Sky in the Deep E-Book

Adrienne Young

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 405

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

A 2018 Most Anticipated Young Adult book that is part Wonder Woman, part Vikings―and all heart. Raised to be a warrior, seventeen-year-old Eelyn fights alongside her Aska clansmen in an ancient, rivalry against the Riki clan. Her life is brutal but simple: fight and survive. Until the day she sees the impossible on the battlefield―her brother, fighting with the enemy―the brother she watched die five years ago. Faced with her brother's betrayal, Eelyn is captured and must survive the winter in the mountains with the Riki, in a village where every neighbour is an enemy, every battle scar possibly one she delivered. But when the Riki village is raided by a ruthless clan thought to be a legend, Eelyn is even more desperate to get back to her beloved family. She is given no choice but to trust Fiske, her brother's friend, who sees her as a threat. They must do the impossible: unite the clans to fight together, or risk being slaughtered one by one. Driven by a love for her clan and her growing love for Fiske, Eelyn must confront her own definition of loyalty and family while daring to put her faith in the people she's spent her life hating.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Also Available from Adrienne Young and Titan

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Acknowledgments

Also Available from Titan Books

SKYINTHEDEEP

ALSO AVAILABLE FROMADRIENNE YOUNG AND TITAN

The Girl the Sea Gave Back(September 2019)

SKYINTHEDEEP

ADRIENNE YOUNG

TITAN BOOKS

Sky in the Deep

Print edition ISBN: 9781789091274

E-book edition ISBN: 9781789091281

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: March 2019

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Copyright © 2018, 2019 Adrienne Young.

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

FOR JOEL,

WHO HAS NEVER TRIED TO TAMEMY WILD HEART

SKYINTHEDEEP

ONE

“They’re coming.”

I looked down the row of Aska hunched against each other, ducking behind the muddy hill. The fog sat on the field like a veil, but we could hear it. The blades of swords and axes brushing against armor vests. Quick footsteps in sucking mud. My heart beat almost in rhythm with the sounds, pulling one breath in and letting it touch another before I let it go.

My father’s rasping whistle caught my ears from down the line and I searched the dirt-smeared faces until I found a pair of bright blue eyes fixed on me. His gray-streaked beard hung braided down his chest behind the axe clutched in his huge fist. He tipped his chin up at me and I whistled back—our way of telling each other to be careful. To try not to die.

Mýra’s hand lifted the long braid over my shoulder and she nodded toward the field. “Together?”

“Always.” I looked behind us where our clansmen stood shoulder to shoulder in a sea of red leathers and bronze, all waiting for the call. Mýra and I had fought for our place at the front.

“Watch that left side.” Her kol-rimmed eyes dropped down to the broken ribs behind my vest.

“They’re fine.” I glared at her, insulted. “If you’re worried, fight with someone else.”

She shook her head, dismissing me before she stood to check my armor one last time. I tried not to wince as she tightened the fastenings I’d intentionally left a bit loose. She pretended not to notice, but I caught the look in her eye.

“Stop worrying about me.” I ran a hand over the right side of my head where my hair was shorn to the scalp under the length of the braids.

I pulled her hand toward me to secure the straps of her shield onto her arm by memory. We’d been fighting mates for the last five years and I knew every piece of her armor as well as she knew every badly mended bone in my body.

“I’m not worried,” she smirked, “but I’ll bet my supper that I kill more Riki than you today.” She tossed my axe to me.

I pulled my sword from my scabbard with my right hand and caught the axe with my left. “Vegr yfir fjor.”

She settled her arm all the way into her shield, lifting it up over her head in an arc to stretch her shoulder before she repeated it back to me. “Vegr yfir fjor.”

Honor above life.

The first whistle cut into the air from our right, warning us to get ready, and I closed my eyes, feeling the steadiness of the earth beneath my feet. The sounds of battle rushing toward us bled together as the deep-throated prayers of my clansmen rose up around me like smoke from a wildfire. I let the words march out under my breath, asking Sigr to guard me. To help me bring down his enemies.

“Go!”

I reared back and swung my axe, sending it deep into the earth, and launched myself up and over the hill, flying forward. My feet hit the dirt and I ran, punching holes into the soft ground with my boots, toward the wall of fog hovering over the field. I kept track of Mýra in the corner of my eye as we were swallowed up by it, the cold rushing past us like a spray of water until dark figures appeared in the hazy distance.

The Riki.

The enemies of our god ran toward us in a swarm of fur and iron. Hair tangled in the wind. Sun glinting off blades. I picked up speed at the sight of them, tightening my fingers around my sword as I pushed forward, ahead of the others.

I let the growl crawl up the inside of me, from that deep place that comes alive in battle. I screamed, my eyes settling on a short man with orange furs wrapped up around his shoulders at the front of their line. I whistled to Mýra and leaned into the wind, running straight for him. As we neared them, I turned to the side and counted my steps, plotting my path to the moment when the space between us was eaten up by the sound of heavy bodies crashing into each other. I bit down hard as I reached him, my teeth bared. My sword came up behind me, my body lowering to the ground, and I swung it up as I passed, aiming for his gut.

His shield lifted just in time and he threw himself to the left, catching me with its edge. Black spots exploded into my vision as my lungs wheezed behind my sore ribs and the breath refused to return. I stumbled, trying to find my footing before I fell to the ground, and came back with my axe, ignoring the bloom of pain in my side. His sword caught the blade above his head, wrenching it back, but that’s all I needed.

His side was wide open.

I sunk my sword into it, finding the seam of his armor vest. His head flew back, his mouth open as he screamed, and Mýra’s sword came down on his neck in one smooth motion, slicing through the muscle and tendon. I yanked my blade free, pulling a spray of hot blood over my face with it. Mýra kicked the man over with the heel of her boot as another shadow appeared in the fog behind her.

“Down!” I shouted, letting my axe fly.

She dropped to the ground and the blade plunged into the chest of a Riki, sending him to his knees. His huge body fell onto her, pinning her to the dirt. The blood bubbling up from his mouth poured out, covering her pale skin in a stark shining red.

I ran to her, hooking my fingers into his armor vest from the other side of his body, and sunk down, pulling him with me. When she was free, she sprang to her feet, finding her sword and looking around us. I gripped the handle of my axe and pried it up, out of the bones in his chest.

The fog was beginning to clear, pushing back in the warmth of the morning light. From the hill, down to the river, the ground was covered with fighting clansmen, all pulling toward the water. Across the field, my father was driving his sword behind him, into the stomach of a Riki. I watched him fling it forward to catch another in the face, his eyes wide with fight and his chest full of thundering war cries.

“Come on!” I called back to Mýra as I ran, leaping over the fallen bodies and making my way toward the river’s edge, where the fighting was more concentrated.

I caught the back of a Riki’s knee with my sword, dropping him to the ground as I passed. And then another, leaving them both for someone else to finish.

“Eelyn!” She called my name just as I slammed into another body, and wide arms wrapped around me, squeezing so hard that the sword slipped from my fingers. I grunted, trying to kick free, but he was too strong. I bit into the flesh of the arm until I tasted blood and the hands shoved me to the ground. I hit hard, gasping for breath as I rolled onto my back and reached for my axe. But the Riki’s sword was already coming down on me. I rolled again, finding the knife at my belt with my fingers as I came back up onto my feet and faced him, the breath puffing out before me in white gusts.

Behind me, Mýra was fighting in the fog. “Eelyn!”

He lunged for me, swinging his sword up, and I fell back again. It cut through my sleeve and into the thick muscle of my arm. I threw the knife, handle over blade, and he dropped his head to the side. It narrowly missed him, grazing his ear, and when he looked back at me his eyes were on fire.

I scrambled backward, trying to get to my feet as he picked up his sword. My eyes fell to the spilled Aska blood covering his chest and arms as he stalked toward me. Behind him, my sword and my axe lay on the ground.

“Mýra!” I shouted, but she was completely out of sight now.

I looked around us, something churning up inside of me that I rarely felt in a fight—panic. I was nowhere near a weapon and there was no way I could take him down with my bare hands. He closed in, gritting his teeth, as he moved like a bear over the grass.

I thought of my father. His soil-stained hands. His deep, booming voice. And my home. The fire flickering in the dark. The frost on the glade in the mornings.

I stood, pressing my fingers into the hot wound at my arm and saying Sigr’s name under my breath, asking him to accept me. To welcome me. To watch over my father. “Vegr yfir fjor,” I whispered.

He slowed, watching my lips move.

The furs beneath his armor vest blew in the damp breeze, pushing up around his angled jaw. He blinked, pressing his mouth into a straight line as he took the last steps toward me and I didn’t run. I wasn’t going to be brought down by a blade in my back.

The steel gleamed as he pulled the sword up over his head, ready to bring it back down, and I closed my eyes. I breathed. I could see the reflection of the gray sky on the fjord. The willow bloomed on the hillside. The wind wove through my hair. I listened to the sound of my clansmen raging. Fighting in the distance.

“Fiske!” A deep, strangled voice pierced through the fog, finding me, and my eyes popped open.

The Riki before me froze, his eyes darting to the side where the voice was coming toward us.

Fast.

“No!” A tangle of wild, fair hair barreled into him, knocking his sword to the ground. “Fiske, don’t.” He took hold of the man’s armor vest, holding him in place. “Don’t.”

Something twisted in my mind, the blood in my veins slowing, my heart stopping.

“What are you doing?” The Riki wrenched free, picking his sword back up off the ground and driving past him, coming for me.

The man turned, throwing his arms around the Riki and swinging him back.

And that’s when I saw it—his face.

And I was frozen. I was the ice on the river. The snow clinging onto the mountainside.

“Iri.” It was the ghost of a word on my breath.

They stopped struggling, both looking up at me with wide eyes, and it dove deeper within me. What I was seeing. Who I was seeing.

“Iri?” My shaking hand clutched at my armor vest, tears coming up into my eyes. The storm in my stomach churned at the center of the chaos surrounding us.

The man with the sword looked at me, his eyes running over my face, working hard to put something together. But my eyes were on Iri. On the curve of his jaw. His hair—like straw in the sun. The blood smeared across his neck. Hands like my father’s.

“What is this, Iri?” The Riki’s grip tightened around the hilt of his sword, my blood still thick on its blade.

I could barely hear him. I could barely think, everything washed out in the flood of the vision before me.

Iri stepped toward me slowly, his eyes jumping back and forth on mine. I stopped breathing as his hands came up to my face and he leaned in so close that I could feel his breath on my forehead.

“Run, Eelyn.”

He let me go, and my lungs writhed and pulled, begging for air. I turned, looking for Mýra in the mist, opening my mouth to call out for my father. But my breath wouldn’t come.

He was gone, devoured by the fog, the Riki disappearing with him.

As if they were ghosts.

As if they were never there.

And they couldn’t have been. Because it was Iri, and the last time I saw my brother was five years ago. Lying dead in the snow.

TWO

I broke through the fog and ran toward the river as fast as my feet would carry me with Mýra on my heels, her sword swinging. My eyes were on the trees, in the direction Iri had gone. They jumped from shadow to shadow, looking for a streak of flaxen hair in the darkened forest.

A woman leapt from the tree line, but her shriek was cut off as Mýra came from the side, plowing into her with a knife. She dragged it across the woman’s throat and dropped her where she stood, falling into step with me again as I ran.

The retreat whistle for the Riki sounded and the bodies, still tangled in battle, parted to reveal the green field now painted red with the death of clansmen. I took off, weaving through the retreating Riki and grabbing hold of the fair-haired men one by one, searching their faces.

“What are you doing?” Mýra wrenched me backward, her sharp face pulled in confusion.

The last of them disappeared into the trees behind her and I turned, looking for the blue wool tunic my father was wearing beneath his armor. “Aghi!”

The heads of the Aska in the field turned toward me.

Mýra took hold of my arm, pressing the heel of her hand into the wound to stop the bleeding. “Eelyn.” She pulled me to her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

I found my father’s face across the field, where the fog was still pulling up from the land like a lifting cloud.

“Aghi!” His name was raw in my throat.

His chin lifted at the strangled sound and his eyes searched the body-littered expanse. When they found me, they transfigured from worry into fear. He dropped his shield and ran to me.

I sank to my knees, my head swimming. He fell beside me, hands running over my body and fingers sliding over blood and sweat-soaked skin. He looked me over carefully, dread pushing its way onto his face.

I took hold of his armor vest, pulling him to face me. “It’s Iri.” The words broke on a sob.

I could still see him. His pale eyes. His fingers touching my face.

My father’s gaze went to Mýra before the breath that was caught in his chest let go of his panic. He took my face into his hands and looked at me. “What’s happened?” His eyes caught sight of the blood still seeping from my arm. He let me go, pulling his knife free to cut at the tunic of the Riki lying dead beside us.

“I saw him. I saw Iri.”

He wrapped the torn cloth around my arm, tying it tight. “What are you talking about?”

I pushed his hands from me, crying. “Listen to me! Iri was here! I saw him!”

His hands finally stilled, confusion lighting in his eyes.

“I was fighting a man. He was about to . . .” I shuddered, remembering how close to death I’d come—closer than I’d ever been. “Iri came out of the fog and saved me. He was with the Riki.” I stood, taking his hand and pulling him toward the tree line. “We have to find him!”

But my father stood like a stone tucked into the earth. His face turned up toward the sky, his eyes blinking against the sunlight.

“Do you hear me? Iri’s alive!” I shouted, holding my arm against my body to calm the violent throbbing around the gash.

His eyes landed on me again, tears gathered at the corners like little white flames. “Sigr. He sent Iri’s soul to save you, Eelyn.”

“What? No.”

“Iri’s made it to Sólbjǫrg.” His words were frightening and delicate, betraying a tenderness my father never showed. He stepped forward, looking down into my eyes with a smile. “Sigr has favored you, Eelyn.”

Mýra stood behind him, her green eyes wide beneath her unraveling auburn braids.

“But—” I choked. “I saw him.”

“You did.” A single tear rolled down my father’s rough cheek and disappeared into his beard. He pulled me into him, wrapping his arms around me, and I closed my eyes, the pain in my arm so great now that I could hardly feel my hand.

I blinked, trying to understand. I had seen him. He was there.

“We will make a sacrifice tonight.” He let me go before he pressed his hands to my face again. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you scream for me like that. You scared me, sváss.” A laugh was buried deep in his chest.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I just . . . I thought . . .”

He waited for me to meet his eyes again. “His soul is at peace. Your brother saved your life today. Be happy.” He clapped a hand against my good arm, nearly knocking me down.

I wiped at my wet cheeks with the palm of my hand, turning from the faces that were still watching me. There were very few times I’d cried in front of my clansmen. It made me feel small. Weak, like the early winter grass beneath our boots.

I sniffed back the tears, piecing my face back together as my father nodded in approval. It was what he had taught me—to be strong. To steel myself. He turned back to the field, getting to work, and I followed with Mýra, trying to smooth my ragged breath. To hush the waves crashing in my head. We walked toward our camp, collecting the weapons of fallen Aska warriors along the way. I watched my father from the corner of my eye, still unable to shake Iri’s face from my mind.

My feet stopped at the edge of a puddle and I looked at my reflection. Dirt spattered across my angled face and neck. Blood dried in long, golden braids. Eyes a frozen blue, like Iri’s. I sucked in a breath, looking up to the thin white clouds brushed across the sky to keep another tear from falling.

“Here,” Mýra called to me from where she was crouched over an Aska woman. She was lying on her side, eyes open and arms extended like she was reaching for us.

I carefully unbuckled her belt and scabbard, piling them with the others before I started on the armor vest. “Did you know her?”

“A little.” Mýra reached down to close the woman’s eyes with her fingertips. She gently brushed the hair back from her face before she began, the words coming softly. “Aska, you have reached your journey’s end.”

In the next breath, I joined with her, saying the ritual words we knew by heart. “We ask Sigr to accept your soul into Sólbjǫrg, where the long line of our people hold torches on the shadowed path.”

My voice faded, letting Mýra speak first. “Take my love to my father and my sister. Ask them to keep watch for me. Tell them my soul follows behind you.”

I closed my eyes as the prayer found a familiar place on my tongue. “Take my love to my mother and my brother. Ask them to keep watch for me. Tell them my soul follows behind you.”

I swallowed down the lump in my throat before I opened my eyes and looked down into the woman’s peaceful face one more time. I hadn’t been able to say the words over Iri’s body the way I had when my mother died, but Sigr had taken him anyway.

“Have you ever seen something like that before?” I whispered. “Something that wasn’t real?”

Mýra blinked. “It was real. Iri’s soul is real.”

“But he was older—a man. He spoke to me. He touched me, Mýra.”

She stood, shifting an armful of axes up onto her shoulder. “I was there that day, Eelyn. Iri died. I saw it with my own eyes. That was real.” It was the same battle that took Mýra’s sister. We’d been friends before that day, but we hadn’t really needed each other until then.

I remembered it so clearly—the picture of him like a reflection on ice. Iri’s lifeless body at the bottom of the trench. Lying across the perfect white snow, blood seeping out around him in a melted pool. I could still see his blond hair fanned out around his head, his empty eyes wide open and staring into nothing.

“I know.”

Mýra reached up, squeezing my shoulder. “Then you know it wasn’t Iri—not his flesh.”

I nodded, swallowing hard. I prayed for Iri’s soul every day. If Sigr had sent him to protect me, he really was in Sólbjǫrg—our people’s final sunset. “I knew he would make it.” I breathed through the tightness in my throat.

“We all did.” A small smile lifted on her lips.

I looked back down to the woman lying between us. We would leave her as she was—as she died—with honor. Like we did with all our fallen warriors.

Like we’d left Iri.

“Was he as handsome as he was before?” Mýra’s smile turned wry as her eyes flickered back up to meet mine.

“He was beautiful,” I whispered.

THREE

I bit down on the thick leather strap of my scabbard as the healer worked, sewing the gash in my arm closed. It was deeper than I wanted to admit.

Whatever Kalda was thinking, her face didn’t betray it. “I can still fight,” I said. It wasn’t a question. And she had treated me after battle enough times to know it.

Mýra sighed beside me, though it looked as if she was enjoying it a little. I shot my eyes to her before she could say a word.

“That’s your decision.” Kalda looked up at me through her dark eyelashes.

It wasn’t the first time she had stitched me up and it wouldn’t be the last. But the only time she’d ever told me I couldn’t fight was when I broke two ribs. I’d waited five years to avenge Iri in my second fighting season and I spent a month of it sitting in the camp, cleaning weapons and seething with anger while my father and Mýra went out into battle without me.

“It won’t stay closed if you’re using your axe.” Kalda dropped the needle into the bowl beside her before wiping her hands on her bloodstained apron.

I stared back at her. “I have to use my axe.”

“Use a shield in that hand.” Mýra glowered, flinging a hand toward me.

“I don’t use a shield,” I bit back at her. “I use a sword in my right and an axe in my left. You know that.” Changing the way I fought would only get me killed.

Kalda sighed. “Then when you tear it open again you’ll have to come back and let me restitch it.”

“Fine.” I stood, pulling my sleeve back down over my swollen arm and trying not to let the wince show on my face.

The Aska man waiting behind us sat down on the stool and Kalda got to work on the cut carved into his cheek. “I heard Sigr honored you today.” He was a friend of my father’s. Every one was.

“He did,” Mýra said through a traitorous smile. She loved to see me embarrassed.

I didn’t know what to say.

He reached up with his fist, tapping me on my good shoulder with his big knuckles as I reached for his shoulder and did the same.

We ducked out of the foul smell of the tent and walked through camp as the sky grew warm with the setting sun and my stomach growled at the smell of supper cooking over flames. My father was waiting for me in front of our fire.

“See you in the morning.” Mýra squeezed my hand before she broke off from me.

“Maybe,” I said, watching her walk to her tent. I wasn’t convinced the Riki wouldn’t be back before the sun rose.

My father stood with his arms folded over his chest, staring down into the fire. He had washed his hands and face, but I could still see the blood and dirt clinging to the rest of him.

“Taken care of?” His bushy eyebrows lifted up.

I nodded, raising my scabbard over my head. He unbuckled the axe sheath on my back and took my arm into his hands, inspecting it.

“It’s fine,” I said. He didn’t worry about me often, but I could see it when he did.

He pushed the unruly hair back from my face. I was an Aska warrior, but I was still his daughter. “You look more like your mother every day. Are you ready?”

I gave him a tired smile. If my father believed Sigr sent Iri’s soul to me, I could believe it too. I was too afraid of any other truth that lingered in the back of my thoughts. “Ready.”

We walked side by side to the other end of the camp. I could feel the eyes on me, but my father paid our clansmen no attention, putting me at ease. The meeting tent that served as our ritual house sat at the end of our encampment with white smoke trailing up into the evening sky from its center. Espen stood like an enormous statue beneath its frame, the Tala beside him. Our clan’s leader was the greatest of our warriors, the oldest Aska leader in three generations. He lifted his chin, his fingers pulling at his long beard.

“Aghi.” He called to my father from where he stood.

My father pulled three coins from his vest and handed them to me. He walked toward them, grasping Espen’s shoulder in greeting, and Espen did the same before he spoke. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but his eyes found me over my father’s shoulder, making me feel suddenly unsteady.

“Eelyn.”

I jolted. Hemming was waiting at the gate of the pen.

I pressed the coins into his open hand and he dropped them into the heavy purse hanging from his belt.

He smiled up at me, one tooth missing from the front of his mouth where he was kicked by a horse two winters ago. “I heard what happened.” He stepped over the wall of the pen and grabbed a pale gray goat by the horns. “This one okay?”

I crouched down, inspecting the animal carefully. “Turn him around.” Hemming shifted, pulling the goat toward him, and I shook my head. “What about him?” I pointed to a large white goat in the corner.

“He’s four penningr.” Hemming struggled to keep his hold on the gray goat.

A heavy hand landed on my shoulder, and I looked up to see my father, peering over me into the pen. “What’s this?”

Hemming let go of the animal, standing up straight under my father’s gaze. “He’s four penningr.”

“Is he the best?”

“Yes, Aghi.” Hemming nodded. “The best.”

“Then four penningr it is.” He pulled another coin free and tossed it to Hemming.

I climbed into the pen to help the boy wrangle the goat to the gate. My father took one horn and I took the other as we led him to the altar in the middle of the meeting tent. The fire was already burning strong, its flames licking up around the wood and warming me through my armor as the cold crept in from outside.

“May I join you?” Espen’s voice came from behind us.

My father turned, his eyes widening a little before he nodded.

The Tala followed, looking at me. “You’ve brought honor to Sigr by destroying his enemies, Eelyn. He’s honored you in return.”

I nodded nervously, biting down hard on my bottom lip. The Tala had never spoken to me before. I’d been afraid of him as a child, hiding behind Iri in the ritual house during sacrifices and ceremonies. I didn’t like the idea of a person who spoke the will of the gods. I was afraid of what he may see in me. What he may see in my future.

Espen found a place beside me and we led the animal forward to the large trough in front of the blazing fire. My father pulled out the small wooden idol of my mother he had tucked into his vest and handed it to me. I pulled the one I had of Iri from my own and set them beside one another on the stone before us. Sacrifices made me think of my mother. She’d tell the story of the Riki god Thora, who erupted from the mountain in fire and the flames that had come down to the fjord. Sigr had risen up from the sea to protect his people and every five years, we went back to battle to defend his honor, bound by the blood feud between us.

There wasn’t much about my mother that I remembered, but the night she died still hung clearly in my mind. I remembered the river of silent Herja that streamed into our village in the dead of night, their swords reflecting moonlight, their skin as pale as the dead against the thick furs they wore upon their shoulders. I remembered the way my mother looked, lying on the beach with the light leaving her eyes. My father, covered in her blood.

I sat, holding my mother’s still-warm body as the Aska followed them into the winter sea, where they disappeared in the dark water like demons. We’d seen raids before, but never like that. They hadn’t come to steal, they’d come only to kill. The ones they took, they sacrificed to their god. And no one knew where they came from or if they were even human. Espen had hung one of the bodies from a tree at the entrance to our village and the bones still hung there, knocking together in the wind. We hadn’t seen the Herja since. Perhaps whatever god had sent them had quenched their anger. Still, our blood ran cold at the mention of their name.

Iri and I had wept over the sacrifice my father made the next morning, thanking Sigr for sparing his children’s lives. Only a few years later, he made another—when Iri died.

“Draw your knife, Eelyn,” my father instructed, taking both horns into his hands.

I stared at him, confused. I’d only ever stood behind my father as he performed a sacrifice.

“This is your sacrifice, sváss. Draw your knife.”

The Tala nodded beside him.

I tugged my knife from my belt, watching the firelight against the letters of my name, forged into the smooth surface of the blade below the spine. It was the knife my father gave to me before my first fighting season five years ago. Since then, it had taken too many lives to count.

I came down beside the goat, taking its body into my arms, and found the pulsing artery at his neck with my fingers. I positioned my knife, taking a breath before I recited the words. “We honor you, Sigr, with this undefiled sacrifice.” They were the words I’d heard my father and fellow clansmen say my whole life. “We thank you for your provision and your favor. We ask that you follow us, protect us, until the day we reach Sólbjǫrg in final rest.”

I dragged the blade swiftly across the goat’s soft flesh, tightening my grip on him with my other arm as he kicked. The stitches in my arm pulled, sending the sting of the wound down to my wrist. His hot blood poured out over my hands, into the trough, and I pressed my face into his white fur until he was still.

We stood in silence, listening to the blood drain into the trough, and my eyes lifted to the idols of my mother and my brother on the stone. They were lit up in the amber light, shadows dancing over their carved faces.

I’d felt the absence of my mother as soon as she stopped breathing. As if with that last breath, her soul had let go of her body. But with Iri, it had never been that way. I still felt him. Maybe I always would.

FOUR

We woke to the warning whistle in the middle of the night. The horse’s hooves stamped nervously outside our tent and my father was on his feet before my eyes were even open.

“Up, Eelyn.” He was a blur in the dark. “You were right.”

I pulled myself up, reaching for the sword beside my cot and breathing through the pain igniting sharp and angry in my arm. I fought with my boots and pulled my armor vest on, letting my father fasten it for me. He slid my scabbard over my head and across my chest, followed by my axe sheath, and then patted me on the back, letting me know I was ready. I took up the idol of my mother from where it sat beside his cot and quickly pressed it to my lips before I handed it to him. He tucked it into his vest and I tucked the one of Iri into mine.

We slipped out into the night, heading toward the end of the river that wrapped around one side of our camp. The starless sky melted into the night-cloaked land beyond the fires and I could feel them out there.

The Riki.

Thunder grumbled over us and the unmistakable smell of a storm rode on the wind. My father planted a kiss on the top of my head. “Vegr yfir fjor.” He pushed me toward the other end of the line, where I would find Mýra.

She pulled me to her, lifting my axe from its sheath on my back and handing it to me. I tightened the bandage around my arm and shook the numbness out of my hand. She didn’t say it this time, but I knew what she was thinking because I was thinking it too. My left side was almost useless now. I’d fought in the dark with my clan before, but never this injured. The thought made me uneasy.

“Stay close to me.” She waited for me to nod in agreement before she led us to the front of the line.

The fighting erupted before we were even in place. To the left, down by the water, the shouting began, but this end of the line was still quiet. I said my prayers, my eyes searching for movement around us as raindrops began to fall. Beside me, Mýra’s eyes closed, her lips moving around the ancient words.

The next whistle sounded like the soft call of a bird, and we lifted onto our feet, moving silently as one entity into the black. I put my hand on the back of the Aska in front of me and felt the hot hand of the warrior behind me, keeping us together. We stepped in rhythm, our boots breaking the thin frost on the grass. The sound of the river pulled in from the left and the muted quiet of the forest from the right as the familiar sound of battle grew between.

Straight ahead, the Riki moved toward us like fish under water.

We walked until I could hear them and Mýra’s elbow pressed into me, letting me know she heard it too. I clicked my tongue, and the clansmen around me repeated the sound, spreading the message through the line. They were close. Mýra pulled up her shield and I tucked myself closer to her as we moved faster. Beneath my vest, my heart beat unevenly, sending my sore ribs into spasms.

A gurgling wail beside us signaled the Riki’s arrival to our end of the line and as soon as I saw movement ahead of us, I swung, driving my sword forward and catching the hard surface of a shield. The form knocked Mýra to the ground and I lunged again, swinging my sword up and around me to let it cut down. This time, I heard the scrape of bone on my blade. I kicked at the lump, freeing my sword, and we pushed farther in. The rain fell harder as the sky opened up and the clouds pulled back just enough for a bit of moonlight to fall down on us.

I couldn’t help it. My eyes were already combing through the Riki on the field. Searching.

Lightning washed across the night sky and the mass of warriors scrambled like insects, crawling over the land as it lit everything white and then flickered out again. The crack exploded around us, shaking the ground.

Mýra caught the thigh of a man with her knife, knocking him over with her shield, and I came down on him with my axe, grunting against the searing burn in my arm. Mýra caught me as I fell, yanking me up and throwing my weight forward. I gripped the handle of my axe as we jumped over the body and the silhouette of a screaming woman came at me from the left. I swung again, catching her in the side. She went down, splashing in the mud, and I doubled over to keep from losing my balance.

“Eelyn!” Mýra called for me, getting sucked into the fighting as I searched the ground for my axe.

I raked my fingers through the grass until I found the handle. “I’m here!” I ran toward her voice.

Lightning lit across the sky again, howling and hissing, and I found her standing over another body.

We headed toward the trees and my eyes trained on the figures before me. We cut them down one by one, reading each other’s movements, until we had a clear path. Mýra pushed harder, trying to balance the deficiency of my arm and ribs. I bit down, gritting my teeth, and tightened my grip on my sword, trying to pull my body in line.

And then I saw it. From the corner of my eye—a pale flame moving in the trees.

I stopped short, sliding in the mud with my heart jumping up into my throat. “Iri.”

I took off running, tracking him with my eyes and dodging Riki as I neared the tree line. He wielded his axe, sending it into an Aska and then rearing back and sending another one to the ground. Beside him, a Riki was swinging his sword, dropping my clansmen left and right. The Riki who’d almost taken my life.

I followed them as they moved together, weaving between the trees deeper into the forest. Behind me, Mýra’s faint voice called my name.

I jumped over the bodies on the forest floor and ducked into the cover of the trees. I pushed my sword into my scabbard and sunk my weight as close to the ground as I could, running with my axe out before me. My stomach twisted, knowing I should stop. Go back to Mýra.

Instead, I followed the familiar form driving deeper into the darkness. The lightning multiplied and the sound of rain on the canopy beat above us. When a hand caught me in the dark, I snapped my arm back, swinging my axe. The fingers clamped down on me, digging into my wrist until I dropped it. I fell flat on my back and the hand grabbed ahold of my boot, dragging me in the other direction. I reached for the trees as they passed, searching for something to hold onto as I slid over the wet ground, my ribs screaming.

The shadow reached down and pulled me upright, slamming me into a tree.

The Riki who’d sunk his blade into my arm was staring down at me. The blue of his eyes glinted like fire-steel striking in the dark. The hair fell down around his face, unraveled from its knot, and his broad frame towered over me as his hands tightened on my armor vest to hold me in place.

“Stop following us.” His voice rose above the sound of rain falling.

I felt for the knife in my belt. “Where is he?”

He shoved me before he let me go and turned, stalking off into the trees.

I ran after him.

He turned suddenly, lifting the handle of his axe to catch me in the shoulder. “Go back. Now,” he growled.

“Where’s Iri?” I shouted.

He shoved me again, sending me back into another tree. The bark grated against my vest as I slid down the trunk and landed on the ground.

I got back to my feet, following him. “Where is he?” I tried to even the shaking in my voice.

When he turned again, he snatched my injured arm up and dug his thumb into the fresh wound he’d made the day before. I screamed, falling to my knees as the stitches popped through the skin. Bursts of light ruptured before my eyes and my stomach turned on itself, making me feel like I was on the water.

He stood over me, his face hidden in the shadows. “You’re going to get us killed. Stay away from Iri.”

I opened my mouth to speak and he clamped his hand down harder until my eyes lost focus. I was going to faint. His voice echoed in my head as the Aska retreat whistle sounded far away.

“Fiske.” Iri’s voice came from somewhere behind us—a voice I knew in my bones.

He stood behind us, holding an axe in each hand. “Let’s go.” He nodded toward the tree line, avoiding my eyes.

“Wait!” I stumbled to my feet, but he was already walking away. “Iri!”

“Go back, Eelyn. Before someone sees you.” The strain in his words was buried deep beneath the hardness that knit his face together.

His face.

My jaw dropped as I marveled at it. He was fair like me and our mother, but he looked like my father. There, in the eyes and the line of his wide shoulders. He wasn’t a boy anymore, but it was him. It was my brother.

“You’re real,” I rasped, trying to catch my breath. I slid my axe into its sheath on my back, staring.

“Iri.” A warning sounded in the Riki’s voice.

“Go.” Iri turned again, giving me his back. “Forget you saw me.”

I leaned into the tree, pinching my eyes closed against the pain in my arm. Against the ache in my chest. Because Iri was alive. And if he was alive, it meant something terrible. Something far worse than losing him.

“Iri?” Another voice sounded in the forest and my feet slid out from under me in the mud.

Iri stopped mid-stride, turning slowly and searching around us.

Ahead, a large man stepped forward, into the slice of moonlight cutting through the trees. “Fiske?”

The three of them looked at each other for a moment and the air turned cold around me, my senses heightening. I pulled my knife free again and looked toward the river. I wasn’t stronger, but even injured I was probably faster than all three of them.

I could make it.

Iri’s jaw clenched, something working in his mind before he looked back to Fiske. He gave a slight nod before his eyes dropped and my breath caught.

Fiske was already reaching for me.

I pitched myself from the tree, propelling my weight forward, but he caught me, wrenching me back toward him. His fingers wound around my throat, his thumb pressing to the pulse at my neck. I kicked, trying to slide free, but his grip tightened until I couldn’t pull the air into my lungs. I clawed at his hands as the black pushed in at the edges of my vision. Behind him, Iri’s tight eyes were pinned on the ground.

Fiske’s gaze locked on mine, his hands like iron. My heartbeat slowed, my body growing heavier with every missed breath. I blinked, my eyes turning up to where the stars glimmered through the treetops. The pounding of my heart thrummed in my ears. One beat. Two.

Then dark.

FIVE

I woke to the sound of wooden wheels cracking over stones in the dirt and light passing like shadows over my closed eyelids. I tried to place the smell.

Winter. Pine and woodsmoke. My eyes opened to a stretch of empty blue sky overhead. The footfall of horses. The shifting of a cart.

I threw myself forward, sitting up, and struggled to get my feet beneath me before I fell back down. My hands were bound at the wrists, the wound on my arm bleeding fresh through my sleeve. A few Riki glanced up from where they rode on their horses around me, and my eyes widened, trying to focus.

We were in the eastern valley. Headed toward the mountain. Thora’s mountain.

The Riki marched in a massive group stretching out before and behind me.

My heart rammed against my chest, my breath frantic, sending puffs of fog out before me in the cold air. I crouched back down, studying the edge of forest to my right.

He came into view as I fixed my hands on the side of the cart, ready to make a desperate leap for the ground, and I froze. Iri was riding a silver horse behind me, his eyes boring into me, strained. He gave the slightest shake of his head and glanced up ahead of me. I turned to see a line of archers riding side by side, bows slung over their backs with full quivers of speckled feather arrows at their knees.

I measured the distance between myself and the trees; I’d have five or six arrows in my back by the time I made it to cover. If one of them didn’t run me down with their horse first.

I tried to think. The wound on my arm was still seeping and the swelling on the side of my face was pounding. I licked my lips and tasted dried blood. In the cart in front of me, two men lay on their backs, one missing a leg and the other with his face wrapped in bloody bandages. I sat back down, pulling my knees into my chest.

Iri was still watching me. The dark leather of his armor vest made his hair look like an icy waterfall of bloodstained braids. The scruff on his face sat below sharp cheekbones and round, blue eyes.

Eyes I’d known all my life.