“If I meet Salur,” he barreled on, “tell him…tell my brother, I never stopped caring. He did not deserve what was done.”
I closed my eyes and rapped on a window with my knuckles. “He didn’t.” I pounded again and called out to Edvin in a hushed voice.
“Tell him, won’t you?”
“No. You’re not going to Salur, you fool. Edvin, open the damn door!”
Mikkal let his head fall back. A weak smile spread over his mouth. He looked a bit like Kael. The same eyes, the same strong jaw and full lips. Mikkal’s hair was icy and straight while Kael’s was golden and messy.
I hated Jarl Jakobson more for denying his sons a life together.
The door cracked. We were met with the gleam of an ax blade for a few heartbeats before Gisli pulled it back. “Lyra.”
“Help me. Mikkal Jakobson is badly wounded.”
Hilda’s husband was a soft-spoken man, but strong as stone. Woodwork and hauling logs had built him into a warrior without the blade.
I hardly did anything to help drag Mikkal into the longhouse other than ease his ankles atop the table in the center room once Gisli had him sprawled on his back.
Hilda emerged from a rear room, Freydis at her back.
“Ly.” Hilda gingerly touched Mikkal’s shoulder. “Gods, what is happening out there?”
“Ravagers broke through the gates.”
“They’re growing stronger, then.” Hilda’s face paled. “The walls haven’t been breached in decades.”
I waved the truth away, unable to confess my belief the horrid tether chaining me to Skul Drek brought this attack. Mikkalwould die if the wound wasn’t dealt with soon. “Hilda, can you craft a bone tonic for Mikkal?”
Without soul bones, the touch of a crafter to crushed marrow could amplify strength and health against specific ailments. I prayed to the gods—who seemed to have turned their faces from us—a tonic would be enough to seal Mikkal’s wound.
Hilda’s brow furrowed. “Chicken bones will need to do.”
She fled from the room, leaving a back door open.
Whimpers overhead drew my gaze to the loft. I forced a smile at the curious, tear-filled eyes of Edvin’s children.
“All right, loves.” I went to the ladder, one hand on a rung. “Try to sleep and perhaps your fylgja guide will visit your dreams and give you a peek at what good fortune awaits you.”
Freydis gave me a gentle smile and set about peeling back Mikkal’s tunic.
“Edvin left,” she murmured, avoiding my gaze. “Went to help again.”
“He survived the last, he’ll do so again.” I schooled my face into something flat. Edvin would see it as a dishonor if he did not protect his family, but he’d only just won them back. Now it was all at risk again.
Should anything happen to him I would meld a dozen bones until I faced Skul Drek. I’d find a way to do to the assassin what I did to Tomas.
Hilda returned with thin, bloody bones in her palms.
It took little time for her craft to crush the bones, manipulating them into small bits of powder and narrow pieces. A wince contorted her features from the ache of using bone craft, but Hilda didn’t stop, shouting for a few herbs and oils to be gathered and added to the bone dust.
Gisli and Freydis did as she asked and held Mikkal downwhen the burn of the bone tonic hissed and crackled along the gash carved deep into his ribs.
“Never said it was comfortable.” Hilda wiped a drop of sweat off her brow, fingers battered and red from crafting too fiercely.
A tug on my hand drew me to a little face at my side. Edvin’s youngest hugged a linen rag doll and peered at me with crystalline eyes from behind a mess of red hair. “Kris left.”
“What?” I lowered to a crouch.
