Thief Eyes - Janni Lee Simner [72]
“We cannot have the world,” the fire spirits whispered, “but we can destroy you. We will destroy you.” Fire caressed my face, my arms, my hair. It didn’t hurt anymore, which scared me more than any pain. At least the fire will consume only me.
The last woman on the path looked up at me—or maybe she’d never stopped looking. My mother’s gray eyes grew wide. Please, please don’t let her see me die.
She dropped what she was holding—a coin, the same coin I’d held, only she’d caught it a year before I had—and ran to me. The fire seemed to fade as my mother drew me close. I clung to her, inhaling the scent of her hair, remembering how it felt to be safe in her arms. “Mom. I missed you so much.”
“Haley, how on earth—” Mom stroked my hair, drew back, and touched my face. “Honey, you’re burning up.” She grabbed my hands.
“Mom, no!”
Too late—fire flowed from me to her, fast and fierce. Mom hadn’t read Thorgerd’s warnings, either. She didn’t know not to take too much. Or maybe she did know. I tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t let go. She drew me closer instead.
It happened so fast, flames leaping at her arms and legs and hair. In moments she turned to ashes in my arms, leaving only the faintest spark of fire behind. “Mom!”
I fell to my knees with a gasp, and my eyes flew open. My hands were covered with fox blood, and a smooth silver coin lay in my palm. The pattern etched upon it was gone, the magic spent at last. Water dripped from the gray sky and my wet hair, dimpling the surface of the blood in the bowl. Most of that blood was gone now; only enough remained to cover the stone. Wind blew, and I shivered, feeling the cold down to my bones.
Ari stared down at me, a knife in one hand and a blue LED flashlight in the other. “Haley?” he asked, but his voice was uncertain.
I let the coin fall to the grass, where Freki’s limp body still lay. The fox’s open eyes reminded me of Gunnar. Thinking of Thorgerd, I closed them, then looked up at Ari. “Yeah, Luke,” I said, in English so there could be no doubt. “It’s me.”
“Oh, good,” Ari said in Icelandic. He fell to his knees as well. “I wasn’t sure I could keep that up much longer. Hallgerd was distracted, I don’t know why, but I got the knife away from her, and then she didn’t like the flashlight any more than Svan did, only after that she said she was leaving, so I let her say the spell and—are you all right, Haley?”
I shook my head. “Mom.” My voice came out as a shuddering sob. “She’s gone.”
“Oh,” Ari said softly. He set down the knife and took me into his arms. I buried my head against his jacket. It smelled faintly of seawater and of bear. Cool tears flowed down my face. “Mom didn’t know. She took too much fire. I couldn’t stop her.”
Ari didn’t try to tell me everything was all right. He didn’t even ask what I was talking about. He just held me as I cried on and the rain drizzled all around us. What is the fate of the world, against this one life?
The sound of wingbeats made us both stiffen. I drew away slowly. Ari took my hand, and we got to our feet as Muninn landed in the wet grass in front of us. The little black-and-white terns landed beside him, and then came a second raven who watched us thoughtfully but said nothing. I looked down into Muninn’s small dark eyes. Did my human life mean anything more to him than to his master? Did Mom’s? “You can’t take my memories anymore.” I kept my voice steady, though I still felt tear-tracks on my cheeks. “So what do you want with me?”
Muninn’s wings beat the air. “Only to offer my thanks. You have done better than I expected, Haley, Amanda and Gabriel’s daughter, and so this land will hold a time longer. I shall return to it all its memories of you. I trust you will accept that as payment for my misjudging you?”
The salty taste of my tears reminded me of a piece of licorice,