He shook his head, his eyes becoming glassy. “Sleep... now.”
“Nay, do not go to sleep.” She smoothed his dark hair back from his forehead, panic rising. “Keldan, I am afraid if you go to sleep you may never awaken.”
“Stay.” It was unmistakably an order, his hand gripping hers, his dark eyes worried. “Jeg elsker deg.”
Her vision blurred. He had first said those words to her in the meadow, only yesterday. But she had been unable to bring herself to repeat them, unsure she could truly mean them.
“Jeg elsker deg, Keldan. I love you.”
Her declaration did not seem to ease the anguish in his expression. A spasm of pain wracked him.
Then his lashes drifted closed. He went still.
“Nay!” The denial rose from the depths of her heart. “Keldan, do not leave me!”
Chapter 17
Ildfast, curse him, did not turn up until Hauk and Avril had almost reached the edge of the forest on foot. Finding his stallion happily munching clover in a clearing, Hauk was sorely tempted to feed the bird-witted beast to the wolves, which had finally vanished into the woods in search of easier prey.
As the fading light of sunset sifted down through the forest canopy, he tried to take some comfort from the fact that they now had a horse—a well-rested horse—to carry them the rest of the way to the cove. But after spending all afternoon in the tree, he felt as snappish and restless as a wolf himself, impatient to reach their destination, concerned about whether Keldan and the others had intercepted Thorolf.
And whether the young men had managed to keep the confrontation from turning violent.
Avril also seemed unusually tense and quiet, mayhap because of her worry for Josette.
Or because she did not know what to say about what had happened between the two of them in the tree this afternoon, any more than he did. That long, silent linking of their hands had felt as intimate, somehow, as the lovemaking they had shared in his bed this morn.
Except that it had left him feeling more awkward and out of sorts than lovemaking ever did.
He tried to tell himself he had simply been fulfilling his vows, wooing his wife. Getting to know her better. ’Twas necessary, if he was to see to her needs and her happiness.
But none of those very practical explanations accounted for this tenderness that stole through him at her every glance, her gentlest touch. This feeling that he was dangerously close to naming. Out loud. To her.
Clenching his jaw, Hauk pushed that unsettling thought to the back of his mind. Once Josette and Keldan were out of danger and Thorolf hauled before the council, he meant to carry his little Valkyrie straight back to his vaningshus, where he would keep her safe and protected... and get to know her a great deal better. And see to her happiness in ways that would leave them both so utterly spent, they would not be able to think, let alone speak.
Ildfast’s smooth gait carried them swiftly toward the cove. But when they broke through the trees at last, the sight that greeted them told Hauk his day was not about to get better, but worse.
Much worse.
“Avril!” Josette cried, jumping to her feet and running toward them across the sand. She had been huddled beside Keldan—who lay stretched out near the water, unmoving.
Hauk bit back a curse.
“Josette, thank God!” Avril leaped down from Ildfast’s back and rushed to meet her friend. “Are you all right?”
Josette almost collapsed in her arms. “Oh, Avril, he is dead!” She sobbed. “Thorolf killed him. I barely had the chance to tell him I love him and now he is dead.”
“Nay,” Avril cried, “Josette, I am so sorry. If only we had gotten here sooner!”
“He is gone.” Her friend wailed. “He is gone.”
Holding his tongue, Hauk dismounted, tying Ildfast’s reins to a tree branch before stalking toward them across the shore, choked by the emotions pulsing through him: anger at Thorolf for breaking the most sacred of Asgard’s laws.
And frustration that he had not been here when Keldan and the others had been forced to fight. They were too young. Too inexperienced with weapons. He should have been here when they needed him.
“Keldan and some other men came to rescue me,” Josette was babbling, “and there was a terrible struggle and they captured Thorolf but he stabbed Keldan first and—”
“Shh, Josette.” Avril pressed Josette’s head against her shoulder, trying to comfort the hysterical girl.
“When?” Hauk asked as he drew near. “When did it happen?”
Avril looked at him strangely, but Josette seemed too upset to wonder at the question.
“Hours ago, at midday. And the other five men rode off and left him.” She sobbed. “The heartless wretches, they tied Thorolf up and took him away, but left Keldan to die!”
Hauk scowled at that news, annoyance crowding in on his anger and frustration.
Annoyance at Keldan, who apparently lacked any sense at all.
He strode over to where his young friend lay. Keeping his back to the women—who continued talking and sobbing and making all manner of loud, mournful noise—Hauk crouched down next to him.
“Kel,” he whispered.
The younger man did not stir.
Hauk tapped his face lightly with one hand. “Kel, wake up.”
Another, stronger slap roused him. Gasping a deep breath, Keldan opened his eyes.
“Welcome back,” Hauk said under his breath in Norse. “And welcome to the trouble you have created. Josette tells me Thorolf is in custody. Why did you not send her away with the others?”
Keldan shut his eyes against the sun. “Tyr’s blade, what a headache.” He groaned quietly. “Thorolf, that whoreson, he stabbed me. By all the gods, did it hurt—”
“Try drowning some time,” Hauk muttered dryly. “You have my thanks for capturing Thorolf—but you should have sent Josette away with the others.”
“I did not want her near Thorolf.” Smiling, Keldan sighed dreamily. “Hauk, she told me she loves me.”
“Wonderful. I am overjoyed for you. Now how do you intend to explain to her that you were not, in fact, dead all afternoon?”
The younger man’s eyes snapped open wide, his smile vanishing. “All afternoon?”
“It is evening, Kel. Your poor, hysterical bride has been sitting here grieving for you half the day.”
Keldan blinked up into the red-and-orange-streaked sky, abruptly realizing that it was sunset. “But I thought you would arrive within a few moments! We agreed to rendezvous at midday. I thought you would explain—”
“Unfortunately, I met some wolves with other plans. And it is too soon to tell them, Kel! It is customary to wait a few weeks—”
“Josette is ready to know the truth.”
“Avril is not.”
“Avril is with you?” Keldan sat up. “I thought you meant to leave her in your vaningshus.”
Hauk suddenly realized that the women, who had been chattering and sobbing, had fallen into silence. An astounded, breathless silence.
He muttered a curse. Slowly, reluctantly, he and Keldan turned and looked up the beach—to see their two brides clinging to each other, staring at Keldan with expressions of shock and disbelief. And terror.
“A-are you going to tell me I am merely confused this time?” Avril exclaimed. “Or that Josette could not hear his heartbeat because she had seawater in her ears?”
“Hauk?” Keldan stood, placing one hand on Hauk’s shoulder to steady himself. “You are going to have to explain this to them.” He lifted a hand in gentle entreaty toward his wife. “Josette—”
“Nay!” She flinched back, clutching at Avril.
With an anguished oath, Keldan looked down. “Hauk, you have to tell her. I do not know enough of her words to make her understand. You must explain it to them. Now. There is no other choice.”
“Ja, so it seems,” Hauk grated. “By all the gods, Kel, I am not ready for this.”
He had come here p
repared to do battle with Thorolf. Would almost prefer to face an armed foe than this discussion. He had done this twice before, knew it was never easy for a bride to accept. And how could he make them understand Asgard’s secret when they had been here only days, when it was so far beyond the realm of their experience?
“Hauk,” Keldan pleaded, “I cannot bear the way she is looking at me.”
“Then brace yourself, Kel, because it may not improve once she hears what we are about to tell her.” He gestured for the women to join them, shifting to French. “Avril, Josette, my young friend here has decided it is time you knew the truth.” He sighed, trying to think of the best way to begin. “And you may wish to sit down. It is rather a long story.”
~ ~ ~
“I do not want to sit down! I do not want to listen!” Josette exclaimed, hanging back. “This is impossible! It is madness. He was dead—”
“I am not so certain of that, Josette.” Avril’s heart was beating too fast, her senses spinning. She could not believe her voice sounded so calm.
But she could not deny evidence she had just seen with her own eyes. For the second time. “I... I think mayhap we should listen to what they have to say.”
“What are you talking about?” Josette looked at her as if she thought Avril, too, had lost her mind.
“Josette, we have known from the beginning that there was something strange about this island. At least I have known. If you want to stay here, do you not want to know what it is?”
“I do not want to stay here! I have changed my mind! I have—”
“Josette,” Keldan called to her, his expression desolate. “Vaer snill. Please.”
Josette ceased babbling and looked at him, then stopped trying to bolt and run. She studied his face for a long moment. “H-he did rescue me.” She took a deep breath, then another. “I... I thought he gave his life for me.”
Avril remained silent, her gaze on Hauk. She knew exactly how Josette was feeling. Confused and frightened and moved and wary of these unpredictable, perplexing men.
“V-very well,” Josette said, still clinging to Avril. “I will listen.”
Together they walked down the beach toward the men, close enough to converse—but not too close.
“So, Norsemen,” Avril said, trying to keep her voice steady, “what is this truth you wish to tell us?”
“Keldan was not dead,” Hauk said quietly, tugging his friend down to sit beside him. “He cannot die. We cannot die—”
“We?” Avril thought she had better sit down. Her knees had begun trembling so hard, her legs would no longer hold her.
“The native-born of Asgard. The innfodt.” He met her gaze as she sat opposite him, a few paces away. “We cannot die, not on Asgard soil. Not from a blade or injury or drowning or... most of the usual ways.”
Josette sank down—or rather, collapsed—next to Avril. “But he was dead. He—”
“Nay, milady, he was not. Had you listened very carefully, over a long time, you would have heard his heart beat lightly, once every few minutes. His skin was cool to the touch because the flow of his blood had slowed. And his pulse and breathing were too faint for most people to detect. We call it langvarig sovn.” He glanced from Josette to Avril. “The deepest sleep. It can last a short time or many hours, depending on how long the body requires to heal whatever injury has occurred.”
“That was what happened in the bay,” Avril said breathlessly, “when you swam out and saved me—”
“I did not have strength enough to save us both,” he told her simply. “But I knew that as long as the surf carried me ashore, I would recover, eventually. I would have remained in langvarig sovn some time longer, had you not awakened me.” His hard mouth curved in a grimace. “I am sorry that I lied to you about it, Avril, but we normally do not tell new brides about this until they have been here long enough to adjust to Asgard, to accept their new lives—”
Keldan interrupted, speaking to Hauk in a tone that sounded urgent.
“Ja, ja.” Hauk gestured at him to be quiet. “Josette, Keldan did not mean to frighten you. He never intended to leave you here alone with him all afternoon. I had told him we would meet here at midday, so he believed I would be along momentarily to explain what was happening and reassure you.”
Keldan nodded, saying something to Josette in Norse, his dark eyes never leaving her. From the misery etched on his features, he was clearly begging for her forgiveness, as if he would—
Nay, not die without it, Avril corrected herself, clutching her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking. “But if you cannot die, then you... you are—”
“We are not immortal.” Hauk shook his head. “There are some dangers even an innfodt cannot survive. Such as the wolves. Or falling from one of the cliffs. But as long as we avoid those and stay here on Asgard, we remain healthy.” He paused. “And live a rather long time.”
“H-how long?” Josette squeaked.
Hauk glanced at her. “Keldan here”—he nodded at his friend—”is a mere lad among us. He only celebrated his fiftieth year a few months ago.”
Josette looked surprised, and a little relieved.
Avril could hardly believe it. Keldan did not look a day over thirty. “A-and what about you?” she asked Hauk, her heart thudding.
He met her gaze. “How old would you guess I am?” he asked quietly.
Avril studied Hauk’s angular features and sun-colored hair. He appeared as youthful as his friend, barely touched by time. His face showed not one line or wrinkle, his smooth, tanned skin marked only by the stubble of burnished gold that skimmed his cheeks. With his strong jaw and those pale-blue eyes that matched the sky, he was more handsome than any—
She drew herself up short. She had been about to think than any mere mortal had a right to be.
But he was not a mere mortal.
“I... I cannot tell. You look no older than Keldan.”
A fleeting smile brought out a dimple in his stubbled cheek. “Aye.” He hesitated, and his expression became somber as he kept his gaze fixed on hers. “But I was born three hundred years ago.”
Avril heard Josette inhale sharply. She herself could not make a sound. The evening sky seemed to whirl dizzily as Hauk’s words echoed over and over in her mind, like the waves splashing onto the shore.
Three hundred. Three hundred.
Three.
Hundred.
All the air vanished from her lungs. She gasped, choked. An uncontrolled laugh bubbled up in her throat. “This is a jest. You cannot possibly be—this must all be some kind of jest! No one can live to be three hundred—”
“I am only in my middle years, compared to some among our people.”
She shook her head in denial, but he was not teasing her. Clearly he was not. There was no amusement in his deep voice. And no happiness. He remained solemn, stating it all calmly.
As if he were relating simple, indisputable facts.
Trembling, she had to put out a hand to steady herself. Felt surprised to find solid earth beneath her. “You mean to tell me that all of those... those merchants and farmers and craftsmen in town are—”
“Older than they look. Some are much older than they look. We innfodt mature to the age of thirty, and then it is as if time...” He shrugged one bronzed shoulder. “Stops. In truth, we are not certain what the upper limit of our years may be. If there is one.”
Josette looked at Keldan in astonishment and distress. “Do you mean you may live forever?”
“We do not know,” Hauk told her. “For centuries, men have searched the world for the legendary key to eternal youth—what some have called the waters of life—and what they seek is here. On Asgard. Accidentally discovered more than six hundred years ago, by a small band of Norse explorers who were seeking a new sea route to the west.” His mouth became a grim, bitter line. “And yet it remains a secret. A mystery—”
“You do not know how it is that the island affects you this way?” Avril guessed. �
��As you do not know how it heals.”
“Aye.” He nodded, his voice becoming harsh. “But whatever it is about Asgard that sustains us, it comes with a price. We cannot live without it. We have become connected to the island in some way—we are part of it and it is part of us. As long as we remain here, we may live forever.” His eyes held hers again. “But in the outside world, in your world, we live no more than six days.”
Avril felt her heart beat a strange, hard stroke that stole her breath. “You can never leave?” she asked softly. “You are”—she searched for a word, felt surprised when she found it—”captives here?”
He shook his head. “Most do not see it that way. Asgard is a pleasant place, after all. A paradise.” He gestured at the sun-warmed beach, the lush forest, the waterfall that cascaded down the nearby cliffs. “The elders long ago made it a law that no one may venture out even for a short time, to protect Asgard and its secret. But it is almost unnecessary. Most innfodt are happy to stay.”
“But not everyone,” she said.
Not you. She could tell by his voice, had noticed it before—that trace of bitterness. Of yearning.
It occurred to her abruptly—jarringly—that she and Hauk had much more in common than she had ever suspected. She knew all too well how it felt for someone of independent, adventurous spirit to have that freedom curtailed.
How would it feel to live like that for three hundred years?
Something inside her knotted with pain as she remembered the books she had found in his vaningshus. Written in his youth, he had said. He must have longed to travel those distant lands. It must be torture for him, leaving now and then for a few days, enjoying a glimpse of the wider world, of freedom, only to be forced to return. She was amazed he left at all.
Then she remembered that he had told her he had to leave now and then, as part of his duty as vokter.
“Not everyone is happy to stay,” he agreed quietly, glancing toward his boat moored in the cove. “We are Norsemen, after all. Exploration and wandering are in our blood.” A muscle flexed in his lean jaw. “But those who have given in to temptation, who have tried to test the limit of six days, have paid with their lives.”
His Captive Bride Page 24