Thief Eyes - Janni Lee Simner [69]
Hallgerd’s keening burst into my head, a terrible sound. She loved him, I thought numbly. The story got it wrong. She really loved him. I fell to my knees and threw up.
I heard footsteps approach me, looked up to see myself surrounded by Gunnar’s killers. Their expressions were grim. There was blood on their clothes, and one of them held his arm to his side. Shit. I unsheathed the little knife, knowing it couldn’t possibly do any good against them all.
One of the men nodded at me, a surprisingly respectful gesture. “Lady,” he said. It was hard to hear him over the fire’s roaring and Hallgerd’s keening. “Will you give us land to bury our dead?”
Was he serious? “Fuck off,” I told him in English. Then, in Icelandic, “No, I have a better idea. Why don’t you dig a hole deep enough to bury you all?”
The men laughed, all but the one who had spoken. “You have reason enough for anger at us,” he said soberly. “You have lost much today.” He turned away, and the others followed him. Together they tossed their fallen friend over the wall, then climbed down after him. Just like that.
Blood still flowed from Gunnar’s chest. I knelt beside him and felt for a pulse, though I knew there was no point. My hands came away sticky with blood.
I hid my face in my burning blond hair, the hair a man had died for, and I wept.
Hallgerd’s cries in my head fell silent at last. “Oh, you have not yet begun to grieve, Haley. I will give you something to weep for. Your knife is sharp enough, I think.”
“No!” I forced myself to my feet and grabbed the coin from the pouch. “Here. You can have it!”
“What use have I for your gifts now? Keep the life you’ve destroyed. I may have given over control of the coin and the spell, but its tools—the bowl and the stone and what remains of the blood—lie with me. Until you gather them all again, you cannot cast the spell, not without my consent. And that I will not give. I will not return!”
The coin flared hotter. “Free,” roared the powers Hallgerd had bargained with—the powers I’d bargained with. Against my will I felt my other hand draw the little knife from its sheath. “Free us,” the fire spirits roared. “Free the doubled power you now hold.”
My tears were fire. My thoughts were fire. Fire surged through my hair, my blood. I touched the wood beneath me, and my fingers left black charred prints behind. “Free,” the fire creatures cried. “We will be free.”
With a sick lurch I knew that refusing Gunnar my hair hadn’t been enough. No one could hold so much power for long and live.
This wasn’t over yet. It would never be over, not until the fire consumed me after all.
Chapter 17
Somehow I unclenched my hand, and the knife clattered to the floor. I drew my hands into fists, right around the coin. My fingers sought my palms. I had only to break skin, and the fire would leave me, and I would be free.
I shut my eyes. I saw a vision of my blood hitting the earth, turning to flame as it landed. I saw earth splitting open around the flames, and a huge fiery hand reaching for the sky.
My skin was burning away from within. The burning hurt—but I forced my fists open, dropping the coin. I could handle pain. I’d hold this fire for as long as I could. I opened my eyes. Flames still danced before me. My hands went right through them, as if they were ghosts.
“Shall I let you know,” Hallgerd said, her voice high and taunting, “the moment my blade breaks his skin?”
“Please,” I begged Hallgerd, because I knew there was no reasoning with the fire inside me.
Hallgerd’s laughter in my head was a wild thing. “Would you bargain with me? What compensation can you possibly offer for Gunnar’s life?”
“You have my mother’s life.” My voice grew wild as hers. “Isn’t that enough?”
“There’s no such thing as enough, not anymore. He flinches quite nicely, Haley. Even so, he says you should not listen to me. Foolish boy. Do you think whether Haley listens or not matters to me anymore?”
I clutched the broken roof with my free hand, but drew away when it began smoldering again. In the distance below, from the