Filed to story: A Fate Inked In Blood Free
But hands caught hold of my shoulders.
I gasped, twisting my head. Only to find Bjorn behind me. His hair was plastered to his face by water, but otherwise he seemed unhurt.
“We need to get to the bank!” I screamed. “We’ll die if we go over the falls!”
“Deep breath, Born-in-Fire.” His grin was wild. “And trust Hlin to protect you.”
“What?” I shrieked, realizing that he was kicking us to the center of the river. Realizing he intended for us to go over.
And then we dropped.
My stomach rushed to my throat, my eyes going down, down, down to the deadly froth of water and rocks. A scream rose but as it tore from my lips, it was Hlin’s name that came forth.
Magic flooded from my fingertips, first covering Bjorn and then my own body with silver light. A heartbeat later, we struck.
Even with Hlin’s protection, the impact drove the air from my lungs. And there was nothing to fill them as we rose up, then were slammed down into the riverbed again, the water holding us in its perpetual churn. Spinning us around and around until I didn’t know which way was up. My elbows struck rock but instead of the water dragging me upward in its inescapable cycle, Bjorn tightened his grip on me, pulling me along the riverbed.
I needed to breathe.
Desperate, I fought his hold. I needed to reach the surface. Needed a mouthful of air even if it meant the falls dragging me back under a second later.
Bjorn pinned my arms to my ribs, dragging me along the river floor. My eyes dimmed, the pain in my chest demanding air air air.
Then I was surging upward.
Bjorn lifted me above the surface, and I gasped in a precious mouthful as the river tore us downstream and around a bend.
“Get to the bank!” Bjorn shouted. “Swim, Freya!”
Kicking hard, I kept my eyes on the edge of the river, fighting my way through the current. Rocks banged against my legs, bruising and scraping my flesh. I ignored the pain and swam. Finally, coughing and spluttering, I dragged myself onto the bank of the river, every inch of me aching. Only when I was able to breathe again did I round on Bjorn, who was on his hands and knees hacking up half the river. “Have you lost your mind?”
He rolled onto his back, staring at the sky, strands of his dark hair plastered against his face. “Says the woman who tried to throw herself off a cliff.”
My stomach tightened. “I was trying to stop the battle. I was trying to take away their reason to fight.”
“I know what you were trying to do,” he answered. “And it is done.”
Bjorn turned his head to meet my stare. “Everyone saw Tora’s lightning fling us into the water, Freya. Watched us go over a waterfall too high for anyone to survive. They think we’re dead.” A strained grin worked its way onto his face. “But we’re not.”
No, we were not.
Bjorn caught hold of my arms, pulling me on top of him. The heat of his body was welcome after the freezing river, but I forced myself to focus as he said, “Everyone believes we’re dead, Freya, and no one fights to possess the dead. We can leave Skaland without consequence, because Snorri won’t punish Geir or Ingrid for you falling in battle. No one will come hunting for us. We can choose where we go and what we do, and no one, not even the gods, can stop us, because we are the unfated. We make our own destiny. Together.”
Together.
My heart skipped, then sped, because this was a future I’d never allowed myself to imagine.
A life with Bjorn, nothing standing between us and no one controlling us. We could live without others trying to use us to further their own ends. Bjorn smiled, and lifting a hand, he tucked a sodden braid behind my ear. “You will have everything I have the power to give, Freya. I swear it.”
Twin tears dripped down my cheeks, splashing against his chest. “But what about avenging your mother?”
What about avenging mine?
A flicker of pain crossed through his eyes, and Bjorn squeezed them shut. But as he reopened them, he said, “No oath is worth your life. No amount of vengeance is worth your happiness. I’ll let the past burn to ash, Freya, because you are my present. My future. My destiny.” He lifted his other hand to cup my face. “I love you.”
And I loved him.
Loved him in a way that defied reason, words not enough to convey the emotion that burned in my heart. A sob tore from my lips and I buried my face in his neck, inhaling him. Drinking him in because he was mine. And we’d never be parted.
“We need to go.” His fingers tangled in my hair. “They’ll break off fighting to search the riverbanks, and there can be no sign we ever escaped the churn of the falls.”
Wiping at my face, I climbed to my feet. Bjorn kept a grip on my hand as he kicked water onto the mud to hide the marks left by our bodies, then led me downstream, our feet splashing in the shallow water. Only once did I look back, my stomach flipping at the sight of the enormous falls, mist rising from the base. He’d willingly taken that plunge, trusted my magic would save us, believed we were strong enough to survive it.
All to save me.
Of their own accord, my eyes focused beyond the falls to the smoke rising above the clifftops. But no lightning flickered, no thunder boomed.
“Harald came for you, not to take Grindill,” Bjorn said. “He’ll abandon the fight to search for us.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. Don’t forget that I know him well.”