“You forgot evil,” Darcke drawled. “They do say I killed my own people to gain this position, after all.” He slipped up behind my back, and despite the conversation fighting to pierce my chest, the warmth radiating from him layered across my spine, steadying me.
My chin lifted the smallest of inches, and if I wasn’t misreading him, an ember of pride buzzed across the tether before it was extinguished as Darcke faced off with my mother.
“Did you do something to her?” my mother asked. “Did you force her into this?”
I had to give it to her: she hadn’t backed up an inch, even with Darcke overhearing her tirade. My mother was even shorter than I was, and Darcke towered over her with his six-foot-five stature.
“If you’re referring to magic, that kind is reserved for your revered shaman.” Darcke pressed his hand against my back. I refused to acknowledge Ivren and Viljan’s shared look. “You know very well I couldn’t have messed with her mind even if my powers weren’t dormant. Your gods made sure of that.”
“Yourgods?” My mother ground her teeth. “Elvara, I?—”
“It’s time for the trial,” Darcke said as if my mother hadn’t spoken at all. “We should get ready.” He rested his chin on my shoulder as if we were old friends, not new allies. “Best of luck, Solsken. And to you,second.”
Darcke truly had a skill for sounding like a cold bastard. The rage filling both Viljan’s and Mother’s eyes made the corners of my lips jerk upward.
“Elvara!” my mother snarled.
But I only dipped my head before spinning around and following Darcke to the horse we would ride, since it might take days for us to make it out of the wild woods.
“Safe to say I don’t have your mother’s approval,” Darcke said.
I cocked my head. “Were you looking for it?”
“No. I’m not the man you bring home to your parents.”
The lethal grin that followed emphasized his statement. I hummed as I fought with everything in me not to look over my shoulder, where I was certain at least my mother and Viljan were staring daggers after us.
“They are looking,” Darcke mumbled. “Don’t give them the satisfaction.”
“I won’t,” I said through my teeth.
“You look nothing like your mother,” Darcke observed as we passed Ottoh and his sister.
“I am nothing like her either,” I replied. “I think that’s why she’s always disliked me. I was…” I cleared my throat. “I’m much more like my father.”
Darcke nodded. When I felt him detach, disappearing into his own thoughts, I focused on keeping one foot in front of the other, my back straight and my eyes anywhere but on Ottoh and Geord as they shot me looks.
My mother’s body language probably hadn’t been too hard to read. I was sure they were very excited to see me scolded like a child.
We reached the onyx mare just as Guner, the king, and his shaman stepped forward.
I leaned against the warm horse, letting her round belly rock me back and forth until some of the heat in my blood from seeing my mother cooled. Darcke settled beside me, so close our shoulders touched. I frowned before silent laughter rumbled through him at the furious eyes tracking where his body lined up with my own.
“You should stop that,” I whispered. “People might get the wrong idea.”
“That’s half the fun. Besides, I’m used to giving people the wrong idea,” he replied too loudly.
I shook my head. “You’re hopeless.”
Something dark crossed Darcke’s face as Guner stepped forward.
The king’s second clapped his hands. “Heirs, seconds, chiefs, the royal court.”
The shore we stood upon, facing the thick forest, went quiet. Water licked the beach behind us where the king’s court stood in small groups. I tried to let the gentle sound of water and the horse’s rhythmic breathing soothe the nerves starting to spark within me.
“We are here today for the sacred trial of wood. Every Viking warrior must earn their ship to cross the vast seas surrounding the north and fulfill our people’s wyrd of conquering the unknown.” Guner took a moment to acknowledge each of us, starting with Geord and his second to my right and ending with Ivren and Viljan farthest to my left. “For our heirs, it’s even more important. If the forest allows you to leave with a ship from Yggdrasil Bay, the wood that makes up that tree will begin to grow in abundance on your island when you take over as chief, and you and your people will be permitted to use it to build your fleet and homes. This is why you are tested before the Hird formally begins and not in your first year, like all otherinitiates.”
Leaves rustled and the trees before us stretched as they readied themselves to become our judges.
