AEgir (BERSERKER WARRIORS #1) - Lee Savino Page 0,3

new brat. A raven made of heavy silver. As a raven flies true, you’ll always find your way home. The brooch would be a reminder.

“My lady?” Nanny asked when I fingered the shape of a bird in flight.

“I’m fine,” I whispered to her. “I’ll not fly away.” Not yet.

She patted my cheek, tears in her eyes.

“Be good, daughter,” my father kissed me clumsily.

“Goodbye, father,” I said and stepped back to let Nanny draw down my veil. My mother had worn a similar veil when she came across the sea to marry my father. The dark head covering was my one concession to ceremony. “I’ll send word when I am married.”

Danny helped me into the boat. Dòmhnall’s men had already commandeered the prow. I sat straight and proud, looking to sea as Danny rowed away.

The way across the channel was not treacherous as long as we did not lose our way and head for the rocky parts of the shore. The mist made monsters out of the great rocks, turning them into shrouded heads rearing from the sea. I waited for another vision to come, but none did. I turned my thoughts to my bridegroom.

Dòmhnall was son of a powerful chieftain. Both he and his father were rough and fond of battle, and land hungry. Why they thought our island was worth negotiating for, I’d never know. Perhaps the tale that Dòmhnall thought I was the loveliest woman he’d ever seen was true. More likely I had insulted him somehow with my reticence to any man’s claim, and he wished to prove his power by ruling over me.

Dòmhnall was a bully, but as bridegrooms went, there were worse. I would be fine. I would survive.

“Curse this bitter weather.” Danny muttered after a time.

“Shut up and row,” the warrior ordered.

“Do as they say,” I murmured, adjusting myself in my seat to keep my gown out of the bilge water at the bottom of the boat.

“You’re a quiet one,” said the younger of Dòmhnall’s men.

I ignored him, looking out over the sea.

“Our lord prefers his women quiet. He has other uses for a woman’s mouth.” Their crude laughter echoed over the water.

They continued with many rude jests until Danny was white-faced and tight-mouthed and ready to burst with counter insults.

I pressed my lips together and motioned with my hand to be sure Danny would restrain himself. He knew I could handle myself.

My mother had often told me the tale of a great warrior, cursed by a witch to become a monster forever roaming the seas. The same tale Nanny had told me earlier. The story ended with the promise: As a raven flies true, you’ll always find your way home.

My lips curled. Nanny said there was a touch of truth to my mother’s tales, but Dòmhnall was no great warrior, though he would boast otherwise. Nor was he a monster, unless monsters were men who ruled because they had the biggest armies and loudest voices, voices as empty and hollow of reason as their baying hounds. Those were the only monsters I knew.

Dòmhnall’s men had fallen silent until the only sound was the creaking oars and the beating of my heart. The mist was a grey wall on the water, blinding us to all but ghostly shapes in the distance.

When the dragon headed prow first loomed from the mist, I thought I was dreaming.

“What the—” one of the warriors let the strip of dried meat he was chewing fall from his mouth.

“What is it?” his companion twisted and stared into the fog.

“I thought I saw—” the first set a hand to his weapon, shifting on the bench. “There! Ahead, do you see it?”

“Curse this fog. Those are only rocks.” And, to Danny, “Row, boy.”

I stared into the billowing cloud low on the water. I could not be sure, but my ears caught the cry of a wolf, far across the water. My arms prickled. In the mists of time, the Sea Wolf stalks his prey.

“I saw something,” the warrior insisted. “T’was more than a rock.”

“You’re supposed to wait ‘til tonight to drink. Wait until I tell his lordship you were in your cups—”

“There! Look.” The first warrior seized his friend and faced him north. At least, I supposed it was north. Thick grey walls surrounded us.

“I see nothing,” the second warrior said, but his brow wrinkled. Even Danny craned his neck and I leaned over the side of the boat. Was that a shadow on the water?

“Tis nothing. A trick of the light…”

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