Frustration rolled through Hekla as her gaze fell on Marra. One day. A single day remained before the full moon. They’d be too late.
A helpless sort of anger rushed through her. This washerjob—the one she’d spent countless days and sleepless nights laboring over. To think she wouldn’t be there to help fight the monstrous tree and its undead army was absolutely maddening.
Hekla jabbed their campfire in frustration, sending sparksskyward. With a sigh, she sank back on her left elbow to prop her boots next to the flames.
“Cold?” Eyvind handed her a waterskin then sank down beside her.
“Only my toes,” Hekla lied. The farther north they traveled, the colder it got. She stared into the flames, her body and mind alike exhausted, but as Eyvind reached for her boot, she jerked away. “What are you doing?”
Eyvind raised a thick black brow, his hazel eyes dancing in the firelight. “Warming your toes.” Reluctantly she acquiesced, and he pulled her boot free. As his hand—unnaturally warmed with his Ashbringer galdur—made contact with her foot, Eyvind cursed under his breath. “Mulish woman,” he muttered, warmth seeping into her ice-cold toes. Hekla nearly moaned with the pleasure and pain of it. “Are you truly so stubborn you’d rather lose a toe to frostbite than ask for my help?”
She bit into her lip, scowling into the fire. Yet she felt him watching her, silent frustration filling the air.
“I can’t do this anymore!” he said with a sudden burst of anger. “I can’t pretend I’m happy. Can’t pretend you were nothing but a roll in the furs, Hekla.
“I thought myself a patient man, but you drive me to absolute madness! I think of you constantly. Dream of you at night. And each morning I awaken to this quiet, distant version of you, I lose my mind just a little more.”
Hekla stared at him in stunned silence.
“The truth,” said Eyvind, “is that I’ve been betrothed to Liv since I was a child. The other truth is that Liv has no interest in me…in men, at all.” He hesitated. “It was not my secret to tell, but when I was in Kopa, I got permission from Liv to share this.”
Hekla stared into the fire, refusing to meet his gaze.
“I’m sorry,” he said, thumbs pressing into the arch of her foot. He sighed. “You know I hate to waste the present by speaking of the future. But in this, I erred. Greatly.”
Hekla bit down on her cheek, desperate not to let his words affect her.
“It was my duty, as my father always told me, to marry Liv,” continued Eyvind. “I was willing to go through with a loveless but companionable marriage if it meant strengthening our ties to her family. Until I met you.”
Hekla grasped for the anger she’d held for so many weeks, despising herself as she felt it softening.
“My father,” continued Eyvind, “has planned my entire life, and I was desperate enough for his affection to go along with it. But then Istré happened, and everything changed.”
Despite her best attempts to stop it, Hekla’s gaze darted to Eyvind’s. His hazel eyes were so expressive—had always been effortless for her to read. Now his remorse was plain to see.
“You,” said Eyvind, “changed everything. Hekla, you’ve taught me what it means to truly live free. What it means tostandfor something. I cannot go back to a time when I let my father shape my life. And so when I returned to Kopa, the first thing I did was end my betrothal.”
Hekla blinked, incapable of hiding her surprise. Despite herself, pride swelled in her chest. She knew this was no easy thing for Eyvind—that he’d longed for Jarl Hakon’s approval all his life, and breaking his betrothal would be yet another blow to their relationship.
She searched his face for the spoiled, arrogant lordling she’d first met in Istré, but she found an earnestness that made her chest ache. Hekla tried to find the hurt that his lie of omission had caused; tried to remember all the reasons this would never work.
“I will never marry again, Eyvind.” Her voice came out hard and sharp, a last desperate weapon to ward him off. “Don’t waste your time on me.”
His thumbs stopped on the ball of her foot. “Why would you think,” said Eyvind, “that any time spent with you was a waste?”
The pull of his gaze was magnetic, the emotion in her throat building with impossible force.
“A privilege, Hekla. That’s what I call time spent with you. An honor.”
Hekla felt as though the ground had just been ripped from beneath her—as though she was helplessly falling toward peril. Because that’s what this was, was it not? Her husband had also been handsome—had spoken honeyed words to her. She’d loved him so fiercely. Had thought he was her dreams come true. But he’d only been a monster who’d gambled all their money away and beaten all the soft, hopeful parts of her into submission.
Pains from her missing limb seized her with sudden fierceness. Hekla gasped, every muscle in her body taut with agony. How could something that wasn’t there hurt her so gods damned much?
“What is it?” asked Eyvind, setting her foot down. “Hekla, what can I do? How can I help?”
“You can help,” she gritted out, “by giving this up.” Pain sizzled through her like a fierce summer storm, and she sucked in air through her teeth. “You and I will never be.”
Her eyes slammed shut, in part to brace against the agony in her body, but also to avoid what she might find in Eyvind’s expression. There had been a time when Hekla had spent her life fearing these pains and doing everything in her power to avoid them. But today, she was glad for them. They were the reminder she needed of just what was at stake in these games of the heart.
