A Curse Carved in Bone

Before Steinnun’s song, Freya learns the stories of the Unfated who serve Harald, each one “delivered from the misuse of others by Nordeland’s king” (171). As a result, they’re all extremely loyal to him. Freya contemplates the coming confrontation with Snorri. Though Bjorn refuses to “call her to arms,” she still hopes to face Snorri and defeat him using Hel’s power.

Thanks to Steinnun’s tactical portrayal of Freya saving Nordeland’s children from the Islunders, the audience doesn’t fear Freya as people in Skaland did. Instead, they see her as a hero and protector. Just after the song ends, the attack on Hrafnheim begins.

Bjorn sees Hrafnheim’s protective barrier fail, letting the flaming arrows through. They land on rooftops and set buildings on fire. Bjorn, Skade, and Tora use their magic to take out the enemy archers while Harald paints new runes to stop the spread of fire and others fetch water to extinguish it. Then Bjorn and Tora search for Freya and learn she and everyone else in the great hall left for fear it would burn down. A boat is missing from the harbor. Harald concludes that the flaming arrows weren’t an attack, but a diversion, and that Snorri has taken Freya back.

When the attack—or diversion—begins, Freya is in the great hall. A man with a crutch suggests they move to the east, away from the attack. Freya says the harbor will be better, and the man agrees. When he stumbles, Freya helps him walk. The man offers her drugged water and then abducts her when she loses consciousness.

Bjorn, Harald, Skoll, and Hati take a drakkar, a boat rowed by Harald’s Nameless thralls, to the river in an attempt to rescue Freya. They find the stolen boat on the riverbank with Freya’s sword and seax in the mud next to it. Runes painted on Skoll and Hati’s fur allow them to understand Harald, and he instructs them to follow Freya’s scent. The wolves lead the group into the forest.

Freya regains consciousness and sees the specter, who repeats the original shield maiden prophecy and then explodes into ash. Freya finds herself surrounded by the man with the fake limp and three strangers. She uses Hlin’s magic to fight them, but they overpower her. Just before she resorts to cursing them with Hel’s power, Bjorn’s fire axe kills the man restraining her. Bjorn and the wolves then kill the other three men. The Fenrir tattoos on Freya’s abductor look familiar to her, but she can’t remember where she’s seen them. She decides they’ll sail at dawn to bring the fight to Snorri.

Kaja returns from Skaland with the message that Snorri’s fleet is gathering to attack. Bjorn remains on the sidelines while Freya and Harald make battle plans, including summoning Harald’s jarls to the coast. Freya hopes to intercept Snorri’s army at sea and kill Snorri immediately, or at least do battle away from the mainland. Upon arriving at the Northern Strait, Freya learns that Ylva stayed in Skaland.

Saga joins them unexpectedly, saying she must sail with Freya to see things through. She wishes Harald to sail separately, but Tora, Bjorn, and Guthrum will accompany Freya and Saga. At sea, they realize Snorri’s fleet is enormous, even larger than Nordeland’s. Kaja helps locate Snorri, but when Freya calls Hel’s curse on him, she finds it has no effect. Then she realizes it’s an unfated man disguised as Snorri, a diversion that allows the real Snorri to get close to Freya and order her to stand down.

Freya, under the blood oath’s control, obeys. She tackles Tora and slams into Bjorn to thwart their attacks on Snorri and his fleet. Saga screams at Bjorn to take control of Freya. He refuses until Freya—at Snorri’s command—tries to kill Tora, at which point Bjorn orders Freya to stop. When she begs him not to hurt Snorri, however, Bjorn orders her to send all Nordeland’s attackers to Hel.

Compelled to obey, Freya curses every Skalander warrior before her to Hel’s realm. Black roots rise from the sea and pull them into the depths. Snorri leaps onto Freya’s drakkar and yells: “What have you done, Freya? What have you become?” (213). She protects him from the black roots with Hlin’s shield until it’s over. As her ship runs aground on a small island, Freya sees hundreds of bodies floating on the sea, and she weeps.

Bjorn is horrified by what he’s done, but he blames Snorri and attacks him. Snorri seems shocked at Bjorn’s betrayal of Skaland and his loyalty to Harald. He insists he never tried to kill Saga, that he found her dead in her burned cabin and that Harald has lied to Bjorn. Freya intervenes and stops Bjorn from killing Snorri, so Tora restrains her. Saga appears and insists that Snorri did try to kill her, but Snorri maintains his innocence. Saga tells her son to challenge Snorri so she can finally have justice.

Saga creates a runic square in which Bjorn and Snorri are to fight. Snorri refuses to fight his son, so it’s easy for Bjorn to strike him in the chest with his axe. Freya gets loose from Tora and runs inside the runes, compelled to protect Snorri. Saga begins laughing cruelly. Her voice changes, and it becomes Harald’s laugh, then she takes on Harald’s physical form. Snorri identifies Harald as a shape-shifting child of Loki.

With Freya and Bjorn trapped inside the runic barrier, Harald admits that the real Saga is dead; he’s been impersonating her all this time. Harald didn’t kill her, but he did threaten and harm her in the guise of Snorri so that she’d turn against Snorri and Skaland. Freya realizes it was Harald’s thrall that abducted her and that Snorri brought his fleet to rescue her, not to attack Nordeland.

Harald orders Tora—who is bound by magic to his will—to kill Freya and Bjorn, but Freya uses Hlin’s shield to deflect Tora’s lightning in Harald’s direction. Not wanting to risk his own death, Harald decides instead to leave them there, trapped inside the runes, to die slowly. In the meantime, he says, he’ll sail for Skaland to become its king.