Sky in the Deep(68)

“There are seven Riki villages,” my father corrected.

“The other village leaders are dead,” Freydis answered. Her cloak was pulled over one shoulder, an injured arm hanging out.

“What is it you want from us?” My father took command of the conversation the way I’d seen him do many times before. He was always in control.

“We have a common enemy. One that will likely be the end to both our clans.” Vidr took a step forward. “We want the Aska to join with us against the Herja.”

“And after?” My father unveiled his real concern. They would find out soon enough that the Aska were weaker than they were. “What’s to keep the Riki from turning on the Aska after we’ve defeated the Herja?”

The other village leaders looked to Vidr, as if they wanted the answer as much as we did. “A truce. Neither of us will be able to fight after we take on the Herja. And even if we are, we won’t fight each other.”

“And generations of war will end just like that?” I asked, my eyes narrowed on the Tala.

She let the silence widen before she answered. “Perhaps the gods have a new path for us.”

“A new path?” The skepticism in my father’s voice mirrored the look on Myra’s face. She was stone beside me.

“We don’t always understand the gods’ ways, do we? What we do know is that the Herja have emerged again from whatever hell they come from. I don’t know how the Aska have fared, but they have wiped out more than half our clan in a matter of weeks. Another month and we may all be gone. They’ll go back down the mountain and do the same to the Aska.” She looked to each of us. “Or we could join together.”

My father wasn’t convinced. I could see doubt in every shift of his eyes. He didn’t trust them to keep the truce. Niether did I. Not really.

“The Aska live and die by their word,” he said.

Vidr’s voice rose in defense. “So do the Riki.”

“The Riki who killed my sister are probably out there, right now,” Myra muttered.

“Two sons,” Freydis snarled. “Two sons I’ve lost in Aurvanger in the last ten years. I don’t want to stand around the same fire as the Aska. I don’t want to trust one at my back in a fight. But I have two more sons.” She raised a hand, pointing to the door. “Out there.”

Inge pulled Halvard to her. “You can abandon your blood feud, Freydis?”

“To save them? Yes.”

“But can the others?” I looked to the Tala before my eyes drifted back to Myra. “Can we?”

The Tala reached to Vidr’s belt and pulled his knife free. In one quick motion, she slid the blade across her palm. Her hand filled with blood.

“Tala?” Vidr reached for her.

She stepped forward, looking to my father before she held her hand out to me.

I pressed myself to the wall. “What are you doing?”

“I’m offering a blood oath.” Her hand hung in the space between us, blood dripping to the floor.

They all stared at her, but her eyes were on me. It was the most precious thing she could offer and she knew it. She couldn’t break a blood oath without sacrificing the afterlife. And if anyone wanted to go against the Tala, they’d have to kill her. Slaying a Tala would bring the same bleak fate.

I pulled out my knife before anyone could object, cutting into my flesh and taking her hand. She smiled, pressing her palm to mine.

Vidr watched us, clearly worried. She’d put herself in a vulnerable position, binding herself to me. If he’d harbored any secret plans against the Aska, they were undone.

The Tala turned to my father. “Do this and we will owe each other a debt—a debt that can never be repaid.”

Fiske was quiet, standing with Iri and Runa behind the table piled high with fresh bundles of sage. He looked at me.

I didn’t want to think about what it all meant. What a future like that could mean. The same weight that had been with me since the day I looked into the bear’s eyes at the river pressed me further into the ground. I pulled my sore shoulder back to stretch it. To feel something else, even if it was pain.

The room suddenly felt small. The air was too hot. I couldn’t breathe.

I stepped to the side, finding a path to the door, and quietly slipped out into the air, gulping it in as I paced toward the garden, where Inge had plowed rows for planting. I pulled my axe free from its sheath and opened the neck of my tunic trying to cool my skin. The tree at the edge of the forest was marked up with the slashes of axe throws. I threw my arm back over my head and swung it down hard, flinging my axe forward and sending it through the air. It landed with a loud crack in the trunk of the tree.

The door latch rattled and I didn’t turn around to look at him. Feeling him was enough. It was something I recognized now. I stared at my axe, lodged in the wood.

“They’re leaving at first light to go back to Virki.” Fiske spoke behind me.

I walked toward the tree and pried the blade free, pressing against its edge with my thumb. “And then what?”

“And then they return with the Aska. We’ll meet them in Aurvanger in two days.”

I pressed my thumb harder to the metal. “And then we all die?”

“Maybe.” He kept his distance from me. “Will you go with them? Back to Virki?”