm straining to support it. “And if I can’t?”
Snorri eyed me silently. “Failure always has a price, Freya. But it isn’t always paid by the one who fails.”
A prickle of fear skittered down my back. With Geir injured, my family was at the mercy of Snorri’s men.
Swallowing hard, I hefted the shield and squared my shoulders. Please, I silently prayed. Please don’t abandon me now, Goddess. Then I parted my lips and invoked her name, “Hlin.”
A familiar silver glow streaked out of the fingertips of my left hand, covering the shield and rendering it nearly weightless. It illuminated the room, casting shadows off Snorri’s smiling face. Tentatively, he reached out to touch the shield, then trailed his fingers over the smooth surface of the magic.
I wished it would fling him back as it had Bjorn. Wished it would launch him with such violence as to shatter his body. But it did not.