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

by Adrienne Young

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.

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.

The only thing cutting deeper than the agony of the arrow was the knowledge that he was a traitor. That he was alive. All this time.

“You know I can’t become a dýr, Iri. I’ll never be accepted into Sólbjǫrg.” I couldn’t believe he would even suggest it. “I’ll take my own life before I let that happen.” It was what we’d been taught our entire lives—vegr yfir fjor—honor above life.

He’d been stronger than me in every way, but we had taken care of each other. And honoring him had been where I’d found my own strength after he was gone. I dropped the idol into the flames, tears catching in my chest. I let him go. I erased him. Every memory. Every small hope. Because the Iri I loved was gone. The boy who had once known every shadowed corner of my life was dead the moment he spilled the blood of our people. That boy was gone just as our mother was, but his soul was lost. I watched the charred black catch the edge of the wood, eating its way across until the idol was just a part of the fire. Turning to smoke and gathering up above me. It stretched and curled around itself, reaching out into the air. Until it was nothing.

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.

“We burn the yarrow in remembrance of those who did not return home. We give thanks to Thora for their lives and their courage.” The sound of fists knocking against wooden benches echoed out again, making the room feel smaller. “To understand the honor deserved, we must remember the story of Thora. We must remember why we fight. “Thora was born of the mountain, in the great eruption that created our home,” she began, her hands extending out around her small frame. “She came forth from the flame and ash. From the melted rock, she created her people and placed them on the mountain to dwell. She named them Riki for their strength and power. But peace was short-lived.” Her voice lowered. “Sigr, the god of the fjord, saw what Thora had done and his heart was filled with envy. He sent his people up into the mountain to tear down what Thora had built. A bloody rivalry was born and Thora swore eternal revenge on Sigr. She sent the Riki down to the inlets of the great sea to destroy the Aska. Every five years, since that day, we have met them on the battlefield to bring glory to Thora.” She clasped her hands in front of her.

“Fjotra,” she said, under her breath. “Fjotra is the blood bond. They aren’t brothers,” I corrected her. “That’s munstrǫnd fjotra. Sál fjotra is a bond between souls.” I stared at her. “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 Iri family.” I stopped trying to hold back the tears that were waiting to fall. Because I knew exactly what she was talking about. It was what I had with Mýra. A tether born of tears. Iri and Inge didn’t share blood, but Iri looked at Inge as if she were his mother. She felt like he was her son. And I didn’t need to ask her how she’d been able to love him. Iri was pure of heart in a way that I had never been. And he was brave. Not afraid to love or give of himself. People had always been drawn to him and I had been proud to be his sister. For the same reasons that Inge loved him.

When he opened it, a round, flat stone sat in the center of his palm. It was etched with words I couldn’t read, the same as the one I’d seen Iri tuck into his vest before Adalgildi. “What does it say?” “Ala sál. Soul bearer,” he said, proudly. “It’s my taufr.” I picked it up and turned it over in my hand. “What is it?” “It protects me.” “How?” “You give it to someone you want to protect. It tells the gods that you bear another’s soul. My mother made it for me.”

“I couldn’t go. I couldn’t leave this place.” He reached to take my hand. “The path of my soul has taken a turn, just as yours has.” “This is not the same.” I glowered at him. “I want to go home.” “I know. But you will never be the same. You will never be the same person you were.” He paused. “You are seeing the truth. I see you thinking it, every day.” “What truth?” “That they’re like us.” I put my face into my hands, trying to escape what he was saying. Because it made me feel like the world was turned sideways. Like everything I’d ever been taught didn’t fit into the shape of this world. “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.”

“Because we were dying. Because it was the end. And at the end, life becomes precious.”

But the thing writhing inside me was too angry to be calmed. It was too hurt to be hushed. It was a living, breathing thing and it was trying to swallow me whole. And maybe it would. I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore and only the sound of the fire remained.

But we were bound together in a way that even I didn’t understand. And the worst part had been realizing that there was maybe nothing he could do to change that. I wanted to forget him, but maybe I never would. I wanted to let him go, but I might never be able to.

“Even if you can’t see her when you close your eyes, our bodies and our minds remember things that we can’t. They hold onto things. And you’ll see her again. When you reach Sólbjǫrg.”

“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.”

I was what she should be praying against. And it was only a matter of time before she did.

I stared into the dark of the blankets, trying to remember what that feeling was—the feeling chewing at the edges of me while I stood in the dark of the forest tied naked to the tree. I had never been so vulnerable. So full of fear. And I had never hated myself until that moment. I remembered the light reflecting off the snow. The sound of my quick breath in the silence. Thinking that if I died, I wouldn’t reach Sólbjǫrg. Then, the all-consuming shame of being afraid to die for the very first time in my life. I could see the reds and oranges and yellows of the battlefield. The heat and the sting of pain. The burn of a war cry in my throat. I could see myself, alive. Strong. I blinked. And there was only the white and cold and quiet of that forest. There was only loneliness. There was only the very barest part of me, waiting for the end to come. It crept toward me in the dark. It came for me. And when it overtook me, my last thought was I don’t want to die.

The blood feud that burned in their hearts for me and my people. There was no room for it in that moment. There was only a beginning. And its light hid everything else. It was so beautiful that it hurt, touching every wound uncovered inside of me.

“And omens often bring change.”

The heat of the fire pushed against us and the roaring sound of it found the bitter cries of the mourning, swallowing them up too. I’d heard that sound many times. Usually when we came home from fighting and families searched for the missing faces of loved ones. There was no sound like that—like the soul tearing. “Heill para,” she called out, looking up to the sky. “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. I leaned into him, letting him hold me. I loved him, too. More than anything. But I wondered if I would ever be able to admit it to him again. I wondered if a part of me would always be angry.

Eelyn's and Iri's sibling dynamic makes my heart ache <_>

It was still strange to see them this way—tired and weak. Heartbroken. The spirit in them was sleeping somewhere deep inside, but it was there. It was like the stillness of the air before an angry storm. And I didn’t like the idea of sleeping in the middle of it.

I fell asleep to the sound of his breathing, his back rising and falling against me, like the sound of seawater kissing the fjord.

I looked into their eyes. They were young and afraid but strong, the way they’d been taught to be. They gritted their teeth and bore the bite of stitches and the sting of infected wounds. Behind the haze of tears and the pink on their noses, they were like fire-steel.

Children are the strongest of warriors.

We die fighting or we die hiding. Which would you choose?”

Once we were back on the slope, I looked behind us, up the towering face of the mountain piled with heavy snow. I could feel the power of it, hovering like it was waiting for the chance to come rolling down over us. And I imagined, for just a moment, what it would be like to be buried in it. To slowly give way to the cold and close my eyes in surrender to death.

The night sky was reflecting on the ice in crisp shapes and colors, bright strings of stars swirling out around each other and a huge, round, speckled moon staring up at me. It hung above its reflection, like the sky was folded in on itself. We were standing on it. Like the world was upside down.

And when his eyes finally met mine, they were open. They let me in. I took a step back. My mouth opened to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. They were stuck in the back of my throat, wrapped tightly around my windpipe. I was suddenly aware of the icy, opaque depths beneath us again, waiting for the smallest crack to pull us down into it. Waiting to feed on us. My heart pulsed in my veins as the fear pressed down on me, making me feel heavier. It was terrifying—that feeling—like there was something tying me to him. Because if one of us fell into the darkness, the other would too.

The lake grumbled beneath my weight. Growling. Hungry. I closed my eyes, trying not to see it. That depth within me, sealed down under the surface. I kept my eyes ahead, leaving Fiske standing in between the middle of the two night skies, the stars and the moon encircling him. The only hot, living thing on the ice. The only thing I could feel.

Giggling!!!

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.

I can't imagine living without my dad either

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.

The moon rose up over my broken home and I broke with it.

When he looked up to me, I blushed, still feeling the warmth of him on my lips. Remembering him touching me. Remembering feeling like I was so small that I could vanish into him. It was an arrow in my chest.

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 can’t erase any of it.” And that was the most terrifying part of all.

The stillness of the night turned to something fragile, threatening to break. Because I wasn’t sure. “How do you know?” He smiled at the corner of his mouth. “Because you have fire in your blood.”

“I’m alone,” she cried. “You and Aghi are all I have.” Her voice bent into a whisper. “Please don’t leave. Please,” she begged. I pulled back to look at her. “You’re not alone,” I said, emotion thick in my throat. “And I’m not leaving. Ever.” Her weight grew heavy in my arms and when I couldn’t hold her any longer, I slid to the ground and pulled her into my lap. “Elska ykkarr,” I whispered into her hair. “Elska ykkarr.” She cried like I’d never seen her cry and the sound of it echoed through the trees. She cried for her family. For Hylli. For the Aska. For everything. And I cried with her.

Aagh. My heart. Such a beautiful portrayal of grief in friendships.

“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 crouched down 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—that Eelyn who would choose her people over anything else. I searched for her within myself, but she was different now. I was different. And it was something that was already done. Something I couldn’t change.

The open, tender part of him that was reaching out. It moved across the floor of the cellar and touched me. It lit the inside of me on fire.

“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.”

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.

I knew that fear of everything being ripped away and the last of what you love being threatened. We were warriors. And she was willing to fight for me the way I was willing to fight for her. Nothing would ever change that.

He looked down into my face, putting the words together in his mind before he said them. “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 nodded, trying to suck in a breath past the tears coming up in my throat. I didn’t want to cry. 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.” I smiled, my lips pressed to his ear. Because Fiske lived in lockstep with his heart. He did what he believed in. It was the reason he hadn’t left Iri in the trench and the reason he’d taken me home. He climbed up onto the cot beside me and tangled his legs into mine. I pulled the blanket over us and watched him fall deep into a dream, his face relaxing and the lines that creased his forehead smoothing. I kissed him there and looked at him until my eyes were too heavy to stay open. And then I followed him into sleep.

He pulled my hand up and opened my fist, pressing his lips to my palm, and the feel of him ran through me, grounding me. Then his lips found mine in the dark, soft and warm, molding against mine. “Ǫnd eldr.” I whispered his people’s battle cry against his lips. Breathe fire. He smiled, taking the back of my head with his hand and kissing my cheek. “Ǫnd eldr.”

But I’d done as much for her in the past. It’s what we did for each other. It’s how we survived. And being back on the front line with her was like going home. A home that could never be burned or broken.

Myra and Eelyn are besties for the resties

I reached into my vest for the idol of my mother and my fingers hit something else. I fished it from where it was tucked against my heart and I held it out before me. A smile pulled wide at my lips, threatening tears. It was a taufr, the talismans the Riki used to protect the ones they loved. Fiske must have slipped it into my vest with the idol. The stone was smooth and black, the words etched into its surface. Ala sál. Soul bearer.

I reminded myself of who I was—an Aska warrior who’d lost everything. A girl with fire in her blood. I told her to keep running.

And that was the way of it. Things belonging where they didn’t. Like two night skies on a frozen lake. One looking down from above and one looking up from the deep.