Page 62 of To Tame a Viking Warlord

Samira drew the pendant from the boist and held it in her palm. Torstein laid his hand over hers.

The stone woke. The light filled the small room, soft and blue-green. Samira closed her eyes and saw the gray stone on Thorfinn's shelf, and the mound at Orkahaugr, and the long road north and all manner of hidden things and visions. She opened them again.

There was no blood. She was not cold. She felt only the warmth of her husband's hand.

Torstein let out a breath that sounded as if he had been holding it since Loch Awe.

"The prophecy said the keeper would be given wholly to whoever stands guard over her," Murdina said. "It meant you, Torstein Hagansson."

***

IT WAS DECIDED THE pendant would stay at Saddell Abbey. Murdina would hide it where only she and Sister Eithne knew, and the keeper would go home with her husband.

"It is the same arrangement the king has made for another relic," Murdina said. "The stone in one place, the one who can wake it in another. The Brotherhood can never take both at once." She looked at Samira. "When the time comes, I will send for you. For both of you."

"And we will come," Samira replied. "Together."

As they rose to leave, Samira paused at the door.

"On the road I met a woman," she said. "Naomi. She carried a quarterstaff and traveled alone. When I sat by her fire, the pendant grew warm. I told her someone was searching for her."

Murdina went very still. For a moment Samira saw something pass behind her eyes that she could not read.

"You told her true," Murdina said at last. "More than one is searching for that lass. She will need friends before this is done." Then she smiled, a small, private smile. "It seems you have already become one."

***

THORFINN'S MEN MET them at Thurso with the jarl's own ship.

They crossed the Pentland Firth on a clear cold morning with the wind behind them. Samira stood at the bow with Torstein's arm around her and watched the cliffs of Hoy rise out of the sea, and then the wide gray water of Scapa Flow, and then, high on the cliff above it, the smoke rising from the roof of Hrafnaklett.

"Home," Torstein said.

Samira leaned back against his chest.

"Home," she agreed.

***

1049 - Raven's Roost - Gaitnip, Orkney Isles

TORSTEIN HAGANSSON was content.

It was a feeling he was still getting used to, this quiet settledness that had taken up residence where the restlessness once lived. He sat at the head of the long table in Raven's Roost mead hall, his back to the wall and his eye on the door out of old habit, though the vigilance had softened. The long fire pit burned against the frosty night, and the benches ran full down both walls. Njal, Mathias and Leif were around him, and the raid they celebrated had been a good one.

But the thing that made the night different from a hundred nights before it sat beside him, tucked close against his side.

Samira.

His wife. His arm was around her, and it had not left her since they entered. Her dark hair was loose the way he liked it, and she wore the fur he had draped over her shoulders when the wind off Scapa Flow had cut through the door. She turned a cup of warm spiced milk between her hands and watched the hall.

"Ye keep her pinned to yer side like a stolen treasure," Leif observed, dropping onto the bench hard enough to rattle the trenchers. "The lass can barely breathe, Tor. This is a mead hall, not a longship in a storm."

"She sits where she pleases," Torstein said.

"And it pleases me here," Samira replied, and there was a dry edge to it that made Njal rumble with laughter.

"Aye, she's got yer measure already," Njal said, pleased. He lifted his cup toward her. "Drink, lady. Ye're among friends."