Your father sends his love.
Thor. For a second—the briefest of moments—I felt the strength that my father had gifted me growing up, the one that Thor had blessed him with.
A darkness fell over the room as I rose, my head still bowed. The gusts grew stronger, blowing right through my clothing and making my braids clatter against my leathers. Black water appeared on either side, two pools spreading toward me, until only a single round dry spot circling my feet remained.
Before me was a dagger made from the bright light that still whispered over my head. And surrounding me were runes—the five that our people were gifted carved in a line beneath the dagger, but also others covering the ground, some I recognized, many I’d never seen before.
There were so many moments when you wouldn’t have made it here.
Frigg’s voice. Her knowledge came next.
My entire life played before my eyes, every moment, every decision, weighing heavy in my mind. Every path I could have walked down if I or others had made a different decision revealed itself: realities where my father was alive, where I’d never met Darcke, where I’d married young and already had two children with a kind man in our village.
One with me beside Ivren, proudly pressing my hand against the rune he’d just carved into my chest, him pressing a kiss to my temple while Lika smiled at us.
One where I’d grown up in the village Darcke showed me, where he came into my mother’s house one day, a smile I’d never seen on his face spreading across his features as he took my hand.
One where I didn’t exist at all, where the world burned and ships sank.
But now you are standing in the shadows of our judgment.
Tyr. His righteousness forced my back into a bow again.
The images Frigg had sent to my mind shifted, time stalling, showing me myself sitting by the cliffs on Oenskan, Viljan telling me of my father’s and Lika’s deaths. Every second after that played, every moment leading up to this one. I lived it again. The pain. The loneliness. The fear. The urgency.Thelove.
My eyes shut when Darcke kissing me filled the world. It wasn’t shown with the warmth I’d felt but through the lens of a disappointed guardian, scrutinizing every detail that made me break the divine vow of the battle bond.
Odin’s voice boomed through the halls.
Child, you are here for us to decide if you earned your rune. If you are worthy to lead a mighty people with bravery in your heart, a blade in your hand, and a ship on the vast seas.
The gods didn’t wish me to speak, but I did so anyway. Because their judgment had already been cast. Their call hummed with every shield above, sang with every blade making up the pillars beside me, and roared in the blood beneath my boots.
“I see that you’ve made your decision.”
My voice was weak here.Iwas weak here, my legs barely holding me up. But I pushed on when the images of everyone relying on me clawed their way into my thoughts.
My people. My sisters. My friends fighting for their lives—the ones I’d just left.
Darcke.
And?Odin’s voice hummed through my teeth.
“I believe you’re making a mistake,” I said, forcing my back to straighten—my shoulders to lower. “I did what I did because I had to. But I did it with bravery. I did it for my father. I did it for my people. I did it foryou.”
Do you want to lead?Thor asked.
An image of me on my father’s throne stuttered across my vision. I was older, gray streaking my hair. But it wasn’t age that caused the lines in my face. It was dejection. Loneliness. Because on the chair beside me was no one, and in my heart was no lovebecause I’d been forced to leave that behind, and I’d never found another after the one who’d betrayed me.
A hot tear slid down my cheek at the memory of Darcke’s smile before he kissed me—the one I replayed in my mind every night when I lay alone in my furs, my chief’s hearth quiet.
“Does it matter?” I swallowed the aching lump in my throat. “I will still do it.”
There is strength in sacrifice. Perhaps our decision was hasty.Thor again.
She is not her father.Tyr.She has lied and cheated and broken the rules.
Odin’s presence was nearly overwhelming.She does not wish this.
