Page 78 of Sky in the Deep
“To save them? Yes.”
“But can the others?” I looked to the Tala before my eyes drifted back to Mýra. “Canwe?”
The Tala reached to Vidr’s belt and pulled his knife free. In one quick motion, she slid the blade across her palm. Her hand filled with blood.
“Tala?” Vidr reached for her.
She stepped forward, looking to my father before she held her hand out to me.
I pressed myself to the wall. “What are you doing?”
“I’m offering a blood oath.” Her hand hung in the space between us, blood dripping to the floor.
They all stared at her, but her eyes were on me. It was the most precious thing she could offer and she knew it. She couldn’t break a blood oath without sacrificing the afterlife. And if anyone wanted to go against the Tala, they’d have to kill her. Slaying a Tala would bring the same bleak fate.
I pulled out my knife before anyone could object, cutting into my flesh and taking her hand. She smiled, pressing her palm to mine.
Vidr watched us, clearly worried. She’d put herself in a vulnerable position, binding herself to me. If he’d harbored any secret plans against the Aska, they were undone.
The Tala turned to my father. “Do this and we will owe each other a debt—a debt that can never be repaid.”
Fiske was quiet, standing with Iri and Runa behind the table piled high with fresh bundles of sage. He looked at me.
I didn’t want to think about what it all meant. What a future like thatcouldmean. The same weight that had been with me since the day I looked into the bear’s eyes at the river pressed me further into the ground. I pulled my sore shoulder back to stretch it. To feel something else, even if it was pain.
The room suddenly felt small. The air was too hot. I couldn’t breathe.
I stepped to the side, finding a path to the door, and quietly slipped out into the air, gulping it in as I paced toward the garden, where Inge had plowed rows for planting. I pulled my axe free from its sheath and opened the neck of my tunic trying to cool my skin. The tree at the edge of the forest was marked up with the slashes of axe throws. I threw my arm back over my head and swung it down hard, flinging my axe forward and sending it through the air. It landed with a loud crack in the trunk of the tree.
The door latch rattled and I didn’t turn around to look at him. Feeling him was enough. It was something I recognized now. I stared at my axe, lodged in the wood.
“They’re leaving at first light to go back to Virki.” Fiske spoke behind me.
I walked toward the tree and pried the blade free, pressing against its edge with my thumb. “And then what?”
“And then they return with the Aska. We’ll meet them in Aurvanger in two days.”
I pressed my thumb harder to the metal. “And then we all die?”
“Maybe.” He kept his distance from me. “Will you go with them? Back to Virki?”
I looked at the house, where my father was still talking with the Riki. How did we get here? How could we ever go back? I wanted to push my face into the snow. I wanted to scream.
He stepped toward me, taking my cut hand into his. He turned it over before wrapping a strip of cloth around it, knotting it on my palm. I breathed through the feeling flowing through me, like candle wax melting. “Don’t.” The word hit me in the chest as he said it.
I bit down on my lip until my eyes watered. To keep myself from speaking. I was afraid of what I would say if I did.
“Stay with me and come with us to the valley. We’ll meet the Aska there.”
I closed my eyes as a tear rolled down my flushed face. Trying to escape. Trying to leave this moment and pretend like I hadn’t chosen a path to get here. It wasn’t a command. It was a request. One that I didn’t think I could deny. He’d left his family and come with me down the mountain as his people reeled in the aftermath of a raid. He’d taken me home. Helped me find my father. Now it was my turn to make a choice.
To choose him the way he’d chosen me.
I turned back toward the tree as he left, boots crunching all the way to the door, and the latch clicked again. I croucheddown and put my face into my hands, feeling the village spinning around me. I tried to remember who I was.
Strong. Brave. Fierce. Sure.
I tried to summon her to me—thatEelyn who would choose her people over anything else. I searched for her within myself, but she was different now.Iwas different. And it was something that was already done. Something I couldn’t change.
