Beyond a Darkened Shore

by Jessica Leake

  And then I saw them—what was left of the men we had fought with.

  Skeletal fingers lay near me, the meat picked from the bones. A torso just beyond them, ribs exposed, the remaining flesh putrid and covered in flies. I covered my nose as the wind changed direction, blowing the smell of the fallen Northmen toward us. Bones were scattered about as though animals had feasted upon them, though I had my doubts the remains had been set upon by animals at all, having seen what the jötnar were capable of.

  The breeze caused something long and black to flutter upon the rocky ground, and I froze.

  Leif came to his feet, and I gripped his arm, my fingers digging into the muscle. I blinked rapidly, tears already obscuring my vision.

  “Ciara?” Leif said, but then he saw it, too.

  I took one step, and then another, until I fell to my knees beside what remained of my beautiful warhorse. They’d torn him to pieces, the dull gleam of bone so garish against the red of his flesh. His mane had been what caught my attention, attached to his severed head. The eyes were rolled back until only whites showed.

  Tears streamed down my face until I could no longer stifle the sobs. I’d had this horse since he was a colt; I’d trained him myself. Losing him was like being exiled all over again, like losing the last piece of my connection to home . . . to Mide. Worse still was the way he was killed. He must have been terrified.

  “Forgive me, Sleipnir, forgive me,” I said over and over. Tears burned over my cheeks, falling like rain. I was choking on my words, choking on the sobs in my throat.

  Leif placed a firm hand on my shoulder. I trembled as anguish and grief crashed over me. He hauled me to my feet and into his arms, and I held on to him as though he was the only thing keeping me standing. “We’ll gather what’s left of them and build a great pyre,” he said into my hair. “They will have the funeral they deserve.”

  He held me until I no longer felt like the grief would pull me under like the tide. Slowly, he disentangled himself from me and walked over to a tree with a trunk only a little bigger than his leg. With a powerful swing, so fast his mystical blade blurred, Leif sliced the sword through the trunk as though it was nothing more than straw.

  The tree plummeted to the ground, and we set to work cutting branches from it and gathering enough dried sticks to build the pyre. It was difficult work, and Leif had to guide me in the building of it, as I had never done anything like it before. My body relished the work, and my mind was thankful to have a goal.

  Night had fallen by the time we finished.

  When only Sleipnir remained to be added to the pyre, Leif stopped me as I bent to retrieve Sleipnir’s head, the tears blurring my vision. “Allow me to do this for you.”

  I shook my head. “No, you’ve already gathered the men who you had known and fought beside. I won’t have you bear my grief as well.”

  “It’s no burden,” he said, but he stood aside when he saw the determined look in my eyes.

  I picked up what was left of Sleipnir and carefully placed it on top of the pyre. Stroking his cheek one more time, I bowed my head. “Forgive me, Sleipnir. You deserved far better than this.”

  Leif handed me one of the torches he had lit. His expression grim, he touched the flame to the bottom of the pyre. “Fenris and all the men and jötnar who have joined with him will be destroyed.”

  I added my own flame to the pyre. Soon, the jötnar would burn, too, and I would be the one to light the fire.

  “We must continue on to Mide before we return to Dubhlinn,” I said to Leif as we huddled before the light of our campfire. In the distance, the funeral pyre still burned. Exiled or not, I couldn’t continue without knowing my family was safe. So much time had been lost between when I’d left and now. “I must be sure my sisters are safe. And . . . we will need more horses.”

  “And after we reach Dubhlinn?” Leif asked. He turned to look at me, the reflection of the flames in his eyes. “You told me once before that you would only fight this battle in your own land, but now that you know the jötnar have amassed in the north? What then, Princess?”

  Leif and his men would sail on to Skien, leaving the shores of Éirinn far behind. I hated the sea. I’d never even been on a boat, much less a Northman longship . . . but I also knew I couldn’t stay here and do nothing.

  I met Leif’s gaze, and something squeezed my heart when I saw the worry he wasn’t bothering to hide. He was afraid I’d say I wouldn’t go.

  “I will go with you,” I said. “I will see this quest to the end.”

  He reached out and pulled me to his chest. His arms wrapped around me like iron bands. “I’m glad you agreed on your own. I would have carried you away by force if you had not.”

  I laughed to hide the fact that my heart was now racing erratically in my chest. “You haven’t the strength.”

  His heated gaze met mine, and the laughter died in my throat. My traitorous eyes drifted to his full lips. His mouth descended upon mine before I could protest. With both hands, he cradled my face, his tongue teasing my lips until I opened them.

  Our tongues met, and the reaction within me was like the sudden flash of lightning. I wanted to tear his chain mail from his body, to run my fingers over the smooth skin beneath. The pull of lustful desire was so strong, I shook with it. As heat built inside me, my mind sought to remind me this was a man who had no right to touch me so familiarly, who was a Northman, but I was deaf to it all. His fingers trailed down my neck, leaving burning heat in their wake.

  More, I thought, deepening the kiss.

  I had never been kissed before—no man would dare.

  I do not ask, he had said, I take.

  I shouldn’t have enjoyed it. But I did.

  “Finally,” Leif said as he trailed kisses down my neck. “I’ve wanted to do this for a long time.”

  I tilted my head to give him better access, a small sound escaping me as his lips touched the sensitive skin. But just at that moment, the flames from the funeral pyre caught my attention, and I stiffened. The acrid stench of burning flesh wafted toward me. Gently, I pushed against him and leaned back. “This is wrong. We shouldn’t do this while the men who fought beside us burn close enough for me to feel the flames.”

  Leif appraised me with heavy eyelids. “Was it so terrible kissing me, then?”

  I felt heat rise from my core all the way to my cheeks in a flush. “No.”

  “Shall I try again?” he asked, his gaze raising my temperature still more.

  Yes. “No.”

  He nodded as if he’d known that would be my response. I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my chin on them as a cold wind stirred my hair. “I have a proposal for you,” Leif said, his voice a mere murmur at my side. “If we spend this night in each other’s arms, then I give you my word that I will do nothing but sleep beside you. The night is cold, and we both have lost so much.”

  There was no manipulation in his voice. Absent, too, was his usual gruff overconfidence. In the darkness, it was merely one soul asking the other for warmth and comfort.

  “Just for tonight,” I whispered back.

  We lay down upon his silver wolf mantle, my back to his chest. He wrapped his arms around me, and as the welcome warmth flooded me, I closed my eyes against the tears that threatened. In Leif’s arms, I realized the turmoil and mental anguish I’d felt toward him was unfounded. Leif was a Northman, an outsider, but he accepted me more than any of my own clan ever had.

  For I couldn’t help but think that no one had ever held me like that, nor had I needed them to.

  But on this dark night, I didn’t dare pull away.

  16

  As the sun rose the next morning, the ground was cool with mist and dew, but the last wisps of smoke of the funeral pyre were still drifting to the sky. I clenched my jaw to keep the tears from flowing anew and bent to touch the pile of ash, picturing Sleipnir as he once was.

  Bowing my head, I sent up a prayer for Sleipnir and even the Northmen who had fought
beside me. Give me the strength to exact revenge.

  We kept up a grueling pace on foot all the way to Mide. We were silent and focused, and I missed Sleipnir with every step. In spite of my pushing Leif away, like I had so many times before, things seemed to have changed between us—as though we had both bared part of our souls. For the first time, I felt a breath of hope. With our combined strength, there was little that could stop us.

  Buoyed as I was by these thoughts of our near invincibility, the feeling dimmed when I thought of actually going home again. What reception would I receive when I entered the bailey? Would my father bar my entrance to the castle? More important, what would I do if he tried? I knew the answer to that; I knew that I would shout the truth about the jötnar threat from the middle of the castle grounds if I had to. My clansmen might not believe me, but they had a right to know what would soon threaten them—if it wasn’t already an immediate threat. Again, a jolt of fear for my sisters shot up my spine. I had to see them again, exile or no exile.

  I glanced at Leif running beside me, the sun turning his hair to gold, and I knew that whatever I was about to be greeted with, we would deal with it—together. He caught me admiring him and flashed a smile that I returned easily. A friendship and alliance forged by bloodshed and shared loss.

  A gull cried nearby, and I slowed my pace. When I took a deep breath, the salty tang of the ocean breeze filled my nostrils, bringing forth a torrent of memories. The familiar scents of home.

  Only . . . another smell presented itself—stronger than the others. The acrid smell of something burnt.

  On the crest of the next hill, we stopped. My father’s castle loomed before us on the next rise, and the longing for my home struck me in the chest like an arrow.

  The smell of burning in the air became stronger, and the first pinpricks of fear pierced my abdomen. “Wait for me here,” I said hurriedly to Leif. “My father would have your head on a spike.”

  His jaw tightened. “I will not.”

  “Leif, please—”

  He crossed his arms. “Where you go, I go,” he said.

  I glanced from his determined face to the outline of my father’s castle in the distance. I hadn’t the time to debate. “Fine. We go together.”

  We sprinted down the hill and climbed the treacherous cliffside of my father’s castle. Only two guards waited for us at the gates, their faces gray and gaunt.

  “Princess Ciara!” said the man I belatedly recognized as Faelan, Fergus’s brother. His presence was an ominous sign, as he was a farmer, not a warrior. “What are you doing here? We thought you’d been exiled.”

  “I was,” I said, bracing myself for whatever instructions my father had given him in the event I came home.

  “Brádan,” he said to the gaunt man next to him, “hurry and notify the queen her daughter has returned.”

  Confused now that he should send for my mother instead of my father, I take a step toward him. “Faelan, where is my father?” I asked.

  Faelan stilled, and the panic that had engulfed me since I smelled fire began to smother me. “Princess, it is not for me to say . . .”

  His gaze skittered away from mine, back toward the keep, the wall of which prevented much of my view, but I was suddenly desperate to see inside.

  I grabbed his arm. “My sisters—where are Branna and Deidre?”

  “Safe, milady. With your mother in the keep—”

  I strode past him, Leif following close behind. I had to see them, had to see my father, who would shed light on what had transpired.

  Once we had passed through the gates, the bailey was strangely absent of life. No animals bleated, no voices carried on the wind, no people hurried about their day. As I reached the bailey’s center, it became clear where the taste of ash was coming from.

  The chapel was a blackened ruin. My first thought was a Northman raid, but there were no other signs. No bloodstains or other remnants of a battle. No other buildings had been damaged, only the church.

  I ran to the broken door, my heart pounding. Chains lay in a pile on the steps, links severed as though cut. I hadn’t stepped through this doorway for so many years that, for a moment, I couldn’t move. My hand shook as I pulled open what was left of the door.

  Leif kept me from falling as I let out a strangled cry.

  So many bodies, all men, dressed for battle. Weapons littered the floor, or lay clutched in blackened, skeletal hands. The smell of charred flesh, wood smoke, and ash was so strong I leaned over and gagged. Most of the men had died near the door of the church, as though they had attempted to fight their way out.

  Shaking, and with tears pricking my eyes from the remnants of smoke, I scanned the bodies for signs of Fergus or Conall.

  I stumbled forward, tripping over blackened legs and grasping fingers. Furiously I searched through the ash until my hands were black as pitch. Tears mingled with the ash until fat black droplets tracked down my cheeks. Leif stood guard at the door, his expression grim.

  I found what I had been seeking on the steps of the altar. With trembling fingers I retrieved it: my father’s golden circlet.

  Nearby was a corpse who had fallen still grasping his sword, and I immediately recognized the jeweled hilt. Like the other bodies, the skin had burned away from his bones, but still I knew. Unlike the others, this body had been beheaded. I touched the skull as pieces of me broke away inside. My breaths were coming faster, mingling with my trapped sobs. I clutched the circlet so hard I felt the weakened metal begin to give way.

  The anger was building within me, a fire feeding on my uncontained grief. I wanted to find whoever had done this, to tear them limb from limb. I wanted to burn their village to the ground.

  A soft noise came from the entrance of the church, and I turned to find my mother standing next to Leif, her face pale and drawn.

  “Máthair,” I said in a rush, hurrying to her side. “What has happened here? Áthair . . .”

  “He is dead,” my mother said, her voice raspy and devoid of emotion, as though she had spent weeks in the throes of grief and hadn’t quite emerged as the same person. “He is dead along with some two hundred of your clansmen.” Her eyes met mine, and I sucked in a breath in pain when I saw the loathing reflected there. “And you weren’t here to protect them thanks to your faithless attack on your own father.”

  Burned alive. Two hundred men, including my father. The ground seemed to open up and swallow me whole. “Who set fire to the church?”

  “King Sigtrygg’s men,” she said, and Leif’s head jerked up. “It happened only days after you were exiled. Sigtrygg was angry that his raid on the monastery had failed because of your father, so they retaliated. He came on a Sunday like the pagan Northman he is,” she said with a look of revulsion toward Leif, “and his men surrounded the church. They took the women and men who couldn’t fight as slaves, and the others—your father and his men—they slaughtered and locked them in the church to burn.”

  A horrified silence descended upon me as I thought of what my clansmen and my father must have gone through—and the evidence was still at my feet. As I looked at the remains of what had once been living, breathing men, the number two hundred kept repeating itself in my mind. It couldn’t be a coincidence. The Morrigan had made it seem like the sacrifice of two hundred men would be something yet to come—something I would have to choose for myself—but I saw the truth now. The truth was that it had already happened.

  Worse, Sigtrygg had come on the Lord’s day—just as the Northmen raiders had seven years ago. No doubt the only reason my mother and sisters had survived was because ever since that day, they had attended Mass at a different time from everyone else. In case the church was attacked again. I felt the anger continue to build. How could I have believed that duplicitous king when he told me he and Áthair had come to a peaceful arrangement? My father never would have made a treaty with him.

  “And Fergus and Conall?” I asked. “What of them?”

  “They were amo
ng the two hundred,” she said. My stomach rolled. Sleipnir. Áthair. Fergus and Conall. Was there no end to the horror? “As was Séamus.”

  Her words bit into me, and I couldn’t help the flood of images of all the men I’d once loved. I thought of them fighting for their lives before finally being consumed by flames, and tears stung my eyes.

  “I don’t understand,” I said with a desperate edge to my voice that even I could hear. “King Sigtrygg told me he and Áthair had made peace—he said he’d dined with him in the hall.”

  “He dined in our hall,” Máthair said, with such disgust she was practically spitting, “but it was after he’d burned the church to the ground. He forced our servants to wait on him, and he sat across from me as though he hadn’t just brutally murdered my husband. He sat there and told me it was his mercy that allowed myself and the princesses to live, but I know he’s only keeping them alive as a bartering tool—he thinks we answer to him now.”

  I quaked with revulsion when I realized: my father and the others had already been killed by Sigtrygg while I stayed and dined in his castle. When Sigtrygg threw that great feast, it was because he had been successful in assassinating my father and murdering my clansmen.

  “I fail to see how any of this is Ciara’s fault,” Leif said, his voice steadying me.

  She narrowed her eyes. “If she hadn’t attacked her father with her loathsome ability, then she would have been here to stop him.”

  “That seems like poor logic,” Leif said, and Máthair’s expression grew even colder.

  “Máthair,” I said, reaching out to her only to have my hand sneered at. I let it drop to my side. “Máthair,” I tried again, “I am desperately sorry for what I did to Áthair, and even more sorry and ashamed I wasn’t here to defend them against such treachery, but I cannot shoulder the blame for this—this was Sigtrygg’s doing. He’s the one who should pay.”