A Fate Inked in Blood

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-7

Chapters 8-15

Chapters 16-22

Chapters 23-29

Chapters 30-36

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Chapters 1-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary

Content Warning: Both the source text and this guide feature descriptions of violence, marital coercion and abuse, and attempted suicide.

Twenty-year-old Freya lives on a fjord in the village of Selvegr. Freya’s husband, Vragi, is a child of the gods. At conception, he was granted a drop of blood from the sea god Njord. As a result, Vragi has the power to control the fish of the seas and uses his power to deprive other fishermen of a catch. Ten years ago, Vragi was renowned for saving Selvegr from famine after the crops failed, but now, all who know him hate him. Despite Freya’s protests, her parents insisted that she marry Vragi to bring their family wealth. Freya’s father, Erik, died on the night of her wedding. Freya’s remaining family members are her mother, Kelda, and her one brother, Geir, who fights as a warrior for the local jarl, or chieftain. Freya endures her marriage for the sake of her family; Vragi’s money takes care of Freya’s mother, and Vragi’s influence allows her brother a position in the jarl’s war bands. Vragi is abusive and treats Freya like a brood mare, but she secretly uses contraceptives to avoid bearing him any children.

As Freya cleans fish by the water, Vragi comes to bully her. He often wastes the sea’s resources to show off his power, and today, he pulls more fish onto the beach than they can possibly sell. When he finally leaves, Freya works to throw the fish back in the fjord before they die. Suddenly, she sees a stranger coming out of the water. He is incredibly attractive and is not much older than Freya. The two banter, and the man flirts unabashedly. Before leaving, he says that he came with Jarl Snorri, who has business in Selvegr.

Chapter 2 Summary

Freya dreams of fighting as a warrior in the jarl’s war bands, a dream her brother Geir is now living. When Geir was 16, Jarl Snorri invited him to join his raids, and at 22, he is now a respected warrior. Freya was barred from following the same path because doing so could have exposed her secret. Freya encounters Geir on her way home. The two have a close, friendly relationship, and Freya hopes that Geir will marry her best friend, Ingrid. Geir encourages Freya to keep Vragi happy so that the jarl will continue to favor their family and care for Kelda, their mother. The siblings are interrupted by a group of men approaching on horseback. Vragi is with Jarl Snorri and his band of warriors. Snorri questions Freya, and she assumes that Vragi has asked the jarl to dissolve their marriage. Then she notices that the man she met on the beach is with the group. He is Bjorn, Snorri’s son and heir. It is common knowledge that Bjorn is also a child of the god Tyr; whenever he calls on Tyr’s name, an axe of fire appears in his hand.

Snorri tests Freya’s fighting ability by giving her a sword and making her fight Bjorn to the death. The fight is fierce, and Freya knows that she will be killed, so she gives in to fear and calls on the goddess Hlin for protection, revealing her secret and her identity as the prophesied “shield maiden” (26). Freya learns that Vragi already knew her secret because he once witnessed her using her powers. He sold the information to Snorri, who has put her to the test to force her to reveal her secret power.

Freya learns that she will become the jarl’s second wife and fight with him on his raids. About 20 years ago, Snorri heard a prophecy that the shield maiden would “unite the people of Skaland beneath the rule of the one who controlled her fate” (28). Though most people’s destinies are already determined, the children of the gods are an exception; they can alter their fate. Snorri believes that if he marries Freya, he will control her fate and become King of a united Skaland. Then he will have the strength to defeat Skaland’s enemy, King Harald of Nordeland. At first, Geir protests the marriage because his sister opposes it, but when Geir is offered enough gold to win the hand of Ingrid, Freya agrees to marry Snorri. Her one condition is that Geir will keep his place with the jarl’s warriors, even though he hid the truth about his sister being the shield maiden. Snorri agrees but breaks Geir’s leg as punishment. To ensure Freya’s compliance, Snorri makes a veiled threat of further harm to her family. As Vragi is about to leave, he says he intends to marry Ingrid before Geir has a chance. Freya break free from Bjorn’s grasp, grabs his fire axe, and embeds it in Vragi’s skull.

Chapter 3 Summary

Vragi dies immediately. Freya realizes that her hand is badly burned from the fire axe. The pain is unbearable, and the skin of her palm is gone. Bjorn applies a salve to ease the pain. Freya is made to share Bjorn’s horse as they ride to Snorri’s stronghold at Halsar. The salve lulls her to sleep.

Chapter 4 Summary

When they reach Halsar, Freya meets Snorri’s first wife, Ylva. When the salve wears off, the renewed pain induces shock, causing Freya to experience intense shivering, weakness, and nausea. Bjorn brings her to the healer, Liv, who is a child of the god Eir; his blood grants her healing powers. She tends to Freya’s wounds, using a narcotic to ease the pain. The narcotic also loosens Freya’s inhibitions, and she talks openly of how beautiful she thinks Bjorn is. Liv then covers Freya’s hand with a moss-like application and asks Eir to heal her if she is worthy. The moss grows and covers her burned skin. As Freya drifts off, she hears Bjorn and Liv saying that war is coming.

Chapter 5 Summary

When Freya awakes and removes the dead moss, her hand is scarred but functional. Snorri visits Freya and makes her prove that she can call her magic when her life isn’t in danger. She calls Hlin’s name, and a silver glow surrounds the shield that Snorri hands her. Ylva joins them and reveals that Freya’s wedding to Snorri will be today. Ylva agrees with the plan because the prophecy stipulates that Snorri must control Freya’s fate in order to become king. However, Snorri calls the union a slap in the face to Ylva and says that he wishes it were not required of him. Freya tells herself that she will endure Snorri just as she endured Vragi, for her family’s sake.

Freya’s contemplations explain that children of the gods are created when one of the gods gifts a child with a drop of their divine blood upon conception. These children are rare, fabled, honored. They all have powers unique to the god whose blood they carry. Freya discovered her magic when she was seven years old and called out Hlin’s name while playing with Geir. Her father knew that Snorri sought the daughter of Hlin, so he made Freya conceal her magic, warning her that if anyone were to discover it, her life would never be her own; powerful men would fight over her until she was dead.

In the present, servants prepare Freya for the wedding, and Ylva puts a wedding crown on her head. Freya looks in a mirror and feels like she’s looking at a stranger.

Chapter 6 Summary

As Freya walks with Ylva to where the wedding will be held, she sees Ingrid in the crowd. The guards try to keep Ingrid and Freya apart, and Ylva warns Freya that friends may become enemies now that her true identity is known. However, Bjorn insists that the guards let Freya and Ingrid talk. Ingrid thanks Freya for enabling her and Geir to marry. Then she gives Freya her father’s sword, saying it’s from Geir. Freya realizes it’s not meant for her to wield, but to give to Snorri as a wedding gift.

The wedding takes place and is devoid of sentiment or fanfare. Afterward, Ylva performs a ritual to tattoo Freya with the mark of her god’s lineage. Freya realizes that Ylva is a volva, a witch capable of using runic magic. During the ritual, Hlin pulls Freya’s body into the air. Torrents of blood gush from the cut that Ylva made in Freya’s chest; her chest is torn open to reveal her sternum and beating heart. She falls to the ground and finds the wound closed, with only a scar remaining. A blood-formed tattoo of a shield appears on the back of Freya’s left hand. A second tattoo appears on her right palm. It is twisted by her scars, and nobody can tell what it depicts. Snorri says that the vision of Freya being torn apart is a warning that she will be torn apart if they don’t protect her. Aside from Ylva and Freya, Bjorn is the only one to witness this ritual. Snorri decides that Bjorn’s destiny is connected to Freya’s and tasks Bjorn with her protection.

Chapter 7 Summary

At the wedding reception, Freya meets a woman named Steinunn, a skald (bard) and a child of the god Bragi. Through her ballads of heroic exploits, Steinunn can grant visions that transport listeners into the story. Freya is distracted by her jealousy when another woman flirts with Bjorn. She drinks mead until she is inebriated and demands to talk to Bjorn privately. Instead of granting her a private audience, Bjorn goads Freya into removing her gloves and accepting her scars. Soon afterward, Snorri takes Freya away to consummate the marriage.

Chapters 1-7 Analysis

Danielle L. Jensen’s worldbuilding relies heavily on Norse culture and mythology, and the narrative trappings of A Fate Inked in Blood therefore greatly resemble Scandinavia in the Viking Age, albeit with fantasy elements. Notably, many physical descriptions of Skaland align with Scandinavia’s geographical features. For example, Freya’s hometown of Selvegr is a small fishing village on a fjord, and in early spring, the ice on the fjord is just beginning to break up. To describe the details of this setting, Jensen uses cultural terms derived from Old Norse and Old English to add a sense of authenticity to the novel. For example, Freya’s brother carries a seax, an Old English word for a small fighting knife that was used by Germanic peoples during the Early Middle Ages. Similarly, Freya substitutes the name Hel for hell in a common idiom, as when she remarks, “There’d be Hel to pay if they told Vragi” (9). Hel, in Old Norse, originally denoted the world of the dead and later came to refer to the goddess of death, the daughter of the trickster figure, Loki.

Jensen also weaves aspects of Norse culture into the novel’s plot and setting. This pattern is most evident in Freya’s deeply patriarchal society, which gives fathers control over their daughters and husbands control over their wives. Snorri weds Freya because as her husband, he expects to have control over her and her fate, an important part of the prophecy that positions Freya as a king-maker. However, the patriarchal culture surrounding marriage is nuanced, for men’s power over women is not unlimited. As Snorri asks those around him, “You all bear witness? Freya has agreed to be my bride. Does anyone contest my right to take her?” (29). This scene makes it apparent that he cannot force Freya to marry him without consent from her or the head of her family. The narrative also reveals Norse-inspired cultural values, as when Snorri claims that Freya will grant his people “battle fame,” “wealth,” and “power,” as well as “victory and vengeance against the bastards of Nordeland” (62). Even Freya’s own words reflect a grim acceptance of the geopolitical norms of the Viking Age, for she states, “In our world, power is most often achieved with violence” (44). While Jensen’s world takes many liberties with the Norse source texts, Freya’s remark aptly depicts the historical age in which real-world Vikings raided, conquered, and colonized much of Europe.

Two important conflicts begin to emerge in the first two chapters. The first is Freya’s internal conflict between duty and desire. She longs to escape her marriage to Vragi, but when a handsome stranger offers to free her by killing her husband, she rejects the offer outright because Vragi’s wealth and influence support her mother and brother. In this moment, her commitment to ensuring their continued well-being overshadows her desire for Vragi’s demise. Freya’s battle between duty and desire develops further throughout the novel. The prophecy about the shield maiden, which Snorri heard from a seer 20 years ago, establishes an external conflict over who will control Freya’s destiny. The prophecy claims that the shield maiden will “unite the people of Skaland beneath the rule of the one who control[s] her fate” (28). Led by his ambition for power, Snorri is determined to become the person who controls the shield maiden’s fate. Ironically, thus far, Freya’s destiny has been controlled by her family and her husband, but as she embarks on a new chapter in her life, she will fight against being a possession or a tool to be wielded by others, highlighting The Tension Between Destiny and Autonomy.

The novel’s inciting incident occurs when Freya is revealed to be the prophesied shield maiden who will unite Skaland. This revelation compels Snorri to claim Freya’s power and loyalty by allowing Vragi to divorce her and then marrying Freya himself. Freya knows herself to be a child of Hlin and therefore “Unfated”: one of the rare few humans who has the power to rearrange the threads of fate for those around her. However, she has been ignorant of the shield maiden prophecy, and with the advent of this extraordinary destiny looming over her future, she is forced to question what she wants for her own life and what she owes to those around her, emphasizing The Consequences of Exercising Free Will. As this inner change takes place, Jensen uses foreshadowing to create tension and to hint at the challenges that Freya will face. The vision of Freya’s chest being torn open during the runic ritual is a good example of this dynamic, especially as Snorri calls the vision a portent and a warning that “Freya will be destroyed” “if we don’t take care” (66). His people’s ability to protect Freya from their enemies, or Freya’s ability to protect herself, is a matter of life or death.

Jensen’s narrative style is characterized by a skillful use of dialogue to develop the romance between Freya and Bjorn, which she has cited as the dominant plot arc. Witty banter between the two characters effectively creates sexual tension while emphasizing the various social forces that make the romance forbidden fruit—such as Freya’s married status. Their banter also develops The Tension Between Destiny and Autonomy as Freya grows to desire greater freedom—a desire that conflicts with the limitations of a patriarchal society. She argues with Bjorn because she prizes her own strength and intelligence, and she therefore becomes competitive and even combative at times. Ultimately, Freya’s interiority—her observations, thoughts, and feelings—are the true focus of the novel, and the first-person narration reveals a deeply intimate view of Freya’s rationale, assumptions, and motivations, which are often influenced by emotion. Additionally, the subtext of this narrative style often implies that Freya is missing something and that her version of events may be unreliable, but because Jensen does not reveal just what Freya is missing, the story gains an additional layer of suspense and intrigue.