Sky in the Deep(5)

“It’s fine,” I said. He didn’t worry about me often, but I could see it when he did.

He pushed the unruly hair back from my face. I was an Aska warrior, but I was still his daughter. “You look more like your mother every day. Are you ready?”

I gave him a tired smile. If my father believed Sigr sent Iri’s soul to me, I could believe it too. I was too afraid of any other truth that lingered in the back of my thoughts. “Ready.”

We walked side by side to the other end of the camp. I could feel the eyes on me, but my father paid our clansmen no attention, putting me at ease. The meeting tent that served as our ritual house sat at the end of our encampment with white smoke trailing up into the evening sky from its center. Espen stood like an enormous statue beneath its frame, the Tala beside him. Our clan’s leader was the greatest of our warriors, the oldest Aska leader in three generations. He lifted his chin, his fingers pulling at his long beard.

“Aghi.” He called to my father from where he stood.

My father pulled three coins from his vest and handed them to me. He walked toward them, grasping Espen’s shoulder in greeting, and Espen did the same before he spoke. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but his eyes found me over my father’s shoulder, making me feel suddenly unsteady.

“Eelyn.”

I jolted. Hemming was waiting at the gate of the pen.

I pressed the coins into his open hand and he dropped them into the heavy purse hanging from his belt.

He smiled up at me, one tooth missing from the front of his mouth where he was kicked by a horse two winters ago. “I heard what happened.” He stepped over the wall of the pen and grabbed a pale gray goat by the horns. “This one okay?”

I crouched down, inspecting the animal carefully. “Turn him around.” Hemming shifted, pulling the goat toward him, and I shook my head. “What about him?” I pointed to a large white goat in the corner.

“He’s four penningr.” Hemming struggled to keep his hold on the gray goat.

A heavy hand landed on my shoulder, and I looked up to see my father, peering over me into the pen. “What’s this?”

Hemming let go of the animal, standing up straight under my father’s gaze. “He’s four penningr.”

“Is he the best?”

“Yes, Aghi.” Hemming nodded. “The best.”

“Then four penningr it is.” He pulled another coin free and tossed it to Hemming.

I climbed into the pen to help the boy wrangle the goat to the gate. My father took one horn and I took the other as we led him to the altar in the middle of the meeting tent. The fire was already burning strong, its flames licking up around the wood and warming me through my armor as the cold crept in from outside.

“May I join you?” Espen’s voice came from behind us.

My father turned, his eyes widening a little before he nodded.

The Tala followed, looking at me. “You’ve brought honor to Sigr by destroying his enemies, Eelyn. He’s honored you in return.”

I nodded nervously, biting down hard on my bottom lip. The Tala had never spoken to me before. I’d been afraid of him as a child, hiding behind Iri in the ritual house during sacrifices and ceremonies. I didn’t like the idea of a person who spoke the will of the gods. I was afraid of what he may see in me. What he may see in my future.

Espen found a place beside me and we led the animal forward to the large trough in front of the blazing fire. My father pulled out the small wooden idol of my mother he had tucked into his vest and handed it to me. I pulled the one I had of Iri from my own and set them beside one another on the stone before us. Sacrifices made me think of my mother. She’d tell the story of the Riki god Thora, who erupted from the mountain in fire and the flames that had come down to the fjord. Sigr had risen up from the sea to protect his people and every five years, we went back to battle to defend his honor, bound by the blood feud between us.

There wasn’t much about my mother that I remembered, but the night she died still hung clearly in my mind. I remembered the river of silent Herja that streamed into our village in the dead of night, their swords reflecting moonlight, their skin as pale as the dead against the thick furs they wore upon their shoulders. I remembered the way my mother looked, lying on the beach with the light leaving her eyes. My father, covered in her blood.

I sat, holding my mother’s still-warm body as the Aska followed them into the winter sea, where they disappeared in the dark water like demons. We’d seen raids before, but never like that. They hadn’t come to steal, they’d come only to kill. The ones they took, they sacrificed to their god. And no one knew where they came from or if they were even human. Espen had hung one of the bodies from a tree at the entrance to our village and the bones still hung there, knocking together in the wind. We hadn’t seen the Herja since. Perhaps whatever god had sent them had quenched their anger. Still, our blood ran cold at the mention of their name.

Iri and I had wept over the sacrifice my father made the next morning, thanking Sigr for sparing his children’s lives. Only a few years later, he made another—when Iri died.

“Draw your knife, Eelyn,” my father instructed, taking both horns into his hands.

I stared at him, confused. I’d only ever stood behind my father as he performed a sacrifice.

“This is your sacrifice, sváss. Draw your knife.”