Page 23 of Sky in the Deep
“I’m not going.”
The edge came into her voice. “I didn’t ask.”
I looked at Iri but he was looking at Fiske.
My stomach dropped, my mouth going dry. I couldn’t go to a Riki ceremony. Especially one honoring their warriors. Sigr wouldn’t like it.
“She’ll offend her god.” Iri spoke my thoughts aloud.
“All thedýrsgo. You’ll have to serve. And you can’t go into the ritual house like that.”
I stepped back. “No.”
“Aska.” Fiske’s booming reproach cut into the room, his eyes fixed on me, and I flinched.
The others, too, were staring. Halvard’s mouth hung open. The blood drained from my face.
Fiske had his hands resting on his belt, his chest pulling beneath his fitted tunic. “You’re going to the ceremony. You’ll serve. You’ll wear the dress.”
I gritted my teeth, hearing the seething of my soul inside my head. Because I didn’t care if a collar hung around my neck. I wasn’t theirdýr.
“And if I don’t?” I stared back at him, my nostrils flaring.
The cold, hard set of his eyes bore down on me with hisanswer: I’d be punished. By him. And if I wasn’t punished for deliberately disobeying, Inge would know something wasn’t right. All of the Riki would.
Behind him, Iri was looking at me, his eyes tight. Begging me to obey.
I twisted the dress in my sweaty hands and swallowed hard before I turned for the loft.
Inge watched me climb. “I told you,” she whispered. “She’s got fire in her blood, Fiske.”
I pulled my clothes off, throwing them onto my cot, and stepped into the dress. I hadn’t worn one since before the fighting season, when our clan sent off the warriors to battle. I clasped the buttons and tied the waist, cinching the fabric around my body. The neck was wide and open, letting the collar sit completely visible.
I looked down at it with a sneer. At least it was warm.
When I climbed back down the ladder with the length of the skirt gathered in my arms, Iri and Fiske were gone and Runa was rolling the cedar garlands into circles and piling them on top of each other. She smiled at me softly.
“Runa, do something with her hair,” Inge said, pushing past me to the loft.
Runa dropped the garlands and came to the table, waiting for me. I glared at her before I sat. When she touched me, the tension shot through my whole body. I closed my eyes, feeling her hands in my hair, pulling at it with hooked fingers to unravel the old, tangled braids. She brushed it out, takingthe ends in her hands and pulling the comb through as I stared into the fire.
When she stopped moving, I looked back at her. She was staring at the strip of hair along the right side of my head that was shorn over my ear. “Is that how Aska women wear their hair?” she asked.
I reached up to rub my hand over it out of habit.
She mussed the strands until it was thick and wild on top and then she braided behind my left ear, taking it around the back of my head and then over my right shoulder. She was slow and precise, taking care to braid it correctly with thin, intricate strands. When she was finished, she tied the end and stood back to look at me.
She picked up the jar ofkolfrom the table and opened it. “The Aska wear this, don’t they?”
I looked from the jar up to her, trying to figure out what she was doing. Why she was being kind. But her face didn’t betray her thoughts. She dipped her fingers into the jar and then ran them around my eyes, darkening the skin and then dragging her thumbs down the center of my cheeks in a line. Something about it made the twisting in my muscles let go a little. It felt familiar. I closed my eyes, remembering Mýra in the dark of our tent, painting thekolonto my face. And then I opened them, the vision stinging too badly to hold in my mind.
Runa went back to her work on the garlands and I came to stand beside her, taking one into my hands and winding itup the way she had. Halvard shoved the door open, running in and then stopping short, his mouth falling open.
Inge came down the ladder, dressed in a dark purple dress.
“Look at her, Mama.” Halvard was still staring at me.
Behind him, Fiske and Iri came through the door and they, too, stopped to look at me, stiffening. I kept my eyes down, working at the garlands and trying to cool the red blooming over my face. Letting them dress me up for their feast was humiliating. And seeing them look at me like they liked it made me want to cut my own hands off.
