“There’s no time,” was all she said.
She dug the heel of her boot into the flank of the horse and the animal sprang into a gallop.
North did the same and they sprinted into the cold, indigo Icelandic night.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jason and Isobel rode neck and neck, following a bright moon along the circuitous route he’d planned. The lowlands of the country offered two landscapes: open grass with no cover, or craggy rock outcroppings, impossible to navigate on a running horse. Jason led them through both, pushing the horses but making them difficult to track. When they reached the second spate of rocks, they reined in, allowing the animals to pick their way through a shallow canyon of slick basalt columns.
When the labored breathing of the horses subsided, Jason spoke. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” She sounded breathless, exhilarated.
“Did they touch you?” he asked. He hadn’t quite reached exhilaration. He was exhausted from fear.
“They took my dagger,” she said.
“Theydidtouch you.”
She shook her head. “I flung it into a man’s shoulder and never recovered it.”
“You flung it—”
He reined around, kneeing his stallion to her. He searched her face with desperate eyes, looking for blood.
She beamed at him, tall and glorious in the moonlight. Her breath came in winded puffs; her cheeks were flushed, her hair wild. Her smile was the smile of a champion.
“Isobel,” he said, a whisper.
He was just about to reach for her—he would die if he didn’t touch her—when a gentle streak of light pulsed the dark sky. Then another, and another. A vibrant glowing curtain of light.
Jason reeled his horse around. The pirates, he thought. They’d concealed horses and now pursued them bearing bright torches.
Except the brightness was nothing like torchlight; it was too white. The horizon was obscured with distant volcanoes, barely visible in the dark. Now they stood out in inky relief against wave after wave of heavenly light.
“North,” Isobel breathed, turning her face to the sky.
“What’s happening?”
“TheNorðurljós,” Isobel said, using the Icelandic term. “The northern lights. It’s a natural phenomenon of cascading spectral light. Look up. Effervescence will... will ignite the heavens.” She sounded reverent.
“Ignite the heavens,” he repeated, suspicious. He squinted at the light spilling downward to the earth.
“You’ve heard of this, surely,” she said. “It’s like a show of lights painted across the dome of the sky. Green, blue, pink, orange. It is breathtaking, a once-in-a-lifetime sight.”
She reined the mare around. “You must see it.”
The white light on the horizon seeped up and over the rounded cap of the night. The colorless glow gave way to a peachy hue; the peach faded to a rose pink. It was color and light at once, like a flame. But wherefire was thin and jumpy, this was milky thick and low. It draped in uneven bands across every part of the sky.
Isobel dismounted and tethered the mare.
“We cannot stop,” he said, watching a ribbon of green seep through the pink.
“We can,” she countered. “Most of the pirates are in the throes of intestinal distress. The others could not possibly follow this far on foot, even if they knew which direction we fled, which they do not.
“We did it, North,” she said, turning to him. She stood beside his horse and touched his leg. Her beautiful face was lit by a veil of pink and orange light.
Without another thought, he dismounted, sliding in between Isobel and the stallion.
