ELEVEN
They’d been living with an Aska for too long.
I stared at the cot that Inge made up along the opposite wall from the others in the loft. I’d expected to sleep with the animals. Maybe they wanted me to know they weren’t afraid of me. Or maybe they wanted to keep me close enough to watch. Either way, they were foolish. I wasn’t Iri.
I went up as soon as they sat to eat supper. I couldn’t sit across the table from my brother and pretend not to know him. I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t thinking every moment of how to kill every last one of them. I rolled onto my side and stared at the wall, where the cold was coming in through a crack. I lifted my hand and fit my fingers into it.
“Did you see Kerling today?” Iri spoke, breaking the silence.
“I did.” Inge’s delicate voice was the only feminine thing in the house. “Vidr did the right thing by cutting off the leg. He’ll manage and it’ll heal. His pride, on the other hand…”
“He’s lost his leg.” Fiske’s voice rose in rebuke.
“But not his honor.” Inge’s words turned sharp. “Gyda needs him. The baby will be here soon.”
“What will he do without his leg? He can’t fight anymore. He can’t farm,” Halvard said softly.
“He’ll raise goats,” Fiske answered. “They’ll be fine.”
Another long silence stretched out before Inge spoke again. “Sit down and let me look at you, sváss.”
“I took care of it already.” Fiske sighed.
“Sit,” she urged again, and I heard the scrape of a stool on the stone floor followed by the sound of her unbuckling his armor vest.
From what I could tell, Inge’s husband was dead and I could probably guess how. Most clansmen died in the fighting season, but others died in raids or of illness. Fiske was obviously the man of the house, but Inge wasn’t helpless if she ran her home and worked as a healer while he was gone during the fighting season. The span of years between Fiske and Halvard could mean there had been more children. Or maybe Halvard wasn’t hers the way Iri wasn’t hers.
“Are those teeth marks?”
I burrowed deeper into my blanket, remembering the way it felt to sink my teeth into Fiske’s flesh. I could still taste his blood in my mouth.
“You didn’t come home in such good shape last time.” Her tone lifted on a smile. “You sure you did much fighting?”
Halvard and Iri laughed and I swallowed down the nausea climbing up my throat.
“I did plenty of fighting,” Fiske shot back.
“Is that where the Aska came from?” Halvard spoke and the others fell silent, the house filling with the sound of the wood crackling in the fire as the sap popped in its grooves.
I lifted my head, quietly pulling myself to the edge of the cot to look through the planks of wood to where they sat below. Halvard was filling clay jars with the salve they’d been making over the fire. He looked to Inge for an answer.
She sat at the table beside Fiske. His tunic was pulled off and she was cleaning his arm where I’d bitten him. The rest of his skin was covered in scrapes and cuts and bruises.
“Yes,” Fiske answered.
Halvard looked up at him, securing the lid to a jar. “Why didn’t you kill her?”
Inge leaned over him, wiping at a cut on his neck. She looked small next to his large, solid frame. Fiske glanced at Iri and Inge watched their wordless exchange from the top of her gaze. “Sometimes we bring them back. You know that.”
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t kill her. She’s pretty.”
Iri sat across the room, a smile breaking onto his face and I cringed, my forehead wrinkling. I didn’t want to think about seeing myself in his face. I didn’t want to think about our mother. About what she would think of Iri now.
“Her hair looks like yours, Iri.”
My heart skipped ahead of my breath and the line of Iri’s shoulders hardened. Fiske stood up, taking his tunic into his hand.
Inge was watching him. “Stay away from her, Halvard.”
“Why?” He set down the jar, his eyebrows coming together. “She’s just a dýr.”
“She’s not just a dýr. She’s Aska,” Fiske corrected.
“Iri’s Aska,” Halvard muttered, his shoulders slumping.
“She’s dangerous, Halvard. Stay away from her.” Fiske waited for the boy to look at him.
He nodded, reluctantly.
Inge was still watching Fiske as she packed the supplies back into the basket on the table. “Which is why it’s interesting that you brought her here.”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he slipped the tunic back over his head and picked up his axe before he opened the door and went out into the night. Inge’s eyes traveled over to Iri, but he didn’t look up either. A few minutes later, the hollow pound of an axe and the splintering of wood was echoing against the house.
I pushed back from the edge of my cot and lay back down when the fire pit was nothing but smoldering ashes. Halvard climbed the ladder and I huddled down into my blanket, hidden in the darkness. He flopped down across the loft, fidgeting for a few minutes before his breaths stretched out longer and deeper. He fell asleep with his hand hanging out of his blankets, his fingertips touching the floor.
The door below opened and closed a few minutes later, and Iri lifted himself up over the edge of the loft, stepping over Halvard. He crouched low, looking at him, before he brushed a hand over his hair and stood back up, coming toward me.
“She’s gone,” he whispered, sitting down beside my cot.
He looked down at the collar around my neck, his eyes shifting to avoid mine. “I thought we had more time. I’m sorry.”
I didn’t answer. The last thing I wanted from him was his sympathy.
“It’s only until the thaw, Eelyn. Then we can find a way to get you home. Back to Aghi.”
I rolled onto my back to face him. The glow from the fire pit was too low to see his eyes. “Hylli is home to both of us, Iri.”
He looked away. “Fela is my home now.”
The tightness in my chest strangled me, and I was glad he couldn’t see my face. The only thing that could be worse than losing Iri was knowing that he’d chosen to leave. He was dead all over again. I was alone again, but differently.
“What happened to you?” I whispered. “What happened that day in Aurvanger?”
He looked at me for a long moment, until the door opened again and he stood, making his way to his cot. I pulled up the blankets, staring at the outline of his face as he lay down on his back. The arch of his brow and the angle of his nose were the same as they were when we were children.
Fiske climbed the ladder and settled onto the cot beside mine, prying his boots off and sitting up in the dark. He pulled in a long breath, rubbing his face with both of his hands before he worked his tunic back off and raked his hair up, tying it in a knot.
He lay down, staring at the ceiling a long time, his hands folded on his chest. I watched the thoughts cross his face one at a time until his eyes closed.
My fingertips found the collar and I tried to imagine what my father’s face would look like if he could see me. I blinked and the dread spilled over, drowning the quiet. Because the only thing worse than knowing I was a dýr was the thought of my father knowing it too.
TWELVE
I stared up into the dark long before the others awoke, hearing Iri’s voice in my mind. A man’s voice. I closed my eyes, trying to see the boy I’d run on the beach with as a child. I tried to remember what his voice had sounded like then, but I couldn’t summon it to me. Memories suddenly felt more like dreams, moments stuck between waking and sleeping.
When I heard Inge moving below, I climbed down the ladder, hooking my good arm into each rung, and stood beside the fire pit. My eyes drifted to the stale bread sitting on the table.
“Good morning.” She handed me the fire-steel and I looked down to where it sat in my open palm. My other arm was still tied to my body.
“Oh
.” She turned back when she realized. “Sorry, I suppose you can’t do that.”
She reached out to take it back and I closed my fist, turning away from her and walking to the wall beside the door to gather up the wood. She raised an eyebrow at me before going back to the grains on the table. I set up the kindling with one hand at the edge of the fire pit instead of the center. I struck the one piece of the fire-steel against the stone until it sparked, but the kindling didn’t catch. I moved the kindling closer and tried again. This time it lit and I picked up the burning bundle and set it in place before it could snuff out.
“Can you show me how to do that?” Halvard watched me from the edge of the loft with sleepy eyes and hair standing up around his head. He slid down the ladder in only his pants and the memory of a young Iri pushed its way back into my mind, barefoot and dirty-faced.
I rubbed the heel of my palm against my chest, as if it might erase it.
I looked away, turning toward Inge. She was sifting the grain into a bowl, her eyes narrowing on me. “Can you please heat the water?”
I found the kettle and when I turned around, Halvard was standing next to me, holding out his hand. Inge watched us as I gave him the kettle and he hopped down from the edge of the fire pit. He fit his fingers into the grooves of one of the flat stones that made up the floor and lifted it up carefully. There, beneath the stone, water was running in a dug-out channel under the house.
I’d never seen anything like it. He looked up at me proudly, using a cup to fill the kettle, and handed it back to me, smiling. Inge poured the grain out onto a large hot cooking stone, toasting it with a wooden paddle. The house filled with the warm nutty smell and my stomach pinched with hunger.
Iri and Fiske stirred above us and Inge smiled, shaking her head. “Like bears in the winter,” she muttered.
Halvard set out wooden bowls and Inge filled them with the grain before pouring the hot water over them. Iri and Fiske climbed down the ladder, their hair unbound and faces drawn with sleep. Iri scratched at his jaw as he sat down, his eyes squinted against the light.
Halvard scooted over on the bench to make another seat but Inge took the fifth bowl and handed it to me. “Over there.” She nodded toward the corner by the door.
I looked into the bowl, the heat lighting in my cheeks. Iri gave her a look, but she ignored him. Why should she let a dýr sit at the table? She didn’t trust me. She shouldn’t trust me. And why did I care? I didn’t want to sit with them.
I picked up a stool, setting it down hard on the stone and sat with my bowl in my lap, taking a bite of the grains. My lip still stung fiercely, but I was hungry enough not to care.
“I’ll take Runa and the Aska to gather the yarrow for Adalgildi. You’re both needed to bring in the ale from the mountainside cellar,” she said, glancing up to Iri and Fiske.
Fiske stared at her, his spoon hovering over his bowl.
She looked at me before meeting his eyes. “You think I can’t take care of myself?”
“What about me?” Halvard spoke through a mouth full of food.
Inge smiled. “You can come with us, sváss.”
I listened as they made plans for the day, dividing up responsibilities. When Inge stood, she leaned down to kiss Iri on the cheek, running a hand through his hair. It set my teeth on edge. A spark, threatening to eat up the dry, angry parts of me. As she passed Fiske, she did the same and they both relaxed under her touch, leaning into her. Fiske and Iri were grown men, hardened by battle, but they were soft with her.
I faced the wall as I finished eating, unable to stomach it. I didn’t remember as much of my mother as Iri had. We lived most of our lives with only our father, but I didn’t like Inge touching him. I didn’t like the tenderness between them. Inge acting like Iri’s mother was an insult, but Iri acting like Inge’s son was blasphemy.
My fist tightened around my spoon as I took my last bite and I stood, washing my bowl and returning it to the crate Halvard pulled them from. Iri met my eyes as he ducked out the door behind Fiske—a warning to behave.
I leaned into the wall and waited as Inge lifted two large leather-handled baskets up onto the table and took two pairs of iron shears from the wall. If she wanted me to eat in the corner like a goat, I wasn’t going to go out of my way to help her.
Behind me, the door swung opened and Runa came in, brushing snowflakes from her dark hair and her skirt. She was bundled up in a wool wrap, her cheeks flushed pink.
When she smiled, her full lips stretched over straight white teeth. “Good morning.”
“Runa!” Halvard ran to her, wrapping his arms around her waist.
Her gaze lifted to me, moving over my face to my shoulder. As soon as they landed on the dýr collar, her eyes flitted away. “You look better.” She held out a green wool cloak in her arms. “I brought this for you.”
I stared at it.
“For the cold.” She pushed it toward me.
Halvard took it from her and shoved it into my arms. “Aren’t you going to put it on?”
Inge came around the table with the hood of her own cloak pulled up over her head. She handed one basket to me and slid the other onto her hip.
They walked side by side with Halvard running ahead and me following behind. We followed the path through the houses and I watched out of the corner of my eye, taking note again of how the village was laid out. Between Inge’s house and the ritual house, a row of houses lined the path, except for the blacksmith’s tent and what looked like the village cellar. The wooden door was set into a rocky cliff face.
At the last house on the path, a man stood with his son and daughter before an elk strung up from a tree. Its black, empty eyes seemed to follow me as I walked, its tongue hanging from its mouth. The man lifted his knife, showing the boy where to cut. Behind them, a woman gathered eggs into her apron. She watched me, clutching the hem of her skirt tighter in her hands.
As we made our way out of the village, the trail grew thicker, overrun by the forest. We stepped carefully into footsteps that were already punched into the snow and climbed farther up. The village looked small from above, the dark wooden structures nestled together with smoke lifting up from the rooftops.
The path cut down sharply and we followed it, walking until the snow began to thin. As the sun rose above us, the warmth came back into my body, maybe for the first time since I’d arrived in Fela. But winter was only just beginning and days like this were numbered. Maybe it was the last one.
Inge and Runa talked quietly, taking turns carrying the basket, and I listened, lugging mine with one hand on my sore hip. They talked about an old woman with a cough, a child with a lame leg, and a few men brought back from Aurvanger who probably wouldn’t heal from their battle wounds. Again, they mentioned a man named Kerling.
I watched carefully, memorizing the path. We weren’t far from the village, but we were moving up again, not down. As the trail narrowed between two steep rock faces, I maneuvered the basket in front of me to wedge myself through. When it opened back up, we were standing in a large clearing covered in white and yellow stalks of yarrow. They reached up from the ground as high as my waist, pushing and pulling against each other in the breeze.
Inge and Runa set down their basket and settled onto the ground, reaching for the stalks nearest to them. They cut with their shears at an angle, pulling them up out of the thick brush.
“Here.” Inge reached for the basket I was holding and I set it down beside her. “Remove the leaves. We’ll keep them,” she said, gently placing the cut stalks into the basket.
“They’re for Adalgildi.” Halvard found a place on the ground next to me. “Do the Aska have Adalgildi?”
I ignored him, stripping the leaves from the yarrow and piling them between us. He did the same with the stalks from Runa’s basket, where the stack of flowers crisscrossed each other like fallen trees. He snapped one of the stalks in his hand and pried the bloom off, careful not to smash the tiny petals. He held it up between u
s. When I didn’t move, he pushed it at me. “It’s for you.”
He grabbed my wrist and turned my hand over so he could set the flower down into my palm like an egg in a nest. He smiled at it.
Inge stood, moving farther into the clearing, and Halvard followed after her. I looked down at the bloom in my hand until I felt Runa’s eyes on me. She was staring, her gaze trailing over me slowly.
“What?” I couldn’t smooth the bite out of the word, pulling the flower into my cloak.
“Nothing.” She blinked. “You just—with that green cloak and your hair—you look just like Iri.” Something sad fell like a veil over her voice, the lift in her mouth turning down at the corners.
So, she knew who I was. At the very least, she suspected.
I dropped my eyes and went back to work. I didn’t care if she thought I looked like Iri. I didn’t care about their offerings or their customs. The Aska were home with their families, mourning their dead, and I was in Fela, cutting flowers for the god of the Riki.
I eyed the shears in Runa’s hand. If I wanted to, I could kill the three of them right now.
I could set this field of yarrow on fire and let myself burn with it.
THIRTEEN
The house was filled with towering heaps of yarrow and long woven garlands of cedar by morning. The door stood open, letting the colors of early sunlight stream inside, and the smell of herbs grew thick in the air.
I untied my arm, stretching it carefully so I could try to use it. It was painful, but it would only grow stiff if I kept it bandaged. I set the tops of the yarrow in large, flat baskets as Inge instructed me to and watched from the table as she pulled clothes from the trunk against the wall. I eyed the two trunks next to it, trying to guess which one held the weapons. There was no way they wouldn’t keep them in the house and I’d already checked the loft. Fiske and Iri wore theirs during the day and slept with them beside their beds at night, but Inge must have weapons too. And Halvard.
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