 
### The Einhjorn

Arreana

Episode One of

The Relics of Asgard

Copyright © 2012 Arreana Krueger

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition.

To my Grandpa Claude for teaching me the importance of thinking for myself. Thank you for sharing your love for history with me.

### Table of Contents

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

About the Einhjorn

Also by Arreana

Acknowledgements

A Sneak Peek: Umbra

### Chapter One

Saldis Sigurdsdatter clung desperately to the terrycloth.

Hidden at the edge of the hall, the men could not see her languishing in the shadows, but she could see them. The orange and yellow glow coming off the long fires made their blond and red and brown beards glimmer like flames. Their greasy, sodden heads glistened with sweat. Their rain-soaked clothing and mud-caked boots lent a humidity to the hall that, when combined with the smoke rolling off the long fires, made the space almost too stuffy and hot to tolerate.

Not that her father's men minded. Here the mead flowed freely and the fires burned brightly. The men that had toiled all day in their barley fields and at their fishing nets could sag against the wooden tables, spread out their legs, and share their exhaustion with their fellow man.

Tonight they celebrated the arrival of a noble to their seaside city, and in amongst the boisterous farmers and somber fishermen, the noble's viking companions drank and cajoled as loudly as the rest of them.

The journey that had brought the party to her father's city had left them hungry and thirsty and tired. They should have been subdued by their weariness, but the mead, meat, and fires were too tempting not to enjoy. The cots the jarl provided them were forgotten in preference for the hard benches and ale.

The noble sat above the rest of them at the head table. It was him that Disa watched. He chewed, he scratched his beard, he pushed the sodden fringe from his eyes.

"Disa! Don't just stand there, you useless ninny. Take the prince his towel!" Her mother barked from the cookfire, wiping sweat and steam from her ash-streaked cheeks. Lady Bergljot shoved a stray hair back beneath her shawl and shooed her daughter with a wave of her hand. "Go!"

So Disa stepped into the hall, her cheeks flaming with a heat she could not solely attribute to the fires.

She folded the terrycloth over her hands to hide their trembling as her father's laymen first registered her presence.

"Lady Disa! How fare thee, fair one?" called a farmer, his beard stuck through with clods of dirt.

"Daughter Disa, where's _my_ towel?" lamented another.

She had grown used to their teases, but she resented their crowing laughs. A party of men slapped the table and whistled, and another group took up that familiar chant, "Hair like honey, skin like snow, eyes like glass. Guard your hearth, lord jarl, lest the wolves steal your lass!"

The prince's men laughed, drumming the table and keeping time as her father's men slurred their way through the rest of the obscene tune. They guffawed to see the young lady's blush and congratulated each other with a clanking toast.

By the time she had traversed the length of the hall, her blush had spread up to her ears and down to her collar. Her hands, still hidden beneath the terrycloth, now clung at the folds with an emotion very much like anger.

At the head table, her father offered her a wan smile and rubbed his bald and shining head. If they teased her, it was his fault. She was sixteen and still unwed, still virginal. Four years ago her arrival would have inspired the men's reverence, but her father's protectiveness had made her into a joke. Thirteen proposals of marriage her father had rejected. How else were the spurned suitors to soothe their damaged egos but by harassing her?

She frowned at her father and cast her gaze away from the guest sitting at his side. Seated on her father's left, her brother tried admirably to put the men in their place.

"That's enough!"

This only elicited uproarious laughter from the jarl's men. The young jarl-to-be had yet to sprout a single chin hair.

She stepped up on the dais, shuffled to the appropriate seat, and thrust her offering towards the prince. "A towel, my lord," she muttered.

Her eyes locked upon her leather slippers, Disa was alarmed when his fingers grazed her own. The prince, beautiful with his orange hair and burgundy tunic, accepted the terrycloth. His fingers lingered upon hers.

"Thank you, my lady."

"That will be all, Disa. Return to your mother," said her father.

But as Disa sidled backwards, the fingers beneath the terrycloth snapped forward to encircle her palm. His hand was larger than hers, but softer than her father's.

The terrycloth fell to the prince's lap. The men saw their clasped hands and the raging blush radiating across the lady's face. With a chorus of hooting laughter, they banged their ceramic cups against the table.

"The prince has caught himself a doe!" roared one of the land-owning farmers.

A viking nearby sneered. "Hold tight, my lord!"

Her rabbit's heart pounding, Disa forced herself to meet the prince's eyes. "My lord, what...?"

His eyes were like the water; dark and deep and moist. His dark eyebrows hung low upon his tall forehead. His cheekbones cast sharp shadows upon his face. His straight nose bore a hooking scar over one nostril. She hadn't noticed it when she had admired him from the kitchen doorway. It was an imperfection that was only ever visible to those he allowed close.

She stared at the scar. The prince spoke, but she missed it in her daze.

"Wh-what was that?" she stuttered. She hated that she stuttered. She must have looked such the fool.

"Did you not hear me, my lady? I was asking you to stay."

"What? Stay?" Her hands were sweaty; she hoped he had not noticed.

She glanced furtively at her brother and father, but the former only moped, and the latter shrugged.

Her father tugged upon his red beard. A dark, rich red, unlike the prince's carefully bleached and dyed locks. "Stay if you wish, my dear. I dare say your mother can afford to do without you."

This satisfied the prince, and he stood to withdraw the chair on his left. He was not particularly tall—not like her father and his warriors—but he was wide of body. He smelled of mud and campfires, and his grin was modest and earnest as he guided her to her seat.

She dropped numbly into the chair and clung to the table as the prince pushed her flush against it. There was no place set for her and the food was collected further down the table, but then she had already eaten. Besides, her nerves would make it difficult to keep down any more.

"Thank you for the towel, my lady." The prince reclaimed his chair and rubbed the terrycloth through his sodden, shoulder-length locks.

The way his knees pointed towards her, the way his body twisted to face her, made the space between them seem all the smaller and more intimate. His proximity filled her with a sensation of both glee and embarrassment.

The prince didn't mind her silence, or her open-mouthed staring. He dried his hair, lowered the towel, and grinned at her as if having just returned from a long voyage.

He swung the terrycloth around his shoulders. Steam rose from the towel as he rubbed it along the back of his neck.

"What is your name, my lady?"

"Di—Saldis Sigurdsdatter."

"And you are Jarl Sigurd's daughter?"

"Aye, my lord," she mumbled.

"Your father treats you well. These brooches are really quite marvelous." He reached forward to stroke the tortoiseshell brooches pinned to her chest. His index finger traced the design carved into the right brooch, and so he did not see her mouth twitch when he leaned in close.

The moment stretched into eternity, but at last he straightened to look her in the eye again. He was still smiling, and Disa's blush burned. "They're fine indeed."

"A gift for her birthday," her father replied, tearing a _pannekaken_ and using it to wipe the grease from his beard.

The prince flashed her father his toothy smile. His blue eyes were so solemn, and yet his mouth was so expressive. It was pleasant to watch his mouth move as he spoke. It was charming the way his trimmed beard quivered when he laughed.

"How will her suitors ever hope to compete with you?" The prince whirled on Disa. In a softer tone, but with no less animation, he said, "What could a suitor present you that your father has not already provided?"

He jested and the jarl laughed appreciatively, but Disa was nervous. She failed to register the sly turn of his lip and answered earnestly, "A quilted jacket."

A lesser man might have balked at her honesty, but the prince gave no pause. He slapped the table and feigned shock as he said to her father, "No jacket, Jarl Sigurd? Your daughter will freeze for sure!"

Jarl Sigurd's tone revealed some of his impatience, "It's no fault of mine that she grows so quickly."

The prince waved away the jarl's annoyance. "No matter! If she should find herself chilled tonight, she need only scoot a little closer." However, Prince Eric, eldest son of First King Harald, seemed serious when he added in a whisper, "I shall keep you warm, fair one."

Disa, having never received such sweet and patient overtures, clutched her wool dress and feared that her heart might burst from her throbbing chest. It was not just the way he spoke or helped her from her chair at bedtime that gave her such flutterings. No, it was the way his hand lingered upon hers, the way he stared at her as if seeing someone beneath the honey-yellow hair and sky-blue eyes.

Was it possible, Disa wondered, to fall in love with a stranger? And as her thrall brushed her hair and collected her dirty clothes, she found herself wishing she had someone to ask.

Her mother would tell her never to hope. He was a prince, after all, and she was just a pretty-faced dullard.

Her brother would be sullen and silent. His sister would be high queen when he would only ever be a jarl.

Her father would refuse his permission. Disa was his first child, his only daughter.

Even so, she went to bed that night not thinking of the impossibilities, but of the way the prince's dark eyelashes brushed his tanned cheeks. She thought of how he had stroked the carvings of her brooch, and she felt, for perhaps the first time, a stirring within her.

### Chapter Two

The men slept where they dropped, draped on benches, sprawled beneath tables, curled around hearth stones. In the early morning hours, the fire dropped low. As the chill crept in, the men tossed and turned.

Disa tip-toed through the crowd, her arms laden with fresh logs and kindling to lay upon the fire. Her mother was already hard at work building up the long fire at the other end of the hall, and the men around her stirred as the reignited warmth broke through their drunken slumber.

Apron secured around her waist and blonde hair bound beneath the scarf, Disa dropped down beside the first of the huge fire pits and unburied the iron poker submerged within the ashes.

She was laying the brush and kindling upon the fire when his voice echoing through the hall alerted her to his arrival.

"And why should the daughter of a jarl be lighting a fire?"

Surprised, she dropped the poker and a cloud of ash shot into the air, settling upon her cotton apron and sweaty hands. She turned to greet the newcomer, but she already recognized his voice from having heard it again and again in her dreams.

Prince Eric stood above her, an even more magnificent creature than he had been the night before. His hair was combed, his face and hands were washed, and his beard was trimmed. The sodden traveling clothes from yesterday had been replaced by a far nobler, brighter set: goatskin shoes, forest-green trousers, a blood-red cape thrown over one shoulder to reveal the fine beige tunic underneath.

"Gre-greetings, my lord. Did you sleep well?" It was the most she had ever said to him at one time, and she had to congratulate herself for not stuttering too badly.

"Very well. Your father's thralls are most attentive." He paused, and she squirmed as his eyes roved over her. "Which makes me wonder why I find _you_ in their place. Will your servants not stoke the fires?"

Her mother saw the prince's interruption and, not caring if she woke the men, shouted across the hall, "If my daughter were never to do any work for herself, how could she ever be expected to adequately govern her future husband's house?"

The prince's eyebrows furrowed. It was the first time Disa had ever seen an expression other than a smile on his face. "An admirable philosophy, Lady Bergljot, but one I fear will compromise your daughter's quite exceptional beauty."

The happy fluttering in her stomach lasted only seconds before her mother's response cut it down. "Beauty changes with time, my lord. And when my daughter is as old and wind-beaten as me, her husband will thank me that she can still cook and make a fire."

"Jarl lady!" roared one of the men spread out beside the fire. "Will you please be quiet?"

"I will not be quiet!" she bellowed back, smacking the man with the split log she had been about to throw on the flames. "You guzzle my husband's mead and eat all his pork, and now you intend to lounge about all day? Don't you have barley to cut, you good-for-nothing lout?"

"Your mother is quite fierce," Prince Eric observed under his breath.

Disa stared up at him, not quite sure how to respond. Her mother was aggravating and severe, but Disa had never dared to speak ill of her before.

"You don't talk much, do you, Lady Saldis?"

"Like pulling teeth!" her mother agreed, overhearing them despite the distance separating them. "She's a dullard. Aren't you, Saldis? You see, that's what beauty does to you, lord prince. Beauty or brains, you can't have both."

Disa opened her mouth to speak, but Eric beat her to it, "I think we can both agree, Lady Bergljot, that any dullness can be overlooked when accompanied by natural kindness and exceptional beauty."

How was it that Prince Eric could say such things that gave her both pain and pleasure? Perhaps she really was as dull as her mother said. What had she achieved that a hundred women before her hadn't? Her brother was a year younger than her, but he could still read runes and track deer, and he still knew the name of all the strongest knots and the proper way to hold his sword.

Disa was beautiful—she had been told as much too many times to doubt it—but what had it earned her besides the leers and resentment?

"Tha—thank you, my lord," she mumbled, hiding her hands within the folds of her sooty apron. She didn't know what to do with herself. She was used to feeling awkward, but never had she been so acutely aware of herself. She felt as gangly and weak-kneed as a newborn colt.

The prince knelt down beside her and fished her hands out from her gown. He didn't seem to mind the ash dirtying his trousers. He brushed the soot from her fingers and pulled the poker from the fire pit.

A grin spreading cheek to cheek, the prince stirred the old coals.

"I shall take your place in this battle, my lady." He thrust with the poker, eliciting a shower of sparks. "And save your pretty face from this foul ash!"

He smelled of lavender and rose water. His grin was easy and earnest. The strong, yet gentle brush of his fingers across her knuckles sent shivers down her spine.

His presence intoxicated her, and a dizzying gush of heat erupted in her belly and rushed to her head. She wished she could say more to this fiery-haired man, who secreted her smiles with each intimate touch. She wished she could be clever and well-dressed and not huddled over the edge of the fire.

"Saldis!" The voice belonged to her father, but the tone was unfamiliar, sharp, impatient, even angry.

The prince's smile dropped from his face. Disa swung away from him as she shot to her feet. Together, they turned to face the jarl.

The big man stood in the doorway of the mead hall, the hazy morning skies casting his face in shadows. Her brother stood at his elbow, much smaller than her father but wearing the same disapproving look. For a rare moment, the resemblance between them was uncanny; both stood with their shoulders squared, their chins lifted, and their arms crossed.

The slumbering farmers and veterans and farriers stirred at the booming male voice. Their bleary eyes cracked open to witness the drama before them: the prince kneeling in the ashes, the daughter blushing in her sooty apron, and the jarl sneering down at her. They roused their sleeping companions with violent jabs to the ribs.

"Fa—father, good morning," Disa croaked. She wanted to explain herself, but she wasn't sure what she had done to upset him in the first place.

"Come here, Saldis," he ground out.

Her eyes sought out the prince's, but he wasn't looking back. He faced the pit, threw the poker back to the ash and brushed the ash from his breeches.

"Saldis, now."

So she tore her gaze from the prince's stooped form and stepped over the hairy limbs and louse-ridden heads to her father's side.

Then without explanation or even a single word, he seized her around her waist, twirled her around, and with Hakon racing to keep up, steered her from the mead hall. He dragged her down the shallow steps into the sticky wet morning.

Though the storm from the night before had tapered into a chilling mist, the front yard was still sticky and muddy. Disa had to yank her feet from the sucking sludge to keep pace with her father.

"Please!" She hiked up her gown to keep it from dragging in the midge-infested stew. "I'm sorry. I am. Please, slow down."

He responded by tightening his hold upon her arm. She sprinted to keep pace as he led her across the courtyard and into the musty stables.

The women, up well before their men, tipped their heads and hurried from the jarl's path as he, his soot-covered daughter, and his grim-faced son blundered past. Disa knew most of them. They were loyal to her mother; she recognized them by their frowns and scorn-filled stares.

"Father, stop!" His behavior surpassed astonishing; it was downright shaming. How childish Disa must have looked to those mothers and wives, their strong arms loaded with firewood and bundled babes.

She tried to yank herself free.

Jarl Sigurd shook her by the elbow. "That's enough!" He opened the stable door with a clang to make the rafters shake. "Bjorgold, you sod! Get up and straw the streets!"

Still holding his daughter, the jarl stomped the mud from his shoes. His thundering calls woke the horses, and the musty interior filled with dust and hair as the startled creatures jumped within their stalls.

"Bjorgold! _Bjorgold!_ "

Hakon, puffing and holding his side, cut across her father's cries. . "Bjorgold's still in the hall, father."

Her father grumbled but at last released his daughter. "The hall, of course."

Frowning, Disa reclaimed her arm and gently massaged the tender spot left by his vise-like grip.

Her father spat. The horses rolled their eyes and snorted. "Drunk on my mead, lazy oaf."

But the jarl did not leave to locate his stableman. They were alone, and Jarl Sigurd took the opportunity to turn upon his daughter. A scowl had soured his usually ambivalent expression.

"Disa, what are you _doing?_ "

"Doing?" Caked in soot and now mud, she thought the answer was obvious. "Cleaning, father."

"Cleaning? _Ha!_ " Hakon scoffed, leaning against one of the stalls and ignoring the mare that gummed his sleeve.

The jarl's critical stare found his son. "Enough, Hakon."

Hakon chewed his tongue but could not muster a glare to match the intensity of their father's. Beaten, he dropped his chin to his chest and dug his heels into the straw-strewn floor.

"The prince took the poker of his own accord," Disa insisted when her father's jaw clenched and his flat hazel eyes locked upon hers. She had witnessed fights between her father and brother before, but never had she been the recipient of that familiar disapproving scowl. She was already a failure in her mother's eyes; she did not think she could handle becoming a disappointment to her father, too.

"And do you not see what Prince Eric is doing? Do you not know who he is?"

His tone was condescending, but his question was confusing. Feeling moronic, she could only answer, "A—a prince?"

"Eldest Prince Eric Haraldsson. Future high king. _King!_ " Her father spat again. "As if that lye-addled dwa— _dwarf_ could ever compare to his father. Long live King Harald!"

"Long live," her brother hollowly echoed.

"What have I done to upset you? _Either_ of you?" Disa asked with a glance at her younger brother. "I have only ever done what mother has asked."

"Thirteen, Disa. Thirteen men I've turned down in your name. Perhaps you've forgotten."

Disa clenched her fists at her sides. "I remember, father."

"Honest men. Good honest men. They would have made an honest woman of you. I did not disappoint their feelings so you could wantonly flirt with that orange-haired fellow."

Her mother had often called her a tease. Her flippancy was the only reason any self-respecting viking would want to marry such a foolish maid. Until now, only her father—her gentle, loving father—had vouched for Disa's good behavior.

The accusation from her father's lips was far more painful than it ever had been coming from her mother's.

"I did not flirt, father. I would never flirt."

"Ha! Your blush gives you away," Hakon snarled. "We saw it all. It's not as if he's been subtle! Did you know his men were up all night talking about you? And—oh!—you would pale to hear what they said—"

"Which is why you will keep your mouth shut, _boy_." Her father demanded with a grumble like a ship's hull moaning in the tides. "Or—Odin hear me—I'll pull my blade and shave those wispy hairs from your chin."

"I have done nothing untoward!" Disa said, desperate for him to understand. "Prince Eric has been kind and attentive, but I have not encouraged him."

"I know the powers of women," Jarl Sigurd said, his tone softening and his brow lifting. "And a beautiful woman doesn't need to do much to inspire a man's affection."

Her father rubbed the muzzle of her pony. Her brother stomped the hay-strewn floor.

Disa gathered the front of her apron in a quivering fist. "But he is a prince. If he proposed, would you not accept him?"

"Then I would accept him as my future son-in-law. But it's the asking that's the trouble. Men like Prince Eric don't marry jarls' daughters, even the pretty ones. Do you understand?"

"I don't, father. I really don't," Disa answered, fighting to ignore the stab of disappointment. "If a _prince_ is too good for me, who would you have me marry?"

Her father smacked a stall door. Disa's little pony flared her nostrils, rolled her eyes. "A Jarl! You're beautiful, Disa, beautiful like Freyja, and there are jarls left in this country who would happily take you as their wife. You will be married in good time."

"Good time?" Disa bristled. "I'm _sixteen_ , father. If there are so many jarls, where are they? Why haven't they come for me?"

"That's enough." The new voice startled them all. A darker, more frightening command than any of them had come to expect of the prince.

The jarl shot to attention with an uncomfortable snort. Hakon straightened to his full, measly height, but his gaze was steely as it locked upon the red-headed prince.

The man himself stood out in the mud, the drizzle settling upon his bleached hair and soaking through his maroon cloak. He had never looked more fearsome or fine as he did in that moment, scowling up at her father, beard quivering in anger, hand curling around the hilt of his sword.

"So this is what the Jarl of Hladir thinks of me?" The prince approached, his feet sliding through the mud. Watching from the other end of the courtyard were those Disa knew: her mother, Olav, the cook, thrall Bjorn. The prince's men crowded the mead hall's huge doorway. They were massive, still, and unsmiling.

"I know nobles, my lord," her father explained, but his earlier confidence was gone. The prince gripped the hilt of his sword and so did the jarl, fingers nervously drumming the pommel.

Prince Eric's scowl deepened, his dark brown eyebrows dropped low over his magnificent eyes. "You know nobles. You know women. You are a quite the worldly man, Jarl Sigurd."

"You mock me?"

"Yes," prince snapped backed. "As is my right. You belittle my honor and accuse me of idle flirtation. It is only fair that I mock you as you mock me."

"My daughter will someday be the wife of a jarl. As her father, it is my duty to see that her maidenhood remain intact until that time."

"Father!" Disa hissed, her face flushing.

The prince threw back his shoulders. "So then you accuse me of threatening your daughter's chastity, is it?"

"Are you saying I'm wrong to protect my daughter, my lord?"

The shame was too great, the silence in the courtyard was stifling. Disa covered her face. She could not take the stares of the audience watching from the courtyard. She could not take the icy stare of the offended prince.

"Protect your daughter, Jarl Sigurd, but not from me. I will act as my honor dictates. Which is why I have come to ask you for Lady Saldis's hand. I have hope, sir, that you shall deem _me_ good enough."

Disa dropped her hands from her face. Her mouth fell open.

Her father was no less astonished. His hand fell from his pommel and his chin thrust forward. The whites of his eyes flashed as he stared down at the red-haired prince.

"What did you just say?"

Prince Eric now stood an arm's reach from the jarl. He, too, had released his sword. "I came last night in search of a good fire and sweet mead. I had not expected to find that precious gem—her."

"My Disa? You would marry _Disa_?"

"Why wouldn't I? She is beautiful and well-mannered.." The gravelly timbre of his voice dared her father to challenge him.

Then the prince sought out her gaze. His eyes, framed by raindrops and darkness, arrested her heart. She stared like a startled doe. She covered her breast where her chest ached.

Her father raked his beard with his fingers and lost himself to thought. He looked to the rafters overhead as he muttered, "Marriage... marriage. The dowry lands... What day is it, Hakon? Friday. Is it Friday? What's today?" Then, in a booming voice that made them all start, he called, "Bergljot! Come attend to your daughter! She's to be a princess!"

"Father!" Hakon rasped as he stepped forward and grabbed his father's sleeve. "Can't you see what's going on? This is just a ploy to take control of our jarldom! We must maintain our independence."

Prince Eric sneered, but the jarl preempted his protest. He spun on his son with a savage growl, " _Our_ jarldom? Since when was any part of Trondelag _yours_? I am jarl here. _Me_. If this prince means to forge an alliance with my jarldom it is in my power—not yours—to accept him."

How strange it was that she should be only a bystander as they discussed her marriage. She was detached from the implications and uninvolved in the politics. A dull girl like her could only stand apart from the others and think, _I am very lucky_ , _I shall be a woman_ , and _won't mother be surprised?_

And Lady Bergljot was indeed surprised as she answered her husband's call and heard the astonishing news firsthand. For once, the great lady could think of nothing derisive to say. She could not diminish her daughter's happiness, for Disa was to marry a prince while she had only married a jarl.

Huddled together in the strangest of spots—the entrance of the musty stables—the jarl and the prince and the Lady Bergljot congratulated themselves on their good luck. Outside, the late morning sun burned its way through the gray clouds, and the onlookers whispered and smiled and spread the happy news.

Last night she had been teased by the men, but tonight she would dine with them as a princess-to-be. Come Friday, she would be wed to the handsome, chivalrous warrior standing silhouetted in the doorway.

Her brother could say nothing to change her father's mind or derail the prince's determination. Prince Eric would have Disa as his princess, for there was no one as fair or as well-bred in the world.

### Chapter Three

Her father was not in the habit of overindulging, but in celebration of his only daughter's engagement, he made an exception. That night, it took the combined efforts of Hakon, Disa, and two thralls to drag him to his bed chamber. Lady Bergljot, who shared the large oaken bed with her husband, would remain in the kitchens for several more hours. The party that had accrued her father's current condition had likewise left them all with a staggering mess.

Her father blundered into a wall, and Hakon struggled to get the bedroom door open.

Crushing his daughter into the wall hangings, Jarl Sigurd crowed, "I'm so proud, Disa! Sho-so proud! You shall be Ki-ki-king Harald's—! A princess! Oh! I knew you weren't beautiful for nothing! Thank the Allfather! Thank that lye-headed little prince!"

"Don't you think you've said enough already?" Hakon snapped, prying the jarl off Disa before he could suffocate her.

While her father had been jubilant, her brother had maintained his sour disapproval of the whole marriage scheme. It threatened his inheritance, Hakon said. He had a hundred reasons: _Disa could never be happy so far from home_ , _it would be better if Disa married a jarl_.

Not that anyone besides Disa had any patience for his complaints. It was she, and she alone, who endured Hakon's criticisms as they and the thralls carried the large man into his chamber.

"Disa doesn't belong at court, father. What does she know of their southern politics?"

Her father was too drunk to pay his son much attention. He burped and mumbled happily under his breath as he teetered eagerly towards his bed.

"Such a good prince," he grumbled. "Such a good, hearty drinker!"

"Yes, he sure showed you." Disa smirked as she weaseled her way out from under his arm to make room for the thralls. The bed groaned as her father's men pushed him down onto the straw mattress.

Hakon wouldn't be persuaded. "Don't you think it's suspicious that he just appears out of nowhere one night and proposes to your daughter the next day? He can't know Disa well enough to really be in love!"

"Love?" Her father was cognizant enough to hear only this much. "What's not to love about this face?"

His huge fingers lashed forward and clamped down around Disa's cheeks. Sober, he frequently did not know his own strength. Drunk, he was downright dangerous.

"Father!" she sputtered from between her pinched cheeks. "Let—me—go!" She wrenched herself free and rubbed at her red face.

"I'm sorry, Disa," her father said, and the mead sloshing in his belly lent his apology real earnestness. "Princess Disa..."

All night he and his men had toasted their future princess. Their drinks spilled down the front of her gown, and their hands clapped her shoulder as, one-by-one, they stepped forward to offer their congratulations.

Disa had incorrectly assumed that after drinking themselves into a stupor the night before, they would be less inclined to drink so heavily the today.

"Get him in bed," Hakon barked.

The thralls, two middle-aged men who had been in her father's care since their adolescence, braved the jarl's flailing fists to peel away his jacket and shoes. They spilled him backwards onto his bed, and Jarl Sigurd laid flat upon his pillows and sank into their softness.

"Drunkard," Hakon scoffed.

"He was only enjoying himself," Disa said loyally.

"You may go," Hakon snapped at the thralls. They had collected the worst of the jarl's mead-sodden things, laid the blankets over their master, and now stood watching the siblings. "Be sure he is brought water in the morning."

The thralls showed themselves silently from the apartment, leaving the lordling and lady with their father. Hakon gazed down upon the old man sprawled and snoring upon the straw mattress.

"Disa..." Hakon began.

Disa had endured his lectures all night; her patience was spent. " _Please_ , Hakon, no more. I've heard enough."

"But you can't honestly want to marry him. You don't know anything about him."

Disa frowned at the uncomfortable truth. Since his proposal, she had spent only minutes in the presence of her groom-to-be. Prince Eric could not drink without an accompaniment of cheers and toast. He could not speak without an audience of awe-inspired young warriors nudging in close to listen. Everything he said was fascinating and amusing. It provoked reverential silence and thundering laughter. Tethered to her father's side, Disa sat apart from the men and weathered her brother's censure.

"We have three days to become better acquainted. I have every confidence that father will find us time to be alone."

"The two of you... to be alone," Hakon sputtered, looking horror-struck. "But he's father's age! Why would you ever want to be alone with him?"

Surprised, Disa looked down at her father. His once rich-blond hair was peppered with gray. His scalp was bald. His skin was like leather, and his hands were cracked from having worked at sea for so many decades. He looked nothing like Prince Eric, with his head of red hair and mouth of white teeth.

"That can't be," Disa said with a chuckle.

"You really are a fool," Hakon scoffed. "You see how little you know about him? He and father were born the same year. _The same year_!"

"Father's only thirty-two, Hakon. He was young when he had me. It's not so shocking."

"Thirty-two is still double your age, Disa."

"Time will smooth the gap. Besides, I have heard of women marrying far older. Look at old King Harald, his newest wife is only twenty-two."

"And that makes your situation acceptable?"

"It makes it a lot less shocking, yes."

"And the fact that the royal family infamously hosts concubines and mistresses doesn't bother you? You're willing to share your precious prince with others?"

"You shouldn't say such things," Disa said, checking on her father to ensure that he was still asleep. "Father would be upset with you."

"Father is always upset with me. I've stopped caring."

"I wish you would. You upset us all with your moping."

"My—my _moping_? I'm trying to help you, Disa. Don't you see what a mistake this is?"

"No. No, I don't." She crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm sixteen, Hakon, and he's a _prince_. Father might never have let me marry if not for Prince Eric."

"He _will_ let you marry. He's just waiting for the right jarl to prove himself deserving."

"Jarl. Jarl," Disa snorted. "It's all about the _King_ now. The jarls are dying out. Those that are left are too old or weak to impress father."

"I'm not weak!" Hakon roared. Her father responded to the outburst with a snort but did not awaken. " _I_ am strong, and I intend to keep Trondelag safe from those so-called kings."

"That may be, brother, but you'll stand alone. There are no jarls left to take your side, just as there are no jarls left to marry me. Why shouldn't I be happy to receive the prince's proposal?"

"Then marry me!" Hakon declared.

Disa couldn't help laughing. "Oh, Hakon. Are you really so young that you do not—?"

"Don't laugh," he snapped. "I would marry you. I would make you my wife."

With dawning horror, Disa realized he spoke in earnest. She glanced again at her father; he was still asleep. "I am your _sister_ ," she hissed. "You should not say such scandalous things."

"I don't care if you're my sister. You're still a woman, and I'm still a man. You and I together could keep Hladir—all of Trondelag—independent."

"Stop it," Disa growled. "This is wrong. What if someone were to hear you?"

"What of it? I would have declared my intentions earlier if I had known that any of this was going to happen Now the prince has snatched you away."

"Snatch me away?" Disa sneered. "I can't be taken from you. I am your sister. I do not belong to you!"

"I was going to wait until I was older to tell father. He needs to see me as a proper man before I can have you."

"You can never have me!" Disa shrieked, equal parts disgusted and horrified. "Do not say these things to me. _Do not say these things!_ "

"Disa, calm yourself." Hakon's eyes flooded with concern. The soft hairs on his chin quivering, he stepped forward to take hold of her shoulders. He pressed so close that Disa's tortoiseshell brooches dug into her chest. "I did not mean for it to happen like this. I wanted to be taller and stronger—"

"Get off me!" She tried to shove him away and screeched, "You're speaking lunacy!"

"Listen to me!" he cried, his own desperation rising to match hers. "Don't marry the prince. Don't throw yourself away on him. Stay here. You can forget I said anything. We can go on being brother and sister, and maybe someday when I'm older you can be happy with me as your—"

" _No!_ Don't say it!" She dug her fingernails into his collarbone, but the more she tried to force him away, the more determined he was to pull her closer.

He was not strong, not like her father, but he was stronger than Disa. He pulled her flush to his chest and wrapped his arms around her. His thudding heart pounded against her breast, and she could feel her own pulse throbbing in her throat. His hand stroked her hair, pulling it up off the back of her neck, and she felt his hot breath sweep across her shoulder.

"No!" she wailed as once more she tried and failed to break herself free.

His lips grazed her ear, and each of his breaths deafened her to her own despairing screams.

He kissed her ear. "For my sister." He kissed it again. "I can just be your brother for now. So, _please_ , stay."

"What are you doing?"

Prince Eric had heard her shrieking and come. He stood in the doorway to her father's chambers, a dagger drawn and his cape thrown back over his shoulder.

Her mouth dropped open to plead for his help. They had been caught, but still her brother would not release her. Adrenaline shot through her. This must be what a rabbit felt when caught in the eagle's claws.

"Hel—"

" _What are you doing_?" The prince bellowed.

Hakon loosened his hold and Disa was finally able to shove her brother away. They separated, both of them panting.

In the bed, her father snorted awake. His unfocused eyes swept across the room, taking in his children before landing on the prince standing in the doorway. Only when he spied the dagger in Prince Eric's hand did the jarl come fully awake. He shot up in his bed and scrambled for his sword.

"Put down your weapon!" The jarl slurred. His own was still in the mead hall where he had discarded it in his stupor.

The prince spat, his eyes flown wide. "Then explain to me, Jarl Sigurd, why your son was kissing my bride!"

"Kiss? Kiss?" Still sloshed, the jarl turned on his children. Breathing heavy, flushed from collar to forehead, Jarl Sigurd's expression crumpled into one of astonishment and dismay.

"Disa?" he whispered, his voice more like a moan. "What is he talking about?"

"He didn't kiss me! He didn't!" She turned to the prince and added, "I would never allow it!"

"How can you lie to me?" The prince demanded. Fury turned his face red.

"He forced himself on me!" she cried, rubbing the ear her brother had kissed only seconds ago.

"He _what_?" Her father bellowed, his drunken haze burning away in a rush of anger. "Hakon, what have you done?"

"Nothing!" her brother roared back, determined despite the dagger pointed at his chest.

"I would never lie to you!" Disa said, but she was unsure whom she wished most to convince, her father or her groom.

"What have you done?" Jarl Sigurd leapt to his feet. He swayed but kept himself upright with a firm grip upon the footboard. His meaty arms swung towards his son as he stumbled forward.

Hakon, soberer and quicker, danced from his father's reach. He skirted past Prince Eric's dagger. He screamed at them both. He pled for them to be reasonable, but they were either too inebriated or too furious to pay him any such kindness.

Her father charged after his son, grasping wildly for the back of Hakon's tunic or his frizzy locks. Prince Eric, his dark eyebrows knotted and his eyes narrowed, went immediately to Disa's side.

"Please, my lord," Disa cried as she took hold of the arm holding the dagger. "My brother—He did not touch me!"

"Has your brother taken you, Lady Saldis?" Prince Eric demanded while behind him the jarl crashed into a small table. A bowl of water sitting upon the table's surface upended upon the floor with a metallic clang.

Hakon seized his opportunity. While their father fought to disentangle himself from the table, he raced from the room.

Disa was still processing the prince's question when Hakon's feet drummed away down the hall.

"No! No, I swear. I'm a maid."

"How can I believe you?" Prince Eric demanded. "I've just seen you embracing your brother. Your _brother!_ What kind of family is this?"

Jarl Sigurd threw the table. It left a dent where it struck the waddle-and-daub wall.

"Disa would never lie!" the jarl roared, his mead-fueled rage turning upon the prince. "I do not raise liars."

"Only incestuous lechers?" Prince Eric bit back.

"I do not know my brother!" Disa dug her fingernails into the prince's arm. "Not in that way. Please, believe me."

Her father straightened to his full, towering height. "Hakon will pay for what he's done, but I won't let you discard my daughter. She is a maid. She _says_ she is a maid." Her father opened his arms for his daughter. He had been terrifying only moments ago, but now he seemed the safest place in the world.

She left the prince's side to race into her father's enveloping embrace. He was wheezing and stinking of mead, but he was also so warm and strong.

"She _is_ a maid." His voice rumbled in his chest like distant thunder.

Disa pried her eyes from her father's tunic in time to see the prince stuff his dagger back into the ratty sheath tucked into his belt. He was not fully convinced by her father's declaration, his expression of consternation showed that. "If I am to marry her, Jarl Sigurd, it will not be here."

"What?" The word rumbled in his chest. "This is her home. She should be married here."

"The wedding is still three days away. You really expect me to trust her with her brother for three days? I might be convinced to believe her, but I have no faith in your son."

"So you would take her from our house _unwed_? Without any assurance that she will be safe?"

"No assurance is necessary," Prince Eric snapped. "She is safer with me than she is here. I have pride, Jarl Sigurd, and heavens hang me if I should ever act dishonorably! I will take her safely to my brother's home in Saeheimr, and there I will marry her in the presence of my court."

"And what of her dowry, and her wedding clothes? How am I supposed to prepare everything in time?"

"Clothes? Pack only what she needs for the journey. When she has been made my wife, I'll see she has everything she needs."

"And her dowry? I must make arrangements for the land that—"

"She needs no dowry. I don't require it. I am not marrying her from a desire for land or power, Jarl Sigurd. I have enough of both for us to be quite comfortable."

"No dowry!" the jarl exclaimed, his grip on his daughter loosening.

"But I wish to leave soon, Jarl Sigurd. As much as I respect you and your wife, I cannot tolerate your son. I shall not share a roof with him, not anymore. A brother... making love to his sister! Repulsive! Absolutely repulsive. "

"Repulsive indeed!" the jarl bellowed, so determined was he to convey his disgust. "My son will be punished."

"I ask that you and your wife allow Lady Saldis to sleep in your chambers tonight. I expect her to be ready to leave in the morning."

"The morning?" her father hesitated. "I understand your anxiety, Lord Eric, but surely you can give us more time to prepare our farewells. We cannot know when we shall ever see her again."

"I will not wait. There are wolves at your hearth, Jarl Sigurd, and I will not endanger your daughter's purity by staying. I will compensate you for the effort you have taken to protect your daughter's chastity, but then we shall be gone."

"My... my chastity?" Disa mumbled, feeling especially tiny next to her father.

"Your chastity, my dear. As you claim it is still intact, I shall pay your father for the privilege of possessing it. Nothing is quite so magical as a virginal bride."

"No dowry..." he father hissed between his teeth, oblivious to the long stare his daughter shared with the crowned prince.

Rubbing thoughtfully at his cheeks, the prince was the first to look away. His face was nearly as red as his bleached hair. "It's late, and this affair has exhausted me. I will leave you with your daughter, Jarl Sigurd, with the expectation that I shall see her well and happy tomorrow."

"Yes, of course." Her father hiccuped as he pulled his daughter from the prince's path. "Yes... yes, tomorrow."

They prince spared her a look and then he was gone.

### Chapter Four

Her father was soon sobered, and her mother was soon summoned. The thralls were given their instruction, and within the hour they were rushing up and down the halls, their arms laden with all of Disa's very best jackets, dresses, and smocks.

Secure within the jarl's room, Lady Bergljot helped her daughter disrobe. She brushed Disa's hair, polished her brooches, and instructed the young girl on all the proper wifely ways.

But Disa registered very little of her mother's advice. Further down the hall, a commotion arose that stalled her mother mid-tirade.

Her father, now armed and properly dressed, had ferreted her brother from his hiding spot. Just as he had promised the prince, the jarl was bestowing his punishment without mercy or compassion.

For a time, her mother tried to talk over her father's bellows and her brother's shrieks, but Disa could tell that she was trying to listen, too.

A crash. A bang. More shouting.

Then Hakon reached his limit. With a final, aching scream, Hakon's voice cut through her mother's babbling, rose above her father's blundering, and carried over the thundering footsteps of the thralls racing to and fro: " _But I love her!_ "

Her mother fell silent, and Disa fought to draw breath.

The jarl slapped his son with enough force that his wife and daughter, listening four rooms over, could hear the clap of the palm striking Hakon's cheek. The fight ended. Hakon fell silent, but Jarl Sigurd did not return to his rooms. He marched down the hall, screaming at his thralls, screaming at his stewards, and nearly tearing the door from its hinges as he disappeared into the damp, cold night.

Lady Bergljot could not be considered a particularly gentle mother. She was a harsh mistress and a shrewd wife. She was unforgiving of her daughter's faults and outspoken against anything that gave her discomfort. But with her son's confession still echoing down the hall, she took her daughter by her shoulders and hugged the girl with a sympathetic squeeze and a whispered apology.

This was to be her last night in her father's home, but Disa couldn't spend it in the company of her family. Her last night was not spent basking in the affection of her father and mother. It was spent on a cold cot in the corner of her parent's room, where it was too drafty and too noisy to sleep.

The thralls stuffed saddle bags, packed chests. They heaved and called to one another as, load by load, all her most precious belongings were carted out to the stables. Unable to sleep, she waited for morning's arrival, waited for the time when Prince Eric would knock at her father's door and announce their departure.

In good time, the prince did summon her, and Disa rose from her cot, hair disheveled and face splotchy from exhaustion. The prince waited in the hall as her mother dressed Disa in the gown she would wear on the road. He waited while her mother plaited her hair and tied the wool shawl over her head.

Lady Bergljot clapped her daughter on the shoulder, adjusted her long jacket, and said, "You make him happy, girl."

"Yes, Mama," replied Disa.

"It's getting late," said the prince through the door.

The mother pushed the daughter towards the exit.

"Go. Hakon won't give you any more trouble."

Disa opened the door and tiptoed out into the hall. There he was, smiling down at her. Prince Eric's glorious grin made it easier to forget his fierce countenance from the night before.

"Are you ready?"

Her head swiveled to look back down the hall—back towards her brother's room—but she saw nothing. The prince's men filled the hall; they loomed over her. There must have been a half-a-dozen of them piled in around her door. One was so tall his shaggy hair brushed the rafters, but they were all enormous. They were sullen, too, especially when compared to the toothily-grinning prince standing next to them.

She nodded, and Prince Eric took her by the arm and led her from her father's home.

His men following at his heels, he marched them down the hill to the huge mead hall. Her father was waiting. Jarl Sigurd had on the same clothes from the night before. His head was shiny with sweat, his beard was in need of combing, and straw was sticking to his wool trousers. Despite his fearsome appearance, however, he swept into a graceful bow as the prince approached.

"Everything is prepared, my lord. All that remains is to express my hope that my daughter will make you very happy."

"She will," the prince replied.

Disa watched as her groom drew a pouch from his inner pocket. "As promised, here is the coin for her chastity. I thank you for protecting it."

There was a bite to the way Prince Eric said this. Disa's insides squirmed, and she chewed the inside of her cheek to keep from frowning. Her father, however, chose not to notice. He accepted the prince's money, and hid the coin pouch within the folds of his jacket.

"Disa," her father then said, his gaze now coming to rest on his most beloved child. "I hope you will send word once you have settled. I shall like to visit you when it would not inconvenience you."

The way his brow arched and the way his lower lip trembled drove home a terrifying truth: Disa, who had never left Trondelag, who had never spent a day away from her family and servants, was leaving behind everyone and everything she had ever known. The men surrounding her were not her father's warriors. The thralls leading the horses from the stables were not accompanying them. They were still sworn to her father, and now she was sworn to another.

Her gut swooped like a swallow in flight.

"I will take good care of your daughter," said Prince Eric as he led his beautiful bride past her remorseful father.

She was just like a little girl, frightened to leave home, but she found no expression of comfort from Jarl Sigurd. She saw only loneliness and regret and a bitter exhaustion to mirror her own.

She almost stopped. She almost turned back. It didn't matter to her that the whole town would laugh at her, that her father would be furious, or that the prince would feel betrayed. It didn't matter that her mother would ridicule her for the rest of her spinster life. She wanted to turn back.

But when she wavered and leaned back towards her father, the prince cinched his grip on her hand and whispered the words that would decide the matter:

"All will be well, my love."

### Chapter Five

Away from the fjord, the world was a drier and colder place, and though the breeze howled in the trees, it lacked its usual fragrances of salt and kelp and fish. In the forests of the foothills, the decades-thick blanket of pine needles muffled the garrons' hooves, and the sun rarely penetrated through the evergreen canopy. Quiet and dark even in the daytime.

Disa rode behind her prince on the small pony that had been hers since her twelfth birthday. She looked everywhere but at her groom: the dancing shadows, the swaying branches, and the rabbits dashing for their dens. She looked for distractions. She needed to keep her mind off the sores erupting upon her thighs. She didn't want to acknowledge the party's tense and increasingly pronounced silence.

A day passed without rest. The horses moved at a steady trot, and the men seemed not to mind the hard hide saddles or the mist hanging in the smoke-colored skies. They were sullen creatures, but the prince was the sullenest of them all. He hardly spoke a word that was not accompanied by a sneer. To the young lady trailing behind him, he spoke not at all.

He cast her looks, of course, but they possessed none of the reverence she expected from a man in love. He was troubled, and Disa, so far from home and increasingly uncomfortable on her new saddle, shared his anxieties.

Each of his looks was an unspoken accusation. Each moment that lapsed in silence was punishment for her betrayal. Her brother's embrace had killed his gentleness from their first night together. How could he gaze upon her and not see the memory of Hakon's pursed lips pressed to her ear? It would take her months to regain his trust, mayhaps years. He would take her maidenhood on their wedding night, but he would always worry and always wonder. What unspeakable intimacies had existed between his wife and her brother?

So Disa couldn't bring herself to meet the prince's gaze. She sought refuge instead from her thoughts in the examination of woodland country.

Birch trees and evergreens. Ferns sprouting from a bed of orange oak leaves. A river purred in the distance but the sound was not like the harshness of the tides that swallowed Hladir's rocky shore.

Ahead of them, the mountains emerged from cloudy jackets, and their ghostly tops shone silver in the little light that cut through the damp skies. Their skirts of green collided to form valleys and cliffs and immense hills. A dirt pass cut a brown line between the troughs and dips of the foothills, leading up—ever up—into the snowy peaks above.

Forgoing all detours, they made directly for the pass. The mountain corridor would lead them straight into the belly of King Harald's kingdom. Southern Norge, the kingdom her groom would someday inherit. There, Prince Eric's younger brothers would welcome him home and prepare the Saeheimr court for the marriage to follow.

What were his brothers like, and what of their wives? Would the prince tell his brothers of how he had found his bride entangled in her brother's arms? Would the court ladies, like her mother, think her too insipid for a man like the prince?

A small settlement nestled in the trees marked the boundary between the Trondelag jarldom and the foggy foothills ahead. It was here, amongst the curious stares of the lumbermen and fishermen who made their living on the river, that the prince stopped them for the night.

He announced himself to the villagers and brought Lady Disa forward as he pled for shelter and food for the night.

Because the lady was the beloved daughter of their Jarl Sigurd and because the man was the eldest son of King Harald, the settlement's patriarch turned his whole house over for the prince's use. His family smiled and blathered as they piled fresh blankets onto the small cot and stocked their tiny hearth with fresh logs. As the family worked inside, his men set about making camp: staking the tents, currying the horses, and building the campfires over which they would prepare their supper of stew and bread.

Disa, her offers of help rejected by both parties, was left standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the prince. She wrung her riding shawl and locked her gaze to the floorboards. She both anticipated and dreaded the moment she would be alone with him. She did not like having to be quiet and still when she was nervous; she wanted to talk or cook or clean. She wanted her hands to be busy.

But at last, the patriarch, his wife, and all her young ones bowed their heads and left the prince and his lady to enjoy the modest but cozy dwellings.

Disa stared at the family bed situated in the corner Would they share it? Surely, he would not let her sleep on the ground, and yet the bed was his by right. Would he want to sleep, or would Disa be expected to perform those duties her mother had outlined the night before? She should have paid more attention.

"Shall I prepare—?"

"No, I will eat with my men," the prince said. "Stay here, get warm. I'll see you in the morning."

"But surely you will sleep—"

"I will sleep with my men," he insisted. Away from prying eyes, he did not bother to hide his unhappiness. He tugged at his beard and met her gaze with a stare as cold as iron.

"Did you sleep with him?"

Astonished by his directness, Disa stumbled back a step. " _No!_ "

He sighed and for the first time seemed every bit his age. He was born the same year as her father. When she looked close enough, she could make out the slight wrinkles creasing the corners of his eyes. "I will not punish you for the truth, my lady. I will leave you in the care of these villagers and send word to your father."

"No!" Disa said, more aghast by the suggestion than by the accusation. "Wha—what would father think of you? I ca—can't have him thinking you took advantage of me!"

"There is a chance you could not tell the truth for fear of your father." The prince answered, his eyes no less unfriendly. "I need to know the truth, my lady. It is _imperative_ that I have the truth."

The force of his declaration made her feel small. "I have never behaved in a way that would shame my father. Or you."

Prince Eric's eyes narrowed. "Then I will have to take your word. Goodnight, Lady Saldis."

He turned to leave, and Disa's heart sank. This had been her chance to put his suspicions to bed, so how could she let him leave when he still distrusted her?

"Please, my lord, stay. I shall make you something to eat. We will dry your shoes by the fire."

"No, my lady. I am in no mood to play house with you."

Disa grimaced. "I only thought it would make you happy."

At last. His brow lifted and his jaw relaxed. A flicker of kindness warmed his ocean-colored eyes. "I appreciate your efforts, my lady. It is not that your kindness and loveliness are lost on me, but I cannot stay in your presence without reliving those memories I wish to be forgetting."

"What can I do?" Disa said, stepping closer and desperately wishing she could reach out and take his damp sleeve. "I would like you to feel easy again."

Prince Eric's grin wavered as she advanced, and he held up a hand to stall her. "Reverse time. Erase that kiss. But you can't, and I can't, so I shall have to learn to trust you."

Prince Eric's words struck more painfully than he had likely intended, but he turned before he could see Disa's eyes flood with tears. She covered the cursed ear that Hakon had kissed the night before. The skin was dry and hot, but it felt slimy to her, like the algal growth lining the bottom of a tide pool.

The prince left Disa without a backwards glance. At least she knew where they stood. She knew what he thought of her and what she could do to win back his affection—absolutely nothing.

She was exhausted. She had barely slept the night before and had ridden all day. Sore and sleepy and limp with regret, she forced herself to the fire and peeled the drenched jacket from her shoulders. She hung her gowns and smocks and socks over the fire and unbraided her hair so it too could dry by the flames.

The copper kettle hanging over the fire was half empty, and she swung it over the coals with the iron poker. Disa would wash the sweat from her body. She would wash away that lingering sensation of her brother's arms clasped around her... of his lips pressed firmly to her burning ear. She would scrub it all away, change into fresh clothes, and sleep until the prince came for her again. She wanted to be beautiful for him. She wanted to look every part his virginal bride.

Beauty is why he loved her—why anyone ever loved her—so if her beauty was obscured by grit, she would polish it clean.

She heated the water to a boil and poured it all into the ceramic washing basin. She did not wait for it to cool before dunking her hands. The water was near hot enough to cook flesh, but only the hottest would do.

It was not bath day, but she bathed herself as thoroughly as if it was. She scrubbed her chest and thighs and arms until her skin stung and hissed as the hot water trickled down her back. Finally, when her flesh was pink and tingling from all the abuse, she started on her ear. As her mother would scrub a pot, Disa scoured her ear until it was too tender to touch.

She rinsed herself with the last of the steaming water and then the tears began to flow. The truth was that despite all her effort and determination she felt no different. The prince might deem her cleaner and prettier—the dirt beneath her fingernails was gone, and her hair was shiny and slick—but her ear was still the same. Still tainted.

Her father would be disappointed, her brother grossly pleased, and her mother unsurprised.

" _I always knew you weren't good enough for the prince,"_ she would say when the prince grew tired of Disa. _"Now look at you."_

And Disa did look at herself, at her hands, and at her blistering fingers. Tears fell in earnest as she beat the earthen floor and cursed her brother with all the foul words she knew. Sixteen. She had waited sixteen years to make her family proud. Her brother, her gangly, freckled brother, had ruined it all with his unspeakable crime.

### Chapter Six

The next morning her fingers were stiff and white blisters like giant pimples had formed across her palms. They were too raw to move, and her attempts at eating her breakfast of smoked salmon, cheese, and griddle cakes ended with her simply shoveling the food directly from plate to mouth.

Furious with herself, she stuffed her soiled clothes into her saddle bags and found her mittens. Brushing aside the angry tears burning on her cheeks, she shoved her swollen and mottled fingers down into the wool.

The prince had not come for her, but her need to make water had become impossible to ignore. The patriarch's home lacked a toilet or chamberpot. It was, in fact, little more than a long room. A single bed, a lopsided table, two well-worn benches, but no running water.

So she rammed her feet into her slippers, buttoned on her damp jacket and stepped out into the awakening day.

The prince's men had made camp on her doorstep. Canvas lean-tos sat clustered around the smoldering coals of last night's cook fires. The men themselves were only just beginning to rouse. Eyes still crusty with sleep and bones still stiff and cracking, they grumbled and sat up and listlessly stirred the dead cinders.

The nearest of the fellows, a blond young man sprawled across the front step, jolted to attention when Disa swung open the cabin door. He stared up at the prince's bride, taking in the sweet face that had broken so many hearts.

"What's happened to you?" he exclaimed, and the astonishment in his voice captured the entire camp's attention.

She clutched at her cheeks with her woolen mittens, but he, and now all the other men, continued to gawk. Her fingers had blistered from last night's boiling bath, and her cheeks had fared little better. She could not know what they saw—she had no mirror—but their expressions did not make it difficult to guess.

"It was hot inside."

"Is that so? Must have been a right oven. You're red like wine, you are." The blond man grinned, and his friend, still nestled in his bedding beside him, added a derisive snort.

Disa stood a little straighter, but she could not bring herself to drop her hands from her burned cheeks. "Too much sun from yesterday, I imagine."

"Sun?" questioned the shaggy giant stoking the fire. "Not much sun yesterday, I think."

"No! No, there wasn't!" The blond replied, his grin spreading. "You're quite right, Rorik! Wet as the sea, it was. By Njord's pretty toes, I was wringing out my leggings all night."

"Make way, if you please," Disa mumbled, skirting past the man on her doorstep and Rorik the Giant. She kept her hands plastered to her cheeks and her chin down as she hurried for the communal washrooms.

But she hadn't reached the main road when the man with the fire-red hair caught her up in his arms and spun her around.

"And where are you going?" Prince Eric demanded as he set her firmly back upon the ground. "Running away so early?"

"No!" She grabbed his arms to steady herself, revealing what his men had already discovered.

He recoiled, and his eyes went as a wide as coins. "What's happened to your face?"

She could not lie to him, but neither could she explain it in a way that did not seem utterly pathetic. "The water was too hot."

"The water... what were you doing?"

"Bath—washing."

He blinked several times before answering, "I cannot decide, Lady Saldis, if you are incredibly foolish or incredibly vain. What exactly was your intent when you boiled yourself?"

"I was just washing," she muttered, conscious that the men behind her were silent and listening. They weren't laughing anymore, and the prince wasn't smiling.

"Washing, why? What did you hope to achieve?"

"I'm clean."

"Clean," he repeated hollowly. "What's the point of being clean if you only look ridiculous?"

The embarrassment was painful enough without the men chortling and smirking behind her. Her eyes swam with tears as she glanced over her shoulder. The men wouldn't look at her: the blond sprawled upon the stairs pretended to sleep, the bald man was dismantling his lean-to, and huge Rorik grunted as he kicked over the coals.

The prince from her father's mead hall was gone. That man would never have ridiculed her in this way. The man that had replaced him, _this man_ , sneered when the other might have soothed.

Where was the prince who had once stroked her tortoiseshell brooches? Where was the man who had defended her against her own father?

"Why—why say these things?" She was so ashamed of her appearance that she could not look her red-haired prince in the face.

Prince Eric sighed and sounded truly remorseful when he said, "I'm sorry, I slept poorly. It wasn't my intention to embarrass you. The lady is still a lady, even if her cheeks are a little colored."

Her bad morning improved as the tents were packed and breakfast was eaten. The prince's vikings forgot their teasing and sniggering as they readied the horses and stored the last of their lord and lady's belongings in the saddlebags. Disa had hardly enough time to make use of the toilet—a cesspit dug into the floor of a decaying shack—and thank the settlement's patriarch before the prince was taking her arm and leading her to her little pony.

She rocked into the saddle and was taking up the reins when Prince Eric produced a linen shawl, orange like the dying sun. She took the fine fabric and rubbed it between her fingers. The embroidery was masterful and the weld-dye rich and fragrant. It was a shawl like the ones her mother wore.

"It's for you. To wear. It should keep the sun off your cheeks. I dare say they've had enough punishment."

He was smiling as he spoke, and there was warmth in his tone that harkened back to their first meeting. She was so pleased to see it that his grin soon prompted one of her own. She accepted his offering and swung it up and over her honey-colored hair and red ears. She was not married—not yet—but this lady's shawl made her feel very much like a wife. She lacked only the thralls to direct, the butter to churn, and the fish to smoke. If only her mother could see her now, sitting high upon her horse and wearing the lady's shawl the future king of Norge had given her.

"Tha-thank you," she stammered as her smile spread ear-to-ear. Her cheeks were tight from the burns, but she felt too good to stop. The prince was looking at her again.

"It suits you."

The half-giant Rorik brought forth the prince's garron, and Prince Eric swung himself into the saddle. "The orange draws attention away from the blisters, I think."

But she didn't mind that her face was still ugly. After he bid their farewells to the small lumbering settlement, she hastened her pony to match strides with his garron.

It would take them another nine days to reach Saeheimr, but what was that but nine more days to cultivate the love her brother had accused her of lacking? Her burns would fade, her shame would fade, and slowly the prince might be persuaded to open up to her.

She was now determined; by the time they married, she would be in love.

### Chapter Seven

He was not hard to like.

The same stories that had captivated her father were equally enthralling to her.

Prince Eric, following in his king-father's footsteps, had taken to the sea at a young age. He had seen a great many places: Denmark, Frisia, Saxland, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Lapland, and Bjarmaland. In fact, it was more difficult for Disa to name places he hadn't seen, shores he hadn't walked, and courts he hadn't visited. At the age when most boys are learning to plow the barley fields and tie knots, Prince Eric was sampling the fine southern wines and flirting with Danish princesses.

He had traveled since he was a boy. The men beside him were his crew. They were his family when the sea separated him from his true kin. His men, Olav and Sigtrygg and Frode and Torgils and Rorik, lent the tales a color and passion the prince was too humble to add. To a woman who had never traveled beyond the Trondelag coast, his stories were grand.

"Aye, the draugr, my lady!" said blond Frode. "When it cries, you fear your ears might be bleeding or your bones breaking. As for myself, my heart nearly stopped, it did, but our good prince... Well, he faced that kindling man and killed it good and proper!"

"I cannot believe you have actually seen draugr."

The more Disa expressed polite skepticism the more enjoyment the men had trying to convince her. "Draugr, indeed! And frost giants!"

"Frost giants!" Frode's good friend, Torgils, interrupted. "I was ever-so-pleased when our encounter with that giant was only from afar! The earth shook beneath its feet, my lady. And don't be making that face. It _shook_ , I tell you. Tell her, Rorik."

"It shook," grumbled the huge man, nearly a giant in his own right.

"But surely not _giants_. The jotun were banished from Midgard centuries ago."

"Which is mostly true," explained Prince Eric. "But when the rainbow bridge opens in the north, the jotun have been known to venture into our world. That's how we found Rorik, you know."

She tore her gaze from her prince to glance at the giant riding behind him. He was such a massive brute that the only horse that could carry him was three hands taller than any of the other ponies.

He met her gaze and his thick eyebrows dropped low over his beady eyes. White scar tissue covered one side of his forehead. His left eye did not open completely, and half his left ear had melted away. Far from handsome, he was difficult to look at.

"Is he"—she spoke in a whisper so he would not hear—"jotun?"

"Who? Rorik?" Frode barked with laughter. "Jotun _killer_ , more like. Go on, Rorik, tell her what you were doing when we first found you."

"Killing jotun." The half-giant turned his head and made no other indication of continuing.

"He beat us to it," Prince Eric explained. "Bifrost had opened a portal to Jotunheimr. And rumor reached us of a jotun roaming the ice fields. We tracked it deep into the arctic wilderness, living off raw seal blubber and melt water. We followed its trail for _weeks_ , but when we found it at last, there was nothing left but its huge corpse bleeding in the snow."

Frode took up the tale where the prince left off. "And if you think Rorik's hideous now, you should have seen him perched on the giant's shoulder, clutching his axe and covered head to toe in the creature's blood. And the blood! It formed icicles in Rorik's beard, there was so much of it."

Prince Eric nodded fondly at the memory. "He was a fearsome sight indeed. I asked Rorik to join us on the spot. Any man who can survive the northern climes without gear or companions is remarkable enough. But to kill a jotun in one-on-one combat? He has been my man ever since. Haven't you, Rorik?"

"I suppose."

"All of them are." Prince Eric gestured generously to his other men. "Every one of them has their own harrowing tale, and their own particular value. I found Frode deep within a draugr-infested ruin. He had broken his leg climbing down into a cairn. He kept himself alive for near a week by eating moss and lighting fires from the limbs of the draugr he killed."

"Fifteen," Frode remembered with a grim smile. "Fifteen draugr. I burned their corpses and had a right bonfire going, I did. It wasn't difficult for the prince to find me."

Trogils snorted. "Tell my story next. It's much better than Frode's."

When he found himself the recipient of the lady's curious stare, Trogils gave her a wink and mouthed, _"Wights."_

"You have seen many things," Disa said as she met Prince Eric's ocean-blue eyes. "But why seek out such danger?" She didn't admit it—not aloud—but she feared what this would mean for her as his future wife. How often would she be left behind to tend the house while he and his men explored the tundra and battled these horrors?

"Because they possess what we mortals do not: swords that always find their target, ropes that never break, ships that fold to fit into pockets."

Here Disa had to laugh. "A ship that _what?_ How ridiculous. Surely you  
don't—?"

"Yes, it's ridiculous, but then I have seen enough of the world to know nothing is impossible. Be it a tiny, folding ship or an enchanted belt."

"And you wish to find these artifacts? Why?"

"I will be high king, as you know. But I have brothers, twenty-two brothers. My father intends to split his kingdom between them when he retires. He's brought war to our country establishing our kingdom, and now in the very same generation he'll tear it apart. Why? Because he fears what my brothers might do to me otherwise. He does not think I can govern them without evoking jealousy and rebellion."

She had never heard of one man having so many brothers. No father could nurture them all. "Surely they would never wish you harm. They are your brothers."

"Twenty-two brothers, Lady Saldis. Of those twenty-two, it only takes one idiot to turn us all against each other. If even one of them attacks my claim to the throne, then the others will surely panic. My father's promiscuity has weakened the kingdom, and it's up to me to hold my family together. I will make us strong again."

"And have you had any luck? Finding these relics, that is."

"No," Prince Eric said, chewing his tongue and clenching his jaw. "I have found only the footprints of those that preceded me. Wherever there is a rumor, I'm too late. Some other warriors has already arrived and stolen it away."

"Not that it does them much good," Frode spat. "What's a farmer need with a cursed sword, I wonder?"

"Or a blacksmith with the greatest weapon ever forged?" The prince added, casting a narrowed glance over his shoulder. Disa followed his gaze, but not quickly enough to see who received the look. Fat Olav sniggered, blond Frode spat again, and monstrous Rorik grumbled.

Despite this sharp his rebuke, the prince was soon grinning again. His eyes locked upon the mountains looming ahead and softened. "But my time's coming. The gods are finally smiling on me."

"Why is that, my lord?" Disa asked breathlessly.

His eyes were still warm when he turned to her and answered, "Because I have you, my love, and your purity shall lead me to the greatest glory of all."

His men must have heard, but none of them laughed. There was no irony or humor in the way the prince looked at her, and for the first time since that night in her father's mead hall, she felt desired. Whatever harm her brother had caused to her reputation, it could not forever dampen the prince's feelings for her.

She would surely spend the rest of their life together pondering what she had done to earn such devotion.

"Is it love, sire? Your greatest glory?" she asked in a hushed voice, still afraid that his men would hear and laugh at her silliness.

He paused, and she saw his gaze slide sideways towards his men. They were quiet as he answered, "Yes. Yes, love."

He urged his horse sideways, and their knees touched as they rode. He paused again, glanced over his shoulder again, and then he reached out to cup Disa's burnt cheek in his hand.

His fingers were big and firm, but his thumb was soft and gentle as it caressed her skin. She would have thoroughly enjoyed it if not for the five men watching and hearing everything that passed between them.

"Thank you, my lord," she said, unable to think of anything better to say. "I shall strive to earn your affection."

He dropped his hand but remained close to her as they wound their way into the foothills and the ancient evergreen forest that blanketed the steep terrain.

### Chapter Eight

That afternoon, they climbed high enough that the drizzle turned to snow. At first the flakes fell big and wet, but the higher they climbed, the icier the path and the whiter the ground became. In a span of six hours, Disa witnessed the transformation of the mossy forest into one of snow and muffled silence.

No Norseman would settle at such a high elevation, so when the hour of sunset arrived, it was the prince's men who made camp. They found a good clearing, swept the snow from the hard earth and made a smoky fire from the damp twigs and branches they found sheltering beneath the evergreen boughs.

Arms wrapped tightly around herself, Disa hunkered down by the fire to watch the men erect the tents and groom the horses. They worked in silence and in complete unison. These fellows had traveled so frequently together that they needed no direction from the prince. They knew their roles, knew their tasks, and only spoke to complain of the snow that blew into their eyes and the cold dampness seeping in through their shoes.

Disa was not used to feeling so useless. Her mother certainly wouldn't have abided her sitting and watching. She should be helping—with her tent, with the dinner, with the horses—but when she tried to offer her services, she found them curtly declined. Even the evening meal of yet another beef stew was to be made by Olav.

The men were exhausted by the time they finished. They fell in around the fire with sputtering sighs. It was not long before the clearing was littered with all the damp fur jackets and woolen wrappings they peeled from their sweaty bodies. Even the prince, who had been an onlooker to all the camp's preparations, let out a low moan as he slouched in beside the coals.

No one stirred while the stew cooked. The fire's warmth lulled them all into a peaceful stillness, and the flames, licking eagerly at dried pine needles, drew their gazes and mesmerized them.

They would spend another two nights in the mountains, and Disa did not look forward to the soggy days and the cold evenings ahead.

She jolted to attention when the prince spoke, "Sigtrygg, if you would?"

Disa roused herself from her stupor to discover that night had long since fallen. A full hour must have passed since she had first plopped herself down. The heart of the fire burned a deep red. The heat made her blistered cheeks itch.

Sigtrygg was the smallest of the prince's men and easily the oldest. His hair was feathery-white and nearly all his teeth were missing, but when he stood it was in a single, fluid motion. He shrank backwards into the shadows silently. A fern rustled, the snow crunched, and then he was gone. None of the others questioned his sudden disappearance. Only Trogils stirred, and then it was to fetch the wooden bowls for dinner.

"Where did you send Sigtrygg?"

Prince Eric received his stew first. He was more interested by it than her question. "It's getting late. Sigtrygg will be keeping watch."

Their talk of jotun and draugr was too fresh in her mind for her not to wonder. "Keep watch for what?"

The prince enjoyed a couple bites of Olav's stew before answering, "Bears. Wolves. The such."

"And he leaves the camp to do that?"

"You are full of questions today, Lady Saldis." He narrowed his eyes at her over the rim of his bowl. "But yes, he'll go into the forest to keep watch. I would rather he spot any danger from afar than when it is already upon us."

"But what—" Disa stopped herself as the prince's lips tipped into a frown. She was keeping him from his meal, and when Olav handed her a bowl she, too, turned her focus upon the warm, brown gravy glistening on her spoon.

Frode produced some mead from his sack, and he and Trogils partook heartily in its consumption. They laughed and joked and ruminated again and again on the shared memories she would never understand, women she would never know, and places she would never see. Their boisterousness was enough to fill the clearing, and no one else spoke. They ate, and when the stew was gone they stared again into the fire.

Sigtrygg did not return before Disa retired to the large tent the men had prepared for her. She was worrying about the old man as she pulled off her filthy jacket and gown. She huddled beneath her thick fur blanket, beneath her thin canvas walls, and thought of all the monsters these men had fought and killed.

They had seen frozen seas and olive orchards, and though they had faced many hardships along the way, she envied their experiences. How alive they must feel, how god-like, when the creature skewered on their sword is a beast straight from Hel. She envied Rorik's ragged scars, Frode's broken nose, and Olav's frost-dead arm. Would the prince take her with them on their adventures? Perhaps she could accompany them on their travels. She could dress their wounds and cook them supper. She wanted her marriage to be more than her mother's. She wanted to be a part of her husband's life in the way Lady Bergljot had never been a part of her father's.

"Lady Saldis?" Prince Eric lifted the tent flap. He didn't wait for a response before ducking inside.

Her smock was woolen and thick, but she hastened to cover herself as if it were see-through. "My lord!"

He ducked inside and squatted at the end of her bedroll. Her eyes now adjusted to the gloom, the bright light of his candle came as a shock. She squinted against the sharp light and rubbed at the spots fluttering behind her eyelids.

"Are you well, my lady? You were very quiet after dinner."

"I—I'm fine," she said, clutching her blankets to her chest but fearful it could not disguise the frantic beating of her heart. "I was not expecting the prince to..."

"Calm yourself." He dropped to his knees and wedged his candle into the soil in the corner. "I was only hoping we might become better acquainted, you and I."

He had been wearing his jacket by the fire, but now it was gone. He wore only his tunic, and the lacing that usually held it tight around his neck had been loosened to reveal a dusting of brown chest hair. Her father was right; Prince Eric was not a natural red-head.

"I thought perhaps my men had scared you with all their talk of giants and draugr."

"No," she said, meaning it. "I was surprised, but not... not really scared. I find their adventures fascinating. They are good men."

"Very good indeed." He leaned closer as he spoke, His lips pursing and his eyes roaming her face. He did not mean the men outside.

She couldn't bear his stare and something in her gut convulsed and writhed.

Prince Eric reached forward and grabbed her shoulder. His hand was still warm from the fire. She couldn't help leaning into it.

"You're cold." His voice was a soft murmur she could only barely catch from the air.

"No," she said reflexively. "I'm fine."

But he did not believe her, and she did not protest when he wrapped his arms around her. His hand spread across her lower back and the other came up to cradle the nape of her neck. Held against his torso, she felt the coarseness of his chest hair and the firmness of his muscles.

He stroked her back and his fingertips buried themselves into her blonde hair, but she did not know what she was supposed to do with her own sweaty hands. She rested her arms against his shoulder blades and grabbed the back of his tunic with trembling fingers.

If he had not heard it earlier, she had no doubt that he could feel her heart beating against him now. Only Hakon had ever embraced her in such a way, but that wasn't the same. Hakon was her brother, and Prince Eric was so much more. Flustering feelings addled her senses: deep longing, cool relief, and blushing excitement.

If the prince was here, if he was holding her, then surely he had forgiven her for Hakon's kiss. Surely he didn't mind that her face was still red and her hands blistered from the scalding they had received the night before.

He pushed her backwards, and she fell beneath him. He was too heavy to resist even if she had desired it. They sank into her bedding, and then the prince's lips found hers.

Firm and warm and wet, they pressed against hers and demanded more. _More_.

The hand on her back slid downwards. He found her thigh beneath her cotton gown and seized it tight with strong fingers.

Muffled by his kiss, she could only utter a note of surprise: " _Uh!_ "

He took the small opportunity to deepen the kiss. He licked her teeth and tasted her tongue and Disa was sure she had never felt more astonished or more confused by the sensation that blossomed in her belly.

She was scared. Not by the prince, but by the tight walls of her tent, her own inexperience, and the men sitting by the campfire only an arms span away.

Was this right? Was the groom allowed certain privileges with his bride before the wedding?

Then she arrived at another, more pressing question: _does it feel good?_

She could hardly breathe and the ground was hard, but she thought that perhaps she was enjoying it. He was close and warm and obviously impassioned.

But then she was sure his men knew what was happening. They must have seen the prince entering her tent. Even as he lifted her thigh and tipped her head to prolong the kiss, she was aware that the men had stopped talking. If they were no longer talking, did that mean they were listening?

Then his hand shifted. Up. Quick and sure, his fingers found her and delved within.

Tight heat and sharp pain.

Disa wrenched her head to the side, breaking the kiss as she cried, "Ah—no! Stop! It hurts!"

She pulled herself up and wiggled her arms between their bodies to push him back, but he was already pulling away.

The swift release of pain as he withdrew sent the tears pooled in her eyes pouring down her cheeks. She yanked her smock down around her ankles as the prince rose to his knees.

"I'm sorry," he was saying. "I shouldn't have rushed it. I forgot you're still—"

His words, however, were lost beneath Frode's hooting laughter. The men had heard everything: Trogils mocked her cry, Olav applauded, and Frode could hardly breathe for all his cackling.

Between bursts of laughter, Frode crowed, "That be a maid, boys!"

Disa covered her face with her blistered and stiff hands. The prince was hovering over her, watching her. She hated his stare almost as much as she hated Frode's tittering.

"And how would you know?" Olav snapped. "You've only ever had whores."

While the men bickered, the prince reached down and gently squeezed her knee. "I really am sorry, Lady Saldis. I forgot myself."

She couldn't look him, and he did not speak again. She uncovered her eyes several minutes later, and he and his candle were already gone.

Disa couldn't forgive herself for stopping him, just as she couldn't forgive Frode and Trogil and the others for laughing at her. She had failed her groom.

They were talking about her around the campfire, she was sure. She heard muttered voices without discerning a word. Was the prince relating the details of their encounter? Was he telling Frode and Trogils how he had only grabbed her before she had squirmed away?

She was wiping the dried and crusted tears from her cheeks when Rorik spoke. His voice was so deep and so loud, that even in whispered conversation she could hear him clearly. "Where did Sigtrygg _really_ go?"

Olav hushed him with a hiss.

The prince answered in a voice too quiet for Disa to hear, and Rorik spoke again, this time without any pretense of whispering. His voice grumbled with a belly-deep rumble; he was almost growling:

"And why would you want _that?_ "

And though the conversation broke apart and neither the prince nor Rorik spoke again, the former's silence and the latter's irritation kept Disa awake for many hours more.

Why would you want that?

Had Rorik meant her?

### Chapter Nine

In the morning, the prince returned. Disa, having never been fully asleep in the first place, quickly covered herself with her blanket.

"Co—come in?"

But he only stuck his head through the door and smiled down at her. "Good morning."

She squeezed her knees together and took a steadying breath before responding. "Good morning."

"I was hoping to show you something."

"Show me something?" Her hair was mussed and her eyes puffy and gritty from lack of sleep. "Are we leaving? Should I get dressed?"

"Aye, dress warm. I'm taking you for a walk."

"A walk? Why a walk? Where are we walking?" Despite all her flustered questions, it was not hard for her to guess the true nature of his invitation. Last night he had come to her when the others could hear. This morning, he would take her somewhere more secluded and finish what he had started.

Her stomach knotted, and his smile dimmed as he guessed at her thoughts. "Just a walk, my dear. Just a walk. There is something I must show you."

He looked older in the harsh rays of sunrise. His skin was dry and his brown hair sprouted from his ears. He appeared older, yes, but also more vulnerable and less like the red-headed phantom from her memories. His hair was growing in, she observed, as she noticed the brown roots. He had been more handsome at Hladir, but the dark circles under his eyes lent his person a humanity she hadn't perceived before.

"I will dress quickly, then."

He left her and she did as she promised, throwing on the dirty gown and musty jacket from the night before. She shook out her damp, chilled joints, and pulled her hair into a serviceable braid. She chafed her cheeks and rubbed her eyes and hoped that would help their puffiness.

Her foot crunched into fresh snow as she stepped free of her tent. The frozen morning air greeted her, and she wished now more than ever for that quilted jacket her father had never had the chance to buy her. Her current coat was stitched from a fine, felted wool, but even it could do little to prevent the arctic breeze that slipped down her collar and up her sleeves.

"It's cold. Is that all you have?"

The prince approached from behind, where he had been waiting beside the tent. It was then that she noticed the huge axe slung over his shoulder.

"Isn't that Rorik's, my lord?"

"Aye, it is, but it's not too heavy for me."

She glanced down at his waist, and sure enough there was his sword, still sheathed in its wood and leather scabbard and dragging in the snow.

"What is the axe for, my lord?"

He adjusted it on his shoulder, and though he claimed it was not heavy, he made a face from the effort required to lift it. The blade was twice the thickness and breadth of a lumber axe, and its four-foot shaft was carved from a single piece of solid oak. It must have been incredibly heavy.

"Protection."

"Is your sword not protection enough, my lord?"

"My sword needs to stay in its sheath. Rorik's axe will do well enough."

But Disa remembered how Giant Rorik had carried it and patted it and cleaned his ragged fingernails along its dull edge. "Won't he miss it?"

"Only if he notices it's missing," the prince said with a mischievous grin. "But I'll return it soon enough, once we've gone for our walk and I've found some fresh firewood."

"My father says you should never chop wood with a battle axe. It coats the blade in—"

"I know well enough without you telling me. Now come, we've wasted enough time, and I would rather not wake the others."

"The others?"

Only then did she notice the abandoned campfire, its dying coals melting pockets into the freshly fallen snow. The horses were up and pawing for grass beneath the trees, but the men were still asleep within the sloppy tents clustered together beneath the low-hanging boughs.

She looked up to gauge the hour, but Prince Eric grabbed her elbow and pulled her forward before she could tell for sure. A little past dawn?

"Let's not waste time," he said again, steering her across the clearing and away from the overgrown road.

She had to skip through the snow to keep up, but as they plunged into the tree line it was easier to match his long stride.

"Why must we hurry?"

"Timing is everything," he said, huffing both from the pace he struggled to maintain and the huge axe weighing him down.

They headed west to a steep bank that dropped down into the valley below. One of the rivers that fed the fjord collected into a lake at the valley's center. She caught glimpses of it between the fir and birch branches. The surface hadn't frozen yet, but the snow had formed a glistening coating of slush. The lake looked like the northern seas in spring. In these mountains, with the snow melt dripping down her collar and cold air whipping across her cheeks, it was hard to remember that it was only Heyannir. Hardly autumn.

"It's so cold," Disa muttered as they wormed their way back and forth down the steep descent. She glanced back towards the camp and at the mountains and evergreen forests looming above her. She already dreaded the climb up. In her gown and jacket, it might take her upwards of an hour, and she would be caked in sweat for the rest of the day.

Prince Eric's cheeks were pink and his breath formed a white fog when he said, "It's warmer in the valley."

He did not look at her; he was concerned solely by the task at hand. His abrupt and disappointing visit from the night before seemed not to bother him at all.

"And this thing you want to show me, it's in the valley?"

He halted mid-stride and tore his gaze at last from the leaf-strewn path. His eyes locked upon the young maid panting for breath beside him.

"Do you remember what I said yesterday? When I said my time was coming?"

He was not smiling, and Disa's insides squirmed. "We were talking about love. Isn't that right, my lord?"

"No—yes." Prince Eric wrenched his eyes away and pulled her back into a trot.

A spark of uncertainty lit within her. Her feet and hands perspired as her heart froze to ice. She peeked again over her shoulder as the prince led her deeper into the valley. The camp, the men, and the horses were now over an hour's hike away.

Then the prince spoke again, "Nothing is so important to me as keeping my father from breaking up my kingdom. You remember that, don't you?"

She remembered him saying that it was her love, not his kingdom, that would lead him to the greatest glory, but she did not say that. She said only, "Yes."

"And what if I told you the means to that happiness was here, in this very valley?"

The intent of this early-morning adventure was swiftly becoming clear. With a sinking feeling Disa asked, "What are we looking for?"

"That doesn't matter." He stopped again, this time squeezing her elbow with such force that it drew all her attention away from the quiet forest. She looked up into those dark blue eyes, blue like the sea at twilight. "I need to know, Lady Saldis, what you would be willing to do to help me."

"I don't understand. What can I do?" She thought of Rorik and the giant and Trogils and the wights. They had weapons and muscles and fearlessness on their side.

Impatient, he shook her by the elbow. "Would you do it? As my bride, would you do it?"

"Ye—yes, of course. It is my responsibility to support you in all your endeavors."

He released Disa's elbow and cupped her cheek instead. The last time they had been so close they had been locked in a confusing embrace. She could still hear the sound of Frode's laughter.

"Beautiful Saldis, beautiful, beautiful Saldis. My little virgin. You're my little virgin, aren't you?"

She had been teased before, but never so plainly and never so inappropriately. Disa, her wind-chapped cheeks flushing, thought it strange that such embarrassing words should be accompanied by such a sweet tone. Offensive, really. She shied from his touch and looked down at her feet, buried in the snow.

"With your help, the alicorn shall be mine."

"Alicorn?" she asked, coming to attention once more.

"The single horn that sprouts from the forehead of the wildest, purest of all creatures. Born by Sleipnir and raised by the elves, the creature was abandoned on Midgard when they failed to tame it. It's here. Here, now. Just down there.

"The Saxons say that the man who possesses the horn will live forever. The Byzantines say that a man who drinks from the horn will possess a strength to rival the All Father's."

"What is a Byzantine?" She couldn't keep up, but he didn't seem to care.

"And there is only one way to capture something so pure." He held up a single finger. "There is only one bait that will draw it close enough."

"Me," Disa answered. She knew by the way he was looking at her. "I'm your bait."

He grabbed her elbow once more. "Come, my dear, before we lose its trail."

He pulled, but Disa resisted, pulled back. A surge of heat rushed from her chest into her limbs as she dug her heels into the ground. She swiveled on her heels, prepared to turn back.

Everything was wrong. This man was not the charming prince from their first meeting. There was no softness in his gaze nor tenderness in his touch. He didn't care that she was beautiful and stupid. He cared only for the integrity of her maidenhood.

Isn't that why he had come to her in the night? Isn't that why he had pressed her to the ground and tested the honesty of her father's claims?

She started to run. Her foot was lifting off the ground when the prince sensed her resistance and yanked her back. He spun her in a circle and she toppled to her knees with a yowl.

"Don't do this," he said, still thinking he could maintain her obedience. "Just help me. You can do that much, can't you?"

"Let me go!" she wailed, and she didn't care that she was screaming. She could only hope that his men, however far away, would come for her.

"I am your prince! Contain yourself!"

"Please!" she continued. "Let me go! I'm scared! Scared!" She could not tell which frightened her more, the prospect of meeting the creature in the valley or her groom's icy stare.

But then... _was_ he her groom?

With the axe slung over one of his shoulders, it was difficult for Prince Eric to subdue her. Disa was regaining the upper hand, twisting and pushing herself back to her feet, when he called, "Sigtrygg! Help me!"

She had thought him asleep with the others, but the wiry old man was bounding out from behind the birch trees within seconds of his summoning.. He was not empty handed; he charged forward brandishing a hemp cord. Snapping it taut, he leapt upon her.

Disa crashed backwards into the snow as Sigtrygg threw his rope around her left hand.

Panic froze the scream in her throat. Unable to flee, she took to fighting. She threw up her hands to keep the cords from binding her. She bashed the toothless Sigtrygg with her small fists as he fought to keep her pressed to the snowy ground.

They could only capture her when Prince Eric dropped beside them and took a bruising hold of her flailing hands. Sigtrygg wound the cord around her wrists, binding them with a series of knots only an experienced sailor could execute so quickly.

Sigtrygg pinned her between his knees. Prince Eric once more took her by the elbow, but neither man paid her much attention now that she was bound.

"Are we too late?" Prince Eric demanded, his voice as sharp as it had been the night he had caught Hakon embracing Disa.

"No, no. It's still out there. I've given it distance. No reason to scare it off now."

"Good lad. Let's get her up."

Sigtrygg climbed off the prince's bride, and it was then that he saw the tears streaming down her face.

"Don't cry," the prince ordered. "You'll scare it away."

She thought of Hakon, her foolish brother. "Is—is this all I am?" she bawled as she raised her bound hands. "Bait?"

"Stop crying. You have legs, use them."

"Were you ever going to marry me?"

"Go, Sigtrygg, I'll handle her from here."

"Are you sure?" The old man cast the young maid a skeptical glance, but how could he think her dangerous? Resting on her knees, her hands tied, and weeping like a babe, she was no more threatening to him than a fly.

"Yes. Now go, I need you to keep an eye on the others."

"But Rorik's axe—"

"He's still alive, but keep an eye on him. Olav, too."

"And will the girl be accompanying you back?"

The question stole her breath, and her sobbing stalled as she waited for the prince's answer. Her soggy eyes met his just as he said, "No."

Sigtrygg turned to sprint back up the hill, but Disa did not watch the old man leave. Her vision swam, and she could make out only the smudged shape of the prince standing beside her.

"You're not—not taking me back." She covered her face, and wept fresh tears into the hemp bindings.

"No."

"You're not marrying me."

"No, and be glad of it."

He was leading her back down the hill, like a calf being led to slaughter. Her knees knocked, her nose ran, and her muffled cries sounded more like pitiful lowing.

"Did you ever love me?"

He sighed. "See, that's what I don't understand. How did you ever delude yourself into thinking that was even possible?" His tone was kind, but his words were poison. "I hardly know you. Are you really so vain as to think I could love you for your face alone?"

"I tho—thought you might have admired my other—"

"Your other _what?_ What are you besides pretty, Lady Saldis? You're young and obliging, but you also can't speak two words without stuttering. You can't read. You have no knowledge of the world. You are the sheltered daughter of a lesser jarl. The wife to a king needs to be something more. Clever, cunning, even a little shrewd."

"Please, let me go."

"Beg all you'd like, my lady, it won't help."

It was only because he held her up that she was able to follow him.

Her mother would be unsurprised to learn of Disa's humiliation, and her father would never accept her back. Not when he couldn't be sure she was still a maid. If only she could have married the prince. She could have divorced him. If her father had given her a dowry, it would have been hers. It would have cushioned her fall, but not now. Prince Eric had turned down her dowry when it had been offered.

"You never loved me." Saying it aloud was the only way to convince herself of this horrible truth.

"You are pleasant to look at. Take comfort in that."

What comfort was that? It only meant that when this alicorn monster killed her, the only part of her that he would miss was her beautiful face. Her beautiful, cursed face.

"Tread softly, my dear. The shore is close now."

The lake was just through the trees. She could make out the chunks of ice-blue slush skating across its surface. The sun was higher now, and from the branches above sloughed small clumps of snow. One tree, a huge oak, stood apart from the maples, birches, and young firs. Generations old, its trunk was thrice as thick as Prince Eric and cloaked in the shadows cast by the canopy of thick, naked branches above.

"We'll wait here."

"You will tie me there?" She examined the tree, from its peeling bark to the roots pushing up from beneath the snow.

"Yes indeed. Will you cooperate?"

With the huge axe slung over his shoulder and the long sword still strapped to his left hip, how could she do anything else but drop down beside the trunk and submit?

In this wilderness, who could possibly help her? His men? Rorik was a dim-witted brute, Olav was a fat cook, and Frode and Trogils were lechers. Sigtrygg was... Well, Sigtrygg had already proven his allegiance.

Prince Eric had snuck away to bring her here, but she still doubted any of his men would come to her rescue. They probably hadn't even noticed her absence yet.

"Will it hurt me?"

"No." He dropped to his knees beside her and rested his axe against the trunk of the tree. He would not look her in the eyes as he swung her rope around the trunk and tied his knot.

Once the rope was secure, he pushed himself to his feet and made to turn away.

Disa jerked against the bindings when she realized he was leaving her. "Don't go!" She regretted her outburst and bit the inside of her cheek. Was she really so cowardly that she would beg for the protection of the man who had betrayed her?

"I'll only be on the other side. We can't have the creature seeing me."

True to his word, the prince disappeared around the back of the tree. The leaves rustled as he took his seat between the gnarled oak roots, and the axe clanged against his belt buckle as he laid it across his thighs. With the tree now separating them, Disa tried to turn her tear-filled eyes upon the distant lake, but the sunlight striking the surface cast a sharp glare. A breeze sent up a spray of snowflakes, and, far off, a bough dumped its load of melting snow.

She was not alone, not with the prince seated just behind her, but staring into the empty wilderness elicited a powerful sensation of loneliness. She turned into the oak's trunk and closed her eyes. She didn't mind that the rough bark rubbed and scratched her skin.

"Do you see him, Lady Saldis?" murmured the prince.

Her face was buried into the coils of her rope. She couldn't see anything but she still answered, "No."

"He'll come," Prince Eric replied, more for his own sake than hers.

The alicorn hardly mattered anymore.

"Where am I supposed to go?"

"I don't care. Home, I imagine."

"Home?" she said with a rattling sob. "How am I supposed to go home? Everyone will assume the worst."

"No more whimpering. You'll scare the creature away," he hissed.

A rustling in the undergrowth made her jump, but when her eyes swept across the clearing, they did not find the monster. She could not decide which was worse, the dread of the creature's arrival or the uncertainty of what it would do to her when it found her.

"Why me?" she whimpered, sounding every bit as weak as she felt.

Disa had not expected an answer, but he answered all the same. In a voice so quiet she barely heard him, he said, "Because you're the daughter of a jarl."

A snap of fury burned through the chill freezing her joints. Her predicament, the forest, the ropes, the monster coming for her... None of these things had anything to do with her father. "And a fisherman's daughter wouldn't do? The scullery maid? A thrall?"

"Now is not the time to be raising your voice, Lady Saldis," Prince Eric snarled. "You are the daughter of a jarl. Your father could protect your maidenhood better than any old fisherman."

So it had to be her. Unlike the scullery maids and the thralls, Jarl Sigurd was honor-bound to keep her chaste until her wedding day. She was only a virgin because her father had both the wealth and the power to protect her from her admirers.

"You bought my chastity," she realized, her voice echoing hollowly in her own ears. "You paid my father for my maidenhood."

"And count yourself lucky that I'm letting you keep it. Now, that's enough. No more talking."

She sagged against the trunk and fell quiet, not because he demanded it, but because the weight of her situation silenced her. He had bought her chastity—bought _her_ —but he would not make her his bride. Did this make her a whore? She had seen such women down by the docks, where the seafaring men were lonely and rich with plunder. They did not wear brooches and gowns and quilted jackets. They slept on the floor and serviced their clients on a flea-ridden bed of straw.

Her mother said such women were little better than lice, jumping ship to ship and feeding upon the purses of flesh-starved sailors.

This is how her mother would see her now. The prince had bought Disa, and soon he would abandon her to the woods, without a horse, without a tent, without a single coin to her name.

Prince Eric had taken advantage of Disa's affections—he had even encouraged them—and she had been foolish enough to trust him. It was she who had never questioned his eagerness to depart. If Hakon had not kissed her and if Prince Eric had not been given an excuse to take her away, would the prince have been forced to marry her? If so, could she have divorced him with her integrity intact, or would he have simply killed her to avoid the dishonor?

Something cold stroked her shoulder, and for a second she thought it was him, reaching around the trunk to pat her arm. Then she looked up and, with a shriek, discovered the truth.

The creature was a mass of brown, wet fur. Its long face was like a horse's, and its pointed and drooping muzzle resembled a goat's. The snarled gruff dangling from its chin was coated in sap. It was bigger than any cow, and yet very similar in shape and smell. Its teeth were flat and brown, and its breath stank of bile as it wheezed above her.

Her cry surprised the creature as much as it had surprised her. Frightened, it snorted and danced backwards. Its pupils shrank to pinpoints and its great, feathered hooves struck the earth.

Only when it had drawn back could she see the alicorn jutting from its forehead. It was not straight or symmetrical, but sprouted from its shaggy fur as thick as the oak roots she sat upon. The horn was gnarled and huge, and the neck required to lift it was massive to suit. The bulging shoulders and thin face gave the creature the appearance of having no neck at all.

It stomped the earth, and its tail—ending with a tuft of hair—swished in agitation. It trumpeted like an elk and dropped its head as if to charge like a bull.

How had a creature of its size snuck up on her? There was no time to process it or the thick, hideous horn about to gut her, when the prince rushed out from behind the tree.

Disa yanked against her bonds as he leapt over her. His sword was gone, but he held Rorik's axe over his head in one white-knuckled hand. With his free hand, he took hold of the swinging horn.

The creature screamed when the prince touched it. It lifted off its hind quarters to rear, and then Prince Eric struck. He swung the axe down upon the back of the creature's stocky neck.

. The axe sank deeper and severed an artery. The creature dropped like a pile of stones. Rorik's axe was heavy enough to carry the blade through to its spine, but it did not decapitate the monster completely

Disa had never seen so much blood in her life. _Warm_ , she thought as it trickled down her chin, _it's still warm_.

The prince wrenched the axe free to swing it again. The monster's muscles were so thick that he had to strike it again and again to sever the head entirely from the body. By the time he had finished, the spray of blood had transformed him. His skin was apple red and the whites of his eyes—sunk beneath his slick eyebrows—shone like polished pearls in his drenched face.

The creature's head was even heavier than the axe, and it was with great effort that he dragged it away from the convulsing body. Wheezing, Prince Eric collapsed upon the forest floor.

Between them, the headless body twitched and shuddered as the last of its life poured from the fleshy stump.

Disa closed her eyes. She couldn't stand the sight of the creature's dead eyes and lolling tongue or the bloody axe resting against the prince's knee. Her nostrils filled with the stench of wet fur and salty blood. Her lips tasted like iron and sea water.

Prince Eric did not untie her, nor did he offer her anything to wipe away the sticky redness from her cheeks. He didn't even bother washing the mess from his own face. He collected his breath, heaved himself to his feet, and found all his belongings: the axe he had stolen from Rorik, the sword he had never unsheathed, and the gnarled alicorn still attached to the decapitated head. He was panting as he lifted his burden, but he spared not a breath for her. Not a word, not even a look.

He turned back to the east, back towards his camp and his men, and Disa was almost happy that he had forgotten about her. She didn't even mind that he hadn't bothered to untie her rope. In the end, she did not want him or that bloody axe near her. She didn't want his pitying goodbyes.

Disa watched as the creature's body stiffened. She watched as the sun rose high above the treeline and the flies arrived in droves to feast upon the carcass and the dried blood on her cheeks.

Eventually, she would need to free herself, but not now. She sat instead and considered all the things the prince had taken from her. And here she was, powerless to seek revenge.

He had ripped away her chance for a happy future with sweet lies and sweeter smiles. And while he left to make his dreams a reality, she was forced to stay and grieve the shattered pieces of her own, humbler hopes.

### Chapter Ten

The daze wore off slowly. The sun was up and her arms were numb when she finally sawed herself free. The bark left scrapes across her knuckles, and her wrists were rubbed raw. Her tender, tender hands... They were already burnt, and now they were stripped raw by the oak's toothy skin.

Her shoulders popped as she wrenched herself to her feet, but she was too cold to feel the ache. Crows squawked down at her as she stumbled past the headless corpse of the alicorn beast. She went west, and as she departed the black birds descended to feast.

Afternoon? Early evening? She couldn't feel her nose. Her hair was soaked. Her slippers filled with snow as she trudged through the valley.

She was out of tears, out of self-pity. She was ruined, and where a more honorable maid might have given herself over to the elements, she kept walking. She was running away, away from the clearing, away from the blood. Where the pure beast was slaughtered and the pure maiden ruined.

She followed the lake shore, weaving in between the willowy cattails bent beneath the snow. She made for the beaver dam at the far edge of the valley, and from there she continued west. She followed the small creek that trickled out of the lake and into the forest below.

Her head swayed side-to-side. Her feet ached. From the cold? From the sores? She couldn't tell and didn't care. Night would come, and there was more to fear in these woods than the chill.

Draugr and unicorns and princes to name a few.

She could only think to make it to safety in time.

The sky was changing—reds and oranges and yellows streaking through the brilliant blue—when a wisp of smoke drew her blurry gaze.

She blinked, pursed her chapped lips, and turned her frozen toes in the direction of the smoke.

Would they know her in her blood-soaked dress?

She thrust her fingers within the folds of her jacket. They were so cold, like blocks of ice sliding across her chest.

The sun was vanishing when she arrived at the village's small clearing. Twilight illuminated the thatched roofs and wooden cottages. They were a settlement of fishermen and lumberman, not famers, not anyone she knew.

She hid in the bushes where they could not see her as they went about their evening chores. Were these the villagers they had seen before? Would they be keeping watch for her?

They might grab her if she approached. They might take her to her father, and he would see firsthand the state she had been left in. He would abandon her, or he would challenge Prince Eric and die in her stead. Hakon would throw back his shoulders and roar, " _I told you so_." He would rejoice at having not married her, for what a foolish wife she would have been!

Night descended and a nipping frost came in its wake. The men retreated to the simple long house at the center of the village. The women ushered the children into the squat cottages. The pigs and goats were herded to their lopsided stable and feed was scattered for the geese.

The village was soon quiet. Light peeked out from between the wooden beams, and men laughed together, but no one was around to watch when Disa emerged at last from the bushes.

Her muscles ached and it was a miracle she could stand at all. Only her fear of being spotted propelled her forward still. She sprinted for the stable and muscled her way in between the pigs and goats already settling in for the evening.

They grunted and bleated at the disturbance but were as tired as she. They didn't mind when she took over the corner.

The straw was scratchy and musty, but the animals were warm and soothing. The stable was almost hot, even muggy. Her soaked dress steamed, and she peeled off her sopping slippers to dig her toes into the straw. They were red, almost purple. Frostbite? She couldn't say.

She buried herself in the straw and tried not to think of her purple toes and fingers and nose. She tried to ignore her stinging wrists and the burning of her frozen skin as it soaked in the heat.

A lady sleeping in hay. She endured the shame only because the shame of returning to her father would be still more painful.

" _What are you besides pretty, Lady Saldis?"_

The humiliation was a physical pain in her chest, a fist curled around her heart. She hiccuped on a sob but the tears wouldn't come. There were no more left. She closed her eyes against the misery of it all; sleep was the only protection she had left.

Her eyes could have hardly been closed minutes when a hand clapped over her mouth and jerked her back to consciousness.

She bent backwards to escape the presence looming above her. A pony, several ponies, and a man hunched over her. The moonlight streaming in through the open stable door limned his shaggy beard in silver.

"Shh there, jarl's daughter."

Disa recognized the deep voice and opened her mouth to scream. Rorik's massive hand clapped over her face, muffling the cry in her throat.

Rorik. Massive Rorik who carried a massive axe and fought giants. If the half-giant had found her, how far off was Prince Eric?

She wheeled backwards and kicked up a cloud of straw, but Rorik kept his hold. He reached out with his other hand and pinned her to the stable floor by her shoulder.

The goats and pigs woke. They grumbled and squealed at the horses.

"I thought I'd find you here."

She could not speak. His hand was clamped so firmly over her mouth she couldn't even move her lips. Her eyes widened, and her legs thrashed. She felt like a fish on a hook.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

She wanted to bite him, but his thumb held her jaw firmly. Could she outrun him if she got herself free, or were the others waiting just outside? She could see three horses pawing through the straw. One of them was hers. The other was Sigtrygg's. Why had they left her behind if they were only going to capture here again?

"Eric isn't with me."

Her gaze snapped back to Rorik. His back to the moon, Disa could only see his eyes as they shimmered in the dark. His scars and his crooked nose were cloaked in shadow.

"I'm going to let go now. You can scream if you want. It's not going to help any."

He released her.

She did not scream. Her throat was parched, her lips cracked. Her mouth would not open.

"Did you need water?"

He had a waterskin. It was only half full, but it was huge, Rorik-sized.

She peeled back her lips to lick them, but it was like licking sand. This had to be a trap, but she still reached out to take the immense leather sack.

She put the spout in her mouth, squeezed the leather, and nearly choked as the glacial water raced down the back of her throat. So cold, so satisfying, like beating a dusty tapestry.

"You've been tied up. Are they deep?" Rorik motioned to the lacerations encircling her wrists.

Disa spared them a glance. They burned and stung and ached, and she didn't like him looking at them.

"Wh—why are you he—here?"

"Isn't it obvious? Looking for you. And you got a lot farther than I thought, I should tell ya. You walk all this way?"

"Where's... where's..."

"Eric?" The big man shrugged, a full-bodied gesture. "The mountains, I imagine, but he wouldn't have gone far without those." He nodded back over his shoulder at the horses.

Disa's horse was tiny beside Rorik's oversized garron, just as she was insignificant beneath his looming figure.

"You took... his horse?"

"All them horses. That's what he gets for stealing my axe."

"Your axe..." The axe cleaving head from body. Blood everywhere. Alicorn clutched in the prince's red-soaked hand.

"Aye, my axe. Took me near a month to get the grip broken in, too."

"And you took his horse."

"It's not much good, really. I'll turn it to jerky before winter comes on, I imagine."

He took back his water skin and shifted from his knees to his rear. Even sitting, he towered over her.

"Why—why are you here?"

"Came looking for you, didn't I already say? And I'd rather ask you than that bleach-brained lout."

The stable that had seemed cozy before now seemed too small. Their knees nearly touched, and when he shifted she could see the beads of sweat shining on his forehead. Darkness hid his hideous visage.

"You're... not going to take me back?"

"Back where? Eric or your father?"

She opened and closed her mouth before she could respond, "Either."

"Waste of time to take you someplace you don't want to go, if you ask me."

"You're not going to..." She pursed her lips and swallowed. She remembered the shore-side women her mother had warned her about.

"Going to what?" He waited for a response, and she felt his gaze boring into her face. He found his answer in her expression. "Ah."

She had thought him a simpleton before, but now she couldn't be sure. With his stare boring into her, she concluded that he had less frightening when she had thought him stupid.

"You think I might be intending to hurt ya?"

She hung her head and bit her bottom lip.

"I have no interest in hurting you, jarl's daughter. I have a mama, she raised me good and proper."

"Then leave me alone."

"Ah, so you want me to go then? Fine. I'll leave you for the villagers. But what do you think they'll do with you? Adopt you? Feed you? Food's scarce enough without another woman to feed." A menacing edge crept into his gravelly voice.

Disa buried her head in her hands.

"Did he find the einhjorn?"

She could still smell its breath, hot and stinking of cud.

"Did Eric kill it?"

He leaned forward, his hugeness casting Disa in shadow.

"Yes."

"And he took its horn?"

"He... he sawed it off."

Rorik spat into the hay. "I'll throw dog shit on his pyre, I will."

Relief rushed through Disa, perverse but warming. "Do you... do you intend to kill him?"

Rorik grumbled more insults before answering, "Can't be helped. Our paths will cross before long, and Eric won't be tricking me again. That I swear."

He pushed himself to his feet, but he had to stoop so as not to bang his head against the rafters.

"Where are you going?"

"Inside. I need a drink."

Disa scrambled up behind him. "Don't go!"

He turned back around, his head twisting at an uncomfortable angle. "What? You _want_ my help now?"

"Where... where am I supposed to go?"

He ground his teeth as he considered her.

"Where do you want to go?"

"With you."

He looked back at the horses. They still needed to be brushed and stabled. "I pity you, jarl's daughter, so fine, come along. I'll make sure you get fed and sheltered, and in the morning we can see that you're sent—"

"No! I can't go home!" She cried, and now tears were falling upon her cheeks.

"Don't do that," Rorik snapped. "I hate that."

She bit her bottom lip but the tears kept coming. "I can't go home. I'm ruined."

"Ruined? Says who? You?"

"My father will think the prince has taken... has taken..."

"And what of it? You think most so-called maids are really virgins? Go home, tell your dad the truth, and be done with it. You're pretty enough. Jarl Sigurd will find you another husband."

But she couldn't return home to her father's disappointment or her mother's insults or her brother's lustful embraces. Home would be her prison. Her father would never forgive her, and her mother would never let her forget it.

"You... you're working against the prince now?"

"Eh?" One of Rorik's hairy eyebrows cocked. "I work for myself, and it just so happens that my goals clash with the prince's."

"Is that a yes?"

"The short of it, I suppose."

"So what if I come with—"

"Not a chance, girly."

"I can help. I'll prepare the horses and set up camp—"

"Have you experience doing either of those things?"

She wiped the tears furiously from her cheeks. "I can collect firewood and make fires."

"Can you now?" he replied, clearly doubting her.

"I can," she said firmly.

"Now wait a bit, jarl's daughter. Why would you want to be coming with me in the first place?"

"I can't go home."

"So you follow the strange man into the forest, instead? What if I were lying to you, girly? What if I was secretly working for the prince, eh?"

"Ar—are you?"

"What's the point in asking? I'd lie if I was."

Disa chewed her lip in silence. She felt foolish, naive.

"Maybe you need to be a bit less trusting in general," Rorik said. "It's not good for you."

"I want to hurt him."

The half-giant paused, and for once he had nothing to say in reply.

"The prince hurt me. I—I want to do the same to him."

Rorik grabbed the rafter overhead and rocked himself back-and-forth as he thought. "The love-stricken princess wants revenge?"

"I'm not a love-stricken princess."

"Look at yourself, huddled in a goat shed in your ruined gown. Could you even lift a broadsword if you tried?"

"Well... no."

"You're just a girl playing at adventure. Go home."

"So my father can fight the prince instead? I don't want someone else fighting for me. Someone else is always fighting for me."

"That's all well and good, but you don't need me to get your vengeance. Track him down yourself. If you want, I could find you a knife. Can you lift a knife?"

Patronizing, condescending, but his words unnerved her. If the prince stood before her now, could she be so strong? Could she really harm him?

"I'm not... not ready."

"Of course you're not ready. Look at you."

"But you could help me, and I could—"

"Help you? You think swordplay is so simple you can learn it in a matter of days? Do you have any idea what I'm going up against? Draugr? Jotun? Drakes? It's not just Eric trying to stop me."

She stomped down another twinge of doubt. "I'll cook all your meals."

Rorik hesitated, and his dark eyes found her in the moon-lit corner. "Cook, you say?"

She stifled her sigh of relief. "Yes. Yes, I can cook. I can cook whatever you'd like."

"And why would a jarl's daughter know how to cook?"

"I know how to cook," Disa insisted. "I'm a good cook."

"Fish?"

"Stew, smoked, broiled, fried."

He considered her once more. She could see her value rising in his narrowed eyes.

"You really want to come with me, despite the danger?"

"Despite the danger." She cradled her mutilated wrists and teetered on her weary calves.

Rorik noticed. "Come on then, we'll get you fed and dry." He ducked down beneath the rafters and moved towards the exit.

She didn't move to follow him. "But can I come with you?"

"I haven't decided."

"But you won't send me home?"

"It's not my right to tell you where to go."

"Then you can't tell me not to come with you, either."

He stepped out beneath the starry night with a snort. The scars shone white down the side of his face and his thick beard stuck out at all angles. He was a truly grotesques man. Terrifying, really.

"Aye, I suppose that's true," he admitted as he led the rest of the horses into the old stable. She recognized the other garrons: Olav's and Frode's and Trogil's.

Disa dug her wet slippers from the straw, forced her blistering feet inside, and trudged out into the freezing night.

She faced Rorik for the first time. He had always been enormous, but with him towering over her, his size seemed almost unnatural.

Half-jotun. Was it really possible?

His sharp gaze landed once again upon her swollen wrists. "We'll see to your injuries and go from there. Sound good?"

She tried to sound determined, but her voice cracked on the declaration, "I'm coming."

### About The Einhjorn

The Relics of Asgard is a series of episodic shorts that take place in Viking Norway. Students of Viking history might recognize several characters: Prince Eric, Jarl Sigurd, and old King Harald. Even the title of this book, _The Einhjorn_ , is based on a real artifact from the past: the _einhjorning_ or the alicorn. While I've obviously shortened its Norwegian name for simplicity's sake, alicorns did in fact exist in Viking Norway. Contrary to the events in this short story, alicorns were not taken from the poor, decapitated heads of unicorns, but rather, the _einhjorning_ of yore was likely the sawed off end of a narwhal tusk. Vikings harvested these alicorns and traded them in the south to those who believed in the healing powers of the unicorn. While I have attempted to keep the culture in this series similar to the vibrant and rich viking culture of the past, The Relics of Asgard will remain a fictional retelling of history, a modern tribute to the fascinating sagas of the past.

### Also by Arreana

The Tale of Khensa Sparrowfingers

Farro

Sulfur

The Darkest Days

Umbra

The Relics of Asgard

The Einhjorn

Evergreen

Coming summer 2013

### Acknowledgements

Oddly enough, this short story began as a genealogy project with my grandfather. Being Norwegian ourselves, it was the investigation of my family tree that led to my interest in Viking history and culture. Without my grandfather propelling me forward, I might never have developed my understanding of this truly remarkable culture.

Thanks must also go to my husband, who pushes me to keep writing and patiently corrects all the hilarious, dyslexia-related mistakes that find their way into my novels.

Finally, to a new friend and cover artist, I say thank you to KC Cleek for being so patient and flexible in creating the cover for this short story.

www.arreanabooks.com

The Facebook page: "Arreana"

The Twitter profile: "FarroandSulfur"

### A Sneak Peek: Umbra

Volume One of the Darkest Days

The calendar does not lie. It has served me, my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, without fail. The stone carvings on its face prepare us for every ill approaching. Drought, famine, disease.

Today it warns of death.

I do not believe the calendar so I realign the circular rings. The Moon spins. The Sun spins. Once again they meet above the hideous face carved into the calendar's center.

Neither annular nor partial, the coming eclipse shall cast a complete shadow, and I have not the heart to warn the others. In the marsh they rake the evaporation pits. In the village they stoke the smokehouse fires. Further down the coast they cut great chunks of crystalline salt from the pock-faced rocks.

I do not tell them what the calendar says. I cannot stand to put the fear in their otherwise peaceful minds. I cannot tell them that today one amongst them shall die.

My hand grips the outermost ring of my calendar—the Sun. I spin and spin and spin, but She always comes to rest above the Moon. Above the scaled face.

The total eclipse is coming. To the east the Sun rises over the opaque sea, and to the south the Moon, a pale gray shadow against light blue skies, rushes after Her.

The calendar never lies. Today someone will die.

I cross my legs and set the calendar upon my thighs. It's heavy and cold and the designs on its surface are as familiar to me as the lines on my palm. The celestial engravings point towards the empty sea as we watch the undulating waters together. Milky whiteness, salt pillars, and the gentle ripples of perch finning.

Nothing lives in the Sythian Sea but fish and monsters. Nothing grows on the sea's banks but rubber weeds, their chewy red cases swollen with salt water. The breeze from this morning has departed with its cool, fresh air, and now nothing remains but stillness and dread.

The Moon catches the Sun. She swallows the light, and the revolving sky slows to a stop.

The Sun vanishes behind the Moon. My chest itches and the hairs the back of my neck stand on end. Static energy without a storm, darkness without night. The shadow follows, engulfing the coast and skating out across the still water.

Minutes pass, but my heart has slowed and time pauses. The Sun and the Moon lock together, and I watch their intimate dance.

The eclipse is beautiful when it has no right to be. The craterous Moon is an imperfect fit for the Sun's perfection. Beads of sunlight peek around the Moon's rough edges, but the Sun vanishes. Left in its place is a black void framed by drops of light.

My family, my friends, my neighbors. They will be watching. They will realize what it means. Has the void claimed someone already? Could it take me?

My hand slides from the calendar's dials to the harpoon at my side. I curl my fingers around its wooden shaft and force myself to take a few measured breaths. The moment will pass. The Sun and Moon will break apart. Then I will gather my people. We will bury the dead. Together, we will curse the cruelty of the Moon and the apathy of the Sun.

I wait for the eclipse to end, but it lasts minutes, many, many minutes.

I am still watching, waiting, when the first sound draws my attention away from the drab skies: a ripple, a splash, a gurgle.

Harpoon in hand, I spring to my feet. The calendar, _my_ calendar, lands upside down on the salty shore.

Rising from the water, gray skin drooping, fanged mouths slack, are the creatures we fear above all others. They come in pairs, gills flapping, webbed-fingers flexing, and lidless eyes staring at me.

They advance on spindly legs. They unsheathe knives and swords of black glass.

Only a few at first, but then more surface from the lapping tide until hundreds crowd the shallows. They stagger from the water and gulp down their first breath of air.

I don't wait for the end of the eclipse. I am not a fighter, and my salt magic will not stop the horde. I wish I could claim bravery, but what I do next is not an act of bravery. I run for the animal pens. I run for the protection of villagers bigger, stronger, and more courageous than myself.

Behind me, they clamber over the rocks and teeter on wet fins. An army of them march on us, on our little village perched on the top of the bank. Our little huts made of elk hide and mammoth bones will not stop them. Our men are too few and our weapons too weak.

By the time I've reached the village, the cry is echoing down the street. My friends and my neighbors and my family are racing for safety.

The eclipse ends, but it's taken far more than it was ever due.
