Tola dropped her hands from Sibba's wrists, and Sibba opened her eyes. Tola was gone. The empty space in front of her seemed vast, and overhead, black storm clouds were moving in, rolling over each other and pushing themselves forward in a thick mass. The buck hadn't moved from its place in the distance, though its nose twitched when Sibba took a step. She bent to pick up the bow only to find it snapped in two, just as it had been when she'd laid it beside her mother in her grave.
Thunder shook the ground and the buck bolted, bounding through the forest until it was gone from sight. A torrent of rain pounded down around her as if the sky had ripped open. In moments, she was soaked from head to toe, but she couldn't move. What was it her mother had always said? I don't trust the rain. She hadn't liked the way it hid things, the way it washed away the truth of a place.
Be home before the rains fall. She could almost hear Darcey's voice, see the worry line between her eyes as Sibba walked away from their small cabin.
I always am, Sibba had answered every time. Until the one time when she wasn’t. But what did she do now? She spun in a slow circle, squinting against the rain that dripped down her brow into her eyes. What did she do now, when she didn't know the way home?
? ? ?
Sibba woke, gasping like a drowning man. Above her, a thatched roof gray with soot blocked out the sun. She lifted her empty hands and stared at the black stains on her thumbs, left there by tears the color of kohl. Her clothes were dry, but there was a damp smell in the air, like the forest after a rain shower. Behind her eyes, her head throbbed dully and she brought a hand to feel the knot on the side of her head. Could it have been real, or just a hallucination, a dream brought on by the blow to her head?
“Can dreams not be real?”
The voice startled Sibba to her feet, and her head swam, the room spinning briefly before she was able to focus on the figure in front of her. It was a tall, sharp-faced woman looking so much like the girl she had just held in her dream. But this woman's gray-streaked red hair was pulled back in a severe knot, and shadows curled around the base of her staff and her bare feet, caressing her like loving pets. Sibba recoiled, taking a step back until her knees hit the bench she had been sitting on and she collapsed. Her hand went to her hip for her ax and found nothing there but an empty belt.
“You are the one responsible for Tola's disappearance.” It wasn't a question. Sibba waited to see what would come next. “Chief Isgerd is displeased. She has lost a vala and possibly a jarl's loyalty.”
“If a jarl's loyalty has to be bought with human life, then it is not loyalty at all,” Sibba said, lifting her chin, going for brave.
The corners of the woman's mouth tilted up in a pitying grin. “I saw how you and my daughter looked at each other. It is her compassion that will be the end of her; I’ve told her this for years. She will come for you, but you will already be dead. She will be sent back to the jarl, and Chief Isgerd's army will continue to grow.” The woman shot out an arm and gripped Sibba's chin with long fingers, her pointed nails digging into the flesh of Sibba's jaw. “Soon, we will march against your father and the Hallowtide territory will be ours. The endless clan wars will finally be over. Thanks to you and your weak heart.”
So they knew exactly who she was and exactly what to use against her. It felt like this woman had used her sharp claws to dig her deepest fears out of the depths of Sibba's heart and lay them bare, one by one, on the floor before her. This was why she hadn't wanted to get involved. Why she had wanted to leave the Fields. But she had been weak. She had let Estrid back in, had trusted Evenon. Worst of all, she had fallen for Tola, a girl who couldn't love her back. And it was all for nothing. Isgerd would kill her and Jary, capture Tola, and destroy her father. Sibba tried to push it out, tried to close her heart, but it was too late. Even though she squeezed her eyes closed, shutting out the woman's familiar green eyes, a tear escaped, winding down her cheek.
“Oh.” The woman turned Sibba's face so she could better watch the tear fall. Sibba's cheeks reddened with shame. She was supposed to be a chief's daughter, a Malstrom princess, and she couldn't even keep it together long enough to face down an old woman.
Sibba felt the shadows before she saw them, creeping over her toes, and a hopeless dread made its way up her spine. She didn't want to give up like Evenon had when the shadows had touched him in the draugnvithr. This was not where her story ended. She stood, wrenching her face away from the woman, and stumbled away, shaking the shadows off of her feet. The dread subsided and anger returned. It was a more familiar sensation and though Tola wouldn't want her to, she welcomed it.
“This isn't over,” Sibba snarled. “I’m not dead yet.”
The vala sighed. “It would be so easy.” She crooked a finger at Sibba and suddenly Sibba was moving forward. It was like the woman had taken control of her will, her very spirit. While Tola used her magic to heal, her mother used it to harm, to control. How easily Tola could have fallen into this life, but she still sought kindness in others, still stood up against violence and needless death. She was stronger than Sibba had ever imagined, and of course, she was right. Sibba never should have left her behind.
Sibba's feet scraped the dirt floor and she willed herself to be still, fighting the feeling that tugged her forward. But her head throbbed and her legs ached and the shadows were spreading, climbing the walls and closing in on her.
“Audra.” The voice was a sharp snap that broke the spell and Sibba collapsed to the floor, dirt coating her hands and knees. When she looked up, she saw Isgerd the Younger standing in the door, silhouetted by the rising sun. It seemed strange to Sibba; her world had narrowed to just this house, just this woman and the shadows that waited to consume her. “She's ready.”
The vala bent and grasped Sibba's face again. “It would be so easy,” she said, her words saccharine and soft. “But the chief wants a show. So let's give her a show.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Sibba
Audra went first out the door, and when Sibba hesitated, Isgerd the Younger grabbed her by the back of the shirt and shoved, sending her stumbling to the ground. A peal of laughter immediately rose up around her from the crowd of gathered women. She didn't know what they were here for, but it couldn't be anything good. For now, they were content to jeer at her, no one moving to help as she pushed herself to her feet.
“Better catch up,” Isgerd said, “before they swallow you whole.”