The Summer Siege

“Tamsin,” Rhun says, “Tamsin, you have to breathe.”

My lungs are on fire. I want to step out of my body. I want to sink into the floor. Become wood. Is that not what Thrain’s legends say? That the Vanirdøtur all turned into trees? At least we’d be more difficult to break, then.

- - -

They’ve arrived. Ten thousand Norsemen, encircling the fort where Tamsin grew up.

Up there, behind those high walls, hundreds of Vanirdøtur huddle together to keep safe from the enemy.

So the Viking occupation begins. Norse voices rise in the forests of Dumbartonshire as Gofraid’s army settles in for the long haul.

Tamsin and her Dubliners must scheme to break apart the siege camp. It seems impossible; she is just one Vanirdottir amidst this roiling mass of warriors. And her Dubliners are few. But there is nothing quite like the stuffy intimacy of a siege camp to grow close to the men around you.

She learns much more about the men who are fated to her. She learns why Ivar wears runes upon his skin… and how his deep knowledge of Freya’s teachings could benefit them all, if he could only set aside the pain of his past and his own obstinate attitude.

Because in the end, when faced with such staggering obstacles, the only thing they can truly rely on is each other.