Sky in the Deep(28)

I picked up a handful of the garlic cloves and set it into the pestle, trying to hear what she wasn’t saying. What was carefully buried beneath the words.

“He and Fiske nearly killed each other five years ago.”

My eyes snapped up from the table.

“It was the last fighting season. They were fighting and fell over the edge of a deep trench.”

I swallowed, blinking.

“Fiske broke a leg and an arm and Iri’s side was cut open from the blade of Fiske’s sword. My husband searched for Fiske for two days before he finally found him. He thought he was dead.” She sucked in a breath. “But he wanted to burn his body. So, he scaled down the wall of the trench and, when he reached him, he saw that Fiske was alive.” Her eyes lifted to mine. “So was the boy he’d been fighting. Just barely. And Fiske wouldn’t leave Iri behind. He begged his father to save his life.” She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “Iri was so badly wounded that no one thought he would live.”

I tried to clear my eyes of the burn that was gathering there. “How did you save him?”

She set the knife down onto the table and looked at me. “They brought him in, and the cut was so deep that his organs were coming through the opening of the wound. I was sure he would die. But then he didn’t. Somehow, the skin and the muscle were cut but his organs and arteries remained intact. I stitched him up and it took a long time, but he healed. And as he healed, Fiske healed.”

“So, why isn’t he a dyr?” I asked. The sharp words crossed the table between us.

She paused again. “He was going to be. But he was so injured that we had to keep him here, in our home, and care for him day and night. And I’m not sure how it happened, but he became a part of our family. Fiske’s love for Iri became ours.” Her eyes shined again.

“So Iri is Riki now?”

She nodded. “He is. Iri left his past behind. It took time, but the Riki accepted him. The gods are funny that way.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, sometimes they make families in peculiar ways.” She stood, pulling more garlic from the crate. “Fjotra,” she said, under her breath.

“Fjotra is the blood bond. They aren’t brothers,” I corrected her.

“That’s munstr?nd fjotra. Sál fjotra is a bond between souls.”

I stared at her.

“This kind of bond is formed when a soul is broken. It’s formed through pain, loss, and heartbreak. They’re bound by something deeper than we can see. And that made Iri family.”

I stopped trying to hold back the tears that were waiting to fall. Because I knew exactly what she was talking about. It was what I had with Myra. A tether born of tears.

Iri and Inge didn’t share blood, but Iri looked at Inge as if she were his mother. She felt like he was her son. And I didn’t need to ask her how she’d been able to love him. Iri was pure of heart in a way that I had never been. And he was brave. Not afraid to love or give of himself. People had always been drawn to him and I had been proud to be his sister. For the same reasons that Inge loved him.

A shadow came through the door and I looked up to see Runa coming in with a cloak pulled up over her head. She looked at me a little warily as she set a small bundle of wood onto the table. I recognized it immediately—sacred wood. My hands stilled on the mortar before I dropped my eyes back down to the garlic, remembering the way she touched Iri at Adalgildi. The way she looked up into his face, her cheeks pink and her eyes warm.

She took a basket of sage from the table and washed the branches in a bowl of water. When she was through, she dried them with a cloth carefully and tied bunches of them together, hanging them on the wall beside the fire.

“What’s all of this for?” I asked.

“Healing,” Runa answered. “The garlic is for illness, wounds—that sort of thing. The sage is used for skin, teeth, stomach…”

“And those?” I nodded to the bundle of raspberry vines. All the berries were gone.

“They’re for Gyda. We’ll use it when the baby comes.” She tightened the twine on another bundle of sage and hung it. “Do you have a healer in Hylli?”

I nodded, not meeting her eyes.

“I’ve been apprenticing with Inge for almost four years.”

“She’s ready to be on her own.” Inge smiled proudly.

Runa blushed. When she turned toward the fire, I reached up slowly to take a piece of the sacred wood from the table.

“We need more jars.” Inge sighed.

I dropped my hand back into my lap.

“I’ll be right back.”

I went back to grinding the garlic, still keeping my arm pulled into my side so I didn’t have to use the joint.

“So, you and Iri are…” I wasn’t sure what word to use.

“Yes.” But the sweetness was missing from her voice. She was ready to defend herself.

“And that’s why he…”

“Maybe it was part of it. I don’t know.”

I leaned onto the table, looking at her. “Then why aren’t you married?”

“We will be. My father wanted to wait until he was back from Aurvanger.” Her voice changed, the words finding a softer tone. “He was going to tell you.”