More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
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.
The boy I’d shared my childhood with. The boy I’d fought side by side with. He was worse than any enemy. And the blood we shared was now poison in my veins.
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.
“She’s got fire in her blood, Fiske.”
Our hatred of the Riki was written onto our bones. Breathed into us by Sigr.
Iri wasn’t Riki. He was Aska. He wasn’t hers. He was mine.
I wanted to feel anything but the betrayal of my brother. This is where I belonged. Spilling Riki blood. And Iri was Riki now.
“I care more about keeping him alive than I do his forgiveness. I will leave you dead in this forest and tell Iri you ran.” He drifted closer. “Then do it.”
“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.”
“He looked down at me. His face was pale, his eyes red and swollen. He said, ‘We’re not going to die, Aska.’”
When they pulled us out of that trench, we were brothers.
“Because we were dying. Because it was the end. And at the end, life becomes precious.”
“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.
“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 had a dream about her. I’m unsure of what it means, but I feel that Thora has her eye on this Aska.”
“I have to go to the Aska,” I whispered. “Now. I can’t wait for the thaw.” The shouting outside was getting farther away. “I have to go,” I said again. “I know.” He didn’t look away. He didn’t blink. “I’ll go with you.”
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.
“Thora has her eye on you, Aska. I could see it the first time I met you.”
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.
“We’ve been taught our whole lives that we’re different from each other.” His eyes met mine. “But we’re the same. I think that scared me.”
My entire life, I’d never thought of the Riki as small children. I’d only ever known the fierce faces of their warriors in battle. But now they had pasts. Names. Souls. Njord. Idunn. Aila. Frigg.
“I would do it again,” he said. “All of it.”
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.
I wept. A dark, sacred cry rising up out of me. He held me together, keeping the pieces from falling down around us. And I cried until I couldn’t feel. I cried until I couldn’t think. The moon rose up over my broken home and I broke with it.
you have fire in your blood.”
For generations, we’d met in Aurvanger. The Riki and the Aska. But it was to draw each other’s blood. This time, it would be to save us all.
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.
I met their eyes as I passed, telling them what I wasn’t saying out loud. That we weren’t afraid. That I would kill them. That everything I had left to lose was right here in this village.
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 fire crackled in the pit between Iri’s old family and his new one. I swallowed hard, wondering which one I was part of now.
my soul unwound, threading itself to his. And I let it. I gave myself to him. Because I was already his.
I touched the face of my mother’s idol. I pressed my lips to it and prayed. The same prayers I’d prayed to Sigr since the day she died. And then I did something I’d never done in my life. I prayed to Thora.
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.
