I blinked at him. “Well, I’m glad your crush has turned you into such a poet.”

Skop arched his eyebrows at me. “Well, let’s hope yours turns you into an athlete,” he teased quietly. I gaped at him, indignant, but he shook his head. “Oh, Selah, I’m not in any deeper than you are.”

I flushed. “You—!” I lunged, meaning only to smack Skop on the arm, but the horse sensed my sudden movement. And before I knew it, we were off and running.

I’d always spent a lot of time alone, or with people who let me be. But Anya and the Asgard boys were happier and more whole together than apart. Where I craved stillness in written words or in the dirt or in church, they longed to be side by side, racing and chasing and crowding each other, only able to breathe if their lungs were burning. Over every hill was a sight they couldn’t wait one more moment to see, and Konge Alfödr had raised impeccable riders.

I couldn’t help but wonder, as we rode, how it would have been to grow up raised by a pack of wild animal boys instead of nuns and libraries. Would I be less fragile and anxious if I’d spent my earliest days being teased by brothers, more confident if I’d been conscripted into wrestling matches, taught to fight and race?

I watched Torden lean into his gallop, so handsome it hurt to look at him.

With a breath in, and a breath out, I resolved at least to find out if I could still be that person. Hardly knowing what I was doing, I gave myself up to the North.

My gibe at the prins notwithstanding, I had to fight to keep up with them. But as the clear air and their happy shouts flooded my system, I found I didn’t mind the physical struggle.

I imitated my new friends, howling at one another over the wind like so many feral animals, ignoring the growing ache in my limbs and the wind that stung my face. I’d never been less self-conscious in my life, and it was intoxicating. We were a racing pride of lions, a stampede of horses, a herd of beasts running wild, invulnerable and free and thrilled with the mad beating of our own hearts.

We tore across the cliffs over the Lysefjord until the light began to grow golden, and Aleksei suddenly stopped and dismounted. He barely paused to tie up his horse before sprinting between two rocky hills to the edge of a blue lake. The others took off after him.