“Do you know who you are?”
I shook my head. Somehow it didn’t matter.I’d find out soon enough.
“You don’t remember that you’re Elvara Sweengard, heir to the Oenskan fylki, and my bonded?”
“No,” I said.
Whoever that was, I’d left her behind. I didn’t care. I was exactly where I should be.
I was safe. Watched over. Following my wyrd.
“Interesting,” the man mused, before asking, “What do your instincts tell you to do?”
Prickles crawled over my skin, fighting their way into my thoughts. There were several things I wanted to do, but now I wasn’t sure which one tasted most like the truth.
“I should… guide the horse that way?” I said as I pointed to a bushy arch towering over an impenetrable darkness.
As I thought it, something within me strained. My hands tangled in the horse’s mane as I tried to hold on to it. Whatwasthat feeling?
It contradicted the warmth within me—the pull that wanted me to approach the arch.
Maybe I shouldn’t go there at all.
The man’s full mouth lifted on one side as he pulled the reins so that the horse went the opposite way. “That path we won’t go down.”
Something screeched in the darkness, and I frowned into it.
Why was it so dark? The trees around us were nothing like this man. They were frightening, and so was the spirit—because peeking at us through the trees was a forest spirit.
“She isn’t happy with you,” I said. “She wants us to go the other way.”
But who was she? And why did I know what she wanted? I felt her longing as if it were my own, but there was a different yearning within me, fighting it. I moved closer to the man behind me, nestling myself against his chest.
“I don’t care what she wants,” the man said, his voice so low my rib cage vibrated.
I liked his voice too. It wrapped around me in a way that shouldn’t feel safe but did.
“Do I care?” I asked.Should I care?
He laughed once. “You’re really fighting her, aren’t you? Feel for your instincts again. The ones that are yours, not someone else trying to influence you.”
I could do that.I think.
Keeping his gaze, I let the world fade.
I was alone with my thoughts. They were still shrouded in white—like the snowstorms that would blow over the ice back home. I held on to that—the island dressed in white, where longships were stuck in the ice that caressed the docks and only the largest warships were able to break through the frozen seas.
Home. That felt right. That felt likemine.
“That’s right,” the man said. “That feels like a memory, not a forest spirit trying to lure you into her trap.”
The heat from his body was like a blanket of safety, and I smiled as I leaned into his broad chest. Something pulled me to him, something that also felt like home—a bond I somehow knew should be treasured.
“You’remine,” I said slowly. “Aren’t you?”
When a jolt of surprise flipped my stomach, I giggled. It came from him—that I was certain of. I let my hand trail up his leg, my back melting into his chest. It garnered me the same reaction once more.
“I should stay close to you,” I said. Everything in me told me he was safe. He wouldn’t only watch my back but would save my soul from whatever came at us. Because that was what the bond was—protection.
