Runa sat back on her heels. “Shame. Still, I suppose thralls need healers, too.”
“And warriors don’t?” Maeve said. “That’s the only reason I can see for not allowing me on a ship.”
Aesa reached out, but Maeve shook her off.
Runa’s brows lifted. “And what would happen if an enemy charged you in battle? With no wyrd, no weapon, only your healing to protect you?”
“She’d be killed,” Aesa mumbled. Maeve gave her an angry look, but it was the truth. A healer would be quite a boon after a battle, but during? Anyone who had to be protected was a liability. Maeve sighed, and Aesa knew she realized the truth.
With all the force of a gut punch, Aesa saw the future as clearly as she saw the proving grounds, the screaming crowd. Tomorrow, she would set sail with Gilka, and Maeve would watch her go.
Aesa gripped her hand, unable to stand unaided in the face of that truth.
“You’re still hurt?” Maeve asked.
“No. Maeve…”
Runa looked back and forth between them before she cleared her throat. “Well, if a wyrd does come to you, seek me out, Maeve. I’m Gilka’s witch, but I’m a breaker. She’d love to have a healer like you.” She moved to watch the grand melee, and a bubble of sorts opened around Aesa and Maeve, leaving them alone in the midst of Gilka’s crews.
*
Maeve tried to fight the bitter tide that wanted to choke her. Aesa didn’t speak any more, her hand more like a lump of clay than the warm touch of another.
Aesa’s stricken gaze tore away from Maeve and moved to her new crew on the battlefield. She’d called when she was hurt, but now that she’d been healed, her heart and spirit were with her new crew again, just as her body would be tomorrow. Her mind had probably already set sail.
And who knew where she’d be going? Thrains kept their raiding plans close to their hearts. How much treasure they brought back would determine their status with the jarl, and all of them wanted to be the first and only ships at their destinations.
And any plan Gilka had meant that Maeve had no idea how long it would be until she saw Aesa again. In the meantime, there would be plenty of meditation and waiting for a wyrd that would probably never come.
Aesa freed her hand to clap for her crewmates, and as she called out to some warrior or another, Gilka’s crew began to edge Maeve out of their midst. She drifted toward the spectators where she found Laret waiting.
“That was impressive,” Laret said. “I felt it from here.”
“I’m glad someone is still interested.”
“Ah, the warriors set sail tomorrow, and yours goes with them?”
Maeve sighed long and loud. “I suppose you’ll go on Ulfrecht’s ship with Einar. Is he your bondmate?”
“No!” She cleared her throat. “He was the first person I met when I came here. We were never more than allies, I suppose. He only wanted to be friends with me because he thought knowing me gave him some kind of status. Well, not anymore.” She lifted the edge of her hair, showing a bruise on the side of her neck, above her scarf. “I don’t plan to speak to him again.”
“What did you fight about?”
“He didn’t like the way I apologized to you. Don’t worry. He won’t be grabbing another witch for a long time to come.”
Maeve sighed a laugh. “I’m glad for that.”
“Being brutish is the warrior way, I suppose.”
“Not all the time.” She shook the memories of her tender moments with Aesa away before they could bring tears to her eyes. “Are warriors the same in Asimi?”
“I imagine it’s the same everywhere.” But her gaze darted to the side as if even casual mention of her homeland made her uneasy.
“So, you won’t be shipping out tomorrow with the rest of them?”
“Oh no. I’m not ready to get involved with your people like that.”
Maeve grinned. “Involved. I like that.” She nudged Laret’s elbow. “I guess we’ll have each other to talk to, then.”
“You live here?”
“No one lives here. This is ceremonial ground. I lived with Aesa in a village that lies that way.” She pointed east. “But as Aesa’s bondmate, I guess I live on Gilka’s lands now. To tend house while she’s gone.” She forced a friendly smile. With no family of her own, it was either go to Aesa’s new home, live with Aesa’s family in their old home, or venture out alone. She brightened as an idea struck her. “Why don’t you come and stay, unless you have somewhere else to go?”
Laret’s cheeks blushed prettily. “I don’t, I mean, I never did. I’ve been exploring, and I…” She swallowed. “Thank you, Maeve. I don’t want to be a burden.”
“Good. No doubt Aesa will have a place on a farm. You can help me feed the goats.”
“I’ve never fed a goat.”
“What did you do in your old village? Fish? Hunt? Aesa is an arbiter’s daughter, and even she had to tend the livestock.”
“I lived in a city.” Her stare into the distance had a purposeful quality.
Maeve had heard of cities, but she’d never seen one. Laret’s entire posture had gone rigid. Perhaps her city didn’t approve of blood witches, and she’d had to leave. Or maybe she wanted to explore, and her family wanted her to take over whatever it was they did. Her pained expression said she wouldn’t speak of it. Not yet, at least. But with Aesa gone, they’d have a long time for conversation.
“I’ll find you again tomorrow,” Maeve said as the combatants finally broke up. “I need to spend tonight with Aesa.”
Laret nodded toward Gilka’s crew. “Are you sure she won’t be busy?”
“They get to have her for who knows how long. I get her tonight.”
Laret lifted an eyebrow. “Well, if you need someone to talk to, I’ll be in the witch’s camp.”
Maeve nodded and marched toward where Aesa celebrated with her crewmembers. A large group of men and women headed in the same direction, determined looks on their faces. So, she wasn’t the only one who’d demand that a crewmember’s last hours be spent among friends and family. It was no wonder some warriors only bonded inside their crew. That way they didn’t have to keep saying good-bye.
Maeve gripped Aesa’s sleeve, leaving no room for argument. How poetic it would be if her wyrd came upon her just as she’d given up hope and fetched her beloved for a last farewell. It could come hurtling out of nowhere and present itself in a shower of sparks. Maybe she’d develop an animal connection and summon a thousand bees. Maybe she’d hear the language of birds and command them to defend her. With her healing ability, she thought she’d get some sort of power over the human body, to read minds or something, anything that would give her the offensive edge a thrain would demand she have.
But there was nothing. All the way back to their tent, people touched Aesa’s shoulders, ruffled her short hair, and slapped her on the back. They mimed the drawing of a bow and shot her, laughing all the while. Aesa laughed back, a woman who usually reserved her emotions. Now she was everyone’s friend, and they were hers.
Maeve tried to tell herself she wasn’t jealous. She was disappointed. There was a difference. But as she kept tugging Aesa away, she couldn’t hold in her scowl.
When they were alone, she tried to let their physical love overwhelm her, demanding she lose herself, lose control. Aesa was so happy, Maeve could almost feel it in her skin. If not for her gods’ cursed wyrd, she could be happy, too. Then they could both lose themselves in joy instead of this suffocating feeling that built and built and built.
When Aesa nibbled her neck, Maeve opened wide and sank her teeth into Aesa’s shoulder.
Aesa shot away from her. “What’s the matter with you?”
Shame burned in Maeve’s cheeks. “I’m sorry. It’s nothing. Come here.”
“Nothing? I think you drew blood.”
“No, I didn’t!”
“You meant to hurt me.”
“I didn’t.” You did, you did, her inner healer said, appall
ed and ashamed. “I’m sorry.”
Aesa rubbed her shoulder, her face wounded and confused. “You didn’t get your wyrd.”
Maeve shook her head, tears in her eyes. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not. Maeve—”
“I know!” She heard several conversations around their tent go silent. “I can’t go with you.”
“So you bit me instead?”
Maeve hung her head. “Please, just let this go.”
“What? The biting or you? Or did you mean my dream of having us sail together?”
Anger flared, making her face burn hotter. “Don’t pretend that having me there really mattered to you.”
Aesa narrowed her eyes. “I always wanted us to go together.”
“No, you wanted to go, and you wanted me to follow.”
“That’s the same thing!”
“I didn’t care whose ship we got on as long as we got on one!”
“And now I’m on the best, and you could have been, too, if you’d…”
Hurt stabbed through Maeve, and she raised up on her knees, hands on her hips. “If I’d what?”
“Nothing.” But her gaze shifted over the floor. “We should go out and join the party, try this again later.”
“You were going to say if I’d tried harder, weren’t you?”
Aesa shrugged. “You won’t meditate, won’t study.”
“No one knows if that helps; it’s just that some people—”
“But you wouldn’t even try. Maybe it’s you who really didn’t want to go, and you’re saying it was me to cover yourself.”
Maeve ground her teeth together. “I did not sabotage myself.”
“Even in your heart of hearts? You said this was my dream, not yours.”
“You’re my dream!” And now she heard people moving away, giving them space.
Aesa’s angry expression relaxed into one that was almost as bad: pity. “I can’t be your dream, Maeve. That’s too much responsibility for anyone.”
Maeve’s eyes stung now, and she saw tears in Aesa’s, too. She’d wanted to be a healer, but beyond that, it was a healer on Aesa’s ship, following Aesa around the world. She didn’t care about the gold or the prestige. She thought Aesa would be enough.
“I love you,” she tried.
“And I you,” Aesa said, “but…” She waved outside the tent as if the whole world waited.
Maeve couldn’t ask her to stay, wanted her to choose it for herself, to say that it had been enough to prove herself, that she realized Maeve’s love was all she’d ever need. Then they could go back to Aesa’s family farm and live as thralls for the rest of their lives.
And Aesa, who had always been told there was more, would be miserable.
They stared at one another for a few seconds, and Aesa gathered her clothes and left. Maeve stared at the tent flap, certain it would open again, and that Aesa would come back inside. Perhaps she’d ducked out for a drink. Perhaps she’d bring in a trinket and apologize for ever thinking that Maeve had denied herself a wyrd instead of having it deny her. But time stretched on, and the revelry outside continued, all through the afternoon and deep into darkness. Maeve couldn’t bring herself to go out and search. She couldn’t see all the happy faces, the shorn hair of the new recruits, the witches who’d be welcomed into crews, all the happy bondmates starting new lives. When the revelry around their tent began to die down, she curled into her blankets and wept.
*
When Maeve woke the next morning, Aesa still wasn’t there, and all her things had vanished. So, that was the way it was going to be; one fight and they were done? Maeve stormed out of the tent, ready to run to where the ships were leaving and hurl insults after Aesa until even the dead gods paid attention.
Aesa waited just outside, her gear gathered around her. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
Maeve deflated, shoulders sagging. “I was all ready to yell at you.”
“That would have given the crew a big laugh.”
“Did…did you get your ship assignment?”
“I’m with Gilka.”
“I’m glad for you.” They stood in awkward silence a few more moments. “Have you met everyone?”
“Most of them. Only women sail on Gilka’s personal ship. She said she doesn’t want to risk anyone getting pregnant in the middle of a raid.”
Maeve had to laugh. “What does she do when all her ships sail together?”
Aesa shrugged.
“Do you know where you’ll be going?”
“She’s keeping it secret until we get out on the water, but some of her other ships will be going up the coast. Do you, um, do you know…”
“What I’ll be doing?” She shrugged. “I promised to show Laret around.”
“The blood witch? The one that got us into that fight?”
“She’s a stranger here, and she was just a little prickly trying to find her way. I’ll find Gilka’s steward. She owes you somewhere to live, probably on one of her farms. I’ll keep it up for when you get back.” She forced a smile and wondered how genuine it looked. “Better that than having to explain to your mother why I abandoned her daughter’s new home.”
Aesa nodded, though she hadn’t lost her stricken look, making Maeve’s heart ache. She didn’t want Aesa to be sad because of her. That would ruin the journey or worse, get Aesa killed because she couldn’t stop thinking about the bondmate she’d left behind. Maeve swallowed her in an embrace. “You’ll do so well. You’ll cover yourself in glory.”
“I’ll bring you something. Not sure what.”
“I’ll be here.” She fought the bitterness down and walked at Aesa’s side through the trees, a long walk down to the nearest cove, where the ships would launch. She could watch this. She would not whine or pout or shed tears. She would wave to her departing warrior along with so many others. As the sounds of the crowd and the crews surrounded her, the breezed picked up. She’d been picturing this moment for a long time, but always from the ships, never on the shore.
It could come now. Just like her wyrd to wait for a dramatic entrance. Then she could run and leap onto the ship and sail away at Aesa’s side. Seconds passed, minutes. Aesa kissed her, lips dry in the salt air. She gathered her things and moved toward where Gilka’s ship bobbed in the dark water, many ships gathered in the cove behind.
“Now,” Maeve whispered.
The early morning mists still clung to the pier, but the sun would part them soon, showing off the forest behind her and the mountains in the distance. Time was running out.
“Please.” There had to be a way to force it. She curled her fingers in, turning them white, cutting off the blood.
Blood.
“Behold the blood witch Aishlaugh,” Maeve sang softly, “the scourge of Holfinton. She took the minds of men and women and bent them to her will.” A villain from the old tales, a cautionary story. Blood magic, the teachers said, was the opposite of spirit magic. It changed the natural order of things and forced itself upon life.
On the pier, Aesa loaded her things on Gilka’s ship, her bow and quiver wrapped in sealskin, her clothes and blanket. She helped someone else move a barrel into place.
“Aishlaugh parted the veil of the world, and took a wyrd for herself, her magic more powerful than thirty warriors, more powerful than the ancient fae.” In the end, she was slain by ice wolves and the heroes who rode them.
Gilka stepped aboard her ship, clapping crewmates on the back. Aesa beamed at her.
Aishlaugh. Why hadn’t Maeve thought of her before?
“That’s a strange smile.”
Maeve turned to find Laret at her side, watching the ships depart. Aesa waved farewell before she had to take her place at an oar and help row the ship away from the pier. “It’s a strange sort of day.”
“I thought I’d see how you were doing with your love sailing out of reach.”
“Not well,” she admitted. “I had hoped to go with her. I’d hoped to have my wyrd.”
>
“If it’s meant to come, it’ll come. No one knows why some get a wyrd or a wyld and others don’t.”
Maeve gave her a dark look.
“Sorry. You must be tired of hearing that.”
“Extremely, but I hear there are other ways besides just patient waiting.” She stared hard at Laret’s blood-red eyes. “Do you believe in fate?”
“What do you mean?” When Maeve didn’t answer, Laret laid a hand on her arm. “You’re not thinking of blood magic?”
“It must be fate if you already know that.”
Chapter Three
The ship hadn’t fully left the harbor, and Maeve stood locked in conversation with Laret, the waving crowd parting around them. Aesa told herself she couldn’t be angry. Maeve would need company. No one expected bondmates who spent months apart to have a lonely bed.
But Aesa hadn’t even left yet.
As she manned an oar on the narrow longship, Aesa glanced toward the shore again. Maeve’s expression swung between too many emotions to count, but in the end, she seemed hopeful. Maybe she’d finally decided to focus on her meditation.
Another ship sailed between her and the shore, cutting off her view, and Aesa forced herself to focus on the back of the woman in front of her or the cries of gulls or the tall, jutting prow of the ship, its end carved into a snarling wolf’s head.
Gilka squeezed between the twelve rowers. “Put up the sail.”
Aesa stood and pushed her stool to the side, under the railing where the ship flared slightly before it came together beneath the waves. The single sail unfurled, red and green striped, and the wind caught it, shoving the ship away from the coast as if pushed by a giant hand. Gilka’s other ships disappeared into the distance, headed for the coasts they would raid.
Runa joined Gilka at the tiller, close enough for Aesa to hear. “They’re following us, just as you thought.”
Gilka grinned and glanced over her shoulder. “Let them come.”
Aesa sidled close to one of Gilka’s most seasoned warriors, a woman called Hilfey. She leaned over the side, letting the wind blow her gray and brown braids, the better to twist them together in a leather cord. “Do you know where we’re bound?” Aesa asked.
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