Page 11 of Sky in the Deep
“He put it there!” I pinned my eyes on Fiske, the fury coursing through my body and my heart pounding like it was going to burst through my ribs.
Fiske looked down at me with no expression on his face.
“If he hadn’t shot you in the shoulder, another arrow would have caught you in the heart and you would be lying dead in the forest right now. You should be thanking him.”
I looked back at Iri, glaring. “Thankinghim? I wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for him.” I could hardly put the words together through the clench of my teeth.
“I told you to stop following us.” Fiske wiped his brow with the back of his arm. His hands were wet with my blood.“I can take the arrow out now or you can wait for Runa. It might be a while.”
“Take it out.” Iri’s voice was tired, his eyes pulled with worry. It was a look I remembered well—one that had been painted on his face many times.
Again!
I could hear his voice echoing in my mind. The sun was setting over the fjord and it was almost too dark to see. Our father watched from the window of our home, silhouetted in firelight.
Again, Eelyn!
Iri was only a year and a half older than me, but I was always much smaller. I couldn’t hold the shield well enough to fight with it. So he had taught me to fight without one, wielding my axe in my left hand and my sword in my right. He was bruised and bleeding, training me before our first fighting season.
Again!
That same look hung in his eyes now. He was wondering if I was strong enough.
Fiske stepped toward me and I watched him warily. I knew I didn’t have a choice. I’d been sick and wounded before, but never in my life had I felt pain like this.
Fiske looked me in the eye as he came to stand over me. “It’s going to hurt.”
Iri handed me a piece of leather and I took it. “Just do it.” I bit down hard on the strap, pulling in a deep breath and pinning my eyes to the rafters above.
Iri came around the front of me, hooking his arm beneath my neck to brace the back of my head and I held onto him with shaking fists. The arrow cracked behind me, releasing an explosion of white light behind my eyes and filling the whole room. I groaned into Iri’s chest, twisting my hands into his tunic as Fiske dug at the front of the arrow until he’d caught it with his fingernails.
When he had it, he waited, letting me catch my breath. “Ready?” He looked down at me.
I pushed the air out in three hissing spurts, steeling myself before I gave a quick nod.
He yanked his arm back, pulling it free.
I bucked beneath Iri’s weight and felt my body go limp as the arrow hit the floor. Fiske’s hands quickly replaced the hole with a wadded cloth and clamped down on my shoulder so hard that I couldn’t breathe. I blinked slowly, trying to see it, but my eyes weren’t working.
“What in the name of Thora…” The high-pitched whisper of a girl trailed off and a pair of boots beneath a long wool skirt stopped at the door. “Iri?”
He stood, going to the door and leaving only Fiske’s hand to keep me from rolling off the table. My head fell to the side and Fiske came back into view, his dark hair falling around his face as he worked at cleaning my shoulder. I couldn’t feel the pain anymore. I couldn’t feel anything.
“Who are you?” The words cracked in my chest.
He stilled, the hard angles of his face severe in the dim light.
The heat of a tear slowly trailed down the side of my face. “Who are you to my brother?”
His mouth pressed together before he answered, his hands stilling on the wound. “He’smybrother. And if you get him killed, I will cut your throat like I should have done in Aurvanger.”
SEVEN
Iwas alone whenIopened my eyes.The thin blue light of morning seeped between the wooden boards above me in the barn. I sat up on the table and the throbbing began, making me tremble. I reached my hand beneath my tunic and gently touched the hot, inflamed hole in my shoulder. Below it, new stitches were sewn into the gash in my arm. I rolled my wrists on each other, feeling the raw, pink skin pull sharply where the rope had been.
My bare feet found the cold ground and I slid off the table to stand. My boots were sitting neatly on top of my armor next to the empty fire pit. The little idol of Iri I had tucked into my vest stood on the table next to me. I picked it up, running my thumb over the small face, and blinked, seeing him in the fog again. Feeling that lightning strike in my soul. That Iri was alive. And not just alive. He’d betrayed us. All of us.
The boy I’d shared my childhood with. The boy I’d fought side by side with. He was worse than any enemy. And the blood we shared was now poison in my veins.
