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Back A Burning Sea
Chapters (54)
  1. CAST OF CHARACTERS
  2. PART ONE
  3. CHAPTER ONE
  4. CHAPTER TWO
  5. CHAPTER THREE
  6. CHAPTER FOUR
  7. CHAPTER FIVE
  8. CHAPTER SIX
  9. CHAPTER SEVEN
  10. CHAPTER EIGHT
  11. CHAPTER NINE
  12. CHAPTER TEN
  13. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  14. CHAPTER TWELVE
  15. PART TWO
  16. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  17. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  19. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  21. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  22. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  30. PART THREE
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. PART FOUR
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  45. CHAPTER FORTY
  46. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  53. HISTORICAL NOTE
  54. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To refuse the order of an oath-lord was tantamount to breaking the very oath he had sworn. And to break that oath. . . For as long as he could remember, he’d had a terror of being an oath-breaker. His boyhood nurse Tolla had put that fear into him. A man’s word was the most precious thing he had, she’d said. To break it sent a tremor to the very roots of Yggdrasil, the Tree of Worlds, where the three Norns sat spinning his fate. A broken oath turned their malice against him.

He snorted. As if those blind bitches weren’t set against him already. . .

He reached the platform, his gait ringing unevenly off the wooden steps like a seiðman’s drum.

‘Draw your blade,’ said Osvald.

With the schick of steel, the hall fell silent. For a second the only sounds were the crackle of the fire and the soft murmurings on the lips of the wretched holy man.

‘Hold him still.’

The guards braced Vassili’s wiry body. He uttered not a word of protest. He was staring down at the planks under him, his scrawny neck exposed under the tufts of white hair, still muttering in a tongue Erlan did not understand. The hearth flame shimmered off his leathery pate. Erlan raised Wrathling, the ancient ring-sword of his ancestors. A weapon of honour. But not this night.

Suddenly Vassili’s head turned and looked up at Erlan – and for a second his hollow features blazed bright as the sun, clothed in a startling beauty. ‘I forgive you, chosen son,’ he said. ‘Remember. The blood of the king of kings. Seek him in the south.’

‘Do it!’ screamed Osvald, the blast of his rotten breath rankling Erlan’s nostrils.

And Wrathling’s cruel edge came sweeping down.

CHAPTER TWO

Illustration

In twenty-two winters, Lilla could not remember one so cold. Cattle froze to death in their stalls, snowdrifts tall as frost giants buried the halls, hanging mead-skins turned into blocks of ice. Even the hearth fire seemed to have lost its heat.

Lilla’s breath steamed around her as she hurried back towards the Great Hall. The snow and ice on the path through the Kingswood nipped at her toes through calfskin shoes.

Maybe it just seemed worse, she thought. Maybe the cold was inside her, maybe it was the chill winds of fate that had left her heart numb.

Everyone was dead. Everyone she loved. Father, mother, brothers, sister, friends. Even the child that had been growing inside her. The last, secret connection to the man she loved.