By force. The words had an ominous ring to them. Sibba tried to imagine her mother as a queen on her sickbed and failed miserably. Her mother had been the healthiest of them all, and the quietest. She certainly hadn’t been a leader. Her father's voice was in her head suddenly, a memory of a scattered Hnefatafl board and raised voices, of a smoldering hearth fire on a cold night and her father standing before it. You came here for sanctuary and I gave it to you. And her mother: You made me pay for my safety with my future. Safety. Sanctuary. She had been hiding from this king. Darcey had known all along. And she and Thorvald had kept it from Sibba.
Evenon’s voice dropped. “The queen’s older sister sent her away on a boat with their mother, who was from the Fields. The next morning…” He closed his eyes. “Well, all that’s left of the Malstrom family is one little girl who doesn’t even know who she is.”
“I know who I am,” Sibba said. But it had never felt right, had it? Like she had always had one foot out the door. She was half Fielding, but there was another half, too, that had been a mystery to her. She knew the language and the lore of that other place but didn't know where she fit into it.
“Do you?” He tried to push himself up straighter but his arms gave beneath him and he grimaced as the injury pulled taut. The skin around it was swollen and purple, the wound oozing a thick, white pus. “Then tell me: who does the crown belong to?”
“The circlet?” Sibba asked. “It was my mother’s.”
“And she is dead.”
“Then it is mine.” She snapped her mouth closed as soon as she heard the words. Evenon looked at her smugly, his eyebrows raised, a smirk on his dry, cracked lips. “Why would I let you live, then?” she asked, effectively wiping the smugness off of his face. “If I am a threat to your king, wouldn’t you just try to kill me again?”
Evenon shrugged one shoulder, the best he could do in this state. “I have never known any ruler other than King Crowheart, but I did what I did for his daughter. And I want to get back to her. I felt what it was to lose her in the spirit forest. I cannot squander any more time. I’ve done what I was sent to do; it’s time for me to go home. I don’t need to take any more ghosts with me. Just the crown to prove that she is dead.”
Home. Sibba thought of Ottar, then Ey Island, but neither of those felt right. They were her own ghost forests, full of bad memories and regrets. What Sibba wanted was to find her home. But how could she ever be at peace anywhere, knowing what had happened to her mother, and what was likely to happen to her someday?
“He will hunt me always, won’t he?” Sibba asked. “I’ll never find peace if he learns of my existence.”
His eyes met hers and she knew he heard the threat. He was the only one left who knew. “I won't say anything,” he promised. “Not to Chief Isgerd, not to King Innis.”
“What about your Crowheart girl?”
“No,” he said. He held a hand to his stomach and winced.
“Even though I'm a threat to her?” She wondered if she really was. The girl would certainly see her that way, whether she wanted the crown or she wanted revenge.
“If you promise she won't be hurt, I won't say a word to her.” Maybe his life wasn't a good enough bargaining chip, but hers was. “I'll help you get to Ydurgat, and then I'll book passage on a ship to Casuin and we will go our separate ways.”
Deep inside of her, there was a seed of darkness that she had been watering ever since Gabel’s attack. She knew it was there, and sometimes she wanted to pull it out like a weed. Other times, she nourished it and cherished it as one might a child. It was the part of her that had gotten her this far, that had helped her survive. But it was also the part of her that ruined lives, that whispered in her ear about betrayal and mistrust. It was the part of her that wanted to kill him. Her fingers twitched toward the ax at her hip but then stopped.
From outside, there came the sound of laughter and a voice pitched high with amusement. Tola. Tola, who was the light to Sibba’s darkness. Who had saved her and trusted Sibba with her life. Tola had asked her to give Evenon a chance. Had told her, in her infinite vala wisdom, that there was more to this than revenge, that there was value to human life. Could she do it? Now, with everything in the open, could she trust him?
“You’ll go with us,” she said, her voice a controlled whisper, “so you can’t ride ahead and warn Chief Isgerd. And you cannot have the crown. If you have to bring a trinket to prove yourself to this girl, then she doesn’t deserve to have you back.” Even with this caveat, his face fell in relief as she turned away.
She opened the door to find Tola standing on the other side, her medicinal pouch clutched in her long-fingered hands. Sibba yelped in surprise and then froze. Tola’s green eyes stared back at her from the black kohl band.
“He’s all yours,” Sibba said, and she pushed past, leaving the vala to her work.
? ? ?
The next morning, Sibba woke to a world covered in white. Light streamed through the cracks in the walls and drove her to her feet before any of the others stirred. It had been a late night. Tola had made quick work of Evenon's wound, but it had sapped her energy and she had fallen asleep in moments, not bothering to eat dinner. Estrid and Sibba had eaten in silence, not having spoken to each other since the revelation of Estrid's pregnancy. Sibba couldn't keep her eyes off the girl's midsection. It was strange to think that there was someone growing inside of her and that Sibba was responsible for bringing both of them back to Ottar safely.
Evenon had passed out from the pain inflicted by Tola's healing process, pain that Sibba remembered well from her ax wound, and not woken since. She looked at where he slept beneath a mound of furs, and then to her friends across the room. Even Aeris was still asleep, her head tucked under her wing, perched on a rack in the corner. The sounds of deep, heavy breathing reached her ears and she smiled, actually smiled, in spite of everything.
Her feet slid easily into her boots, and she opened the door carefully so as not to wake the others, squinting against the early morning light that glanced off of the snow. Just as she was about to step over the threshold into the fresh powder, she noticed a footprint. Her eyes followed it to another one, and then another, leading away from the door and to the road beyond the rise.
Footprints in the snow.
Her first thought was, intruder. But then the next more logical explanation hit her. Leaving the door open, she crossed to Evenon's blankets and threw them back.
He was gone.
He was gone, and when she stuck her hand into her cloak pocket, where she had stored the crown after taking it back from Evenon, she found it empty. He was gone, and he had taken the crown.
She was so stupid.
So stupid.
She let him in—
She trusted him—
And all along, it had just been a ploy to get her to let her guard down. She had fallen for it.