Riveted

by Brook, Meljean

  His foul mood had just left him. Why this?

  “David Ingasson!”

  He stopped, shock rooting him in place. That accent. But she wasn’t Annika. His light-enhancing lens clicked into place, showed him a pale face and a silver nose beneath the shadow of a hood, and the softer version of that face a few steps ahead.

  Heart pounding, he found his voice. “Yes?”

  The older woman spoke. “You seek to bury your mother’s beads. If you give them to me, I will see that it is done.”

  She would? He could hardly comprehend how she even knew. “Annika told you?”

  “Yes.”

  Annika had told them. Yet they weren’t hostile. Whatever she’d said must have put him in a better light than his threat deserved.

  “What say you, Ingasson? The blood of her sister will do as well as yours, and will guide Inga to her own mother’s side.”

  Surprise struck him again. “Her sister?”

  “Yes.”

  He had another aunt? “What is her name?”

  “Hildegard.” The woman smiled slightly, as if amused by his astonishment. “Will you give them over?”

  Torn, David considered it. The task would be completed…but his mother hadn’t only asked for her beads to be buried. She’d asked him to do it. “I promised that I would bury them myself.”

  She nodded. “So I will tell the others. Where do you travel to next, Ingasson?”

  “Vik, for the next month.” With forays north to the glaciers. “Then we head to Höfn. What is your name?”

  “I am Camille. She is Lisbet, my daughter.” The girl hadn’t taken her eyes off David during the conversation, but he hadn’t seen any wariness there. Instead she wore a smile with her lips pressed tight together, as if suppressing laughter. “Can I trust you not to follow us?”

  He wouldn’t have, anyway. But David sensed that if he broke that trust, she’d see that he never fulfilled his promise. “Yes.”

  “Safe journey, Ingasson.”

  They started off again. David watched them go, still disbelieving that they’d ever been there—and soon, he realized, there wouldn’t be evidence that they had been. The snow fell steadily. Their tracks would be filled in by morning.

  In a daze, David returned to the airship. He had another aunt. The cargo lift carried him up to the main deck, where he paused. Annika stood at the starboard rail, immediately recognizable by the brightness of her scarf. She wore the blue wool mantle that covered her from shoulder to thigh—the balloon warmers radiated heat the length of the deck, making a coat unnecessary.

  She didn’t look up at his approach, but leaned against the side with her elbows resting on the gunwale and her chin propped on mittened hands, her gaze fixed north. David stopped, taking her in, feeling the painful twist in his chest as he studied her face. Her faraway expression held longing, sadness—as if whatever she wanted wasn’t here.

  Almost everything that he wanted was. He cleared his throat. Annika glanced up. Her smile of greeting eased the pain near his heart.

  And he was beginning to realize just how much he owed her. Despite her insistence that she couldn’t help him, she had. He didn’t know what would come of the discussion Camille had with the others, and he didn’t know whether she’d done it for his sake or for his mother’s, but he’d always be grateful for it.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Her brows came together and she straightened, turning to lean back against the rail. “For what?”

  “I met Camille and Lisbet.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes widened, lit by surprise. “What did they say?”

  “Camille said she would see my mother’s runes buried for me.”

  “And?”

  “I refused. I promised my mother I would do it, and so I will.” The heat from the warmers was painful against his back now. When they’d been under way, the constant wind had kept them from becoming too hot, but the wind from the bay wasn’t doing the same job. He turned, feeling like a piece of a meat on a spit. “Now I wonder if I was mistaken. If she only wanted to have them buried, does it matter who buries them? But if she meant for me to do exactly as she asked, then I’m the only one who can. What if I fail, however? What if I refused my only opportunity to see the task done? I’m not sure what serves her best.”

  Annika pursed her lips as if considering the dilemma. Her mouth plumped, and for an endless moment, David wasn’t torn with indecision at all. He wanted to taste her mouth beneath his, to feel the heat inside, to know the sweetness of her kiss.

  Desire stirred up an ache that had become all too familiar since he’d met her. David turned against the rail again and let the cold breeze hit his face. It didn’t help.

  Finally, she shook her head. “Who can know what she intended? But everyone will think well of you for adhering to your promise.”

  He wanted them to. He wanted her to. After years of not caring what others thought of him, here he was worrying about it again. “She said I had an aunt. Hildegard.”

  “Yes. She is Källa’s mother.”

  “Your sister, Källa?” He searched her face, couldn’t find the slightest resemblance to his mother. “We are cousins?”

  “No.” Annika studied him in return, her expression suddenly guarded. “Källa and I have different mothers.”

  “And fathers?”

  She shrugged, as if to say it hardly mattered. He couldn’t imagine. David’s father had meant everything to him.

  But if Annika and Källa had different mothers and fathers, he must have misunderstood what she’d meant by the term “sister.” Very likely, she used it as some religions did, referring to all other women as sisters. Källa must have been close to Annika, however, if she’d spent four years looking for her.

  She was still watching him in that careful way. Still unsure. Or just so accustomed to concealing her origin that sharing made her wary.

  “You’re searching for my cousin.” At her nod, that sense of wonder came over him again. He had another aunt. He had a cousin. “Let me help.”

  Her eyebrows arched. “How will you?”

  “I’ll do what you do. I’ll buy advertisements—but with a wider range. I’m not limited to an airship route. I correspond with scientists around the world; I know they will help.”

  “Why? You don’t know her.”

  “I’d like to.”

  She narrowed her eyes. Not certain of him yet.

  “Think on that, too,” he said. “Give me your answer tomorrow.”

  “All right.”

  The airship’s bell rang four times as she spoke. The middle of a watch, he realized.

  “You aren’t on duty?”

  “I am, but we’re in port, and there’s little to do that I haven’t already done.” She turned toward the bay again, her face flushed with heat. “I only have to stoke the furnace and check the warmers. They were running a bit hot.”

  “Only a bit?”

  Suddenly laughing at him, she said, “Yes.”

  “How long before you have to go?”

  “About half an hour before I need to stoke again—and I’m waiting to see that the warmers cool.”

  “So you have a little time.”

  “Time to talk about something else.” Her eyes still alight with humor, she asked, “Shall we finally talk about you?”

  They’d never gotten to him the first night. This was long overdue. “All right.”

  “Do you chase volcanoes because of the promise to your mother? Have you been hoping to find the mountain?”

  “That’s how it began. I read as much as I could, searching for any mention of a burial site. I became fascinated along the way.” That search had led him to her, too—and he’d become just as fascinated again. “Even after I bury her runes, I’ll continue to study them.”

  She looked at him as if he were mad. “Why?”

  He grinned. “We have to live with them, don’t we? It’s better to understand them than to just fear them.”


  “There’s good reason to fear them.”

  “Yes,” he agreed.

  She studied him, brows lowering, her lips pursing again. He only had to lean over and press his mouth to hers. Would she soften against him? A gasp of surprise against his lips, then a deeper taste…or she’d push him away.

  God, he was a fool. She was still debating whether they could even be friends, and yet he was dreaming of kissing her? He was aroused at the thought of her melting against him? He’d obviously lost his mind. David turned again, made himself focus on her eyes.

  That didn’t help much, either.

  She looked out over the bay again, her gaze lost in the distance, her expression pensive. “I suppose you want to make certain that what happened to your mother doesn’t happen again.”

  “It will happen again,” he said. Not the same sort of disaster, but a disaster all the same. “And again and again.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because we might make a difference. If we predict an eruption, we can move a population to safety.”

  She glanced back at him. “You can predict one?”

  “Not yet.” He grinned when she laughed. “But there’s more than that. A century ago, the year after the fissure eruptions, temperatures dropped—not just in winter, and not just in the northern regions. It was among the worst famine years worldwide, even among the Horde. Many of us think that it was caused by the ash in the air, blocking the sun.”

  “Truly?”

  He nodded. “It also happened after the eruption at Krakatoa. So if we study the volcanoes, if we know how much ash they eject, how high it goes, where the wind takes it, we can help people prepare for long winters, low harvests.”

  She looked up at him, a new light in her eyes, as if seeing him now in a different manner. “That’s…admirable. I thought you might be seeking glory.”

  That startled a laugh from him. “No. There’s not much glory to be had. Most of the work is tedious and dirty, the weather always too hot or too cold, and in the middle of an expedition I often have to remind myself why the hell I’m risking my life for it.”

  “Yet you still make something good out of it.”

  “Volcanoes do that, too.” He was determined to make a believer of her before the night was through. She listened so closely, rapt—no doubt she’d soon be fascinated, too. “For all of their destruction, they create even more. New islands, new lands. All of Iceland.”

  She slanted him a disbelieving glance.

  “I swear it,” he said.

  With a nod, she looked out over the water, her gaze sweeping the mountains in the distance, the shoreline nearby. Seeing them differently, he thought.

  “That’s a much better answer than glory,” she said softly.

  “Don’t think too much of it. I wouldn’t reject glory if it came to me.” He loved her quick laugh, her wry nod. Though in truth, he had rejected it—or at least the greatness that di Fiore had offered. David glanced toward the bow, where the ferry cruiser was tethered twenty yards away. “That’s Lorenzo di Fiore’s ship.”

  “The man building the rail?”

  The rail. She must have been one of the few people who didn’t hear the di Fiore name and immediately think of Inoka Mountain. “Yes. Dooley and I had dinner with him.”

  “What was he like?”

  Broken, he thought. Broken long ago by his father’s disgrace, and put back together in the wrong way. David couldn’t pity him for that—but perhaps that was his own failing, the effect of his own past.

  And what was di Fiore like now? “He’s the sort of man who never seems to listen during a conversation. He only waits for his turn to speak.”

  Annika wrinkled her nose and made a strangled noise in the back of her throat.

  David laughed, nodded. “Yes. Exactly like that.”

  “So you didn’t like him.”

  “Not particularly, no. But I never expect to get along with anyone quickly.”

  Her gaze lifted to his, her humor softening into a wistful sigh. “Neither do I.”

  He wanted to see her smile again. “I had an advantage, if you recall—my odor wasn’t offensive.”

  He was rewarded by the curve of her lips, a flash of her teeth.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, and leaned closer, her face nearing his throat. David froze. He felt the warmth of her breath, caught the scent of her hair—like rosemary, or the heated pine of a forest in the summer. She inhaled and drew back, turning toward the warmers with her hands pressed to her cheeks. “You’re still all right.”

  “Good.” David could barely manage that. He turned again, hiding his body’s response.

  She glanced at his face before looking away. Her eyes closed briefly, then she peeked at him again. “Was that a soap? It was nice.”

  “Shaving soap.”

  He heard the roughness of his voice. God. She could come close again, if she wanted to, smell it for as long she liked.

  “Oh.” She bit her lip, seemed to hesitate before saying, “Mary Chandler is the worst person to learn anything from. She said that native men don’t have to shave, and that is why they never wear a beard.”

  “Perhaps some don’t. I do, but I don’t have to shave often—yet I know others who shave every day. Others pluck out the hairs as they grow in, starting when they are young men.”

  “So it is a fashion.”

  “For some. I know others who’ve grown out a beard—and most have been living in the cities for some time.”

  “Trying to fit in?”

  Or because they already did. “Yes.”

  A heavy sigh escaped her. “I don’t think I ever will fit in. Only at home—and even there, not in every way that I would like to.” She glanced up at him. “Sometimes I think it would be nice to be normal somewhere.”

  He knew that feeling—though he wasn’t feeling it now. “I think that place is here.”

  Her gaze followed the path of his hand as he indicated the space around them. She glanced up with a smile and a curious look.

  “Did you ever try to fit in?”

  “Not with the whites.” David thought of stopping there, but knew they weren’t just talking about him because he was in the conversation queue. At different moments, he could feel her weighing his words, as if she needed to make a judgment or come to a decision. And he supposed she did—tomorrow.

  If he wanted her to trust him, evading or lying would do him no good.

  He looked out over the water. “Many of my father’s people were among those who converted when the Europeans first came. My name—Kentewess—identifies me as one. When I was a boy living in the east, the reclaiming of the old ways had just begun, so I didn’t think of it much. But when we moved to the mountain builders’ city with di Fiore, many of those around us took great pride in never having converted, never having lost history to Europeans. And when I was with the other boys, I would do everything I could to avoid mentioning my name, and gave them instead the name of an ancestor. I’d ask my father for legends, for tales—not even to truly honor them, but because knowing them made it easier to not feel…European.”

  “Did it work?”

  She was watching him, angling her head slightly as if to better see his expression. He turned again, suddenly conscious of his good side.

  “In truth, I don’t know that it ever mattered to the other boys as much as it mattered to me. I never felt as if I fit in, but I was never excluded, either.” He shook his head. “Now, I think about my father more than I ever do them. I remember the anger I felt toward him for converting—even though he hadn’t; our ancestors had—and I remember the guilt for feeling that anger. He never went by any name but Kentewess. And even though I turned my back on that, he was never angry in return. He said I would find my way.” He glanced at Annika, gave a wry smile. “Then the mountain came down, and I was never likely going to fit in anywhere, no matter what I called myself.”

  Especially after his nanoagent infection finished off any cha
nce of ever being accepted. After the Europeans had come, disease had devastated many of the native tribes in the east. Now, though some infected men bribed their way past the port gates and into the cities, they were summarily rejected from native enclaves—including the town where David and his father had retreated to after the Inoka Mountain disaster. The town hadn’t been much different than many European communities of similar size, but descendants of converts had begun to reject the European influence, reclaiming the past. Giving children the old names…christening them with the old names, and either not seeing the irony or ignoring it.

  The Americas would never be as they’d been before the Europeans arrived. It would be true of Iceland, too, whether the Dutch returned or only miners came. Her village, once found, would be irrevocably changed.

  No wonder Annika was terrified that they’d be discovered.

  “You call yourself Kentewess now,” she said.

  So he did. “But not as a statement—unless it’s the pride of being my father’s son. I can’t imagine carrying any other name.”

  Her eyebrows arched. “Not even Ingasson?”

  He’d never considered it before. “Perhaps I’ll add it.”

  She smiled, but it froze when her gaze fixed on something behind him. David looked over his shoulder. Maria Madalena Neves had come up to the main deck, wearing a red cloak trimmed in white fur. Her nurse accompanied her—not the older, stern woman that David had imagined, but as young as her charge, and pink in her cheeks.

  Annika sighed. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.” He couldn’t deny it.

  “She doesn’t fit in, either. You’ve heard where she’s going?”

  “Heimaey.” When she didn’t respond, David glanced over. She was watching him again, her expression uncertain…then slowly hardening with resolve. He frowned. “What is it?”

  “Do you know why she’s going there?”

  The heat in his face wasn’t just from the warmers. “I’ve heard that it’s to keep young women…intact.”

  And that was about as awkward a thing a man could say, but Annika didn’t seem to notice. “My first year aboard, we took a different girl there and I overheard a few of the aviators discussing the island. They thought the Church spread the story about them all being virgins to protect them.”