“Thank—”
Ottoh stormed off before I had time to finish. I let out an exasperated gust of air as his furious gait disappeared behind the bend of the longhouse.
Clutching the comb and the dress, I listened to the night.
“The heirs are ready to greet you, Your Majesty.” The king’s second’s voice boomed over the field. I slipped out of my tunic again and picked up the dress while he spoke of the history of the five families, as if our parents hadn’t known the king their entire lives.
I sucked my teeth. Our king liked his formalities. And he liked being fawned over. Which was basically this whole trial spectacle: the heirs kneeling to their superior, driven to their breaking point before they entered his Hird as loyal subjects. If they lived.
When my father’s generation attended the Hird, they’d lost all original heirs but one, and even some seconds and thirds—their iron-bound—had been reaped, leaving several new families to take over before the academy officially began. My father himself had been a second to our old chief’s daughter, and had claimed his position as heir only when she drowned during a practice invasion.
My fingers shook as I pulled on the dress, and I fisted the little fabric there was to calm myself.
Focus on tonight.One day at a time. That’s how I’d gotten through the past few days. That’s how I would get through tonight. That’s how I’d hopefully get through the summer and the years that followed.
Just one day at a time.
I finished wrangling myself into the dress, and my brows bunched when I looked down.
The garment was beautiful, the glittering fabric wrapping tightly around my arms and torso before falling halfway down my thighs in what looked like sparkling tendrils that swayed as I moved. But that was the end of the dress.
No protection for my legs apart from my sturdy boots. No extra padding over the heart or gut, like our tunics and jacketsalways had, since we never knew when we could be attacked. Not much fabric at all, really. I pulled at the top, making sure the rune was covered.
Our fylkis didn’t really wear dresses—had never done so until we’d invaded nations with different clothing senses and begun trading and donning new styles—but if this was what the king wanted…
I rubbed my arms against the soft evening breeze before half-heartedly working through the top of my messy hair with the comb, hopefully covering the worst of the damp knots that lay against my neck. As I placed the comb back on the bed, I was glad that the longhouse didn’t come with a mirror. There would be so many eyes on me when I entered that tent, others who would gladly pick me apart. Still, self-consciousness dampened my skin as I considered my sword and shield, wondering if I was meant to bring them or leave them behind.
After a look at the severed head that still lay beside my cot, I picked them up. Slinging the sword’s sheath across my back and fastening the shield to its built-in hook, I rushed out, trying to ignore how the weight of the weapons slowed my strides.
Four
My skin pebbled while I wove my way between the tents, the dress doing nothing to keep me warm in the cooling summer night. Here in the far north, the sun warmed our summer days, but our nights were barely different from fall or early spring once its rays bid goodnight.
When I reached the king’s tent, I hovered outside the flaps for a moment.
“Next heir is Rakkel Rafenskol, daughter of Chief Rafenskol of Kalland,” the king’s second called over the crowd sitting around wooden tables with their backs toward me.
Whistles and hoots followed, some of the king’s court stomping their feet so hard the ale and liquor on the tables rattled. The thralls carrying around trays with refills had to jump out of the way when axes that had leaned against the tables clattered to the ground.
Rakkel was the only other female heir. Her family rune was gomnd, offering her people skills in concealment and evasion. When they carved that rune into their ships, the fleet became invisible against the sky and sea, and they could also sneak through enemy crowds undetected.
Through the opening, I glimpsed the king sitting on a heightenedplatform in the back of the tent. A thick bear pelt fastened with a heavy gold chain in the same shade as his hair was wrapped around him, the head of the animal resting on his shoulder, and an iron helmet sat on his head, glistening in the flames that flickered across the tent.
The light came from five fires placed out in a domarring—judging circle. Four of them honored the Aesir, the gods we worshipped: Odin, god of war; Thor, god of strength; Frigg, goddess of motherhood; and Tyr, god of justice. The fifth represented the shaman who stood behind the king, a hand on his shoulder.
Unlike the rest of us, who could access magic only through the runes our chiefs earned during the Hird, the shamans were blessed with power that mirrored the gods’. They could cast spells and curses, and they were the leaders of any divine event, be it holidays, sacrificial ceremonies, or the bonding that we would have to go through with our iron-bound in a few weeks.
The queen sat to the king’s left, while his second—a man with the longest gray beard I’d ever seen—stood to his right. Before them, the space was empty bar the Rafenskol heir, who fidgeted with her long brown hair as she knelt before the royals.
When she rose, the second stepped forward, and a leaden silence settled over the tent. “Finally we welcome the Sweengard heir to take their place before the king, for their formal invitation into the trials, to secure their family’s standing and place in our kingdom,” he shouted, and the crowd erupted into howls and cheers.
I don’t think my legs had ever shaken so viciously, but I made them move anyway. Straightening my back and ignoring how the shield and the sword clinked with the movement, I strode through the tent opening and down the narrow aisle between the tables to the king.
My stomach whirled when the tent quieted enough for the crackling of the fire and the sounds of gulps of ale to ring in my ears. A stifling scent of blood and death overpowered the liquorand food, and I tried not to look at the carcasses strapped behind each fire—sacrifices to our gods, ensuring safe sailing, the strength of the crown, and victory in battle.
When the final cheer died, the world slowed. The frantic pulse of the tent stretched into a low, rhythmic thrum, and tension pressed in like a wall of unseen spears, forcing the air from my lungs until all that remained was the cold, sharp focus of prey.
Thud.
