Sky in the Deep(46)

“When?” I stood up off of him. “When were you there?”

He sat up, cupping his bleeding eye socket with his bound hands. “A few weeks ago.”

The sway returned to my voice. “What happened?”

When he hesitated, I picked up my knife and slashed it across the meat of his arm. He fell to his side, trying to crawl away as voices rose behind me.

“We raided six of their villages, along the fjord.”

The words cut deep into my gut. They stuck me to the ground and held my heartbeat in place.

“And the Riki? How many villages?” It was the Tala’s voice.

She stood beside Vidr, their village leader, before a swelling crowd. The sky swayed above us. I shook my head, trying to quiet the sound roaring within it.

The Herja looked down to his blood-covered hands. “Four Riki villages. Fela is the fifth.”

The Tala looked back to Vidr, the graveness of it not hidden on her face. If they’d been able to raid that many villages in only a few weeks, there were many of them. Too many. The panic flooding my mind drowned out the sound of his hoarse voice, rattling off the names of villages they’d been to and ones they hadn’t yet attacked.

“Send riders. Warn the others.” Vidr barked out orders and a set of footsteps broke into a run down the path. He stepped forward, his feet beside mine. “Where is your camp?” He looked down at the Herja.

I stood, trying to think as quickly as my thoughts could move. But they were stuck. Sewn to the image of my father. Covered in his own blood. Floating in the blue-gray water of the fjord. I turned to face the Riki gathered behind me, watching. My hands twitched at my sides and I realized I was still holding the Herja’s eye. It was warm and slick in my palm. I dropped it into the snow and my knife fell from my other hand. Iri picked it up, going back to the Herja.

I took a step back, stumbling, before someone caught me by the elbow. I looked up to see Fiske standing beside me, his hand taking my upper arm and gently pulling me toward the house. The cold air burned against my hot skin. I blinked again, trying to focus, rubbing my eyes with my numb hands. Outside, the Riki were shouting. Angry, bloodthirsty, vengeful. And I knew that Iri was probably dragging the Herja to the ritual house. They would find out where the camp was and then they would string him up. They would make him suffer.

Fiske pulled my scabbard and sheath off and I stared into the fire. He watched me, making me feel like I was going to break into pieces. Like he was waiting to see it.

“I have to go to the Aska,” I whispered. “Now. I can’t wait for the thaw.”

The shouting outside was getting farther away.

“I have to go,” I said again.

“I know.” He didn’t look away. He didn’t blink. “I’ll go with you.”

I stared at him.

“You can’t get off the mountain before the thaw unless someone shows you the way. I’ll go with you. I’ll take you to Hylli.”

He was right. But I wanted to say no. To ask why. I wanted to run as far from Fela as I could. As far from the deep whisper inside of me that spoke when Fiske looked at me the way he looked at me now. The way he did at the river. Like he knew something I didn’t.





TWENTY-NINE


“Fiske.” I could hear the warning in Inge’s voice.

They stood facing each other, both with their arms crossed. I traced the resemblance of their faces with my eyes. I’d never noticed how much he looked like her. Eyes rimmed with dark lashes. The square of their faces.

Iri leaned into the table, watching Runa, who lay asleep against the wall with her back to the fire.

“We’ll take her to Hylli,” Fiske repeated. “And then we’ll come home.”

“You’re needed here.” She looked between them.

“We’ll come back to fight.”

Inge looked into the fire for a long time, breathing evenly. She was still in the same bloodstained dress, the lack of sleep carved deep into her face, with her hair a mess around her.

Fiske didn’t move, waiting.

She reached up and touched her lips with light fingers, like she did when she was thinking. She didn’t look in my direction, but her thoughts drifted toward me. She was asking questions. Wondering.

I moved past them, climbing the loft and leaving them below. Halvard was still asleep on his cot with a bearskin pulled up over him and I stopped, hands on the top rung of the ladder. Gyda was lying on her side with her body curved around a small wiggling lump and Kerling was folded behind her, peering over her shoulder. She held the tiny thing to her, pressing it against her bare skin and kissing its head.

Kerling’s face had changed. The barrenness in his eyes was gone. He was missing the weight that usually showed there. Gyda looked up at me and I froze, lifting my foot to climb back down. But instead of the bitterness I’d seen in her eyes the days before, her face was smooth. Quiet. When she looked back down to the baby, trailing her fingertips over its soft dark hair, Kerling pressed his face into her back, closing his eyes.

I found my braid with my hand and wound it around my knuckles, watching them. As if it all hadn’t happened. The raid. The battle in Aurvanger that took his leg. The blood feud that burned in their hearts for me and my people. There was no room for it in that moment. There was only a beginning. And its light hid everything else. It was so beautiful that it hurt, touching every wound uncovered inside of me.