Her words repeated in my head, and it took me far too long to realize Una had stopped next to a dusty chest and was watching me expectantly.
“Thank you,” I muttered, recognizing the look she was giving me and wanting no part ofit.
“Is there anything else you need?” She leaned against the wall and twisted a lock of her hair around one finger.
I silently cursed my much younger self, because his behaviors were what had invited this flirtation. “No. Thank you.”
She pushed away from the wall, then gave me a slow smile. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
I’d chosen Freya, and she’d remain my choice until the end of days, even if I suffered for it. “I won’t change my mind.”
Kneeling before the chest, I opened it and stared at the clothing and weapons. All mine, yet they seemed foreign and strange, as though they’d belonged to a different version of myself. I pulled off my tunic and tossed it aside. Digging in the chest, I extracted a similar garment and held it up, swiftly determining that it would not fit. Years of good eating and nothing to do but fight had put more bulk on me than I’d realized. These looked like the clothes of a boy.
They’d fit Leif.
The thought was a punch to the gut, my younger brother the one person I’d refused to allow myself to think about. Leif’s grinning face filled my mind, his smile falling away as he learned what I’d done. That I was not his brother but his enemy.
Time and again, I’d told myself that my actions would benefit Leifin the long run, but it had all been hollow platitudes. Necessary, so that I could live day after day in the deception that I was loyal to Snorri. Loyal to Skaland.
Before I’d met Freya, the only thing that hadn’t been deception were my feelings about my brother.
Lowering the garment to the chest, I allowed myself to remember when Snorri had first brought me back to Halsar. I hardly knew the town given I’d been raised in my mother’s remote cabin, and most of the faces were strange to me. As was mine to them.
Leif had been so very young. Skinny as a rail where he stood at Ylva’s side, and though his mother’s blue eyes had been frost on the coldest of winter mornings, Leif had been smiling. He’d come down the dock with no hesitation and said, “You are Bjorn?”
At my nod, he’d taken my wrist and lifted it as high as he could, shouting, “My brother has returned!”
His acceptance had changed everything, and every one of those strangers had cheered. From there after, he’d been my shadow, wanting me to teach him everything I knew. Wanting me to take him everywhere I went. Not once did he begrudge the nature of my birth or the fact I’d taken his place as heir, only loved me as his elder brother.
And the gods strike me down, but I’d loved him back.
Yet I couldn’t help but curse myself for allowing it, because the moment he learned of my betrayal, Leif would know that he’d been the one who’d made it possible because he’d been the one who’d opened the gates of Halsar and let the enemyin.
“You aren’t weeping over your old clothes, are you?”
I twisted on my knees to find Troels setting a bucket of steaming water on the floor. The passing years had not changed his ferret-like face, though his lank brown hair had grown longer. He looked me up and down and said, “You always were such a mother’s boy, Firehand. Weeping over pretty sunsets and sad songs. Never understood why the girls always chased after you.”
“Because the alternative was your ugly face.”
“It’s not so bad in the dark.”
“Troels, your face is the sort that sears itself into memory. Not even the darkness can spare you.” I wrinkled my nose. “And it certainly does nothing about your stink.”
Troels grinned, his hazel eyes bright. “Gods, but it’s good to have you back!”
Then he tackled me to the floor. All the wind rushed from my lungs and my ribs groaned beneath his embrace, no amount of flailing on my part enough to break his hold. Troels was a child of Magni and possessed of such strength that he could fling me about like a rag doll if he was of a mind to do so. More than once, I’d seen him rip enemy warriors clean in half. “You’re going to kill me, you ugly fuck. Let go!”
He laughed and sat back on his heels, pounding me on the back with such vigor that I was going to have bruises.
“All the girls are placing bets on which of them you’ll take for a tumble first,” my friend said. “But I told them they’d have to be content with me, because that shield maiden needs only to crook a finger and you’ll come running.”
“So that she can stab me in the gut,” I grumbled, still struggling to catch my breath.
Troels shrugged. “To have that face be the last thing you see before you go to Valhalla would not be a terrible thing. And if you’re dead, I might have a chance.”
I gave him a flat glare but he only laughed. “You’re right. She and all the rest would probably prefer your pretty corpse to me. I take it back, I didn’t miss you at all.”
There was something off in his tone that caught my attention. As though my friend’s ever-present humor hid a very different emotion. “Troubles?”
