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April 2 - April 27, 2024
“Because I’m going to kill him. I’m going to make you a free woman so that you can bed me with no concerns for propriety,” he answered, tightening the girth before swinging onto the tall animal’s back. “What other reason could there be?”
It was the wanting that made my life hard. If I could only stop wanting, perhaps I might find some happiness in what I had.
“Nearly two decades ago, a seer spoke a prophecy to me of a shield maiden who’d been birthed the night of a red moon. She told me that this woman’s name would be born in the fire of the gods, and she would unite the people of Skaland beneath the rule of the one who controlled her fate.” “Fate is woven by the Norns.” My tongue felt thick and I swallowed hard. “They control it.” “All is fated except the lives of the children of the gods,” Snorri corrected. “Your path is unknown and as you walk it, you rearrange the threads of all those around you.”
“Not all scars we earn are skin-deep, Freya Born-in-Fire.” He loosened his grip, my hand sliding through his. Though my scarred palm was numb, I swore I felt his fingers trail across it, and the sensation caused me to shiver. “There is no less honor in them.”
“I vow to serve no man not of this blood.” “I vow allegiance to him who is of this blood. I vow to protect, at all cost, him who is of this blood. I vow to speak no word of this bargain except to him who is of this blood.”
“She, the unfated, she the child of Hlin, she who was born in fire must give sacrifice to the gods on the mount at the first night of the full moon else her thread will be cut short, the future that was foreseen unwoven.”
“It is hard to keep one’s wits when faced with a woman as beautiful as the sight of shore to a man who has been lost at sea.”
“I wanted you the moment I first set eyes on you. I wanted you in Fjalltindr. I want you now, and tomorrow, and all the tomorrows, Freya.”
“You’ve never been alone,” Bjorn said, his voice so soft that no one but me would hear over the wind and my weeping. “I will be at your back until I cross the threshold to Valhalla, Born-in-Fire, whether you want me there or not.”
“You are mine, Born-in-Fire. Even if only the two of us know it.” I was. Gods help me, but I was. And for the first time in my life, it felt like I wanted for nothing.
A place where I’d find answers, yes. But also where I’d begin to control my own fate.
