Page 9

NINE

W hen Hekla’s eyes fluttered open, she was certain she was dead. Yet if this was death, why did she feel like she’d been trampled by wild horses?

She blinked to clear her vision, searching for the stars.

Wasn’t that what people believed? That she’d follow the Mother Star and settle amongst her ancestors?

But as an evergreen canopy came into view, as her lungs filled with loamy air, an alarming thought filled her mind.

Was she in the Bear God’s Sacred Forest? Gods, she hoped not.

Hekla propped herself up on her elbows, vision warping. She blinked. The squirrel lay motionless beside her.

“Oh!” She bolted up and brushed a knuckle along the creature’s side.

The rodent’s chest expanded with a breath, and relief filled her.

A few more strokes of her knuckles, and the squirrel’s eyes fluttered open.

Hekla found her waterskin and poured a small amount into the lid.

Holding the cap carefully next to the squirrel, she waited.

The creature blinked at the water, then dipped its nose into the cap, those beady black eyes looking at Hekla as it drank.

Slowly, Hekla’s bearings came back to her.

Brittle moss beneath her, evergreens swaying above her.

She was cold beyond measure and utterly exhausted.

But the mist was gone, and she was alive.

It felt like a dream, and yet she was left with more questions than when she’d entered this gods-damned forest.

The squirrel sat upright, and Hekla realized it had drained all the water in the cap. She refilled it and watched as the squirrel drank more. After a while it sat back on its haunches, a bristly red tail twitching behind it.

Protector is very kind to Kritka, came a childlike voice inside her mind. Kritka banished the dark thing, but it took much strength.

Hekla stared at the squirrel, the chill in her bones seeming to grow with each punishing throb at her temples. Surely, she was dreaming. Struck with a sudden wave of dizziness, Hekla laid back down, resting her cheek on brittle moss. Gods, but she was cold and so very tired.

The squirrel bounded into her line of vision.

The dark thing will send its creatures, said the voice. Protector must leave. Come back another day.

Hekla wanted to laugh at this strange phantom vision, but she was too tired. She needed to close her eyes. Rest for a moment...

“Hekla!”

Her eyes flew open in time to see the squirrel’s russet tail vanishing beneath a dead shrub. The chill had truly sunk its claws into her now. She curled into a ball. Teeth chattering, Hekla wondered if she’d ever been so cold in her life. What was it Silla did? Think hearthfire thoughts?

Hekla tried to imagine a hearthfire. Tried to remember what it felt like to be warm. But she was wrung out, as though she’d just fought the most arduous battle of her life. And perhaps she had. Surely, she deserved to sleep, just for a little while.

“Hekla!”

The voice cut through the silence like a greataxe, its echo pulsing in her skull. The trees swayed back and forth, and a chill prickled through her. When the voice called again, Hekla rallied all the strength she could.

“Here!” she called out. “I’m here!”

A twig snapped, footsteps crunching on moss, then a figure with hazel eyes loomed over her.

“Foxie,” she croaked.

Eyvind crouched before her, a thunderous expression upon his stupidly beautiful face. “Mulish woman.” His expression shifted to concern. “Where are you hurt?” Those large hands ran along her body, searching for injuries.

Hekla stared up at him. “Your eyes are like gemstones,” she mumbled.

“Gods, you’re burning up.” The back of his hand pressed to her forehead, and she nuzzled against it.

“You feel like a hearthfire.” A violent shiver racked her body, and it felt as though she’d never been warm in her life...like she’d never be again. But this man had heated her through. Had made her trust, if only for a night...

“This fever...I must get you to a healer.”

The trees swayed as he hefted her into his arms, cradling her against his chest like a gods-damned damsel in distress. His smell surrounded her, the planes of his chest solid against her cheek. Too close. Too much. She couldn’t...she wouldn’t...

“No.” She pushed against his chest, but his hold was ironclad. “Let me walk.”

“You cannot even stand. Determined to be a pain in my arse, aren’t you, Lynx?”

Trees flew by, the foliage jostling above them. The man was running through the forest with a grown woman in his arms. Distantly, Hekla recognized this was an impressive feat. But the thought flitted away with the rest of them, and she was pressing her cheek into his tunic, sinking lower, lower.

“Stay with me, Lynx,” he panted as the minutes bled together. “Tell me what happened. ”

“Spiral Stave,” she mumbled. “You must follow them?—”

“The mist,” he said sharply. “We heard the heartbeat. Tell me it didn’t touch you.”

Thick white mist filled her mind’s eye, that insatiable hunger impossible to forget. A moan slid from her lips, and she curled toward him. Toward safety.

No. Not safety. She made her own safety. Hekla shuddered, then tried again to escape his grasp.

“Stop squirming, woman. Tell me about the mist.”

“Wolf,” she managed. Squirrel , she thought, but did not have the strength to say it aloud. That voice rang in her ears once more. Kritka banished the dark thing, but it took much strength.

“Stay with me, Hekla.”

But the cold was absolute, a blanket of darkness settling all around her.

“Fight, Hekla. Do not give in.”

It wasn’t giving in when it was inevitable. When it was destiny—when it was warmth, and she was so very cold.

“Gods damn it, Lynx!”

And then, she was gone.

The skies were black and moonless, and the air held a smothering feel. The darkness was more than a mere absence of light—it was a living thing, its heartbeat throbbing in time with her own. Or perhaps it was merely the drumbeat filling the air as Hekla walked through Istré’s streets.

She wove between revelers toward the town square. V-shaped pillars loomed before her, and she passed grappling warriors, playing their fighting games. The drums seemed to drive her movements. Forward, she stepped. Onward, she moved. Until she stood before it. The dais.

A grand oak table had been set on the dais, feast fare spread upon it. Loftur ruled from his high seat, Eyvind and Konal flanking him. The pulsing beat was like a hook in her belly, pulling Hekla up the stairs and into a chair beside Eyvind.

“A toast,” bellowed Loftur, lifting his cup, “to the old gods!”

The crowd shouted their approval, and as Hekla drank her wine, her ears caught something above the din. A heartbeat.

Hekla opened her mouth to warn them, but it was too late.

Thick white mist slithered all around them, its hunger filling the air.

It darted forward. Slid down Eyvind’s throat.

Hazel eyes bulged. She could hear the tear of muscle and sinew, the crack of bones.

Eyvind had to be broken before he could be remade.

“Forsaken!” screamed Loftur, climbing over the table. “The old gods have forsaken us!”

But Hekla could not take her eyes from Eyvind. He thrashed and bellowed, clawed at his own skin. Eyvind drew a tremendous, shuddering breath. Then stilled.

And when he turned to her, his eyes glowed like the red embers of a fire.

Wake , said a childlike voice.

Hekla awoke with a gasp. Her heart pounded as though it tried to hack free from her chest, horror and panic churning violently through her blood.

But rather than the dark, forbidding canopy of a half-dead forest, her eyes met a sliver of daylight on timber beams. She followed the light to the covered window, then to the small, furry rodent perched on the ledge before it. The creature’s tail twitched.

“You’re awake!”

Hekla’s gaze swung to Gunnar—whose face was etched with pure relief—then back to the window.

The ledge was empty.

Hekla rubbed her eyes and took in her surroundings. Aged timber beams above her. Wolfskin furs draped over her. The faint smell of woodsmoke and cooked food in the air. She was back in her chambers at the inn, with Gunnar and Sigrún hovering over her bed.

“What happened?” Hekla winced at the throb in her temples as she tried to sit up.

We might ask you the same, signed Sigrún. When Hakonsson carried you from the woods, you were unconscious and burning with fever.

That explained her aching muscles and pulsating skull.

He brought you back to Istré on his horse. Put you to bed. Fetched a healer, then kicked the healer out.

“He...what?”

Sigrún glanced at Gunnar before signing, After a full day and night, the local healer said there was nothing he could do for you. Hakonsson was angered and sent his second to fetch a new one.

Hekla’s insides rolled. “And the new healer?”

Steeped a mushroom tea and used a cloth to drip it into your mouth. Sigrún’s brown eyes held uncharacteristic emotion. It was a long night, but your fever broke in the morning. She paused. I think they saved your life.

Hekla let out a shaky exhale, pressing her fingers to her temples. Saved her life.

“Hek—” Gunnar’s voice cracked. “I’m...we’re...we cannot lose you, too!”

He leaped forward and pulled her into a forceful hug. Hekla blinked back her shock as Gunnar buried his face in her neck, incoherent words coming between his sobs. Hesitantly, Hekla patted his locs, meeting Sigrún’s amused gaze over his shoulder.

Gunnar and I have been talking . Sigrún’s jaw hardened before her hands signed with swift, confident gestures, We’ve let everything fall on your shoulders. We haven’t been there for you. We will do better, Hekla, we promise it.

Her words meant more than Hekla could say. The past few weeks had been so isolating. Perhaps it had made Hekla more impatient...more reckless than she ought to have been .

Hekla nodded, trying to extract herself from Gunnar’s clutches. But the warrior did not seem inclined to let her go. “Let me breathe, you oaf.”

Reluctantly, Gunnar released her and batted a tear from his cheek. “I thought you were going to die!”

“I’ve survived far worse. It’ll take more than a fever to bring me down, Fire Fist.”

“Aye, but it will.” Gunnar looked at her fondly, a certain glimmer back in his eye. Gods, but she was glad to see it. Glad to have them both in this room.

“Gather yourself, Gunnar,” Hekla teased. “What would No Beard say?” The words slipped out carelessly, and Hekla wished she could claw them back.

A silence filled the room, so heavy it felt like a tangible thing.

Hekla’s throat closed up, and in that moment, she missed Ilías as fiercely as the day they’d buried him.

She closed her eyes, hating herself as she had a thousand times before.

Too loud, too forward, too much , as always, and now she’d trampled Gunnar’s fragile sense of peace.

Hekla waited for the large warrior to fall to pieces—readied herself to be strong for him—but Gunnar surprised her.

“I reckon,” he said, “Ilías’d tell me I’m uglier than my mother when I cry.”

There was a moment of silence, like the peace following a wave’s crash ashore.

Then Hekla tossed her head back and laughed.

Gunnar and Sigrún soon joined in. It was a strange, purifying laugh—one that felt like the first step toward a new normal.

It wouldn’t be easy. Wouldn’t be the same as before.

But this collective laugh promised it would be something .

Wiping tears from her eyes, Hekla shook her head. “That’s exactly what he’d say.”

“We’re here now, Hek,” said Gunnar, his voice growing serious. “We’re in it with you.”

Hekla looked from Gunnar wiping snot on his sleeve, to Sigrún dabbing discreetly at the corner of her eye. “The next time I get grand plans in my head,” she said, “I’ll come to you two first.”

Good , signed Sigrún. You need warriors you can trust at your back.

“Aye, but I do,” muttered Hekla. She drew a deep breath.

And then she told them everything.