CHAPTER TEN

By Odin, was he marrying a damned shrew? Kicking pots he’d worked long and hard to pay for, about the floor of the house he’d broken his back to see rise from the fire-pits that had been his mother, his sisters’ graves.

Through the ordeal of waiting a man showed his true character. How often had that been flung at him? When his father died. When the lands and every blade of grass, every dried fish scale and scrap of sheep’s wool on them, went to the oldest son. As custom decreed. Sin didn’t dispute it. What he disputed was what had happened next, when Alvidor flung them out, when his uncle was the only one to take pity on them. He had heard these words. Often enough to know he’d sooner cut off his ears than hear the damned things again.

So now . . . he brushed the edge of the half door with his fist . . . now, he’d no damned option but to make his choice. What the hell else was he meant to do? Go in there after her? Over his burned bones.