Sky in the Deep (Sky and Sea, #1)

by Adrienne Young

“Vegr yfir fjor.” Honor above life.

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 eyed the shears in Runa’s hand. If I wanted to, I could kill the three of them right now. I could set this field of yarrow on fire and let myself burn with it.

“I used to do my brother’s,” I answered. The breath caught in my chest. Inge and Halvard both looked at me. Iri stilled, sitting up straighter.

Iri picked up a basket and handed it to me. “You look pretty.” The smile on his face made him look like a little boy. I looked him up and down before my eyes met his, the anger inside of me coming back to life. “You look like a Riki.”

I was his fighting mate and that made him my responsibility. It was my job to keep him alive. I should have given my life before his could be taken. The guilt haunted the shadows of my every dream. He was there, in every nightmare. I’d gone into the fighting season, ready to avenge my brother.

But Sigr was waiting for me in Aurvanger, ready to pour out his wrath upon me. And now I was being punished for my weakness. I had failed. I knew that the moment Iri went over the edge.

“I promise not to kill you if I ever see you in battle.”

“Fjotra is the blood bond. They aren’t brothers,” I corrected her. “That’s munstrǫnd fjotra. Sál fjotra is a bond between souls.”

“This kind of bond is formed when a soul is broken. It’s formed through pain, loss, and heartbreak. They’re bound by something

deeper than we can see. And that made...

“What are you thinking now?” The weight of it fell from my head, down into the rest of my body. The words were small but they were true. “I’m thinking that I wish you’d died that day.”

“We find things, just as we lose things, Eelyn.” Inge stood. “If you’ve lost your honor, you’ll find it again.”

“Sigr, keep the soul of my mother safe in Sólbjǫrg. Protect my father. Do not take your favor from me.” The words bent and turned around each other. I sniffed them back. “Don’t forget me.”

“Heill para.” The words repeated on the lips of every Riki and Fiske’s deep voice sounded at my back. Safe travels.

“Ǫnd eldr.” They were words I’d heard before. Breathe fire. The Riki said them to each other on the battlefield.

“Elska ykkarr,” he said, and the warmth of the words wound around me.

I love you.

He smiled at the corner of his mouth. “Because you have fire in your blood.”

My father had his arms wound around Iri like ropes, hunched over and weeping into his shoulder, his body wracked with sobs. The sound of it filled the house and spilled out into the village. And Iri was the same, his face broken into pieces as my father held onto him.

“I don’t belong to you.” I repeated the words I said to him the night he pulled the stitches from my arm. This time, to lift the weight that pressed down onto him and silence whatever words were whispering in his mind. And because a small part of me still wanted them to be true. “Yes, you do.” He pulled the hair back out of my face so he could look at me. “Like I belong to you.”

And when he kissed me again, the seconds slowed.

They stretched out and made more time. I felt his body against mine, unraveling everything else that was between us, and my soul unwound, threading itself to his. And I let it. I gave myself to him. Because I was already his.

“If you go back to Hylli, I want to come with you.” I twisted the corner of the blanket in my hands. “What about your family?” “I’ll go where you go.” This time, the words were unyielding.

I reached for him and he came down onto his knees in front of me, between my legs, and he let out a long breath as he leaned into me. I held his weight, holding him tightly. “I didn’t want to ask you,” I said in a cracked whisper. He set his head onto my shoulder. “You didn’t have to ask me.”