Sky in the Deep(20)

The path cut down sharply and we followed it, walking until the snow began to thin. As the sun rose above us, the warmth came back into my body, maybe for the first time since I’d arrived in Fela. But winter was only just beginning and days like this were numbered. Maybe it was the last one.

Inge and Runa talked quietly, taking turns carrying the basket, and I listened, lugging mine with one hand on my sore hip. They talked about an old woman with a cough, a child with a lame leg, and a few men brought back from Aurvanger who probably wouldn’t heal from their battle wounds. Again, they mentioned a man named Kerling.

I watched carefully, memorizing the path. We weren’t far from the village, but we were moving up again, not down. As the trail narrowed between two steep rock faces, I maneuvered the basket in front of me to wedge myself through. When it opened back up, we were standing in a large clearing covered in white and yellow stalks of yarrow. They reached up from the ground as high as my waist, pushing and pulling against each other in the breeze.

Inge and Runa set down their basket and settled onto the ground, reaching for the stalks nearest to them. They cut with their shears at an angle, pulling them up out of the thick brush.

“Here.” Inge reached for the basket I was holding and I set it down beside her. “Remove the leaves. We’ll keep them,” she said, gently placing the cut stalks into the basket.

“They’re for Adalgildi.” Halvard found a place on the ground next to me. “Do the Aska have Adalgildi?”

I ignored him, stripping the leaves from the yarrow and piling them between us. He did the same with the stalks from Runa’s basket, where the stack of flowers crisscrossed each other like fallen trees. He snapped one of the stalks in his hand and pried the bloom off, careful not to smash the tiny petals. He held it up between us. When I didn’t move, he pushed it at me. “It’s for you.”

He grabbed my wrist and turned my hand over so he could set the flower down into my palm like an egg in a nest. He smiled at it.

Inge stood, moving farther into the clearing, and Halvard followed after her. I looked down at the bloom in my hand until I felt Runa’s eyes on me. She was staring, her gaze trailing over me slowly.

“What?” I couldn’t smooth the bite out of the word, pulling the flower into my cloak.

“Nothing.” She blinked. “You just—with that green cloak and your hair—you look just like Iri.” Something sad fell like a veil over her voice, the lift in her mouth turning down at the corners.

So, she knew who I was. At the very least, she suspected.

I dropped my eyes and went back to work. I didn’t care if she thought I looked like Iri. I didn’t care about their offerings or their customs. The Aska were home with their families, mourning their dead, and I was in Fela, cutting flowers for the god of the Riki.

I eyed the shears in Runa’s hand. If I wanted to, I could kill the three of them right now.

I could set this field of yarrow on fire and let myself burn with it.





THIRTEEN


The house was filled with towering heaps of yarrow and long woven garlands of cedar by morning. The door stood open, letting the colors of early sunlight stream inside, and the smell of herbs grew thick in the air.

I untied my arm, stretching it carefully so I could try to use it. It was painful, but it would only grow stiff if I kept it bandaged. I set the tops of the yarrow in large, flat baskets as Inge instructed me to and watched from the table as she pulled clothes from the trunk against the wall. I eyed the two trunks next to it, trying to guess which one held the weapons. There was no way they wouldn’t keep them in the house and I’d already checked the loft. Fiske and Iri wore theirs during the day and slept with them beside their beds at night, but Inge must have weapons too. And Halvard.

She laid clean tunics hemmed in golden thread out on the table. They were dress clothes similar to the ones the Aska wore for ceremonies. “You’ll need to clean and oil them. Then shine the buckles.” She dropped their armor vests, scabbards, and sheaths down in front of me.

I finished with the yarrow and picked them up off the floor, sitting beside the fire. I scrubbed the dirt and blood from the leather with a brush until it was clean and then I oiled them, rubbing the shine into the creases with my fingers the way I did with my father’s armor and mine. My arm ached and burned with the movement, but it felt good to use the muscles.

Iri pulled his tunic off, reaching for the dress clothes, and my hands froze on the scabbard in my lap. The scar reaching across the side of his body was a thick, gnarled thing, pink and shiny against his skin. It was the wound that I’d seen bleeding out as he lay at the bottom of the trench. I rarely saw scars like that. They were the echoes of wounds that people didn’t actually survive.

“Will Kerling come?” Iri looked out the door to the small house that sat across the path. Beside it, posts were driven into the ground for what looked like a barn, but it was unfinished. A small garden patch was nestled inside the gate, full of rhubarb and leeks.

Inge shook her head. “No.” She pulled the bench out from under the table and she worked at Fiske’s hair, braiding it back against the scalp before pulling the length of it into a neat knot and securing it with a leather tie. “Aska, can you do Iri’s?” She nodded toward him and my fingers curled around the leather strap.

He sat down and I stood, coming behind him to take his hair into my hands. He didn’t look up at me, but he didn’t flinch under my touch, instantly making me feel like I was going to cry.