Wrinkling my nose, I shake my head. “No way,” I breathe. “I can’t name a sweet little girl that.”
I expect Aaric to grow angry with me, seeing as these are his traditions. Instead, he laughs softly and holds another piece of bread against my lips. “We will have to have our own traditions, maybe?”
I chew my food slowly and quietly, thinking about his words. Why would he all of a sudden be okay with anything? Yesterday, he was angry with my age, pissed off that the gods had somehow deceived him and ignored me.
Today, especially right now, he’s like a different man. I don’t trust it, don’t trust him. My stomach clenches and I hear the wind howling outside of the room. The small curtain that acts as our privacy from the outside world moves around.
“Aaric?” I whisper.
His eyes darken, they turn almost black and his head whips to the side, looking toward the window. The wind continues to grow in strength, the howling coming faster and louder with each passing moment.
“You don’t believe me and you’re using your powers to yield the weather, Liv,” he growls.
“I’m not,” I say, shaking my head.
Aaric snorts, shaking his head once, his black as coal eyes finding mine. “It is worse if you cannot control it, Liv. I knew you could control the sea, the waves and now the wind? You’re dangerous,” he hisses.
Without a word, he stands to his feet. I reach for him, but he’s too fast. He throws the door open and bellows out some words that I don’t understand. The wind starts to grow, there are people shouting outside, frantic voices that sound ripe with fear.
Four men appear in the room and before I can even blink, they are on me. They grab at me, my sheeting falling sometime during the struggle. They carry me out of the room completely naked. I cry out, trying to find Aaric’s eyes, but I can’t see him.
Pain rips through my entire body. I cannot hold back the blood-curdling scream that escapes my throat. I make a complete spectacle of myself. Tears stream down my temples as these men, his soldiers, carry me somewhere, my body on display for any person who looks in our direction.
Chapter Sixteen
AARIC
“What have you done?” the seeress hisses as she stands across from me.
Lifting my gaze to meet hers, I refuse to give her anything but an impassive expression. She narrows her gaze on me, then takes a step back, her lips parting as something akin to terror fills her gaze.
“Seeress,” I bark out.
She shakes her head, taking a step back, then another. “You are indeed Aaric the Ópyrmir,” she says with a gulp.
Ruthless. She’s called me Aaric the Ruthless.
Though, I should be proud of the title, and normally I am, that is not what is happening here. She is seeing something and if she does not tell me what she is seeing soon, I will lock her up next to my wife until she does.
“Speak,” I growl.
She presses her lips together, her gaze finding mine and then she nods her head with a jerk. “Konungr,” she grinds out. “Why have you shunned your bride?”
Frowning, I debate on telling her the truth or making up some story to appease her. In the end, I know that I must speak the truth. There is no honor in lying. There is no honor in what I’ve done to my wife either. However, that is something that I will never admit.
“I do not trust her and she certainly does not trust me. She holds magic, powerful magic. She used it again today. Did you enjoy the windstorm?” I ask, a smirk twitching on my lips.
The seeress inhales a sharp breath before letting it out. “She does not realize, Aaric. You know this, you must.”
Standing from my throne, I take the three steps descending until I’m directly in front of her. Dipping my chin, I look down my nose at her.
“I do not know anything for certain, Seeress. All I know is that there is a prophecy, she is possibly part of it, and she yields magic.”
“You are the sea king,” the seeress announces. “She can control the sea, the winds that guide the seas’ waves. That is something of the gods doing and you know this, you must.”
“What have you seen?” I demand.
The seeress presses her lips together, her eyes shifting to the side before they come back to meet my own. “She is in pain and grave danger, Aaric,” she murmurs. “You abandon her and that could have serious consequences with the prophecy.”
“Like?” I ask.
The seeress shakes her head. “That I do not know, my Konungr.”
“What do you see?” I demand.
Her breath hitches and she shifts her gaze to the side again. She brings it back to meet mine and she lets out a sigh. “I see many things. I cannot tell if they are premonitions of the truth, of what will happen or if they are what will happen if you do not change your ways.”
“You had best start making sense, Seeress.”
“What do you not understand?” Runa shouts.
I hadn’t seen her walk into the room, nor did she make her presence known until this moment. The seeress spins around, her back facing me to watch the völva approach us.
“You will either not change what you’ve done, you will not fix it and these premonitions could come true. Or you will change them and hopefully they will not come to light. Either way, you must know that what you’ve done could have detrimental effects on the prophecy. Why have you not given care to this?”
Gunnar grunts behind the throne. Lifting my hand, I motion for him to join us. I hear him make his way toward us, our conversation halted until he is directly beside me.
“You would like to speak?” I ask him.
My gaze still focused on the seeress and nowhere else. The beautiful creature has seen things and she is hiding them from me. Something that I do not appreciate in the slightest. I want to know what she has seen. I demand to know it and I will.
“She holds magic, Aaric, but I do not believe she realizes that she does or how to control it. She is not from this world, you know this.”
I grunt, crossing my arms over my chest as I continue to look at the seeress. “What would you all have me do? You saw how the wind blew with her distrust of me. How can I have a wife that does not trust in me and me in her? What will happen to our children if I anger her? If they anger her?”
“You married her, Aaric. I know you are konungr and she is dróttning, but the man Aaric married the woman Liv. You have spilled your seed inside of her, she could be with child. These are your actions. However, these are not the actions of a man who has no desire for a woman.”
Gunnar’s brow arches as he watches me, waiting for me to defend my decisions, to somehow come up with some mystical reasoning to my actions. I have none, nothing other than I followed the fate that the gods dealt me, and I am regretting it.
“You have panicked. It is okay to admit,” Gunnar’s voice rumbles when I don’t speak immediately.
“I am konungr, I do not panic,” I yell.
“She will die, Aaric,” the seeress informs.
My head whips to the side, my eyes finding hers and the sadness swimming in her gaze is felt throughout my entire being.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “Tell me everything,” I demand.