An unlit iron lamp hung on the wall near the bottom of the stairs, and Gaelfr picked it up and lit it with a flick of his claws, illuminating the underground room around them. It was again surprisingly large and open, perhaps as big as the main room above, but with several more arched doorways cut into the stone walls, leading off into darkness.
Raye followed Svein and Kalfr toward the nearest doorway, and found that there were more tunnels behind it, leading to an impressively stocked storeroom and root cellar, and even a latrine. Beyond that, there were multiple small, cozy rooms, lining both sides of a long, curving corridor, apparently leading to a hidden exit out into the garden. And while some of the rooms were empty, some were furnished with beds and shelves and washbasins, and all of them had sturdy oaken doors, embedded into the surrounding stone walls. As if Kalfr expected guests, or as if this was some kind of elaborateinn?
Beside Raye, Gaelfr looked nonplussed too, frowning around at the rooms with his nostrils flaring. “What is all this for?” he demanded toward Kalfr, who was still up ahead with Svein. “And does this” — he jabbed his claw further up the corridor, to where it twisted off into the darkness — “head toward the mountain?”
Kalfr nodded, but didn’t elaborate. And Raye exchanged a speaking glance with Gaelfr, seeing her own confusion and disbelief in his eyes. What was this place? Were the beds related to it being an outpost, like Gaelfr had said? But they didn’t look like military barracks, did they?
“Do you sleep here, Papa?” Svein asked Kalfr, once they’d headed back down the tunnel again, and he’d stopped at one of the bedrooms, near to the larger main room. This bedroom looked indistinguishable from all the rest, with a simple bed anda single fur, but Svein jumped onto the bed, flopping onto the fur. “I can smell you here!”
Kalfr smiled and nodded, and Svein burrowed closer onto the fur, inhaling deep. “It’s nice,” he said, with a sigh, and a flutter of his eyes. “Do you want to smell, Mama?”
Raye blinked, her face inexplicably heating — but she took a breath, and squared her shoulders. “Of course, love,” she said thickly, as she went over to the bed, and sank down onto it beside Svein. “It is very comfortable. A good place for a little rest, I think.”
Svein nodded and yawned, flopping his arm over Raye’s waist, and snuggling into her side. “I think so too,” he mumbled, with another yawn. “We’ll stay, won’t we, Mama?”
We’ll stay. Raye couldn’t find an answer to that, but perhaps she didn’t need to, because Svein was already growing heavier against her, his breaths deepening into the fur. And when she shot a look at Kalfr and Gaelfr, both still standing by the open door, Kalfr was staring at them with something she couldn’t read in his eyes, while Gaelfr nodded, and nudged Kalfr out of the room.
It didn’t take long for Svein to fully fall asleep, his body sprawled against the fur, his breaths deep and even. And Raye watched him for a long moment in the faint light from Gaelfr’s lamp beyond the door, and she drank up the sight of his sweet sleeping face, the lingering smile on his mouth.
He’d been so happy today. He’d loved this trip. He’d loved meeting Kalfr, and exploring his home with him. And no matter what happened next, Raye could keep doing this, for Svein. For a few more days.
She perhaps should have stayed there with Svein, either dozing too, or making sure he didn’t sleep for too long, and thereby ruin his night’s sleep. But she could still see Gaelfr’s lamplight just outside the door, as if he was waiting for her. As ifhe didn’t want to leave her behind, perhaps, or alone without a light in the dark.
So Raye carefully extracted herself from Svein, and quietly slipped out the door. Where she found not only Gaelfr, but Kalfr too, both of them standing there unmoving outside the room, and intently looking away from each other.
“He’s asleep,” she told them, unnecessarily, because surely they could both smell it. And though Kalfr didn’t look at her, Gaelfr nodded, and quietly shut the door of Svein’s room. And then, waving Raye and Kalfr after him, he strode the short distance back into the large main room, where he hung his lamp from a metal bracket on the wall.
“Good,” he said flatly, once Raye and Kalfr had followed him back into the room. “Now, we shall finally gain some answers.”
And with that, he spun toward Kalfr, and —charged.
19
Raye clapped both hands over her mouth, muffling her shocked cry. While Gaelfr’s huge body crashed with Kalfr’s to the stone floor below, and landed with a hard, gut-wrenchingthud.
“You lyingcoward,” Gaelfr spat, as he groped for Kalfr’s neck, and shoved him down against the stone. “How dare you seek to hide from me. To speak false to me. Tobetrayme!”
The fury and anguish shuddered through his voice, spiking more shocked panic through Raye’s gut. Would Gaelfr…hurtKalfr? Would he kill him? What did he mean, Kalfr had lied to him, betrayed him?
For a frozen instant, Kalfr only stared up at Gaelfr’s face — but then, in a fierce sudden movement, he kicked up, and twisted out from beneath Gaelfr’s grip. “I betrayedyou?” he gasped, shoving up to his staggering feet. “Youleftme! You went away across the sea, for all thesesummers, and thus broke our bond in every way there was to do this! And for what? What was so important there? What kept you there, all that time?”
Gaelfr growled, and hurled his huge bulk back at Kalfr again. “You, Kalfr,” he snarled. “I stayed there because ofyou! As you wished me to do!”
His fist caught Kalfr’s shoulder, staggering him sideways, but Kalfr quickly caught his footing again, his tall body crouched low, his hands in fists. “Ineverasked this of you,” he shot back. “I should never have wished myástvinurto run so far away from me, where I could no more evenfeelmy bond with him!”
Gaelfr began pacing around Kalfr, his shoulders hunched, his teeth bared. “And how else,” he countered, “did you expect me to bear what youdidask of me? You spurned me and our vows. You swore never to touch me again, so that you might better pleaseher!”
He waved a furious hand across the room, toward…Raye. And Raye froze in place, gazing unblinking toward him, while more alarm kicked and churned in her gut. So Gaelfr did know about that vow Kalfr had made, then.I will spurn my bond with Gaelfr, and I will never touch him thus again, without your leave.
But Gaelfr wasn’t looking at her, his narrow eyes still fixed on Kalfr’s face. “You swore a vow toher, againstme,” he hissed. “You swore never to touch me again, untilsheallowed this. And in doing this, youbanishedme! For how else would we have kept this vow? Had I not left, we would have broken this vow before the nextmoon!”
His deep voice echoed through the room, shuddered even deeper in Raye’s belly. Because — oh. Kalfr would have betrayed her with Gaelfr, if Gaelfr had stayed. And Gaelfr had left so Kalfr could keep his vow and be faithful to her, but — but —
“We wouldnot,” Kalfr hissed back, and he began circling Gaelfr too, his steps swift and silent on the stone. “We would have yet found a way to honour this, had you stayed. For I shouldhave first cut off my ownarm, before doing aught to harm my own preciousson!”
His voice cracked with genuine pain, his hand snapping up to spasm against his bare flexed bicep. To where — Raye’s eyes caught, stilled — his grey skin was slightly rippled, and paler. At first glance, it looked like a burn scar, but now that Raye was looking closer, it might have also been several distinct, deep straight cuts, all on top of each other…
Gaelfr was looking too, his brow furrowing, his circling steps faltering. And in that breath, Kalfr flew toward him, striking his fist straight at Gaelfr’s face, hard enough that Gaelfr’s head knocked back, his roar thundering through the room. But when Kalfr swung again, Gaelfr staggered sideways out of his reach, shaking his head back and forth.
