Page 66 of Sky in the Deep
She didn’t look back at me as we walked, but her shoulders were set in a hard line. She kept one hand on the handle of her knife and the other hooked into the string of her bow. She wouldn’t hesitate to kill Fiske and I wasn’t sure her loyalty to me outweighed her hatred of the Riki. She’d lost herfather to fever when we were young and then she lost her sister the day I lost Iri. Now, she’d lost everyone else to the Herja. And I should have been there.
I didn’t want to imagine her, watching the bodies burn with the ritual words on her lips. I didn’t want to think of her holding the last of her family in her arms. I knew Mýra as well as I knew myself. I knew the way she held every broken piece of her heart in place, refusing to fall apart. And she was left to face it alone, because I was selfish. I’d left her in Aurvanger. Just like I’d left Iri.
Whether or not she would forgive me, I’d never forgive myself.
***
We came upon the bay carved into the cliffs like a half moon. The sea was still crusted with ice at its edges in the shallows. Schools of fish swam beneath it like a shifting plume of smoke.
Fiske hadn’t spoken a word since we left Hylli. His attention was on the slick, rocky ground as his boots struggled to find footholds. This wasn’t his terrain just like the snowy mountain wasn’t mine. I pulled the hood of the cloak up when the wind turned bitter and watched the fog roll into the land, spilling over the ground as the sun went down. The water below crashed harder onto the rocks and when we could no longer see it, we stopped, making camp inland near the forest.
Mýra watched Fiske moving through the trees as he gathered wood. “How could you tell him about Virki?” she ground out in a furious whisper.
I pulled the fish from my bag, choosing my words carefully. “What were you doing in Hylli?”
“I went back for my family’s things. What was left of them.”
I took a deep breath. “Iri’s alive, Mýra.”
Her hands froze on her axe’s handle and her eyes left the trees, coming to land on me hard.“What?”
“He’s alive. He’s been living with the Riki this whole time.” The words sank in and as they did, I listened to the way it sounded, saying it out loud. Saying it to Mýra was one thing. Saying it to the rest of the Aska would be another. Iri had been beloved and admired in Hylli, but they would have his life for what he’d done. And I was tainted by it too. So was my father.
“How? Why?” She stood.
“He wasn’t dead when we left him in Aurvanger. The Riki found him. They saved his life.Fiskesaved his life.”
“No. I saw him. We saw him.” She paced before me, her eyes frantic.
“It’s true.”
“And what? Now he’s one of them?”
“Yes.” It was the first time I really believed it.
“You can’t change your blood, Eelyn! You can’t just erase all the Aska the Riki have killed!” Her voice was raw and I knew she was thinking about her sister.
“We can’t erase any of it.” And that was the most terrifying part of all.
Fiske came out of the trees with a pile of wood under his arm and started on the fire as Mýra watched. The glare in her eyes fell heavy on him but he ignored her.
She returned her axe to its place on her back. “I’ll take watch.”
“Sleep, I’ll do it.” I stood.
“So he can cut my throat?” She huffed, pulling the idols of her sister and her father from inside her vest. “You’re a fool if you think I’m going tosleepthis close to a Riki.” She turned and stalked off into the dark, leaving us.
Fiske worked at the fire as if he hadn’t heard her, his face lit up.
“She doesn’t trust you.” I handed him another piece of wood. “None of them will.”
Behind us, in the darkness, I could hear the faint sound of Mýra’s prayers.
He sat against the tree, taking the axe from his back so he could lean into it. “Do you trust me?” His face was hard. Unreadable, like always.
“Yes.” His eyes lifted to meet mine and they looked into me. The way they had in Hylli. “But I don’t know if the Aska will listen to us.”
“You think this is the end?” He looked at his hands.
