He leaned in closer to me. “Like what?”
My eyes ran over his face. The scruff on his jaw. The dark lashes around his blue eyes. “Like I’m a flame about to burn out.” My voice was so thin it sounded like I could reach out and break it with my fingers. “Like I’m going to disappear.”
The room quieted, the space between us sucking everything into it. His eyes dropped down to my mouth and the burning in my chest ran into the rest of my body. It found every dark, hidden place and lit it on fire.
I tried to breathe, but it wouldn’t come. I was underwater, trapped beneath that frozen lake. And as soon as he moved, it broke loose and the sound of my breath rang in my ears so loud that every thought ran like a retreating army. The heat of him hit me just before his lips touched mine and I froze, trying to feel it. That stinging, throbbing pulse beneath my skin.
I lifted my hands slowly, opening my eyes to look at him. My fingertips touched the lines on the sides of his face and he pulled his mouth from mine, looking back at me like he wasn’t sure I was still there.
His breath touched me.
Somewhere I didn’t know I could feel.
Somewhere I didn’t know existed.
“Fiske.” I said his name in a voice that wasn’t mine and it hung between us in the silence.
He pressed his lips together. “What?”
I stood at the threshold of the thought. The thought of Fiske that had been buried alive in the back of my mind. I looked over the edge of it, peering down into the darkness. It called to me. It screamed my name.
And I jumped.
I found his mouth with mine again, the breaths coming like the waves in a storm now—crashing into me and pulling me under. I grabbed hold of his armor vest and his hands pressed into me, pulling me forward. I slid across the stone, trying to get closer to him.
The writhing, bleeding hole inside of me closed up.
I let him erase it. I let him make it go away.
His lips moved down to the hollow at my neck and when he stopped, breathing there, his chest rising and falling against me, the silence came back. And it was just long enough for it to erupt again. That pain.
I fell into him, the weight so heavy that I couldn’t draw another breath. His arms slid around me and I pushed my face into his shoulder. I wept. A dark, sacred cry rising up out of me. He held me together, keeping the pieces from falling down around us. And I cried until I couldn’t feel. I cried until I couldn’t think.
The moon rose up over my broken home and I broke with it.
THIRTY-SIX
I woke up in my father’s cot with the blanket tucked in around me as the seabirds called out over the water and the smell of the dead found me again. It brought me rushing back. Back to Hylli.
I sat up, swinging my legs to the ground, and my head pounded inside my skull. I rubbed my swollen face, looking around the small house. It was empty.
The sun was already halfway up the sky, sending the light casting down through the house in beams hazed with ash and dust. I pulled my sheath and belt on and walked down the path to the dock with my arms wrapped tightly around me.
The dirt turned to gravel and when I reached the water, the familiar crunch of my boots over the round black stones broke the silence of the village. I pulled the clean sea air coming off the water into my lungs and crouched down, scooping it up and splashing it over my face. My fingers raked back into my hair and I looked out to the horizon.
The green of the water hugging the shore melted into blue as it deepened. I closed my eyes and opened them again. It was just the same. The same sea. The same beach. But then I looked back to the village. And the truth resurfaced in my mind. Nothing would ever be the same again.
A splash sounded over the whisper of the wind and I looked up to see Fiske. He stood on the dock at the other end of the beach, pulling a net full of fish up out of the water. He had his knife between his teeth, his arms hinging against its weight, leaning back until it slid onto the dock. The fish were like crystals, glittering as they flicked back and forth in the sunlight.
When he looked up to me, I blushed, still feeling the warmth of him on my lips. Remembering him touching me. Remembering feeling like I was so small that I could vanish into him. It was an arrow in my chest.
I walked along the water’s edge until I reached the dock and watched him pull four fish from the net and let the rest spill back into the water. He walked to meet me halfway, stopping in front of me with the knife clutched in one hand and a pail in the other.
The hair blew around my face and I caught it with my hand, holding it over my shoulder. “I’m sorry.” I squinted against the sunlight.
His eyes searched mine. “For what?”
I looked down at the water, trying to find the words. “For last night.”
He smiled and the heat came back up into my face.
“I—”
“How long will it take to get to Virki?” he interrupted, saving me the embarrassment of finishing.
“We can be there tomorrow morning if we leave now.”
He nodded, looking over me, to the village. “Then let’s go.”
I should have told him that he didn’t have to come. That he’d repaid whatever debt he thought he owed me twice over. But inside, I was weak enough that I couldn’t hide from myself.
I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want him to leave.
“Thank you.”
He nodded and I turned against the wind, watching his shadow move next to mine on the ground as we walked. We climbed the beach and made our way back onto the path. I led us back to the house, feeling a chill run up my spine as I ducked into the doorway, headed for our saddlebags. The scream froze in my throat as the head of an arrow lifted in front of my face. Red hair glowed in the dark and the creak of the bowstring pulled tight.
Myra.
Aiming for Fiske.
“No!” I wheezed, throwing myself forward. I plowed into her as her fingers slipped from the bowstring.
The arrow hit and I scrambled over Myra to look. Fiske stood in the doorway, his eyes wide, holding the pail of fish up in front of him. It swung from the handle on his fingers with the arrow plunked into its side.
I could see his mind racing, his hand going for the sword at his hip.
Myra shoved me aside and I rolled into the stone circling the fire pit. The muscle in my shoulder ripped away from the bone and I groaned as Myra shot up from the ground with her axe in her hand. Ash clouded the air as she grunted, swinging it to catch Fiske in the neck, but he flung himself back, falling into the wall. The house shook around us.
“Myra!” I grabbed for her leg but I could hardly see, choking on the dust.
She ignored me, swinging again, and then Fiske was after her, pushing off the wall and catching her by the neck with his hand. She dropped the axe, clawing at his grip as he pushed her into the opposite wall. Her small body flailed against his strength.
“Stop.” I pushed against him but he didn’t budge. “Let her go!”
He looked at me from the corner of his eye before his fingers unwound from her neck and he replaced them with the knife clutched in his fist.
She stilled, looking from him to me.
“Fiske.”
“Who else is here?” He bent over her with the blade still pressing into her skin.
Her eyes flitted back to me, her jaw clenching.
I reached up slowly and put my hand over his. “Let her go.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s my friend.”
Myra looked at me wide-eyed as he lowered the knife and the tears spilled over before I could reach her. She threw her arms around me and her cries muffled into my hair as I held her, looking over her shoulder to Fiske. He stood half-lit in the shadows, sliding his knife back into his belt.
“How are you here?” Her words tripped over one another. “What are you doing here?” She pushed me back, looking up at me. The faded kol around her eyes dragged down her wet cheeks.
I bit my lip, trying to decide how much to tell her. How much she could understand. “I was captured at Aurvanger. I came when I heard what happened.”