A cool breeze rustled through the buildings around us, tousling wind chimes and feeding the fire, and I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the life I was living.And then, in the quietest of whispers, from the very back of my mind, came a secret thought.I do not want to return home.It was such a forbidden thought that I banished it immediately, my heart feeling raw in my chest.
“Yourskaelscreams at me,” Egil’s tallest child said, nodding to me.Had he been preparing himself this whole time to say that?It seemed like he had.It was such an odd sentence, I wasn’t sure I understood it.I certainly had no idea how to respond.
Fell was on the man’s other side, and he laughed, but not… how he usually did.“You and everyone else it screams at.”His eyes locked on mine, and I could tell he was trying to sense my feelings about the man’s comment.We can leave if you want, his eyes said.
Did I want to leave?Honestly, I just wanted Fell to keep looking at me as he was.
“How many years are you?”Egil’s tallest son said.
Everyone looked at me, and I almost huffed.Saying numbers in Norsern was something I avoided at all costs.“Six and four and eight and two,” I said.“Plus one.”
The man’s eyes shone.“Young then.May I see your hand?”
Fell’s eyes again offered an easy escape; I would only need to look hesitant, and he would suggest we leave.
I stretched my arm out, revealing my palm to the man.
He chuckled as he took my hand in his before furrowing his brow.“What?”He turned my hand a little and tilted his head a lot.“Why are there so many men?They cannot all be lovers.No person could manage it, I think.”He traced a line with the tip of his finger, tickling my palm pleasantly.His back straightened, his eyes bolting to mine, his stare so intense that I pulled my wrist away.
“Within a year, two men will come to you,” he said.“The first will come when the world is calm, the other during a great storm.Both will cause you terrible pain.”
Egil’s tallest son leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees as he looked at me—looked in a way that felt magical and frightening but important.The wind tugged at my skirt.
“I haven’t made my offering yet,” the man said.“Will you come and witness?”
My eyes flicked to Fell.Was he bothered, or was I imagining it?
I wasn’t the only one to wonder.Egil’s daughter looked at Fell, too.“The two of you are lovers?”
“No,” Fell said after a pause.
But the way he’d said it…
“But you areskael-tied, no?”
Fell didn’t answer that.Hewasuncomfortable.I could taste it.How I wanted it to end.
Inga giggled.“He is her Norsern, sworn to guard over her as she acclimatizes to our way of life.”The way she’d said her words was off as well… She wasn’t happy with the arrangement.
“Oh,” said Egil’s Tallest Son.“You will come witness?”
“She will,” Dania said.“I must make an offering as well, before Layf naps.Hald, come, we go to Bringa.”
I didn’t argue because I wasn’t argumentative, but everything felt slightly less easy than it should have as our party and Egil’s children stood and made our way through the city.Wind chimes and mismatched songs and shouts of glee blurred with waves of cedar smoke and the dusting of ash that Aalt always seemed to have floating in the air.
I wanted to be close to Fell as our party narrowed to fit in the smaller streets, but Dania took my arm and held me back as the group carried on ahead.She set her head close to mine and whispered, “What in the name of the gods is going on between you and Fell?”
My eyes jumped to those far ahead of us—there was no way they’d heard, and she was speaking Islish, but I still wasn’t comfortable with Dania mentioning Fell and myself in the same sentence.
“Shh,” I said.“Nothing.”
“Not nothing,” she whispered back, teasingly.“Something.”
“Nothing,” I insisted.But she kept staring at me with wide, knowing eyes, and I broke a little.I huffed.“He taught me to swim.This is all.”
She looked disappointed.“He… taught you to swim?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling like my face was so hot it must be bright red.
