Sky in the Deep(49)

He didn’t answer her, instead looking into her eyes wordlessly as she held onto his shoulders, praying under her breath. When she was finished, he tried to smile at her. “What are you thinking?” he asked.

She smiled back at him, but it was slanted. Sad. “I’m thinking that you always surprise me.” Her eyes flitted to me again before she let him go and Fiske went to Iri, hugging him. Iri was talking to him, his voice low.

“?nd eldr.” Iri let him go.

“?nd eldr.”

They were words I’d heard before. Breathe fire. The Riki said them to each other on the battlefield.

Inge came to the door, pulling my hair out from under the strap of my axe sheath. “Can I?” she asked from behind me.

A chill ran over my skin as I nodded, sitting down onto the stool in the corner. The one I’d eaten on, watching them at the table together. As a family.

She pulled the length of my hair down my back, working it into thick sections, and braided them down over my shoulder, tying the end. The feeling made me shake, the hazy memories of my mother bubbling up from the depths of my mind. Memories I thought I’d lost.

I stared at the floor. “Is there anything Fiske wouldn’t do for Iri?”

“He loves Iri more than he loves himself, but this isn’t about Iri anymore.” She looked down into my face for a long moment before setting her hands softly on my head. She was praying again.

I held the breath deep inside me, because I knew what it would bring up when I let it go. A hot, stabbing pain in my chest. I wiped at my eyes as she finished and stood, walking toward the door without looking back. Halvard had the reins of the horses, holding them on the path. He didn’t look up to me as I went to him.

“Are you going to come back?” he asked, kicking the snow with his boots.

I took the reins of Iri’s horse, running my hand up his snout. “I don’t know.”

“You could. You could come back if you want.”

I reached into my armor vest and took his hand. “Thank you.”

“For what?” He looked at me, his face changing.

“For being kind to me.”

I dropped the gift into his palm, a simple idol. I didn’t know what his father looked like, and I wasn’t a talented carver, but I’d used the rest of the wood Inge gave me to make it for him.

“Is this my father?” he asked, his voice small.

I nodded, pulling him by his tunic and wrapping my arms around him. He buried his face into my vest, squeezing me, and I tried to push the hair from his face, but it was too wild. The dark purple bruises under his eyes made the blue in them look brighter.

Iri, Fiske, and Inge came from inside the house and Iri stopped in front of me. I stared into his chest, the Riki armor no longer strange to me. Now, the Aska leathers wouldn’t look right on him.

“Elska ykkarr,” he said, and the warmth of the words wound around me.

I love you.

I leaned into him, letting him hold me. I loved him, too. More than anything. But I wondered if I would ever be able to admit it to him again. I wondered if a part of me would always be angry. “What do you want me to tell our father?”

He sighed. “The truth.”

I didn’t want to tell him about Iri. But I could never lie to him.

He kissed the top of my head and held the reins as I lifted myself up onto the horse. Down the path, the Riki were already waiting. Again, I didn’t look back as the bend of the trail took us out of sight. I kept my eyes on Fiske’s back, Iri’s horse following his. I’d thought more than once that I’d seen my brother for the last time. I’d been sure. I didn’t want to feel that feeling again.

“How many days?” I asked, winding the reins tighter around my fists.

But before we’d even reached the ritual house, Fiske was dismounting again, dropping to the ground and taking my horse by the riggings.

“What are you doing?” I tried to pull back but the horse followed him.

He didn’t answer, leading me off the main path, away from the others, until we stopped in front of the blacksmith’s tent. The forge blazed in the shadow.

My brow pulled. “What are you—”

The blacksmith stopped his pounding and looked up at me, a hammer in one hand and his dark leather apron wrapped tightly around his waist.

He looked between the two of us.

“I want you to take it off,” Fiske said. “The collar.” He spoke to the blacksmith, saying something I couldn’t hear over my thoughts.

The blacksmith shrugged. “Alright.”

I held onto the saddle, my fingers white.

“Come on, then.” He tossed the hammer onto the table.

I slid down off the horse as he picked up a long-handled tool with a hook on it. “Here.”

I stepped into the tent and he grabbed hold of the collar, lowering me down to hook one side of it onto an iron bar driven into the trunk of a thick tree.

“Stay still,” he grunted.

He secured the tool into the other side of the collar and took a deep breath before he leaned back, pulling against it with his weight. The collar widened slowly and I stayed still, trying to keep it from touching the burns. When he stood and leaned back to pull again, I pinched my eyes closed and it scraped against me.

He slipped the ring from around my neck and dropped it to the ground in front of me, a broken black circle sunken into the snow.