And They All Bow Down: A Viking Arranged Marriage Romance by Nicki Chapelway

Author:Nicki Chapelway [Chapelway, Nicki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dragonflight Press
Published: 2023-12-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

The Unbalanced Scale

My head is finally clear as I release Marcello’s hand, sliding my bloodied hand from his. As I do so, I notice something on my wrist. It’s a dark inky stain on my skin, just like the Valknut was. Only the mark of death is gone. In its place is a scale with one weight pulling down the lefthand side while the other rises high above the center.

Marcello lets out a little gasp, and I turn to him to see that he is staring at his own wrist. I lean forward to get a better look at it and find myself looking at a scale marking on his arm which mirrors my own.

Without thinking, I hold up my arm next to Marcello’s. He stares at the mark on my wrist and then raises his gaze to me so that I can see the shock and concern in his eyes.

“Good,” the Werma says with a sharp clap that echoes through the room, causing us both to jump a bit. “The ritual worked then.”

“Why do you sound so surprised?” I ask, pushing to my feet.

The Werma shrugs. “Magic was never meant to be, it exists only now because the gods do not restrain it. But mark me well, magic is no tool. It is not your ally. It is chaos, pure and simple. It has no form, no role, no being. It cannot be controlled.”

I know that well enough from how forceful and intrusive my own visions are. They are a foreign assault to my senses, something I never should have seen.

But the Werma? She has made magic her life’s work as the mystic woman of the mountains. She left her family for this magic. But then perhaps she is different than most. She is a being as tempestuous and changeable as the magic she understands.

The Werma grips my wrist, her fingers digging into the shallow cuts that she made on my arm. I grit my teeth but refuse to allow the pain to show. I know that the Werma wants a reaction, so I refuse to give it to her. “You will need a salve for these cuts. Come, I presume you remember what I taught you about the herbs.”

I glance at Marcello who reaches up to his shoulder with a grimace, obviously remembering his last encounter with the heart shaped leaf. It seems as if half an age passed between now and then. It’s hard to process that was this same evening, back when Marcello was my enemy. My captive.

And now… well, now he is my husband.

I think I liked it better when he was my enemy.

“Good. Come with me now.”

I follow the Werma outside. As soon as I step foot outside, my dragons are upon me. Snuffling my clothes and nudging me with their noses.

“I’m fine,” I assure them with a little laugh as Worm sticks his head between my legs and lifts as if he is trying to get me to climb on his back and take me far from here.

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