Ari’s eyes were damp, too, but he just pointed to the stone and the coin. I dropped them both into the bowl and repeated the spell. This time the liquid began to boil.
I shoved my hand into it. The blood didn’t seem so hot now—or maybe my skin burned just as hot. I shut my eyes and saw flames once more. A fiery hand reached into the liquid. I heard a deep, satisfied sound.
“Ah. Better,” the rough fire-voice said. “Much better. We accept your gift. Cast your spell. We’ll be ready for you and for your world, should you fail.” A hot shudder ran through me at the words.
The flames rose higher. Through them I saw a clear sky with a broad path beneath it. I saw back, past the years of my own life, to a time before cars and airplanes, when homes were made of wood and grass, when dragon ships sailed the seas and cloth was woven on weighted looms. I saw stories released from their pages, not bound in books but free to be spoken and remembered. I saw—
My mother standing on the path, almost close enough to touch, her face streaked with angry tears. She looked up at me, and for a moment our eyes met. “Mom,” I said, stunned, the heat that burned in me forgotten. Was it really her? The path pulled me toward her, and I reached out my hands.
My hands and gaze were wrenched away. “Mom!” I fought to look back, but the path pulled me on, past other women: the grandmother I barely knew, because she lived in Canada; the great-grandmother I’d met only in old photos; her mother and grandmother and great-grandmother in turn. The heat came with me. I feared if I looked at my hands I’d see not skin, but flame.
I saw beyond the oldest, crumbliest pictures to other women with fair hair and fair eyes. Each of them looked at me in turn, and then my gaze was pulled farther back, and farther still, for countless generations until—
“Haley!”
A kneeling woman glared up at me, holding a feathered arrow in one hand. She was older now, with lines around her eyes and mouth, but I knew her. I’d never forget her or what she’d done. She handed her arrow to someone out of sight, glaring still. Behind her the sky was hot blue, no sign of rain.
“Why do you seek me, Haley? I have left you to your life. Leave me to mine.”
She never should have cast her spell if she wanted to be left alone. I drew the coin out of the blood, just like my spell said to do. “I’ve brought you a gift!” I called.
Hallgerd grabbed another arrow and pressed her lips together. “Haley, don’t you dare. Leave Gunnar and me to our fate. I have released my claim on the coin and spell. Your life and mine are linked no longer.”
“The hell they aren’t.” I thought of Mom, leaving for Iceland, saying she’d see me in a few weeks. I thought of Freki’s limp body in my arms. I threw the coin to Hallgerd, as hard and as fast as I could. Only once she caught it would I be free of her and her magic.
Hallgerd didn’t turn away. She couldn’t turn away. “You will pay for this,” she whispered. Her hand fell open. The arrow clattered to the wooden floor beside her, and the coin landed in her palm. Her fingers closed around it.
A wave of dizziness washed over me. The path, the earth, the sky all trembled and gave way. I fell, and flames rose up all around me. My cry was lost beneath their roar.
Then all at once the world went still. I was kneeling on wooden boards, and the sun shone brightly above me. Fire burned in me yet—did I think I was burning before? That was nothing compared to the heat I felt now. There was a roaring in my ears, and the air around me shimmered. I looked down at my hands. They were old hands, worn with age. I wore a dress, not jeans, beneath a scarlet cloak. A pouch and small knife hung from my belt. My head felt strangely heavy. Long hair fell over my shoulders from beneath my—hat? Headdress? I reached up and touched a blond lock. It felt hot, even to me—I jerked my hand away. My skin was hot, too, fire burning through the blood beneath it.
Through the roaring, I heard yelling down below. I was in a small loft, above a long narrow house. One side of the peaked roof had been torn away, leaving open air ahead of me. Beside me, a ladder led down to another room.
A man knelt by the loft’s open edge, sweat beading on his brow, a nocked bow in his hands. Beneath his leather shirt his arms were thick with muscle. Damp red hair, just beginning to gray, escaped from beneath his metal helmet. A grassy hillside rose ahead of us, like the hillside Ari and I had climbed, only now it was outlined by a bright blue sky, no sign of rain. Sheep grazed there, and the air held an earthy barnyard smell.
In my head Hallgerd cried, “How dare you deny me my right to die by his side!”
I started cursing then. Because the spell wasn’t just for returning the coin. Katrin’s spellbook had it wrong, or else after a thousand years a few things had been forgotten. I’d cast—must have cast—the same spell Hallgerd tried to cast at Mom, or one very much like it.
I was in Hallgerd’s place, a thousand years ago. The man beside me was her husband, Gunnar, and he was—we were—under attack.
Chapter 16
The dizziness I felt now had nothing to do with the fire in me. It was panic—pure, burning panic. Gunnar fired his bow. An arrow whooshed through the air, and someone cried out down below. He reached back toward me for another arrow. I forced my panic down and handed it to him. Fire roared in me. Not only my fire. Somehow I knew I held Hallgerd’s fire as well. Too much heat. Any second it would burst through my skin—and my hair. My hands shook, one of them clutching the burning coin I’d thrown.
Gunnar saw their trembling. “My brave Hallgerd,” he said, though I was sure I seemed anything but brave. His eyes turned pleading, yet tender, too. I’d seen Dad look at Mom that way, when I was younger. “Go away from this place. No one will stop you from leaving. Be safe, my love.”
I shook my head—because I wasn’t his love, because I was a thousand years from anything safe—and handed him another arrow, trying not to look at the long drop down where the missing half of the roof should have been.
The air wavered with heat. I cried out at a sudden movement, even as Gunnar shot at the hand that reached over the edge. The hand lost its grip, and the man hit the ground below with a thud. I handed Gunnar another arrow, and another. The roaring in my ears went on. The air grew heavy with the smell of sweat and dirt. There was a long cut along one of Gunnar’s sleeves, and the fabric around it was dark with clotted blood.
“Give me the coin,” Hallgerd hissed in my head. “Let me return to him.” For just a moment, my sight blurred and I saw the path between Hallgerd and me.
She was supposed to hate Gunnar. The story said so. She wasn’t supposed to want to stay by his side.
Sweat made my burning hair cling to my neck. I kept handing Gunnar arrows, clutching the coin tightly in my other hand. I’d returned it, just like the spellbook said. Only the spellbook hadn’t told me what to do after that. If I threw the coin to Hallgerd again would we be back where we’d started, with me holding the coin in my own time?
Another hand reached over the roof, but Gunnar shot it as well. Sweat poured down his face and stained his heavy leather tunic.
“Haley,” Hallgerd said. Her voice was suddenly, eerily calm. “It is a funny thing about berserks. They are so strong in their animal forms, but so weak afterward. And I see you have left me your knife.”
“Ari.” I’d left him with Hallgerd. The fear in me turned up another notch, and the heat in me rose with it.
“Return to me my life, Haley, and I’ll return yours to you.” Once more I saw the path between Hallgerd and me, generations of ancestors between us.
I wasn’t even supposed to be here. I was only supposed to return the coin. Maybe I hadn’t really done that yet. Maybe I needed to throw it to Hallgerd again. I drew my hand back, knowing the spell was still alive between us.
A sharp twang brought me back to where I was. Gunnar dropped his bow—its string had snapped—and grabbed a long-handled axe, swinging it at the man who was climbing into the loft, sword in hand. Gunnar’s blade connected with the man’s neck. Blood
spurted everywhere—on Gunnar’s face and clothes, on the wooden planks, on my cloak. The man fell backward off the edge, hands grasping the air even as he died.
I braced my hands against the floor. Fire roared in me, around me. The stench of sweat and blood was everywhere. Through the roaring, I heard Gunnar’s voice. “Hallgerd,” he called. “Give me two locks of your hair. Twist them into a bowstring for me.” There was a hint of strain in his voice now. Another man came over the wall. Gunnar swung at him, and the man fell away.
My hair—this was where Gunnar was supposed to die. This was where Hallgerd killed him.
Hell no. I wasn’t Hallgerd. I didn’t have to follow her script. If Gunnar wanted a few locks of hair, he could have them. I shoved the coin into the pouch at my belt and reached for the small knife. Hang in there a little longer, Ari.
“Yes, Haley,” Hallgerd said. “Whatever Gunnar needs, give it to him. Don’t you dare let him die.”
What? Hallgerd wasn’t supposed to agree with me. I grabbed a lock of long blond hair and drew the knife close.
The hair burned—hot as liquid glass, hot as spun fire. Sparks flew from the strands. I let them go. “Free,” a rough voice whispered in my head. “We will be free.”
“Do not lose courage now,” Hallgerd’s more human voice said. “It will not burn your hands long, that hair into which the giants bound their power long ago. Only so long as it takes to string Gunnar’s bow.”
“Oh God.” A bow strung with fire. That fire lighting arrows and opening molten cracks in the earth as the arrows fell. The fire spirits had bound their magic into my blood, but, for Hallgerd, they’d bound it into her hair. They’d even said so. If I gave that fire to Gunnar’s bow—I felt ill all over again.
I couldn’t do it. Even without my dreams, I knew it down to my bones. The arrow fired from such a bowstring would tear the earth apart. More than Gunnar’s enemies would fall.
“Hallgerd.” Gunnar glanced back at me. He looked suddenly tired, like he’d been fighting way too long. That look, too, reminded me of Dad—not Dad when I was younger, but Dad this past year, after Mom had disappeared. Gunnar reached toward my hair, as if to stroke it. I drew away.
“Is it—is it important?” I asked, stalling for time. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of course it was important for Gunnar to restring his bow.
“My life depends on it.” He sounded surprised I even needed to ask, and who could blame him? “They’ll never defeat me, so long as I have my bow.” A cry from below drew him back to the wall, but even as he swung at the next enemy, he gestured toward the bow.
In my head Hallgerd hissed, “If Gunnar dies, your berserk dies, too.”
Maybe she was lying. Anyone who could kill her first two husbands could lie a little, right? Maybe Ari wasn’t even there.
I knew better, though. Of course Ari was there, waiting for me to return. He wouldn’t abandon me.
“Free, free, free!” In my head, the fire spirits roared their laughter.
We’d all die if I set those spirits free. The earth would burn, just like in my dreams, down to its very core. This small island would be torn apart. Maybe the rest of the world would suffer, too, if my dreams spoke true.
“The world will end one day whether we will it or no,” Hallgerd said, as if hearing my thought. “That’s no reason to give up all honor.”
What honor was there in letting the land burn? Yet if Hallgerd hurt Ari—but Ari would die, too, if I set Hallgerd’s fire loose into the world. And I’d be throwing away Freki’s gift, which had gotten me here.
“I—I can’t,” I stammered to Gunnar. My throat tightened. I choked out the words. “I won’t.”
“I’ll kill him, Haley!” Hallgerd yelled.
A man leaped right up beside Gunnar. Gunnar struck at the man, through his shield and the arm that held it. The man toppled to the floor, blood gushing from his arm, jagged bones breaking through his skin. Tired as he was, Gunnar was still strong. Maybe he didn’t need his bow.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. Tears traced hot tracks down my cheeks. “You have no idea.”
The look that came over Gunnar’s face was beyond describing. It was the look of a man who has seen his death. I thought he’d plead, or take my hair by force. It wasn’t like he wasn’t strong enough. But he only let out a breath. “Everyone has their own way of being remembered,” he said. “I will not ask you again.” Gunnar swung at another man, causing him to fall. Then his gaze returned to me, and the strangest expression crossed his face. “What is this, Hallgerd? Your eyes—”
Two men climbed over the edge together. Gunnar whirled away, axe raised, even as I thought, He knows.
Gunnar sliced at one man’s leg, another man’s arm. The men stumbled but kept fighting. A third man came up to fight beside them. I still held my knife, but it was little larger than a steak knife. What use would that be against swords? I sheathed the blade at my belt, stood, and backed away. Splinters from what remained of the roof caught my hair. The wood began to smolder. I quickly ducked away.
I should get out of here, I thought, before they attack me, too, or worse. I could run for it, escape down the ladder … I didn’t. If I couldn’t save Gunnar’s life, the least I could do was stay and watch. Surely he had other family. They’d want to know what had happened.
Like you can tell anyone anything once you’re dead, I thought. But still I waited. I owed him that much.
Gunnar fought for a long time, way longer than I thought possible. Three more men came up into the loft. Gunnar fought them all, spinning from one to another with inhuman speed. His battle cries joined the roar of fire in my ears. Yet in the end he stumbled, and one of them struck a blow to his arm. His axe fell, and another man seized it.
Someone thrust a spear into his chest. Blood bubbled up as that man drew his spear free. Gunnar gave a little gasp and fell. His axe arm twitched, and then he was still, eyes staring at the too-blue sky.
Hallgerd’s keening burst into my head, a terrible sound. She loved him, I thought numbly. The story got it wrong. She really loved him. I fell to my knees and threw up.
I heard footsteps approach me, looked up to see myself surrounded by Gunnar’s killers. Their expressions were grim. There was blood on their clothes, and one of them held his arm to his side. Shit. I unsheathed the little knife, knowing it couldn’t possibly do any good against them all.
One of the men nodded at me, a surprisingly respectful gesture. “Lady,” he said. It was hard to hear him over the fire’s roaring and Hallgerd’s keening. “Will you give us land to bury our dead?”
Was he serious? “Fuck off,” I told him in English. Then, in Icelandic, “No, I have a better idea. Why don’t you dig a hole deep enough to bury you all?”
The men laughed, all but the one who had spoken. “You have reason enough for anger at us,” he said soberly. “You have lost much today.” He turned away, and the others followed him. Together they tossed their fallen friend over the wall, then climbed down after him. Just like that.
Blood still flowed from Gunnar’s chest. I knelt beside him and felt for a pulse, though I knew there was no point. My hands came away sticky with blood.
I hid my face in my burning blond hair, the hair a man had died for, and I wept.
Hallgerd’s cries in my head fell silent at last. “Oh, you have not yet begun to grieve, Haley. I will give you something to weep for. Your knife is sharp enough, I think.”
“No!” I forced myself to my feet and grabbed the coin from the pouch. “Here. You can have it!”
“What use have I for your gifts now? Keep the life you’ve destroyed. I may have given over control of the coin and the spell, but its tools—the bowl and the stone and what remains of the blood—lie with me. Until you gather them all again, you cannot cast the spell, not without my consent. And that I will not give. I will not return!”
The coin flared hotter. “Free,” roared the powers Hallgerd had bargained with—the powers I’d bargained with. Aga
inst my will I felt my other hand draw the little knife from its sheath. “Free us,” the fire spirits roared. “Free the doubled power you now hold.”
My tears were fire. My thoughts were fire. Fire surged through my hair, my blood. I touched the wood beneath me, and my fingers left black charred prints behind. “Free,” the fire creatures cried. “We will be free.”
With a sick lurch I knew that refusing Gunnar my hair hadn’t been enough. No one could hold so much power for long and live.
This wasn’t over yet. It would never be over, not until the fire consumed me after all.
Chapter 17
Somehow I unclenched my hand, and the knife clattered to the floor. I drew my hands into fists, right around the coin. My fingers sought my palms. I had only to break skin, and the fire would leave me, and I would be free.
I shut my eyes. I saw a vision of my blood hitting the earth, turning to flame as it landed. I saw earth splitting open around the flames, and a huge fiery hand reaching for the sky.
My skin was burning away from within. The burning hurt—but I forced my fists open, dropping the coin. I could handle pain. I’d hold this fire for as long as I could. I opened my eyes. Flames still danced before me. My hands went right through them, as if they were ghosts.
“Shall I let you know,” Hallgerd said, her voice high and taunting, “the moment my blade breaks his skin?”
“Please,” I begged Hallgerd, because I knew there was no reasoning with the fire inside me.
Hallgerd’s laughter in my head was a wild thing. “Would you bargain with me? What compensation can you possibly offer for Gunnar’s life?”
“You have my mother’s life.” My voice grew wild as hers. “Isn’t that enough?”
“There’s no such thing as enough, not anymore. He flinches quite nicely, Haley. Even so, he says you should not listen to me. Foolish boy. Do you think whether Haley listens or not matters to me anymore?”
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