“His fierce maiden warriors, the azure-eyed Valkyries, who serve and choose the men who sit at his table, offered me winefrom his chalice. No man can refuse this honor. I drank, but much to my dismay, I realized the table wasn’t decorated for celebration. It was prepared for a funeral feast. Not to honor warriors slain in battle, but those wretched souls condemned to Hel. I dropped the sacred cup and ran. Once I escaped, I mysteriously appeared on the lands surrounding my home. Funeral pyres burned in every direction, columns of black smoke rose above the earth, very near my own hall.” He dropped his hands from behind his neck and leaned forward.
“I hastened for miles through ice and snow to reach my steading. Before I crossed the border,disir, women who decide men’s fates, were waiting. I greatly mistrust these spirits and attempted to elude them. But they followed me and called out to me.
Why do you run from your destiny? There are two possible ends for you, and we have revealed both. You have drunk from Odin’s cup, an honor bestowed on few mortals. Yet you remain only half a man. Sail to Durham on the eventide and discover the troth the gods have chosen for you. If you reject this gift, your wyrd will be altered—given over to forces beyond Odin’s control.”
“Tell me what wyrd is?” Her skepticism was evident.
“Fate.”
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up at the retelling of his tale, yet disbelief still remained on Noelle’s face. She resembled the wraith in his dream. Randvior studied her features more closely. Unable to resist the urge to touch her, he moved to the bed and pulled her onto his lap as he sat down again.
She bristled. “So I am to believe that a warmongering prince succumbed to the demands of spirits he doesn’t trust, then sailed for distant shores? If my father’s army were present they wouldhave overpowered you and sent you back to Norway in burning ships.”
He arched a brow, completely unprepared for how to deal with such an undisciplined, feminine tongue. A few unsavory methods crossed his mind, perhaps a gag and a firm throttling to her backside to start.
“I didn’t realize Norsemen relied on mystics to determine their futures.”
He nodded agreement and loosened his grip. “My people pay homage to countless deities, and seek the council of many when mapping out the course of their lives. Our stargazers are the most famous in the civilized world and have successfully predicted the futures of kings and military leaders—earning them many enemies. I know these ancient practices violate the tenets ofyourreligion, but we were mandated by our gods to use our skills to help shape the future. Your church unfairly condemns pagans, levies false charges, and executes them.”
Thedisirhad revealed his fate. They referred to him ashalf a man,and those prolific words beset him the most. A woman, spirit or otherwise, could say nothing more degrading. Randvior had interpreted them correctly, in his opinion, therefore safeguarding his virility from further scrutiny. The gods wanted him to take a wife.A woman can fill the empty spaces in a man’s soul like mortar between stones.He went where Odin commanded and found the girl. With his blood heating exquisitely, while she squirmed innocently in his lap, he nudged her off to keep himself from losing control.
He stood. She was too beautiful for her own good.
And his. The only way to win her affection would be to woo her.
“That’s it?” she complained. “Your silly story ends there? You fill my head with ridiculous notions of gods and spirits—prophetic visions, fire, and mayhem and end it without resolution?”
Keeping a straight face, he let her rant continue.
“My senses tell me you’re full of—”
Randvior laughed warningly. “Sometimes a story ends where it must. This isn’t girlish make-believe, but an honest recounting of what carried me here.”
Most women would have swooned upon hearing how the gods favored him. Not this one. Noelle Sinclair simply rejected him.
Days passed and Randvior spent his afternoons walking and talking with Noelle on deck.
Today, he formally introduced her to Odin and a myriad of deities he worshipped. He also prepared her for the reaction his people might have once they found out she was English. It seemed hatred thrived on both sides of the sea.Men most fear what they do not understand.
“Decades of derision lay between our countries. The first Norse ships landed in Lindisfarne over two hundred years ago. My ancestors swept the region, pillaging, and enslaving with such unprecedented success that no one seemed capable of stopping them. Their bloodthirstiness struck fear in the hearts of men. Norsemen have been demonized ever since.”
Theonlything Noelle surmised his people feared was the expansion of what they considered an illegitimate faith, which had already cost thousands of people their lives across the continent.
“Last year,” Randvior continued, “a Christian convert named Olaf Haraldsson, returned to my country to claim the crown. He publicly professed his new faith and proclaimed the indisputable right to unite the country under the Pope’s banner. Most jarls rejected his idea.”
“Why?”
“My kinsmen are fiercely devoted to Odin. We would never abandon centuries of tradition because belief in a new god was carried across the sea by a zealot long absent from his homeland,” he said. “There is always increased risk when a man’s ambition is driven by religious fervor.”
Noelle didn’t know what to say. People should freely choose what god they want to worship, and if Christ’s blood united nations, well, she would secretly celebrate it.
“Your religion will sweep the world and your god’s holy soldiers will kill anyone who gets in the way. Tension is building across Western Europe as I speak, and I believe your Pope will eventually set his eyes on the Holy Land,” he said.
“Do you forbid me to practice my faith?”
“No,” he answered curtly. “But any open display of your vulgar traditions might draw unwanted attention, and may even prevent you from being accepted by the women. Women you will need on your side one day.”
“What traditions do you speak of?”
