“I should.” I stood on shaking legs, grateful when the ship creaked and turned into the wind, making the lift and drop of the waves rolling in from the sea smoother and thus my journey across the room easier.
As the door leading up to the deck opened before me, I let my fingers trail down the doorframe and the ship thrummed in response, the wood heating beneath my fingers. “Thank you,” I whispered. “I haven’t slept like that in weeks.”
Another low murmur went through the ship.
I turned my head over my shoulder. “Th?—”
“Whatever,” Darcke growled. “This was a one-time thing.”
One of the shutters around the window behind Darcke closed and opened once, and I turned my head down when a smile threatened to spread over my face.
“I saw that.” Darcke glared into the floor. “You better not try to gang up on me, because you will lose.”
The ship winked at me again.
“Just leave.” Darcke spun, and whatever I’d been planning on saying stuck in my throat as he wrangled himself out of his tunic and revealed a broad back ropey with muscles that played beneath his summer-tan skin.
Unlike his face, where those intricate tattoos wove, his body had none, his skin like an empty beach in summer, golden and glowing and inviting anyone who passed to run their hands through the sand.
A plank beneath me shifted at the same time Darcke spoke. “I can feel you staring.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, and when the plank moved beneath me again, ushering me up the stairs, I kept quiet.
The sun warmed my skin as I walked down the dock. As I closed my eyes for a second, the smells and sounds nearly tricked me into believing I was walking the path from the sea to our longhouse at home.
A wave of homesickness washed over me, and my people’s familiar faces flashed before my eyes. My shoulders tensed, but instead of shoving the feeling aside, I used it to quell the guilt from yesterday—what I’d done to Darcke and Kilia. Even Ilse.
My choosing might not have had the optimal outcome, but it was the only one that would save my family. When I bonded with Darcke tonight, he wouldn’t expect to share my magic, since his was already leashed, and that was how I’d survive until I earned my rune.
I refused to let myself linger on what Geord had said about us being able to sense each other’s emotions. I’d deal with it if it became a problem.
My stomach rumbled, and I pressed a hand against it as smoke began twirling from the longhouse as the servants prepared the first meal of the day. But as initiates started trickling out of the doors on the side, I swerved and headed to the forest again.
I was sure Geord and the rest would be out for revenge for what had happened yesterday, and I was still injured, too weak to take them on should they decide to try in daylight. I didn’t go far into the woods. Choosing a tree close to the tree line, I climbed a few branches up, glad that my weak hands were able to hold on and pull me up.
A vague memory of me ripping into Ottoh’s face flitted through my thoughts, but I wasn’t sure if it had been a dream from the drug or had happened. I picked at the leaves on the branch, letting the green dance between my fingers.
Whatever they’d put in my drink hadn’t been fly agaric. I was still feeling weak, and from what I’d understood, fly agaric would work the opposite: the mushroom would make me stronger—better.
More initiates came out of the house, and I crept closer to the trunk of the tree, closing my eyes again as the sun trickled through the crown, dancing over me until I was wrapped in warmth.
I knew I should probably change and eat before the bonding, but I was so tired, so I only settled in and allowed myself to driftin and out of light sleep, listening to the soft rustle of leaves and the scurrying of animals across the forest bed beneath me.
When I opened my eyes again, the sun had moved across the sky and the light was different. A darker shade of orange threaded through the trees, painting the ground darker shades of red and yellow. The field was quiet, and I stretched my arms over my head as I shook the sleepiness from my mind.
A horn blew in the distance, somewhere deeper into the forest, the opposite way from the lake. Two rabbits who’d been chasing each other stilled at the sound, and I smiled at their whiskers whipping back and forth as they smelled the wind for danger. When the horn bellowed again, they were off rushing through the bushes to hide.
In the silence they left behind, I jumped down from the tree. While the stillness was initially comforting, my stomach hollowed when I realized no smoke twirled from any of the tents or the longhouse. As I spun to the harbor, the docks were silent as well.
There wasn’t a single person within my line of sight.
“Fuck,” I cursed as I started running toward where the horn had sounded.
Already after a few steps, the taste of iron filled the back of my throat, and it was impossible to ignore the lightheadedness the day of not eating had caused. But I forced myself to continue at a steady pace, letting the crunching of my boots distract me from the exhaustion weighing heavy on my limbs.
As firelight started dancing through the trees, low drums beat the air, and the familiar droning of the Hird filled the evening. A deep, familiar voice broke through the trees, and I swore again as I stumbled over a root.
“The bonding is a sacred ritual between warriors.” The shaman’s voice boomed across the clearing, where tall oaks leaned in as if they were spectators to the event.
