Though exhausted, Freya feels newly energized by the hope Harald has given her that Saga might offer another interpretation of the prophecy. Harald’s servants outfit her for travel, and Freya notices that the people serving in Hrafnheim are healthy locals rather than raid-captured thralls. When she returns to the hall, she finds Bjorn waiting alone, and their exchange is full of familiar mockery and charged tension. Bjorn gives Freya a knife, but the moment also reminds Freya that her father’s sword was ruined and lost, deepening her sense that she has been cut off from her family.

Freya and Bjorn leave the hall with Skoll and Hati and walk through Hrafnheim toward the eastern gate. Freya takes in the fortress-city’s narrow streets, busy market, and numerous blacksmiths, and she hides her face from southern traders she recognizes so news of her presence does not reach Snorri too quickly. At the gate they meet Gyda, a towering smith and child of Brokkr, who greets Bjorn like an old acquaintance and bluntly sizes Freya up. Gyda then returns Freya’s sword, which Harald sent ahead to be repaired.

Freya is deeply moved to find that her father’s sword has not only been restored but magically improved. Gyda has made the blade unbreakable against both magic and steel, and she also offers Freya a silver shield enchanted to be feather-light so Freya can combine it with Hlin’s power. When Bjorn tries to pay for the shield with his own gold, Freya refuses because accepting his money would tie the gift to his betrayal. Gyda quickly realizes that Bjorn failed to kill Freya and instead became intimate with her, making Freya’s anger and humiliation more visible.

Harald interrupts the standoff and decides that Bjorn should pay for the sword repair because he damaged it. Harald also gives Freya a sack of spoils taken from the Islunders she killed, including the mail she now wears, so she can pay for the shield herself. Freya is disgusted by the trophies stripped from the dead and gives the entire sack to Gyda, who adds an enchanted seax that never loses its edge to make the trade fair. Harald warns both riders that Nordeland’s wilds are deadly and asks Freya to find a way that does not cost him his family. Re-armed with her father’s restored blade but still bitter toward Bjorn, Freya mounts up and rides with him into the wilderness to seek Saga.