Page 61 of Sky in the Deep
We walked through the forest in the dead of night as the sky darkened and lightened with the clouds passing overhead. The moon disappeared beyond the valley as the sun pulled up over the mountain behind us.
I stayed ahead of Fiske, each step coming a little quicker as I felt the fjord getting nearer. The trees thinned as we reached the valley, spreading out from one another as the ground pushed up from under the snow. The shadow of treetops gave way to a sun-drenched sea of new green grass so bright I had to blink at the sight. It was the first push against winter that would make its way up the mountain in the coming weeks.
We kept to the forest, out of the exposure of the valley. I could smell the sea. The cool, salty taste of it ran over my tongue and it begged me to forget where I was and what Iwas doing. To forget about the night I saw Iri and the pain in my shoulder and the raid. To forget the Herja. I walked the trail I’d walked my whole life, through the valley and toward the fjord, and it felt like none of it had ever happened.
But memory crept in again, slithering up the back of my mind as the land lifted up in front of us and led to the bluff that overlooked my village. The grass faded into rock that warmed in the sun and when my feet touched it, they stopped. They held me there as the slice of blue sea came into view. It sat beneath a gray winter sky, calm and clear, and Fiske’s footsteps stopped beside me, waiting.
I looked at my boots, taking a breath, and then I walked straight for the drop-off. I picked up my pace as I came up over the ridge, the view peeling down until I could see the beach. An alarm sounded in my mind. It was too quiet.
Another step and the village came into view. My home. And the wind was snatched from my lungs.
Below, Hylli was nothing but ash. Destruction and slaughter.
My eyes searched the broken rooftops as I ran, my feet sliding over the loose rock down the ridge. The village looked empty, and in the distance, a black halo stained the earth where the ritual house once was.
My hands flew out to steady me before I clapped them over my nose against the stench of rot. I came down the end of the trail with my feet stumbling over each other and took off, jumping over the bodies decaying in the afternoon sun.
“Aghi!” I screamed, but I could hardly hear my own voice over the thunder between my ears.
I pushed harder, flying past the burned-out, crumbling structures. When I came upon our home, I doubled over, my hands on my knees. It was barely standing, the walls jutting up from the ground in sections. My chest pushed and pulled beneath my armor vest, my eyes burning.
In the doorway, a clay bowl lay broken over the threshold.
I stepped inside as Fiske came down the path and looked around with my breath still held hostage inside of me. More broken dishes littered the floor around the fire pit and my cot was lying on its side with the blanket half burned and wet from water dripping from the hole in the roof. Flies buzzed over an iron pot spilled over with spoiled food.
“Eelyn.” Fiske’s voice sounded behind me.
But I ignored him, picking up the table and setting it upright and then gathering the pottery pieces from the ground. I stacked them neatly into my hand, my mind racing.
“Eelyn,” he said again, louder. “The tools and weapons are gone and the bodies outside are Herja. The Aska have left.”
I set the shards carefully into the pot, waving the flies away, and picked up the cot. I pulled the blanket into my arms. My mother wove it when she wasn’t much older than me. Now it was an unraveling mess, the red and orange designs coming undone.
“If it was bad enough that they left, he’s dead,” I choked. The strangled sound pierced my throat again and I pushed my face into the wet blanket, sobbing. “They’re dead,” I cried. “They’re all dead.”
The warmth of him wrapped around me and I collapsed into it, letting his arms hold my weight. I reeled, my fists pressing into my chest, and I felt it being torn from me. The small, fragile hope I’d carried down the mountain. The faith that the Aska were strong enough.
But they were gone.
Fiske’s arms pulled tighter around me and my legs gave, imagining my father’s body. Burning on the altar. His beard catching flame. His flesh blackened. And if he was dead, then we all were. Because he was the strongest of us, and without him, my world lost what held it together.
Fiske’s voice was soft in my ear. “The Aska bodies were burned. The house is cleaned out. There were survivors, Eelyn.”
I couldn’t let myself believe it. I couldn’t hold the possibility in my mind. There was no room for it in the heartbreak that was consuming every part of my body. The grief of losing my home. My people.
“Think. Where would they have gone?” He let go of me, holding me back to look up at him. His hands pushed the hair from my face. “Where is a safe place? Another Aska village?”
I closed my eyes, trying to think. I knew where they would go, but I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone who wasn’t Aska. It was a secret. And I’d never even been there. I lookedup into his eyes and they stared back at me, searching. Willing me to seize control of my frantic, desperate mind. They were like torches lit in the dark.
“Virki.” I wiped my face with my sleeves. “They would go to Virki.”
THIRTY-FIVE
Fiske built a fire in the pit asIpicked up the pieces of my home and put them back together. If we ever lived here again, it would have to be rebuilt. Most everything was ruined. But I needed to put things back in their places, even if I never saw this place again.
When I was finished, I took the fur up from my father’s cot into my hands, smelling it. Spice and dirt and sea. The sting behind my eyes made me blink and I pressed my lips together, trying to keep the tears at bay.
I sat down on the stone in front of the fire. Fiske came to sit beside me, handing me the last of our bread, and I took it, turning it over in my hands. He leaned closer to the flames, stretching his fingers out against the heat and then curling them into his palms. He always changed in the firelight. The look of his face was harsh. Like the way I remembered him when I first saw him in Aurvanger. But that seemed so longago. Now, the look that had once made the fight rise up in me broke me down. Peeled me back.
