Brunhild should be angry that he’d doubted her honor or the promise she’d made the day before.But she couldn’t blame him for his doubt.She felt it roiling in her gut, and if she hadn’t been hemmed in by all the spectators, she would have fled.
When she reached the front of the hall, someone thrust her forward.She stumbled, and would have landed flat on her face if her intended hadn’t caught her.
“Steady,” he murmured.“Don’t let them affect you.”
She jerked her arm away, aggravated that he’d sensed her unease and upset that her mask of indifference had slipped.“I care not what they think,” she hissed.
His smirk told her he saw through the lie.
When he took her arm again, and began to knot the red cloth around their wrists, she nearly staggered backward again.The sigils carved into his chest, that had been nothing but the raised skin of scars yesterday, were glowing.His eyes were glowing an eerily bright, unnatural blue.Like dark water suddenly illuminated by the slant of sunlight.
As he finished the last knot, he knelt in front of her.
“I, Toran Balthazar Lir, King of the Each Uisge of the North Sea and Lord of the Far Realms, pledge to protect and honor my mate.To give her my shield and cloak, my unwavering loyalty and the wild heart of my beast.You must accept these things from me to bind my oath.”
His jaw was so tense she questioned whether this was all for the ceremony.If sealing his oath would irrevocably seal her to him and make her an eternal captive.If she would in fact become a hostage.
“We will make our own bargains once we are safe in my kingdom,” he murmured under his breath, so only she could hear.
He would be her only ally in her new home, and Brunhild had no choice but to trust him.
“I vow to accept your protection.I vow to find shelter in the strength of your shield and the warmth of your cloak.I vow to tame your beast.”
As if he sensed her hesitation, the brehon who’d traveled with Toran to oversee the wedding narrowed his gaze.“You understand, Brunhild Ranulfsdottir, that this union requires you to forsake what you have known and bind yourself to the fate of the Each Uisge?”
“I do.”
The man reached into the folds of his cloak, extracted a blade and set it in her bridegroom’s open palm.It was wickedly curved, the iron hilt and the ruby in the pommel darkened with age.
The king’s expression was suddenly both solemn and wary.“You must trust me.I’ll do what I can to make this as quick and painless as possible.”
He flipped over her wrist over and caressed the lavender veins with his thumb.
Brunhild jerked in his hold, but his grip was too firm and she couldn’t wrench away.Her entire body tensed as she poised for flight.“Surely this isn’t necessary.”
“Look at me," he commanded."Don’t watch the knife.”
Standing this close to him, the closest she’d been, she could sense the storm that brewed behind his eyes.They'd darkened to a piercing, unforgiving midnight blue and she was afraid he'd see the rebellion churning inside her and the urge to run for her ship and leave her father to deal with the broken oath.
Even as she contemplated running away, Brunhild knew this inscrutable, battle-hardened man wouldn’t allow her to sneak away into the night, or disavow him.His death was the only way she would escape this union.
“You have paid my mundr with your promise of tithes, but you will never have my loyalty,” Brunhild seethed.“No matter the ties that bind us, I will not take you to my bed.I will not bear you sons."
His hand tightened on hers beneath the wind of cloth that bound them together.“So you claimed when first we met.But harken to my words, Shield Maiden.I will have your loyalty.I have nearly impoverished my kingdom to earn it.”
Brunhild tightened her grip in return.“And earn it you must., because as I've told you, my father’s oaths are not mine.”
“Then say your oaths here and now, as I shall say mine.And let us be bound in an agreement of our own making.One that serves both our purposes.”
In Brunhild’s experience, silver-tongued men like this barbarian king always managed to turn a woman’s words against her.“You do not know my purpose.Unless you can guess it, lout, I shall make no bargains with you.I care not if your kingdom suffers for my break of troth.I know it not and it isn't my home."
His gaze hardened.“I know your purpose all too well, berserker witch.You are the harbinger our seers have long spoken of .The one who will either bring harmony or tear my kingdom apart.”
“I hold no troth with the meandering prophecies of skalds and their kind,” she said as she tossed her head in disgust.
“The selkie who delivered the prophecy has never been wrong.Not in a millennia.Her warning was incomprehensible except for the reference to a queen of fire.When the bards speak of your escapades they call you Fireheart.”
“The selkie could be referencing any number of women - or merely speaking in riddles.”