She knew the pain that came with death, the grief, the loneliness. She couldn’t reconcile how others saw it as a triumph.
It was a loss.
Cruel and unfair.
As if sensing her inner turmoil, Brielle leaned closer, running her wrinkled hand along Elara’s arm.
“What you saw today was a mercy.” Elara’s mouth thinned and her brows pinched. Brielle raised her hand, and Elara swallowed her retort. “Njáll gave Ragnar a glorious death in battle. One that will grant him a seat with Odin or Freyja.”
This time, Elara couldn’t stop herself.
“A mercy. That wasn’t a battle. It was an execution. He killed a man and you call it a gift.”
Elara emptied the last of the wine, her mind a little muddled around the edges as she placed the empty mug on the bench. A shiver rocked her tiny frame.
Without saying anything, Brielle reached down, lifting the furs from the ground and placing them around Elara’s shoulders once more. The gesture was so motherly it made her heart fill with longing.
“It’s a different kind of love. Ragnar was a warrior. He was not one to be satisfied with an afterlife in Helheim. He knew he was on the brink of death. He returned to the clan to be granted a death more worthy of him. If Njáll had banished him again, it would have been cruel.”
For a long time, neither of them spoke. Elara sat there, struggling to make sense of anything.
Maybe she could understand Njáll and his duty and his place among his people, but she doubted she would ever be like that.
Be the kind of person who lived without fear and killed without grief.
Eventually, Brielle stood, guiding Elara up with her and leading her to their private quarters at the back of the longhouse. The massive room was quiet except for the crackling fire. Brielle laid out a mountain of furs for her.
Before leaving her to rest, Brielle said one last thing.
“You don’t have to lose who you are to belong in a place like this. I am still a healer. I temper Leif’s anger. You can be a wildflower, but you must grow some thorns.”
She pressed a soft kiss to Elara’s forehead, bidding her easy sleep.
At night, Elara lay under the furs with only the sound of the fire and Leif’s rhythmic snoring as company. Her hand drifted to the stone around her neck, and she traced the jagged lines of the rune.
If Brielle could find a home in this life, maybe she could as well.
Maybe she could grow a few thorns.
Maybe she could be to Njáll what Brielle was to Leif.
The thought made heat curl between her thighs.
That she was the only one capable of eliciting any type of gentleness from a warrior as ruthless and fearless as he was.
Twenty-One
Elara
Shivering, Elara fluffed the tawny fur hood around her cloak.
Haze fogged in the crisp morning air. Part of her craved to return to the makeshift bed Brielle had made for her, and burrow beneath the furs.
Yet, her restless feet refused to allow her to stay, leading her to the training yard on the outskirts of the village, drawn there by an invisible but annoyingly insistent tether.
Finally, she reached the wooden posts surrounding the dirt pit the warriors practiced in, doing her best to remain unseen. A sharp breath whistled through her teeth when she saw him.
Even through the fog, his mountainous form moved with a warrior’s grace. She tracked the elegant arc of his blade arm as he blocked an attack from the side. Njáll moved like a devastating storm.
