Eidunn’s flying hand interrupts me. A slap that could move mountains. My head twists from the force. I release a high-pitched scream. Before I regain my senses, she is out the door.
A storm that came and left in minutes, Eidunn leaves me with a shattered house and a shattered reality. Njord never hurt Eidunn. Njord is dead. My only reward for solving her problem—a cheek hotter than Surtr’s burning sword.
CHAPTER 57
“Enter,” commands Sigurd without a drop of his usual friendliness.
I step into his quarters, keeping my eyes on the floor to avoid provoking him. Eidunn’s attack had shaken me. No rest for my mind since then. Reeking of sweat, I avoided every interaction. They have avoided me too. Sigurd sits in his simple chair and stares at me. Long seconds pass.
“What am I to do with you?” he says finally.
I don’t reply. It seems more like a reflection than a genuine question. My gaze stays firmly planted on the planks beneath my feet. He walks around me as he speaks slowly.
“A man joined Odin yesterday,” he starts. “A man I would have preferred to keep in my own hall.”
His words hang in the air as he lingers behind me. The hairs on my neck rise. My nerves are still raw from being attackedearlier. I can’t believe it wasn’t Njord. Ari will feel betrayed, fooled.
“Why?” he asks.
I breathe sharply, snapped back to the present.
“Odin chooses who he wishes to drink with,” I reply.
“Oh, cut the Volva shit,” says Sigurd, surprising me. He seems a very devoted man. “This has nothing to do with Seidr. Now answer my question.”
“Please, Sigurd, I?—”
He jumps in front of me suddenly, his face so close to mine I can feel his breath.
“You will call me jarl!” he bellows. The sound shakes me, striking my core like an enemy’s war cry. Tears well up in my eyes as I fall to my knees.
“Please, my lord,” I whisper, holding up my hands for mercy.
“Answer my fucking question.”
“Njord is abusing… was abusing thrall girls.”
“Abusing thrall girls?”
“Yes, jarl, he?—”
“So, it’s like Vidar said. You had fantasies of an abusive Njord, and incited my fucking skald to kill him?”
I look up at him in surprise.
“What? No, I?—”
“Lower your eyes, slave!” he shouts in my face. “Enough of your slithering tactics. Your venomed tongue!”
“I swear on my life, my jarl?—”
“Your life? Fifty of your lives aren’t worth one of Njord’s!”
Tears cascade down my cheeks. A heavy weight crushes my chest. My destiny is unknown. Have I really gotten an innocent man killed? Sigurd sits again, face in palm.
“She fucks my skald,” he pants. “Makes him murder my man.”
My cheeks blush, a hot contrast to the tears covering them. I’ve done many things, maybe some wrong, but I haven’t fucked Ari the Skald.
