Oath Breaker (Sons of Odin Book 3) (7 page)

Chapter 12

Selia’s tears flowed freely as Ulfrik carried Faolan into the forest. Her son was a berserker—there was no longer any doubt in her mind. The memory of his eyes, as cold and unfeeling as those of a wild animal, cut her to the bone. To watch her boy grow into a man like Alrik, she herself helpless to prevent it, seemed the cruelest punishment Selia could imagine.

But something about Ulfrik’s demeanor had given her a glimmer of hope. Could he help Faolan? Perhaps there was something to be done; some Finngall spell or ritual that might keep Alrik’s dark legacy in check.

That was all she could hope for, now.

Geirr curved his arms around her shoulders in comfort. She held him tightly, glad he hadn’t been hurt worse. Selia pulled back to examine his face. His lip was bleeding, his eye swelling rapidly, but it looked as though no permanent damage had been done. The boys had fought before, but nothing like this. What had triggered Faolan to attack his brother?

“Are you all right, Mother?” Geirr asked, his gaze searching.

Selia nodded. “What happened, Geirr? Why were you fighting?”

Geirr looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t know he would get so angry about it.”

“About what?”

“I told him I hoped Ulfrik was my father.” Geirr expelled a deep sigh. “And . . . I said perhaps the rumors we heard at the gathering were true after all. Perhaps Ulfrik was his father as well.”

“Oh.” Selia sat in stunned silence.

“I did not mean it as an insult to
you
, Mother,” Geirr reassured her quickly.

“I know. It is all right. But I can tell you with certainty that Ulfrik is not Faolan’s father.”

Geirr remained silent, deep in thought. “I still wish he was mine,” he said finally, his young voice sad. “But I’m sorry I made Faolan so angry, Mother. And I’m sorry you got hurt.”

Selia expelled an uneasy breath. She’d vacillated long enough. It was time to tell Ulfrik what Dagrun had shared with her back in Dubhlinn. Ulfrik and Geirr deserved to know the truth.

Faolan returned later that morning, subdued and remorseful, but didn’t divulge what he and Ulfrik had discussed while they’d been gone. He quietly apologized to both Selia and Geirr. Selia hugged him hard, then he and Ulfrik disappeared into the cave together. Afterward, Faolan left to collect firewood without being asked to, as though to make amends for his actions.

Ulfrik and Selia watched him walk away, with Geirr following behind. “Will he be all right?” Selia murmured to Ulfrik.

“Yes. It will not be easy, but I think he can learn to control himself. I will help him, Selia.”

Relief washed over her at Ulfrik’s reassurance that something could be done to help her boy. She crossed her arms to hide her shaking hands. Had no one thought to help Alrik control himself when he was young? Perhaps he would have turned out differently if someone had intervened. Or had he been beyond help?

As usual, Ulfrik seemed to be reading her thoughts. “He’s not as bad as Alrik. There is hope for Faolan.”

Selia looked into his eyes. “I can’t bear to see him like that again.”

“I know. And you won’t. I told him we will work together on it every day. He will learn what to do.”

Selia gave him a small smile. She had a sudden urge to hug Ulfrik, whether in thanks or for her own comfort, but stopped herself from doing so. He studied her with a puzzled expression.

Was now the right time to tell him about Geirr? She glanced behind her to be sure they were alone, hesitating a bit, then turned back to find Ulfrik’s questioning gaze still upon her. Selia shifted nervously. “Ulfrik,” she began, then trailed off at the sound of someone approaching.

It was Ainnileas. “There you are,” he said to Ulfrik. Ainnileas frowned as his eyes shifted from Ulfrik to Selia. “Am I interrupting something?”

“No.” Selia kept her gaze downcast. “I will take my leave so you two can get to your work.”

Selia felt Ulfrik’s eyes upon her as she quickly walked away.

Although her brother had interrupted the conversation Selia had wanted to have with Ulfrik, nevertheless she felt a bit better after Ulfrik’s words of encouragement, and at her decision to tell him about Geirr.

Selia stayed in the cave with Eithne as Ingrid snored on her pallet. Selia frowned in Ingrid’s direction but didn’t have the heart to wake her. She had a strong suspicion her stepdaughter carried Ainnileas’ babe in her belly, although Ingrid wasn’t forthcoming about it when she’d questioned her directly.

With child or not, Ingrid was still the laziest person she knew.

Selia stood at the loom, lost in thought, as Eithne sat near with her spinning. Niall’s house had boasted only one loom, so they couldn’t work side by side as she and Hrefna always had. There had always been a comforting rhythm the two women would fall into, moving back and forth at the same pace. Selia missed it very much.

Eithne disturbed her reverie. “Are you going to tell me what’s been bothering you, my girl?”

Selia turned to her, studying the woman at length. Could she tell Eithne the truth? Would she understand, or only judge her for her sins?

“I have done a bad thing, Eithne,” she said with a deep sigh. “And it is coming back to haunt me.”

Eithne tsked, frowning. “What bad thing have you done?”

“Dagrun is certain Geirr is Ulfrik’s son. Not Alrik’s. And I have kept this from him. I’ve kept it from him because I thought it would be cruel to tell him and then take Geirr away again. Or to force Geirr to choose.”

“Well.” Eithne regarded her. “That doesn’t seem too bad, considering. Perhaps it’s better for them not to know. It is only one woman’s suspicion, after all.”

“I feel as though I should tell them. But if I do, then I will have to stay. With Ulfrik.”

Eithne’s troubled expression was one Selia knew only too well. “Is that wise, Selia? You know how he cares for you. Ulfrik seems a good man, and he deserves to be with a woman who is free to return his feelings. I don’t think it is fair to trap him with the knowledge of a son, when all the while he can’t have what he wants from you.”

“Trap him?” Selia stared, incredulous. “You think I mean to
trap
him?”

“I have eyes, girl. I know you care for him as well. But you’re married, no matter how you might wish you were not. To keep Ulfrik with you by telling him of his sister’s suspicions about Geirr will only bring heartache to you both. Or worse, damn your soul for eternity.”

To hear it spoken so bluntly was like a punch to the gut. Selia stepped away from the loom. “The Finngalls have a law where a husband and wife can go their separate ways. It is called ‘divorce.’ Then they are free to remarry. I divorced Alrik, Eithne.”

The woman set her spinning aside, rising with some difficulty to approach Selia. Eithne took her shoulders firmly and peered into her eyes. “You are not a Finngall, Selia. You are a good Christian woman. Do not do this. A moment of happiness is not worth an eternity of punishment.”

Selia sought solitude for the rest of the day, considering Eithne’s words. Hadn’t she known, truthfully, that the woman would counsel her against a relationship with Ulfrik? Eithne’s opinion couldn’t have been clearer. To be with a man other than Alrik would be to sin against God. Selia knew she could never speak of her burgeoning feelings to Eithne again.

She needed Bahati. The woman was wise beyond her years, and could be trusted to keep a secret. After supper that evening, Selia decided to seek her out.

“I’m going to visit Bahati,” she said to no one in particular, fastening her cloak around her shoulders. “I won’t be gone long.”

Ulfrik’s blue eyes met hers. “I’ll walk with you,” he said, rising to his feet. “I wanted to speak with Oengul.”

Selia nodded, a heady rush of anticipation washing over her, but stilled as Eithne shot her a pointed look. Selia’s cheeks burned.

“Can I come too?” Eydis asked. She jumped at any chance to see her friend Catrin.

Selia smiled at the girl, glad to see Eithne relax as well. “Of course, Eydis. Don your cloak.”

Chapter 13

Ulfrik studied Selia furtively as they walked, waiting for her to tell him what was bothering her. He was relieved to get out of the cave and away from Eithne’s accusing stare. The woman had been giving him hostile looks all through the evening meal. Selia had refused to meet his gaze at all, as though she feared Eithne would notice. Something had happened between Selia and her former nursemaid. He would find out what it was.

The three of them walked through the forest, Eydis skipping ahead, singing to herself. Ulfrik hung back a bit, and Selia slowed to keep pace with him. When Eydis was far enough away not to hear them, he turned to her.

“I can see you are troubled, Selia. You were about to say something earlier, when Ainnileas interrupted.”

She kept her gaze to the ground as their feet crunched over the fallen leaves. “No. I was only worried about Faolan. I wanted to thank you for helping him.”

He was sure now she was hiding something. Ulfrik laid a hand on her arm until she looked up at him. “Eithne is upset with you,” he said. “And she’s been glaring at me all evening. I don’t think this has anything to do with Faolan.”

“Eithne only cautioned me against becoming too close to you. She thinks it would be . . . a mistake.”

“A mistake,” Ulfrik echoed. “And what do you think?”

Selia didn’t answer, and Ulfrik took both her small, cold hands in his. He felt her shiver. He leaned closer, searching her face for the truth. “What do you think, Selia?” he repeated.

Her eyes were huge, dark as a thundercloud, as they only seemed to become when she struggled with a strong emotion. “I think my life has been one mistake after another. And my greatest mistake was not leaving with you seven years ago,” she whispered.

Her words sang through his veins, making his pulse race and his breath quicken. So dangerously close to the words he’d been waiting so long to hear—an admission of love. It took every ounce of restraint he possessed not to crush her into his embrace and claim her mouth with his own.

He must not frighten her away again.

“Selia.” He fought for control. “Your words give me hope that you might come to care for me as I do you. I would give anything to go back and change what happened with Muirin, and with your mother. I’d only wished to keep you safe, but somehow succeeded in making you hate me.”

“I never hated you. I always cared for you very much.”

She’d cared for him. Not quite a vow of love, but near enough for Ulfrik’s heart to swell three sizes. “And do you still care for me?” he questioned gently.

She bit her lip. “What I feel frightens me.
You
frighten me.”

“I frighten you?”

“You say you love me, Ulfrik. But the girl you loved no longer exists. I’m afraid you love someone I can never be again, and the truth of who I am now will only disappoint you.”

“Nothing about you disappoints me—”

“You’re not listening,” she interrupted. “There are many things I’ve done that I regret. Things that might very well make you hate me. And I’m terrified to tell you, because the thought of you hating me cuts me to the bone.”

She indeed looked terrified as her hands trembled in his. It was clear she truly feared she’d done something unforgivable.

“Tell me, Selia.”

“Once said, it cannot be unsaid.”

“Tell me,” he insisted. “There is nothing you could say that would make me hate you.”

Selia pulled her hands from his grasp. “I spoke with Dagrun in Dubhlinn. She . . . was convinced you are Geirr’s father.”

Ulfrik drew his brows together, too surprised to try to keep his expression masked.
This
was what she’d feared to tell him? “How would Dagrun know this?”

“She said she remembers your mother very well. And that Geirr has her mannerisms, and her smile.”

Ulfrik blew his breath out. So the boy might be his after all. Truthfully, he’d suspected as much—the child seemed nothing like Alrik. He was loud, impulsive and reckless to be sure, but at his core the boy was a compassionate soul, very much as he remembered his mother to be. There was an air of gentleness in Geirr that Ulfrik didn’t sense in Faolan.

“Hurry,” Eydis’ voice urged from ahead on the path. “It will be dark soon.”

Ulfrik’s gaze darted to the child, barely visible in the twilight. He quickened his pace and Selia half-ran beside him.

“Why didn’t you want to tell me?” he asked. “I always knew there was a chance I’d fathered the boy.”

Selia didn’t answer immediately. “Because once I told you, I knew I could never take Geirr away. You may be his father but I love him as my own. I will not be separated from him.”

“I see.” Ulfrik couldn’t contain his smile. “So you’ve decided to stay with me, then?”

It was Selia’s turn to grab his arm. “Stop. There is more to tell. You need to know the truth, all of it.” She craned her neck to meet his gaze. “When I returned to Alrik, I knew I didn’t want my own child to become Hersir. So I struck a bargain with Muirin. If the babe came before Alrik left on his fall trip, I would talk him into freeing her, but only if she agreed to give over her child to me and if she left the farmstead after he was weaned.”

Ulfrik blinked, stunned speechless. Selia forged on. “Muirin was willing to give up the babe for her freedom—she planned to find you if she could. In her own way she loved you, Ulfrik.”

Ulfrik stared down at her. Her face was deathly pale, pinched with regret; the scar along her cheekbone purple against her white skin.

“Why did you tell me this?” he rasped. “No one would ever have known.”

“
I
knew. It has plagued me since the day she died. And you deserve to know the truth.”

Ulfrik left Selia and Eydis at the cliff tower with Bahati and Catrin, deciding to return later to escort them home. He’d changed his mind about speaking with Oengul tonight. He needed time alone to think, to sort out the sobering information Selia had shared with him on their walk through the forest.

Wandering to the cliff path, Ulfrik climbed down to the beach. It was a treacherous path even in daylight, made riskier by the encroaching darkness. He descended carefully, finally resting on a rock near the water, and stared out at the shoreline.

The sound of the waves soothed his soul in a way little else did. It always reminded him of his mother, that sound—he’d sat with her often, staring out across a vast sea toward the land from which she’d been stolen at the tender age of thirteen. She’d told him stories of her family, of the father and brothers who had been murdered by Ragnarr. And other stories of her own mother, dead of a coughing sickness only a year before the raid had changed young Treasa’s life forever.

Treasa, his beautiful mother with golden hair and sad violet eyes, would hold him to her breast and tell him how much she loved him. She would sing lovely Irish songs to him, afterward growing quiet and pensive as she stared out to sea.

The lilting melodies had burned into his memory, unbeknownst to him, only to come flooding back the night Selia had launched into song in Alrik’s longhouse. Selia had brought his mother to life for him again that evening, if only for a little while.

Dagrun thought Geirr looked like Treasa. Did he? Other than the boy’s gilded hair, Ulfrik couldn’t see a resemblance to his mother. She’d had a graceful walk, sleek and lissome as though she floated across the ground rather than walked upon it. He remembered that.

Perhaps Dagrun was right, then. Geirr did have a remarkable elegance of movement for a child so young. Even as he crashed through the forest and fought with his brother, he did so gracefully.

Ulfrik lay back on the rock, bunching his cloak up under his head to gaze at the emerging stars. He’d only been four years old when Treasa had died. His memories of her were not as clear as those of Ragnarr, the father who’d terrorized his family with his maniacal behavior. More than once, as though sensing Ragnarr’s impending rage, his mother had whispered to Ulfrik to run and hide in the barn. She’d squared her shoulders, smiled up at the man who had killed her family, and followed him to his bed. And all the while the murderous eyes of Ragnarr’s wife were upon them.

His mother was in her Christian heaven now, with her Irish family. Ragnarr couldn’t hurt her and neither could Evja. They couldn’t touch her. They could never make her cry again.

Was it Ulfrik’s heaven now, too? Oengul had baptized him, so he assumed that meant he wouldn’t be welcomed into Valhalla with his Vikinger brothers upon his death. And Christian or not, Odin would have no use for an Oath Breaker. Perhaps he would see Treasa again one day, then. The thought brought a bit of lightness to his heavy heart.

He’d allowed himself to be baptized for Selia. Not only to be able to marry her legitimately, but also to prove to her how much she meant to him. His words of love hadn’t melted her heart as he’d hoped they would. Indeed, they had only seemed to make her mistrust him, as though she suspected he tried to woo her with empty promises.

To give up his gods, his people, his very way of life, was a huge leap of faith on his part; one he hoped would prove his sincerity to her.

But was she correct, earlier, when she stated he loved a woman who no longer existed? Had Ulfrik held Selia up in his mind to an impossible standard, one that she could never reach? Was that the real reason she shied away from him?

All this time, it seemed Selia had been wracked with guilt over the thought she’d manipulated Muirin. But deep down, Ulfrik knew the thrall’s hand hadn’t been forced. Muirin had been damaged well before she’d come to Alrik’s farmstead, by men who’d used her and thrown her away. The girl had learned the only way to survive was to lie and cheat, deceiving anyone who could help her, trusting no one completely.

Ulfrik had seen how desperate she’d been to hold on to Alrik. When it became clear the Hersir grew bored of her, she had turned her attentions to Ulfrik. Could she be blamed? The protection of a free man was the best a thrall in her position could hope for. And Muirin had been no fool.

But he knew she’d hoped for more; hoped for love, freedom, stability. To build a life with Ulfrik. She had loved him, or so she said; as skilled as Ulfrik was at reading people, he never truly knew what she felt in her heart. The consequence of years of pretending to enjoy the attentions of the rough, drunken men who patronized the brothel had left Muirin’s genuine feelings an enigma, even for him.

Ulfrik had cared for the girl, but hadn’t loved her. He’d been willing to claim her child because it was the only honorable option after a drunken night had led to the regrettable act that left the paternity of her child in question. But she’d been agreeable to bedding the brothers together. Much more than agreeable, actually—it had been her idea.

Her desperate attempt to regain Alrik’s affections by suggesting an act the men of the brothel had enjoyed hadn’t gone as planned. When Alrik had reacted with anger, Ulfrik stepped between them to keep Muirin from being hurt. It was then that Alrik accused the girl of having eyes for Ulfrik, and demanded Muirin pleasure them both if she was so keen to lay with his brother.

Alrik hadn’t seen the expression on Muirin’s face as she’d met Ulfrik’s gaze. She was calm, almost calculated, as she nodded her assent. It was then that Ulfrik knew she’d planned it all along. She had used him as a means to an end.

But he’d used her too, he reminded himself. The girl was beautiful and very willing, a lovely distraction from the sorrow of losing his wife and unborn babe only a few moons before. Muirin had known he hadn’t loved her, even before Selia returned with them from Ireland.

Hadn’t she?

He remembered the look of devastation in Muirin’s eyes when she realized Ulfrik was in love with Selia. Shortly thereafter, the thrall had made a reckless move to get rid of Selia by poisoning her wine. Ulfrik still wasn’t sure if she meant to kill Selia or only to make her bleed out the babe she’d carried.

Ulfrik listened to the soft sound of the waves lapping against the beach. The cool breeze against his cheek felt like his mother’s soft caress. He sat up, making his decision, and went to find Selia.