A Curse Carved in Bone

Chapter 1

Freya

The storm struck without warning, attacking the drakkar and driving us away from the rocky coast with such ferocity that the gods themselves must not have wanted us to cross the strait. As the Nordelanders struggled against the violent waves, any visions I might have had about the glory of raiding across the seas were swiftly dissuaded by the cold. By the wet. But most of all, by the endless vomit.

Not mine, as my sea legs were strong, but the contents of the stomachs of nearly everyone else, including Harald’s hooded thralls, was filling the hull. Better to wade through vomit than to lean over the side and risk being swept away by the angry sea.

“What a disappointment it will be,” I shouted over the thunder and the raging waters, “if all your plots and all your schemes amount to nothing because we are drowned beneath the sea!”

All on board glared at me, though Tora’s glare held little threat given that a stream of vomit spewed from her lips in the middle of it. I laughed and leaned against the hull where I sat beneath a seal hide coated with my magic to keep the spray from soaking through. “Or perhaps not even such a glorious death as to be claimed by Njord, but a death by turning your own innards into outtards. I have heard such grand tales of Nordelander ferocity, but this is pitiful.”

“Is she ever silent?” Harald demanded of Bjorn. The king of Nordeland was not immune to the tossing waves and his temper was fraying as a result. I gave him a beaming smile and was rewarded with a scowl.

Bjorn only bent over the oar he was manning, unaffected by the waves. Which was regrettable. If anyone deserved to taste the sour burn of bile, it was him and his lying tongue.

“You’ll know no peace, Father,” Bjorn finally answered, the muscles of his back straining against his tunic as he put his strength into rowing. “But I’ll remind you that you invited her vitriol upon yourself.”

Harald’s jaw tightened. Yet instead of offering a retort, he only leaned into his own oar, thin arms laboring. Not even Nordeland’s king was absolved from rowing through this nightmare, everyone’s strength required to keep us from floundering. The Northern Strait was notorious for claiming lives, and Njord’s domain cared not for the power of kings.

Nor the children of gods.

A wave rolled over the drakkar and water slapped me in the face with such violence it hurt. Fear rose in my chest, for it was impossible to breathe in the icy deluge. The vessel tipped and slid down the trough between swells, the blackness of the depths seeming to reach for me. I clung to what handholds I could, nails scratching on the wood and my ears ringing with the shrieks of the thralls who lost their grips. To fall meant death, for there was no salvation in the crushing sea.

Yet my fear faded to longing as I stared at the dark water. It whispered words promising relief from the grief that clawed at my heart. From the rage that plagued my soul. From the loneliness that hollowed my insides, for I had lost everything that mattered to me, including my purpose.

The sea reached for me, and my fingers slackened, my broken heart yearning for the respite from the pain. To be drawn down down down into the darkness.

Only for my grip to tighten as Hel whispered in my head, Why concede when you have the power to take back all that should be yours? The power to reclaim all that has been stolen from you?

I don’t have that power.

Her laughter was soft and yet as loud as thunder in my skull. You are the mistress of death, Daughter. All who draw breath fear your power.

I don’t want to be feared.

My mind’s eye filled with a smile that was half curved lips and half naked bone. The sight made my heart gallop, though it was her words that made my hands turn to ice. Fear is the weapon that will win you what you want.

The drakkar righted itself, no longer at risk of being swamped.

I wiped the salt from my eyes, not sure if it was tears or seawater, only that the roar of my pulse had nothing to do with my near brush with death.

Fear is the weapon that will win you what you want.

What did I want?

I did not know, but the torrent of emotion in my guts needed an outlet. My eyes latched on Steinunn vomiting up seawater, and I shouted, “Skald, will you write a song of this crossing? If you do, let it be called The Saga of the Seasick. Or perhaps Quest of the Queasy. No . . . Yarn of the Yackers!”

“Be silent!” Skade screamed at me from her oar, her crimson hair plastered across her face. “Cease your noise, you bleating bitch!”

“And if I refuse?” I laughed wildly as Skade abandoned her oar to the thrall next to her, a glowing golden bow appearing in her hands. The same weapon she’d used to kill my mother. “You’ll shoot me? Cast me over the side?”

She lifted her bow, nocking the virulent green arrow that never missed.

“Do it!” The shriek tore from my throat. Not out of any desire to be shot but because I wanted her to feel the same indecision that plagued my own soul. “I dare you to do it!”

Skade only pulled the bowstring taut, glittering blue eyes filled with many things—indecision was not one of them.

My mouth went dry with the abrupt certainty that I’d gotten myself killed with my bluster. Only for her weapon to disappear as Harald snarled at her to hold her temper or suffer the consequences.

Not caring that my laughter sounded deranged, because it was surely better than sobbing, I howled, “You all sacrificed so much to steal me, so I think I can say what I please, and you all have no choice but to listen! No choice but to suffer my words. You wanted me? Now you f***ing have all of me, so enjoy! Delight in the fruits of your labor!”

Skade dove at me, small fists swinging.

Though I’d tempted this fate, she still surprised me. Her fist struck my cheek and knocked me back. My head hit the mast, stars bursting in my eyes as Skade’s hands reached for my throat.

“You need to be put down,” she screamed in my face. “You are a plague, Hel-child!”

I jerked my knee up and slammed it into her cunt. The other woman rewarded me with a shriek but didn’t let go, fingers implacable around my throat.

Then Bjorn grabbed Skade around the waist. He hauled her off me, but she only turned her ire on him, and all went to chaos.

Thralls recoiled as the pair collided with them. The drakkar groaned and turned sideways, dipping into the swell of a wave. Water crashed over me, heavy and relentless. Everything tipped and I rolled, my eyes filled with wood and waves and blackened sky.

And then hands had me by the wrists, Bjorn’s skin hot against mine as he pinned me to the bottom of the vessel. “Are you trying to get us all killed?”

“Yes!” I screamed as the others struggled with the oars. “That is exactly what I’m trying to do!”

“If you die, you will never have answers!” He pressed down, holding me in place as I thrashed and tried to knee him in the balls. “You’ll never know the truth!”

“Do not speak to me of truth!”

To avoid my knees, he forced himself between my legs, hips in the crook of my pelvis as the ship rocked. Wholly against my will, my mind filled with memories of us in the cave when happiness had felt possible. Memories of his lips on mine, hands on my body, cock buried deep inside of me as he made me his. And my traitorous desires surged in defiance of fear and logic, my lust uncaring of the fact that the man it wanted was my enemy.

Only rage had the strength to drive the want away, and I reached for my anger even as I unleashed all the cruelty born of the pain in my heart. Wrapping my legs around Bjorn’s waist, I ground against him, my voice mocking as I said, “The truth that will regain you this?”

His grip on my wrists tightened as the drakkar rocked violently, and I dug the heel of my shoe into his back, feeling him press against me. “The truth that will get you back your pretty Freya so you can make her your wife?”

Lifting my head, I kissed him, catching his bottom lip hard enough between my teeth that he jerked away. “So that you can become a farmer with her? Have pretty daughters who look just like her? The truth that will ensure you grow old in her arms?”

I hurled the dream he’d given me in that cave back in his face, my rage relishing the flash of pain in his eyes because I wanted him to hurt as much as I did. “There is no truth that will bring me back to you, for you are a liar. A traitor. A f***ing coward who does not deserve to see Valhalla!”

“You think you know everything, Freya,” he said. “But you know nothing.”

I spat in his face. “I know that I’ll hate you until my last breath, Bjorn. And that is something.”

“Hate me all you want.” He let go of my wrists. “But your last breath will not be today, Born-in-Fire.”

I watched him return to the oars, joining the effort to see the drakkar through the storm.