Thief Eyes - Janni Lee Simner [30]
Ari growled softly. In my pocket, the coin flared with heat, burning through the denim. Heat was a weapon—I grabbed the coin. Memory washed over me.
A golden-haired girl and a man—Svan—sitting together on a black beach. The man drew circles and arcs and lines in the dark sand, and the girl carefully copied each symbol—each rune—in turn.
“See, Uncle, I can learn.”
“Yes, Hallgerd. Now do it again.”
“I already understand! Don’t you trust me?”
The coin burned hotter. I flinched, and it fell clattering to the stones.
“I do know you.” Svan’s voice brought me back to the present. He looked at me through slitted eyes, then held his hands out in front of him, as if to show he meant no harm. A bit late for that. “Your eyes are wrong, but you are surely Hallgerd’s kin.”
The distant wingbeats fell silent. Ari still held the flashlight, aimed just below Svan’s eyes now. A listening silence filled the room.
The sorcerer reached for the coin. I snapped it up—it was still warm, but not as hot as before—and shoved it into my pocket.
“The runes inscribed there are clearly my niece’s work,” Svan said. “How did it come to be yours?”
Damn good question. “Who’s Hallgerd?” Even as I asked, I knew: The other one, who Muninn wouldn’t name.
“Hallgerd was a bitch.” Ari’s eyes never left Svan—Hallgerd’s uncle. “She’s also someone you don’t want to mess with.”
“Aye, she is that.” A strange sadness crossed Svan’s features. He picked up his staff. “Teaching Hallgerd was a mistake. She combined the runes in ways I never intended, and in so doing called on fires that yet threaten the land beyond these stones. I think it is not by chance that you’ve come to me now.” He nodded. “It is time to undo my mistake. I will leave with you, Haley, and teach you the sorcery with which to end Hallgerd’s spell.”
“Hell no,” Ari said.
Muninn hadn’t seemed sure the spell could be ended. “You’d let us both leave if we let you come with us?” I said. That seemed way too easy.
Svan glanced sidelong at Ari, and I knew there’d been no both in his original bargain. He nodded. “Yes.”
“It’s the best chance we’re likely to get,” I told Ari in English, though I didn’t want Svan hanging around any more than Ari did.
“You’ll keep your hands to yourself,” Ari told the sorcerer in Icelandic.
“She is my kin!” Svan looked offended. He gestured at Ari with his staff. “What do you take me for, boy?”
“I do not think you want me to answer that,” Ari muttered darkly in English.
Svan laughed and strode across the room, ignoring the birds perched on the table. He fastened his cloak closed with a round silver pin—a snake eating its own tail—then wrapped a strip of leather inscribed with more runes around his staff.
He walked up to the door and pounded the floor three times. The sound echoed through my chest, loud as Ari’s polar bear roar. The sorcerer chanted:
By the sweat of the trolls, open!
By the blood of men, open!
By the voices of the gods
And those who serve them, open!
Svan blew softly over the staff. The door swung silently inward, revealing a patch of gray sky beyond.
Wingbeats burst into the air. The little birds launched themselves right at us.
“Run!” Svan said.
I grabbed Ari’s hand and raced across the room, ignoring the pack slamming against my back and the bird claws grabbing at my hair. A darker shadow swooped into the room. The little birds flew away. Ari and I kept running, through the open doorway. Icy air hit us, way colder than in the cave. We skittered to a stop.
We stood on a stone ledge only a few yards across. To our right the ledge quickly narrowed and disappeared, leaving only a vertical stone cliff. To our left the ledge wound around the curve of a towering black mountain.
Ahead of us, where the ledge fell away, there was only gray swirling fog. I stepped back, fighting dizziness. Ari grabbed a stone from the ground and threw it into the fog. It disappeared silently into the mist, but I