Read Online Silk Dreams - Songs of the North 3 by Mia Marlowe - Free Book Online

somehow to convince the world that I'm able to foretell events. Does Damian think me an adept at
seid
craft?”
    “No, I doubt he knows of the trolldom practiced by some Nordic women,” Erik said.
    “If he did, he'd not ask me to feign it. Magic is powerful and not to be attempted lightly. Does he not realize the danger of dabbling in
seid?
Without a teacher to guide me, I could be lost between worlds. Sometimes, when the spell comes upon me, I half believe that is what happens.”
    “He doesn't want you to actually practice the craft.” Erik made the sign against evil. “Just allow the superstitious to believe that you do. Damian will provide you with the secret knowledge you are to impart. Convince others that your revelation comes from a higher power. And in truth it does, for it comes from your master.”
    Valdis snorted. “Damian may call himself that if he wishes. He may control where I go and what I do, but my soul knows no master.”
    Erik looked away from her in an effort to hide his smile. A graceful willow, Valdis might bend in a gale, but she would not break. She was truly a remarkable woman.
    “If you complete the task the Greek sets for you, what you say will be true.” For a moment, he imagined her head on his pillow, hair tousled, her full lips parted in the relaxation of sleep. What would it be like to wake beside this light-gilded creature? He tore his gaze away and leaned down to pat his mount's thick neck. “Once his plan is accomplished, Damian Aristarchus has promised to free you.”
    Her breath hissed in sharply. “You mean it?”
    Erik nodded. “He gave me his word. Now I'll have no more trouble with your lessons, will I?”
    “Of course not,” she answered in crisp Greek with the barest hint of an accent. Her lips curved upward in a feline smile.
    As he suspected, she'd been shamming. In no time at all, she'd know all he could teach her and he'd be able to rejoin his century at the head of his hundred pledge-men. The thought gave him much less pleasure than he expected.
    “The problem isn't the language.” Her smile inverted into a frown. “The problem is
seid.
I don't think I can do it.”
    “No one expects you to truly have the gift, Valdis.”
    “You don't understand.” She bit her lower lip. “I already tried my hand at spelling in the Northlands. I think that's why the Raven haunts me, why the powers show their anger by tossing me to the ground and robbing me of reason. A
seid-
woman should use her craft to weave spells of protection, to divine propitious events, to help her people.” Her gaze darted away. “I used the little I knew for my own purposes.”
    Erik didn't know what to say. Magic was the province of women. Men who sought power in such ways were deemed effeminate, so he kept himself in willful ignorance of those matters. He rode on in silence.
    “I spelled the man I was to marry,” Valdis finally said.
    When she turned her unique gaze on him, he felt himself tumbling into her mismatched eyes. Erik could well believe she'd witched a man.
    “It was a small thing, really. He was the
jarl's
son. I was just the daughter of a
karl
and not a very prosperous one at that. When Ragnvald visited our farmstead, he tore his cloak on a nail in the cattle byre and I mended it for him. I used several strands of my own hair in the threads to make him notice me.”
    “If this Ragnvald was a true man, he couldn't help but notice a woman like you,
seid
-spelling or no.”
    She smiled at his fair speech. “At any rate, it seemed to work. Even though his father wanted Ragnvald to settle on the daughter of the
jarl
of Kaupang, Ragnvald's heart wanted me.” Her smile faltered. “Until he saw the price demanded for my witchery. When the fit came upon me before our wedding, he suddenly recalled his duty to Birka and declared he must wed the pasty-faced girl from Kaupang.”
    “He was a fool,” Erik said.
    Her shoulders drooped. “But you see why I can't pretend to have the