Sky in the Deep(59)

“How? Why?” She stood.

“He wasn’t dead when we left him in Aurvanger. The Riki found him. They saved his life. Fiske saved his life.”

“No. I saw him. We saw him.” She paced before me, her eyes frantic.

“It’s true.”

“And what? Now he’s one of them?”

“Yes.” It was the first time I really believed it.

“You can’t change your blood, Eelyn! You can’t just erase all the Aska the Riki have killed!” Her voice was raw and I knew she was thinking about her sister.

“We can’t erase any of it.” And that was the most terrifying part of all.

Fiske came out of the trees with a pile of wood under his arm and started on the fire as Myra watched. The glare in her eyes fell heavy on him but he ignored her.

She returned her axe to its place on her back. “I’ll take watch.”

“Sleep, I’ll do it.” I stood.

“So he can cut my throat?” She huffed, pulling the idols of her sister and her father from inside her vest. “You’re a fool if you think I’m going to sleep this close to a Riki.” She turned and stalked off into the dark, leaving us.

Fiske worked at the fire as if he hadn’t heard her, his face lit up.

“She doesn’t trust you.” I handed him another piece of wood. “None of them will.”

Behind us, in the darkness, I could hear the faint sound of Myra’s prayers.

He sat against the tree, taking the axe from his back so he could lean into it. “Do you trust me?” His face was hard. Unreadable, like always.

“Yes.” His eyes lifted to meet mine and they looked into me. The way they had in Hylli. “But I don’t know if the Aska will listen to us.”

“You think this is the end?” He looked at his hands.

“The end of what?”

“The end of everything. The Riki. The Aska.” The words hung in the air over us, burning in the fire.

“Is that what you think?”

“No. I think you’ll convince them.”

The stillness of the night turned to something fragile, threatening to break. Because I wasn’t sure. “How do you know?”

He smiled at the corner of his mouth. “Because you have fire in your blood.”

It was what Inge said about me the night I watched them from the loft and he told Halvard I was dangerous.

“Do you trust me, Fiske?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

The memory of his lips on mine came flooding back. His hands finding me in the dark, pulling me across the stone. I fisted my hands, resisting the urge to touch him. “And if the Aska do join the Riki and together we defeat the Herja? What then?”

He reached into the fire with his axe, knocking a log closer to the flames. “Then things change.”

“What things?”

He leaned back against the tree, his eyes running over my face, and his voice softened. “Everything.”

*

We came up over the hill, too far from the sea now to see it through the forest. We lay against the incline on our stomachs, peering over the top, to the glade in the distance. It was still. Quiet.

“How many Aska?” I kept my eyes on the trees.

“At least ten. Hagen should be with them,” Myra answered.

I’d known Hagen since I was a child. I’d fought with him. And I knew how he’d feel about me bringing a Riki into our camp.

“Take his weapons.” Myra nodded toward Fiske.

He slid back. “No.”

“If they see them, they’ll put an arrow in you before we have a chance to talk.” I held out my hand.

“I’m not going into an Aska camp without weapons.”

“Like I did when I was tied up and dragged into Fela with an arrow in my arm?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “They won’t kill you. I won’t let them.”

“At least not right away. They’ll torture you first.” Myra laughed, but it was dark. I turned to see the wicked smile on her face. “Then they’ll kill you.”

I pushed my open hand toward him. “My father is down there. I can talk to them.”

He looked at it before he unbuckled his scabbard and belt, winding the length of the leather around the sheaths in a tight bundle. He handed them to me, shaking his head.

“I’ll go first.” Myra scanned the trees one more time before she stood, stepping over the top of the hill and walking into the forest slowly with her hands out to her sides.

I held Fiske’s weapons to me with my good arm, waiting a few paces before we followed.

But Fiske caught my waist, stopping me. “If they…” He glanced over me, his fingers finding the soft skin above my hip and holding onto me. I knew what he was going to say. “I have to get back to my family. If that means killing Aska to get out of Virki and back up the mountain, I will. Do you understand?”

I followed the length of him with my eyes. He didn’t need weapons to be a threat to my people. And once he went to Virki, there was no going back. He could bring every Riki down on the vulnerable Aska. They hung like the last leaves of autumn, waiting to drop. He’d do what he had to, and so would I.

“I understand.”