I remembered the fields. I remembered learning to fight. I remembered picking up my first sword.

 

I remembered handling the runes, but they never spoke to me, proof that was not my path.

 

It flowed over me and everything settled into a new pattern. I still had no idea what the future would bring and less than no idea what I was meant to be.

 

But the curse was broken – and that told me I was doing something right. Something the way I was supposed to do it.

 

Or the way Odin wanted me to. Which I knew suddenly might not mean the same thing. It might not mean the same thing at all.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

“Never better,” I whispered. This would work out somehow. I knew that too.

 

I was not sure if it was what I was born for, but I was determined to be no man’s…or god’s, or giant’s…pawn. I was determined to be what I wanted to be.

 

Which might also be what I was destined to be. Given what I was, that seemed entirely too likely.

 

And we rode into the capital of Muspelheim with banners streaming.

 

“I challenge the king!” Helgr called, whirling her black and red steed. “I call on him.”

 

“On what grounds?”

 

“On the grounds that he attempted to take a woman against her will. On the grounds of kidnapping and coercion.”

 

A rumble went through. “Do you have a witness?”

 

“She does!” I called. “I am the one he sought to wed and bed despite my wishes.”

 

People backed away. They looked at me. Obviously not a fire giant. Obviously something else, perhaps something more, and with a figure darker skinned than any there (although not, I noticed, by as much as one might have thought) clinging to me.

 

“You would bear witness to this?”

 

“I would.” I did not dismount. I did not feel safe to dismount. This was sounding almost like a trial.

 

A trial by combat.

 

A challenge.

 

“Do you…” He tailed off.

 

“I am Siglaugr Lokisdottir.”

 

And Kanesha spoke. “And I am Kanesha Clem, and I vouch that he abducted me, although he treated me well.”

 

More murmurs. I wondered if she’d had to add that.

 

Then I knew she did. It added honesty. It made them more likely to believe us than if she had spoken of dungeons.

 

Of course, if he had put her in a dungeon…