“Will you join me, master?”
In the depth of the night, in the privacy of Njord’s chambers, it felt only right to address him this way, and Njord’s pleased little smile was certainly worth it.
“Soon.”
Pressing a soft kiss on Thori’s forehead, Njord pushed him down into the sheets.
twenty-three
To discipline a god
Njord
What was he doing?
The whole day he’d kept himself busy, thinking about defending the fortress against both traitors within and attackers from outside, and not about the way Thori of the thunder had kissed him and called him master, in a tone that sounded like trust and genuine devotion rather than mockery.
Now he was running out of things to take care of, but instead of returning to his chambers, his feet carried him to the quarters he had assigned to Skalmöld. The rooms were designed to accommodate avala, looking out over the courtyard and even offering a small, secluded garden.
He found Skalmöld and Andora right there among the henbane, yarrow, and meadowsweet, right next to Hrothgar’s corpse, which was wrapped in a linen cloth.
“See, I told you he’d come,” Skalmöld said to Andora, and the girl’s eyes widened with excitement. “I need your help with this one, if you don’t mind.”
For avalasupposed to serve him, Skalmöld was awfully presumptuous, like the powerful ones of her kind tended to be. Like Perhonen. Like Ahti. His sister’s absence was like physical pain, and if he felt this way, how awful must it be for Talvi and Rune with both their mothers gone? He needed to bring them back. Soon.
“What do you require my assistance with?”
Skalmöld gestured to a steep black cliff jutting from the fortress wall above them, nothing more than a narrow ledge above the sea.
“I need to bring him up there.”
“Why?”
Did she plan to conduct her ritual up there? What madness.
“Liminal place. If I am to talk to Hrothgar’s narrow mind in death, I have to meet him somewhere. Unless you want me to ride to the halls ofHelherself?”
“Can’t you find a place to question his spirit where one wrong move doesn’t mean certain death?”
“And where would be the fun in that?”
Skalmöld’s grin was sharp as a blade. Andora giggled behind her hand, and Njord remembered why he’d once enjoyed the company ofvölurdespite their insufferable arrogance.
“Fine. But you’re not carrying him up there alone.”
“Certainly. That’s why we waited for you.”
The climb up the steep cliff face was treacherous enough without a corpse to worry about. Njord scaled the black rock first, securing a rope at the top, so Skalmöld and Andora could haul up Hrothgar’s wrapped body. The bundle swayed in the salty wind, and for a breathless moment, Njord thought the deadvalawould plunge into the depths. He reached for the corpse with the power of his wind to steady the swaying bundle, and finally, he hurled Hrothgar’s remains onto the questionable safety of the cliff’s edge.
Andora and Skalmöld climbed up next, both secured by the rope Njord had attached to the rocks. By the time they reached the ledge, the sun had painted the western sky in colors of pink and orange, and the screams of the skuas drowned out the distant sounds of the fortress below.
“This will do,” Skalmöld said, adjusting the body with its head pointing seaward.
She began arranging items from her pouch. First, she laid out her staff, gleaming in the last sunbeams, bone-carved runes, and bowls with dried herbs. Andora watched with fascination as thevalaworked, her youthful face bright with curiosity.
“This is going to take some time, Shipbreaker,” Skalmöld said. “I won’t start the ritual before the moon rises.”
“Do you plan to stay up here until then?”
