My Viking Son’s Two Fathers

Chapter 14

The great hall of Skálholt blazes with firelight and finery.

Jarls and their ladies fill the benches in a glittering display of wealth and allegiance—silk and silver, gold arm-rings and jeweled brooches, enough accumulated treasure to ransom a kingdom.

I attend in a gown Solveig insisted upon—deep gray silk that matches my eyes, finer than anything I have worn in a decade, yet deliberately simple.

No embroidery, no jewels, no attempt to compete with the peacocks preening at every table.

The fabric whispers against my skin like water, foreign after years of wool and leather, and I feel exposed in ways that have nothing to do with modesty.

My sons sit close beside me, all three scrubbed and uncomfortable in clothing that marks their new status. Astrid has orchestrated everything with a general's precision.

I find myself seated at a lower table, surrounded by minor nobles who look down their noses at the shield-maiden playing at court. The queen's ladies occupy a nearby bench, their whispers carrying just far enough to sting.

"Can you imagine? Sitting among us as though she belongs here."

"I heard she was a stable girl before she spread her legs for the princes."

"Three bastards from a single night. One wonders at the logistics."

I keep my expression smooth, though my fingers ache to reach for a blade I am not wearing.

But my attention keeps drifting to the high table, where Ragnar and Leif preside over the celebration like gods surveying their domain.

Ragnar sits in black and silver, his ice-blue gaze sweeping the hall with cold assessment—until it finds me. The weight of his attention sends heat spreading through my chest.

He watches me the way he watches battlefields, calculating distances and weaknesses, and beneath the strategy, something hungrier.

Beside him, Leif catches my eye and raises his cup with a smile that promises trouble.

His green eyes travel down my silk-clad form with unhurried appreciation, lingering at the neckline, the curve of my waist, the fall of fabric across my hips.

I look away, pulse quickening despite myself.

The evening progresses through courses and entertainment, each moment bringing new small humiliations. Astrid makes pointed comments about "women who forget their station" that carry across the hall.

Servants are slow to fill my cup, quick to fill everyone else's. The nobleman beside me angles his body away as though my presence might contaminate his fine clothing.

"Mother," Erik whispers, his copper brows drawn together. "Why are they being like this?"

"And because they think it will break me." I reply quietly.

"Will it?"

"No." I squeeze his hand beneath the table. "I have survived far worse than rude nobles and cold soup."

Then a drunken lord staggers to his feet at a nearby table, his voice carrying across the hall with the particular clarity of the thoroughly inebriated.

"Tell me, shield-maiden—how does one satisfy two kings at once? You must be talented indeed to keep both brothers entertained. Perhaps you could give lessons to the rest of us!"

Silence crashes over the feast like a wave breaking against cliffs.

Every eye turns toward me. The whispers die. Even the servants freeze mid-step, trays suspended, waiting to see what happens next.

I begin to rise, my hand moving instinctively toward a sword that is not there, but Leif is faster.

He crosses the hall with predatory grace, his smile vanished, his green eyes burning with something that makes the drunken lord stumble backward.

When Leif speaks, his voice carries to every corner of the silent hall.

"Lord Thorvald. You seem to have confused courage with stupidity—an easy mistake when one has drowned what little wit he possessed in mead."

He stops before the swaying man, close enough to strike.

"The woman you have just insulted is the mother of my and my brother's sons. Would you care to repeat your jest to my face, or would you prefer to apologize before I decide how many of your fingers you truly need?"

"I meant no offense, my lord, I was merely—"

"You were merely demonstrating why your family holds no lands of consequence and likely never will."

Leif's voice drops to something soft and deadly.

"Guards. Remove Lord Thorvald to the cells. He will answer for this insult at dawn, when he is sober enough to understand what his tongue has cost him."

The guards drag the sputtering lord away, and conversation slowly resumes, though the glances that find me now carry a different quality. Not respect, perhaps—but reassessment.

After the commotion settles and attention shifts to a troupe of musicians, I slip into the corridor for air.

The stone walls breathe cold against my heated skin, and I lean against them, closing my eyes, willing my racing pulse to slow. The sounds of the feast fade to a distant murmur.

I do not get far before footsteps echo behind me.

"Running away, shield-maiden?"

Leif's voice precedes him around the corner, and then he is there—copper hair catching torchlight, green eyes glittering with something dangerous.

He crowds me against the wall, one hand planted beside my head, his body caging mine without quite touching.

The heat of him radiates across the narrow space between us. I feel it like standing before a forge, like the moment before a blade is quenched.

"I am not running." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "I am breathing. There is a difference."

"Is there?" His eyes drop to my mouth, then lower, tracing the neckline of my gown with shameless appreciation. "You look at me like you are afraid. Or like you want me to give you reason to be."

"Perhaps I am simply tired of being watched like prey."

"Prey." He tastes the word, rolling it across his tongue. "Is that what you think you are? I would have said predator. A wolf among sheep, wearing silk instead of fur."

My breath comes shallow. I should push him away. Should remind him of my precarious position, of the eyes that might find us, of the queen who would use any excuse to destroy me.

Instead I stand frozen, my back against cold stone, my blood running hot.

"Your brother's wife would love to find us like this," I manage.

"Let her." His free hand rises, fingers brushing along my jaw with devastating gentleness. "I defended your honor in that hall. Perhaps I should claim a reward."

He holds me there for an endless moment—close enough to kiss, to claim, to ruin. His breath warms my lips. His body presses forward until I feel the heat of him along every inch of mine.

Then he pulls back, a smile playing at his lips, and walks away without another word.

I sag against the wall, flushed and unsteady, my body aching with want I refuse to name.

When I return to my chambers, still trembling from an encounter that was everything and nothing at once, I find Solveig waiting with a face pale as bone.

"What is it?" I demand. "The boys…"

"The boys are safe. Asleep in their beds." She steps aside, gesturing toward my sleeping chamber. "But you should see this."

I push past her into the room.

On my pillow, wings spread wide in mockery of flight, lies a dead raven. Its black feathers gleam wetly in the candlelight. Its eyes have been removed, leaving empty sockets that stare at nothing.

A warning. A curse. A promise of death wrapped in dark wings.

I do not need to ask who left it.