“Murdered,” she said to test a new word, her head swimming. “It's hot in here. Is it hot in here?” She started to remove her cloak but hesitated. There was a reason she wasn't supposed to take it off. A reason to keep it near her. But what was it? The recent events seemed like a bad dream from another time. The ale and the heat of closely-pressed bodies—Evenon’s in particular—had her in a pleasant fog that dulled not just the senses, but everything she had been worrying about.
On her other side, Estrid had shed her own cloak and her bare shoulders brushed dangerously close to Sibba, though the other girl's attention was on Ari and the game of hnefatafl they played on the board between them. Sibba's eyes followed the pale flesh on Estrid's arm as she picked up one of her pieces and moved it forward two spots. Ari cursed.
“My condolences. Will you avenge your mother's murder?” Evenon watched her, his eyes searching her face. There was something familiar in the way he spoke, like he was picking out each sound carefully.
“I already did.” His gaze never faltered; she felt a flush creeping up her neck. The fog was suddenly suffocating. “I think I need some fresh air,” she said, or thought she said, lifting a leg to turn around and tipping dangerously to the side. His hand was on her arm before she could fall, and she studied it, the long fingers, the trimmed fingernails, the leather wrist-guard on his left arm, laced tight with a cord.
He also stood, drawing Sibba's attention back to his face, her eyes zeroing in on the gash there. She reached her hand up to touch it but he turned his head away. “Maybe we both should go outside.” It took her a few steps to realize that he was guiding her. Her feet didn't seem to obey her mind, like she was two different people, completely disconnected.
The cold air hit her like a brick wall, but the mood outside was no different than it had been inside. To the left was the storehouse where they had deposited their weapons before entering the longhouse, which for Sibba included the ax and the crow sword. To the right of the longhouse, a group was playing a knife-throwing game, made even more fun by their inebriation. Though she couldn't see exactly what they were doing, she immediately turned that way. It seemed like a strangely good idea in that moment to throw a sharp object at something.
“Oh, no you don't,” Evenon said, steering her by her shoulders. She had forgotten he was there. Who was he, anyway, to tell her what to do? She hadn't needed minding, not even from her own mother, for years now.
“I want to go the other way,” she said, spinning on her heel and toppling to the ground. The group—mostly men—had taken notice of her and were taunting her. A man tossed a knife and it landed in the dirt near her hand. She snatched it up before Evenon could, and pushed herself to her feet, brushing off her hands and knees.
“You really shouldn't—”
But she was already gone, lumbering toward the men. Her feet felt ten times too big. One of the men held a horn of ale and she took it from him, drinking its contents in two giant gulps.
“At it again, Sibba-girl?” the man asked. She didn't know who he was, but he obviously remembered her.
“Looks like her tastes have changed,” someone else chimed in. They laughed when Sibba flicked her thumbs at them.
Dropping the horn to the ground, she took her place at the line they had etched in the dirt. The target seemed to pulse wildly, the painted circles swirling black lines in her vision. She held the tip of the knife between two fingers and drew it back to her ear. There was movement to her side and a small figure ran in front of the target. A child.
“Sibba!” Evenon called and she turned, the knife already flying from her fingers. The world kept spinning after she had stopped and she fell, hearing the knife hit something but not able to see what.
“Did I kill you?” she asked, and the response was a roar of laughter from the men around the target.
“No,” Evenon answered. “You just killed the wall.” He lifted her to her feet.
“Oh boy.” She stumbled away from him. She made it to the alley between the longhouse and its outbuilding before collapsing against the wall, bracing her hands on her knees.
Evenon was right behind her. “Are you all right?”
A tattoo snaked out of his collar and seemed to pulse at her. She groaned and closed her eyes. Part of her—a huge part—wanted to push him away, but then she remembered Estrid with Ari, swore she could hear the girl’s laugh over the ruckus inside, and instead pulled him close against her.
“Sibba,” he said, his voice a low growl, “are you—”
She cut him off by pressing her lips against his. It was urgent and rough, more out of a need for him to shut up than out of desire. He nudged her mouth open with his tongue while his hands ran up her sides, then back down again. They found one of her cloak pockets and suddenly one of his hands was in it instead of on her.
“Hey,” she started to protest, but he trapped her mouth again and shoved her flush against the longhouse wall with a bang. Her hands trailed up his solid chest and came to rest on his shoulders. His free hand tugged her hair and she lifted her chin, his lips and teeth trailing along her jaw and neck. She forgot all about his hands. His knee nudged her legs apart and she kissed the spot on his neck where his pulse fluttered, feeling—
Feeling both of his hands digging through her cloak.
She dropped her hands from around his neck and grabbed his wrists. “What are you doing?” This close, she saw that his eyes were such a light brown they were nearly gold. The sight of them was somehow familiar.
Suddenly saliva was hot in her mouth. She spat to the side, but then the bile began to rise, and she shoved him away just in time to vomit the entire meal she had just eaten. It was not as good coming back up. When she was finally done, she sank to the ground, her back to the wall. Evenon gave a frustrated groan and ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the ends so it stood up straight.
“Just go away,” Sibba said. The crisp night air and the vomiting had sobered her. Evenon stood over her, his hands on his hips, but she didn’t raise her gaze. Then he looked out of the alley, back to the knife throwers and the drunken wanderers on the street.
“Wait here,” he told her, and then he was gone.
✽ ✽ ✽
Sibba didn't know how long she lay in the darkness of that alley before Estrid appeared, brandishing Sibba's ax and an extended hand. Sibba shook her head at her.
“Just leave me here,” she said. If there was even a chance that Evenon was out there and would see her, then she would rather stay hidden in the dark.
Instead of going, Estrid slid to the dirt beside her, pulling her dress down around her knees and leaning against the wall.
“You're going to get dirty,” Sibba said, turning her head away from Estrid and closing her eyes.
She felt Estrid shrug. “The dress will clean.”
“Just go home,” Sibba said. “Go find Ari and go home.”
“Not without you.”
“I don't need you.” Sibba knew that the words were hurtful. It had been intentional. But Estrid did not seem to take them to heart.
“Well, I need you.” When there was no response, Estrid continued. “Sibba, I'm sorry. For what happened—”
“Nothing happened.”
“We never got to talk about it. I woke up one day and you were gone, and your father was throwing me at Vyion, and...”
“Nothing happened,” Sibba repeated. You are everything that I want. Sometimes the words she had spoken ran amok through her head. She felt the warm flush crawling up her neck to her cheeks.
“That doesn't change the fact that I'm sorry.”
Estrid placed her hand on Sibba's knee and she couldn't hold herself back anymore. Sibba gripped her friend's hand and squeezed it, then brought it to her lips, pressing the palm to her mouth.
Then she turned to look at Estrid. “I'm sorry, too,” she said. And she was. She was sorry that she had told Estrid how she felt, sorry that she had driven that wedge between them. Sorry that s
he had let her heart break. Sorry that it was still cracked. But she didn't explain any of that to Estrid. She didn't have to.
They stayed there until the village grew quiet. Then they began the walk toward Estrid's longhouse, Estrid guiding her through the maze of houses, passing silent homes and sleeping sheep.
“I have a question for you,” Estrid said as they walked. Sibba's hackles immediately rose. “The sword. Where did it come from? People saw it during the trial and were asking about it.”
Of course they would be curious. It wasn’t every Fielding that had a sword. They were usually heirlooms, passed down from one generation to the next. But the strange craftsmanship of the hilt did not speak to a Fielding heritage. “I won it,” she finally said, “when I killed the man who murdered my mother.” It was still strange for her to admit to killing anyone. The blood was so fresh on her hands.
“Oh, Sibba,” Estrid said, and it occurred to her that she hadn't told anyone except Evenon that yet. No one else, not even her father, knew that Darcey was dead. “What happened?”
Sibba told her about the man in the woods and their fight on the beach. About how he had been looking for something. How he had shot her mother and left her to bleed to death in the garden.
“My poor Sibba,” Estrid said, gripping Sibba's arm and leaning against her in a semblance of a hug. “It must feel like you're losing everyone.”
Sibba blinked. “Everyone?”
Estrid stood back and looked at her, cocking her head as Aeris might do. “You know. Your brother.”
“Jary?” Of course. She didn't have any other brother. Come to think of it, she hadn't seen him since arriving in Ottar. “What about Jary?”
“You don't know? He's been taken hostage by Clan Grimsson. He's probably...”
She trailed off, unable to say the word. Well, Sibba had no problem with it. Estrid was right. She was becoming used to it. The word, the idea, was becoming a part of her regular life.
Sibba's lips formed the word without any hesitation as they stepped over the threshold into the dark stillness of Estrid's house, where the longsword leaned against the doorframe and Ari lay wrapped in furs and snoring on the bed. “Dead.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sibba
“He's not dead.”
Chief Thorvald Hallowtide was adamant about that much. Sibba stood awkwardly just beyond the screen that divided her father's living quarters from the rest of the longhouse. He sat on the edge of his straw mattress in just his night shift, his thinning hair loose around his shoulders. Without his armor and his weapons and the murderous glint in his eye, she saw how he had aged in the five years she had been gone.
She tried to find some sympathy for him. Five years ago, he had lost his wife and daughter. Then sometime in the last year, his only true-born son had never come back from a border skirmish. He was just as alone as Sibba was. It wouldn't be long before some other young warrior challenged the Hallowtide rule over this territory, and he had to know that. When she had woken him, he had whipped around with a knife in his hand. What was it like to go to sleep not knowing if you would wake up with a sword in your belly?
“And neither is she.”
On that, however, he was wrong. He swiped a hand down his face like he could wipe away Sibba's words. Like they could be unheard, erased.
“And you're not going anywhere.”
The anger came back all in a rush. It had gone away overnight as she and Estrid had stayed awake nearly until the sun rose, talking about everything they had missed. Sibba had told her about the cabin on Ey Island and finding Aeris abandoned on the forest floor. Estrid had recounted the details of her wedding to Vyion and the years of married agony that had followed, broken up only by her clandestine meetings with Ari in the boathouse.
“Do not be angry with me,” Estrid had said, “but I love him.”
Sibba had shaken her head. “I'm not angry. I just want you to be happy. Both of you.” Even if it hurt, it wouldn’t matter for long. Last night, when she’d spoken, she’d assumed she would be leaving soon.
But now she was angry again. Who was he to call her a liar, to tell her what she could and could not do? He was more of a father to his half-dozen bastard children than he had ever been to her.
“I can pay for it,” she said. “I just need a crew. A good crew.”
He scoffed at her, standing and crossing to the wash bin where he splashed water on his face. It dripped down his graying beard and soaked the floor at his feet. On the bed, someone stirred, a figure buried in furs, but Sibba didn't care which harlot he had in his bed with him, who was keeping him warm at night now. Who would bear him more children, little half-brothers and sisters that she would never know.
“You cannot buy a good crew,” he said, wiping his face on a linen cloth. “A good crew must be earned.”
She knew he was right.
“And besides,” he continued, “you're my heir now. You have to be here to take over when I die.” He was studying his face in the warped looking-glass over the basin. “Which may be sooner rather than later,” he added as an afterthought.
“You just said that Jary isn't dead.” Just like her father, Sibba realized she hung onto that hope as well. She didn't belong in this place and certainly didn't want any sort of title or power that would bind her to it. She wanted only to leave and to be left alone. To see the world and find her place within it.
“No one I’ve sent after him has come back, but I don't think the bitch will have killed him yet,” Thorvald said, sitting on the edge of his mattress to pull on dark, calf-skin britches. His bedmate stirred again and a small, delicate hand reached up to stroke his back. He ignored it, standing to finish dressing. “She'll find a way use him against me first. To destroy me before delivering the killing blow.”
Chief Grimsson was horrible—the only female chief in the Fields, she had killed hundreds of men to keep her position, including multiple husbands. Grimsson kept an army of women and played with men like they were animals, there simply for her own amusement. Her territory lay between Clan Hallowtide and Clan Holmfast, and she was constantly provoking battles on both borders, her territory slowly expanding with each hard-won victory. Peace talks always failed. The Clan Wars had been going on for hundreds of years, and under her rule, there was no end in sight.
She was beautiful and deadly, a spider with a web that grew larger every day. But a part of Sibba admired her, too. The woman knew what she wanted and went for it. She wanted to rule the Fields, and she was doing everything she could to make it happen. Sibba wanted to leave the Fields, and couldn't even get her father to give her a boat.
“I don't want to be chief,” she finally said, and even to her own ears, it sounded weak.
“Ah, yes, well, my daughter,” Thorvald said, crossing and dropping a heavy hand onto her shoulder. “Such is your lot in life. We do not always get to pick, do we?”
Truer words had never been spoken. Such small, simple accidents ended up directing the course of their entire lives. What if Darcey's ship had brought her ashore just a little further south and she had ended up in Grimsson territory? Would she have become a warrior instead of a scorned wife? Would she still be alive today? What if Sibba had chosen to stay in Ottar instead of going to Ey Island with her mother? Maybe her father would have forced her to marry the trader instead of Estrid. Maybe even now, she would be carrying Vyion's child instead of an ax. But there was no sense in wondering. If the Fieldings were to be believed, Interis, Enos’s wife and weaver of the loom of fate, had long ago chosen their threads.
“We make our own fates,” Darcey had insisted. But Sibba remembered watching her small hands pluck masterfully at the loom and thinking that maybe in this, her mother was wrong.
“The only way for you to get out of it is if Jary were to return. And let's be honest—”
“I can bring him back.” The words were out before she had given them any true thought. They drew Thorvald up short as he strapped on his s
word belt.
“What do you mean?”
“If I can bring him back, will you give me what I ask for and leave to go?”
Thorvald's eyes searched her face as if truly seeing her for the first time since she had walked into his room. As if only now realizing that she wasn't just some girl with silly dreams and ridiculous words. She was his daughter, a woman, a Hallowtide, and she, like Isgerd Grimsson, would stop at nothing to get what she wanted. She had already delayed too long.
“I would not like to lose you both,” he said. His face contorted into something resembling a smile. “For what it's worth, you are a warrior, Sibba, and would make a magnificent chief.”
The thought had never entered her mind. Not once in her seventeen years. It was always going to be Jary. No matter how many women had warmed Thorvald's bed, no matter how many bastards had come after her, her brother was always going to be the next Chief Hallowtide. It was his right by birth. Suddenly, the idea of retrieving him didn't seem so absurd anymore.
“Why have you given up on him so easily?” she asked. She drew the crow sword from its scabbard and brandished it at him, not in a threatening way but more in an effort to get him to see it. “I took this from the man who killed my mother. If you promise to give me a boat and a crew to sail it, I will bring you back your son, and Chief Grimsson's sword. You have my word.”
Thorvald stood only a few paces from her with his arms crossed over his broad chest, and she discovered that she was very nearly his height. Her plan was flawed but she didn't let it show on her face. Jary could already be dead, or Sibba could die in the process. But she hoped he wouldn't examine it too hard. She hoped that he would, just this once, give her a chance.
The woman in the bed rolled onto her side and propped her head up on her elbow. Compared to Darcey, she was unremarkable, with mousy brown hair and a forgettable face.
“Just say yes, Thorvald,” she said, practically purring as she stretched across the bed, her eyes heavy with sleep. As much as Sibba wanted to hate her, she felt a tiny twinge of thankfulness when Thorvald's face relaxed.
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