Leifthasir's Saga

She didn't choose him. Her father did. Anya, princess of Alfheim and wielder of the Vanir-blessed sword, has spent centuries as the god Freyr's trusted servant; fearless, fiercely independent, and deeply unwilling to be anyone's instrument. When her father, Skírnir, arranges her marriage to her childhood friend Rathuell without her knowledge, Anya's fury is matched only by her grief: he is the one man she cannot bring herself to hate. Rathuell, a seidr-smith who has loved Anya since they were children climbing ash trees together, knows he made a mistake letting her father act first. He can forge magic into iron, but he cannot forge her trust. All he can offer is a note slid under her door: I will never accept anything from you that isn't freely given. Neither of them is given time to untangle their feelings. A Jötunn blood-debt demands they travel to the haunted shores of Jötunheim, where Gymir, lord of the giants and father to Freyr's own wife, claims the god killed his son Beli and left an unpaid wergild. As their ship draws near the black-stone coast, the sea turns wrong. A horn calls from somewhere beneath the water. And on the beach, the dead begin to walk. To settle the blood-debt, survive Gymir's fractured hall, and stop the draugr rising from the tide, Anya and Rathuell must work side-by-side, guarding each other's backs, sharing warmth against the cold, and slowly learning that the hardest thing isn't fighting the dead. It's admitting what they've always felt for the living.