Keldan shut his eyes against the sun. “Tyr’s blade, what a headache.” He groaned quietly. “Thorolf, that whoreson, he stabbed me. By all the gods, did it hurt—”
“Try drowning some time,” Hauk muttered dryly. “You have my thanks for capturing Thorolf—but you should have sent Josette away with the others.”
“I did not want her near Thorolf.” Smiling, Keldan sighed dreamily. “Hauk, she told me she loves me.”
“Wonderful. I am overjoyed for you. Now how do you intend to explain to her that you were not, in fact, dead all afternoon?”
The younger man’s eyes snapped open wide, his smile vanishing. “All afternoon?”
“It is evening, Kel. Your poor, hysterical bride has been sitting here grieving for you half the day.”
Keldan blinked up into the red-and-orange-streaked sky, abruptly realizing that it was sunset. “But I thought you would arrive within a few moments! We agreed to rendezvous at midday. I thought you would explain—”
“Unfortunately, I met some wolves with other plans. And it is too soon to tell them, Kel! It is customary to wait a few weeks—”
“Josette is ready to know the truth.”
“Avril is not.”
“Avril is with you?” Keldan sat up. “I thought you meant to leave her in your vaningshus.”
Hauk suddenly realized that the women, who had been chattering and sobbing, had fallen into silence. An astounded, breathless silence.
He muttered a curse. Slowly, reluctantly, he and Keldan turned and looked up the beach—to see their two brides clinging to each other, staring at Keldan with expressions of shock and disbelief. And terror.
“A-are you going to tell me I am merely confused this time?” Avril exclaimed. “Or that Josette could not hear his heartbeat because she had seawater in her ears?”
“Hauk?” Keldan stood, placing one hand on Hauk’s shoulder to steady himself. “You are going to have to explain this to them.” He lifted a hand in gentle entreaty toward his wife. “Josette—”
“Nay!” She flinched back, clutching at Avril.
With an anguished oath, Keldan looked down. “Hauk, you have to tell her. I do not know enough of her words to make her understand. You must explain it to them. Now. There is no other choice.”
“Ja, so it seems,” Hauk grated. “By all the gods, Kel, I am not ready for this.”
He had come here prepared to do battle with Thorolf. Would almost prefer to face an armed foe than this discussion. He had done this twice before, knew it was never easy for a bride to accept. And how could he make them understand Asgard’s secret when they had been here only days, when it was so far beyond the realm of their experience?
“Hauk,” Keldan pleaded, “I cannot bear the way she is looking at me.”
“Then brace yourself, Kel, because it may not improve once she hears what we are about to tell her.” He gestured for the women to join them, shifting to French. “Avril, Josette, my young friend here has decided it is time you knew the truth.” He sighed, trying to think of the best way to begin. “And you may wish to sit down. It is rather a long story.”
“I do not want to sit down! I do not want to listen!” Josette exclaimed, hanging back. “This is impossible! It is madness. He was dead—”
“I am not so certain of that, Josette.” Avril’s heart was beating too fast, her senses spinning. She could not believe her voice sounded so calm.
But she could not deny evidence she had just seen with her own eyes. For the second time. “I... I think mayhap we should listen to what they have to say.”
“What are you talking about?” Josette looked at her as if she thought Avril, too, had lost her mind.
“Josette, we have known from the beginning that there was something strange about this island. At least I have known. If you want to stay here, do you not want to know what it is?”
“I do not want to stay here! I have changed my mind! I have—”
“Josette,” Keldan called to her, his expression desolate. “Vaer snill. Please.”
Josette ceased babbling and looked at him, then stopped trying to bolt and run. She studied his face for a long moment. “H-he did rescue me.” She took a deep breath, then another. “I... I thought he gave his life for me.”
Avril remained silent, her gaze on Hauk. She knew exactly how Josette was feeling. Confused and frightened and moved and wary of these unpredictable, perplexing men.
“V-very well,” Josette said, still clinging to Avril. “I will listen.”
Together they walked down the beach toward the men, close enough to converse—but not too close.
“So, Norsemen,” Avril said, trying to keep her voice steady, “what is this truth you wish to tell us?”
“Keldan was not dead,” Hauk said quietly, tugging his friend down to sit beside him. “He cannot die. We cannot die—”
“We?” Avril thought she had better sit down. Her knees had begun trembling so hard, her legs would no longer hold her.
“The native-born of Asgard. The innfodt.” He met her gaze as she sat opposite him, a few paces away. “We cannot die, not on Asgard soil. Not from a blade or injury or drowning or... most of the usual ways.”
Josette sank down—or rather, collapsed—next to Avril. “But he was dead. He—”
“Nay, milady, he was not. Had you listened very carefully, over a long time, you would have heard his heart beat lightly, once every few minutes. His skin was cool to the touch because the flow of his blood had slowed. And his pulse and breathing were too faint for most people to detect. We call it langvarig sovn.” He glanced from Josette to Avril. “The deepest sleep. It can last a short time or many hours, depending on how long the body requires to heal whatever injury has occurred.”
“That was what happened in the bay,” Avril said breathlessly, “when you swam out and saved me—”
“I did not have strength enough to save us both,” he told her simply. “But I knew that as long as the surf carried me ashore, I would recover, eventually. I would have remained in langvarig sovn some time longer, had you not awakened me.” His hard mouth curved in a grimace. “I am sorry that I lied to you about it, Avril, but we normally do not tell new brides about this until they have been here long enough to adjust to Asgard, to accept their new lives—”
Keldan interrupted, speaking to Hauk in a tone that sounded urgent.
“Ja, ja.” Hauk gestured at him to be quiet. “Josette, Keldan did not mean to frighten you. He never intended to leave you here alone with him all afternoon. I had told him we would meet here at midday, so he believed I would be along momentarily to explain what was happening and reassure you.”
Keldan nodded, saying something to Josette in Norse, his dark eyes never leaving her. From the misery etched on his features, he was clearly begging for her forgiveness, as if he would—
Nay, not die without it, Avril corrected herself, clutching her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking. “But if you cannot die, then you... you are—”
“We are not immortal.” Hauk shook his head. “There are some dangers even an innfodt cannot survive. Such as the wolves. Or falling from one of the cliffs. But as long as we avoid those and stay here on Asgard, we remain healthy.” He paused. “And live a rather long time.”
“H-how long?” Josette squeaked.
Hauk glanced at her. “Keldan here”—he nodded at his friend—”is a mere lad among us. He only celebrated his fiftieth year a few months ago.”
Josette looked surprised, and a little relieved.
Avril could hardly believe it. Keldan did not look a day over thirty. “A-and what about you?” she asked Hauk, her heart thudding.
He met her gaze. “How old would you guess I am?” he asked quietly.
Avril studied Hauk’s angular features and sun-colored hair. He appeared as youthful as his friend, barely touched by time. His face showed not one line or wrinkle, his smooth, tanned skin marked only by the stubble of burnished gold that skimmed his
cheeks. With his strong jaw and those pale-blue eyes that matched the sky, he was more handsome than any—
She drew herself up short. She had been about to think than any mere mortal had a right to be.
But he was not a mere mortal.
“I... I cannot tell. You look no older than Keldan.”
A fleeting smile brought out a dimple in his stubbled cheek. “Aye.” He hesitated, and his expression became somber as he kept his gaze fixed on hers. “But I was born three hundred years ago.”
Avril heard Josette inhale sharply. She herself could not make a sound. The evening sky seemed to whirl dizzily as Hauk’s words echoed over and over in her mind, like the waves splashing onto the shore.
Three hundred. Three hundred.
Three.
Hundred.
All the air vanished from her lungs. She gasped, choked. An uncontrolled laugh bubbled up in her throat. “This is a jest. You cannot possibly be—this must all be some kind of jest! No one can live to be three hundred—”
“I am only in my middle years, compared to some among our people.”
She shook her head in denial, but he was not teasing her. Clearly he was not. There was no amusement in his deep voice. And no happiness. He remained solemn, stating it all calmly.
As if he were relating simple, indisputable facts.
Trembling, she had to put out a hand to steady herself. Felt surprised to find solid earth beneath her. “You mean to tell me that all of those... those merchants and farmers and craftsmen in town are—”
“Older than they look. Some are much older than they look. We innfodt mature to the age of thirty, and then it is as if time...” He shrugged one bronzed shoulder. “Stops. In truth, we are not certain what the upper limit of our years may be. If there is one.”
Josette looked at Keldan in astonishment and distress. “Do you mean you may live forever?”
“We do not know,” Hauk told her. “For centuries, men have searched the world for the legendary key to eternal youth—what some have called the waters of life—and what they seek is here. On Asgard. Accidentally discovered more than six hundred years ago, by a small band of Norse explorers who were seeking a new sea route to the west.” His mouth became a grim, bitter line. “And yet it remains a secret. A mystery—”
“You do not know how it is that the island affects you this way?” Avril guessed. “As you do not know how it heals.”
“Aye.” He nodded, his voice becoming harsh. “But whatever it is about Asgard that sustains us, it comes with a price. We cannot live without it. We have become connected to the island in some way—we are part of it and it is part of us. As long as we remain here, we may live forever.” His eyes held hers again. “But in the outside world, in your world, we live no more than six days.”
Avril felt her heart beat a strange, hard stroke that stole her breath. “You can never leave?” she asked softly. “You are”—she searched for a word, felt surprised when she found it—”captives here?”
He shook his head. “Most do not see it that way. Asgard is a pleasant place, after all. A paradise.” He gestured at the sun-warmed beach, the lush forest, the waterfall that cascaded down the nearby cliffs. “The elders long ago made it a law that no one may venture out even for a short time, to protect Asgard and its secret. But it is almost unnecessary. Most innfodt are happy to stay.”
“But not everyone,” she said.
Not you. She could tell by his voice, had noticed it before—that trace of bitterness. Of yearning.
It occurred to her abruptly—jarringly—that she and Hauk had much more in common than she had ever suspected. She knew all too well how it felt for someone of independent, adventurous spirit to have that freedom curtailed.
How would it feel to live like that for three hundred years?
Something inside her knotted with pain as she remembered the books she had found in his vaningshus. Written in his youth, he had said. He must have longed to travel those distant lands. It must be torture for him, leaving now and then for a few days, enjoying a glimpse of the wider world, of freedom, only to be forced to return. She was amazed he left at all.
Then she remembered that he had told her he had to leave now and then, as part of his duty as vokter.
“Not everyone is happy to stay,” he agreed quietly, glancing toward his boat moored in the cove. “We are Norsemen, after all. Exploration and wandering are in our blood.” A muscle flexed in his lean jaw. “But those who have given in to temptation, who have tried to test the limit of six days, have paid with their lives.”
The gruffness of his voice made her guess that included someone who had meant a great deal to him.
Her throat closed. She had once assumed that Hauk lived alone in his clifftop vaningshus because he preferred it that way, because he was reserved and solitary by nature.
But that was not true. He had shown her this afternoon—and many times before—that that was not true.
And mayhap he had not always been so solitary. So alone.
Josette’s hesitant voice filled the momentary silence. “And what about us?” she whispered. “H-how long will we live?”
A shadow of discomfort passed over Hauk’s features, as if he had dared hope that question would not arise. “Not long enough,” he said, almost too faintly to be heard.
Avril could not speak. Dampness filled her eyes.
Hauk turned to face Josette and answered her quickly, stoically. “On Asgard, your lives will be longer than normal. You will reach mayhap seventy-five years, and you will retain your youth and health for much of that time.”
“And after that?” Avril whispered.
He did not look at her, kept his gaze on Josette. “Only those born on Asgard are innfodt, native-born. Anyone brought here later in life remains utlending. Foreign.” After a moment, he added, “Mortal.”
Josette looked at Keldan, who sat waiting, tense, regarding her with hope and desperation in his eyes—and another emotion that Avril recognized, though she was not certain Josette could discern it.
Love.
“But why bring us here, if you will only outlive us?” Josette demanded of him accusingly. “Why not marry one of your innfodt women?”
“It is an ancient tradition,” Hauk explained. “When that first band of explorers—twenty men—discovered the island’s healing qualities, they did not wish to spread word of this place, which would invite the entire world to their doorstep. And since they were a long way from home, they decided to follow the Norse custom of the time and—”
“Go and steal themselves some brides,” Avril said dryly. “From somewhere closer at hand.”
He nodded. “Unfortunately, Asgard’s founders enjoyed only a normal, slightly longer life span. It was the children of those couples, the first generation born here, who were the first innfodt. They were the first who did not die, and when they reached thirty, they stopped aging.” He paused, glancing out over the sea. “But that generation found that unions between two innfodt produce no children.”
Avril felt her heart pounding, began to understand.
“Most Asgard men are content to remain here and marry here,” Hauk continued, his voice becoming rough, “because to this day, if a man wants a family, he must risk venturing into the outside world and stealing himself an utlending bride. Few are willing to take the risk anymore, because the outside world becomes a more crowded, more violent, more dangerous place every year.”
Josette reached up to touch her mouth with her fingertips. “That is why you brought me here?” she asked Keldan with soft wonderment. “Because you want a family?”
“Aye, that is why he brought you here,” Hauk replied, his expression gentle as he looked at her. “Utlending brides are considered special, Josette, and Keldan wanted to marry the most special one he could find. A woman who would touch his heart. A woman with ‘sparks and liveliness,’ he said. The moment he set eyes on you, he knew you were the one. All he wants is to live in that vaningsh
us he built in the meadow and make you happy all the days of your life. And raise a little carpenter or two.”
Josette pressed her hand over her mouth, tears suddenly sliding down her cheeks. She left Avril’s side without another word and walked over to Keldan, kneeling before him in the sand.
She touched his face, spoke to him in Norse.
Keldan uttered a shout of relief and joy, wrapping his arms around her in a fierce hug. He said something to Hauk, his tone one of gratitude, before burying his face in Josette’s dark hair.
“Ja, ja,” Hauk replied hollowly, before he stood and walked toward Avril.
“I do not understand.” She looked up at him in puzzlement as he drew near. “What did she say?”
“She told him she loves him.” He glanced over his shoulder.
Keldan and Josette were now lost in a kiss, lost in each other, oblivious to the world... and sinking onto the sand.
Hauk cleared his throat and reached down to help Avril up. “And I believe we should allow them some time alone.”
Chapter 18
“Avril,” Hauk said after they had been walking along the shore for several minutes, “I find it difficult to believe that you have naught to say.”
Avril could not bring herself to look at him, or summon a response. She poked at a piece of seaweed with a long stick she had picked up as they wandered down the beach.
Leaving Ildfast where he was, they had set off on foot, following the curving edge of the cove toward the waterfall. The inlet was shaped like a broad, elongated U, open to the sea at one end, surrounded by the forest. Even the cliffs just ahead were laden with greenery, the waterfall splintered by trees and brambles into smaller cascades that glittered in the setting sun as they spilled into the cove.
She looked down at the icy waves lapping around her bare toes. She had removed her boots, carrying them in her hand, and unbraided her hair after the salt-scented wind blowing in from the ocean made a tangle of it.
“You must forgive me if I do not know what to say,” she finally managed to reply. “I have never before conversed with a man who is three hundred years old.”
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