Free Desire's Hostage: Viking Lore, Book 3 by Emma Prince

struck her even before the dreaded site came into view. He was taking her to the carved runes—and the remnants of all those incinerated bodies.
    “Nay!” She struggled harder against his hold, but his grip didn’t falter.
    Her leather-clad feet sank into the soft sand of the river’s bank where it widened. The sand was gray here. Seven years of rain, snow, and wind hadn’t removed the ash. In fact, they seemed only to drive the ashes deeper, like a stain on the earth.
    At last Alaric halted in front of the stone with the two runes carved into it.
    “You did this.”
    “I…I carved them, aye.” There was no point in lying. She’d always been told her face betrayed every thought and flicker of emotion.
    “How did you learn these symbols?” Alaric’s eyes, like his voice, were hard and flat.
    “There was…a boy. He was with them.” She gestured vaguely at the field of bones, unable to look.
    The stench assailed her again. Although she knew it wasn’t real, only a product of her imagination, it still made her insides twist.
    Alaric didn’t seem to notice, though, for he frowned down at her. “What boy?”
    Perhaps if she told him all, he would release her and she could flee this terrible place. “His name is Feitr. He came with the others. Now he is my father’s slave.”
    The sickening pops and crackles of burning flesh rang in her ears. If she didn’t get away soon, she would be sick.
    “How long ago was this? And who were these other Northlanders? Did they have a distinctive color or pattern to their sails? How many of them were there?”
    She swayed in his hold. “Please…” She wasn’t above begging now. Blood darkened the sand in her mind’s eye. Screams tore through the air—the screams of her people as they fell under the Northmen’s blades.
    Elisead looked up to find a blurry Alaric gazing down at her, his brows drawn together. The sun glinted off his golden head, so sharp it was almost painful to her eyes.
    “What is the matter?”
    The harsh edge to his voice was now replaced with genuine concern, but she didn’t trust herself to open her mouth to respond, lest she become sick right there and then.
    She pointed to the tree line behind him. Without hesitation, he guided her swiftly away from the carved stone and into the protection of the trees.
    Elisead inhaled deeply of the fresh, piney air, trying to rid herself of the burnt smell lingering in her nostrils. Inadvertently, she caught his scent. ’Twas surprisingly clean—lye soap mixed with wood smoke and plant life.
    “I do not wish to bring you harm or distress you,” Alaric said at last, his voice low. “But I must have answers. What ails you?”
    Taking another steadying breath, she met his searching gaze. “I become…overly sensitive at times.”
    ’Twas embarrassing to discuss it with him. Her father and those in the village knew she was odd, but to explain it to this outsider made her feel ashamed. “I…feel things intensely. Sometimes I faint if I become overwhelmed.”
    His dark gold brows winged as his eyes widened slightly. “Were you cursed? Or hexed by a witching woman perhaps?”
    Elisead repressed a sigh. That was what some in the village thought—that she was to be pitied at best and feared at worst because sights and sounds overwhelmed her at times, and an unexpected touch or a powerful scent could send her swooning. Even memories could be so strong as to cause her panic and tears.
    “Nay, I have always been this way.”
    In truth, it had gotten slightly better when she’d learned how to carve. Even though the world’s intensity still left her stunned at times, carving was always an escape, a relief.
    Alaric’s eyes searched her for another moment. Then his gaze softened. “You are touched by the gods, then.”
    “What?”
    He shrugged but considered his words, likely picking them carefully in the Northumbrian tongue. “Our gods deign to grant a select few a sliver of their powers. You’ve been