Beautiful Wreck (41 page)

It was a shape in the stars, and an arc came to mind, about a hunter drawn with imaginary lines. It was barely perceptible to me, among the crush of fainter stars within and around it. If I hadn’t already known it was there, I would have struggled to find it in the sprinkling of that god’s sparks and flying embers.

“Frigg’s distaff,” he told me. “Beside it, her spindle.”

I liked the hunter with his bow drawn tight, but a woman spinning
was
potent and lovely. I watched through Heirik’s eyes, imagining the great goddess generating the clouds that sometimes floated on the breeze or chased each other through nasty storms. Not always, though. Did she rest her spindle on clear nights like tonight?

We watched the slow changes of the sky. Each star turned watery if I stared at it for long. After the initial bite of cold had passed, I’d begun to feel the warmth Heirik had talked about—our snow bank gathering and giving back our body heat. The warmth of sheep at our feet. Use every part of the animal, I thought, even its breath.

In the long quiet, Heirik shifted and turned toward me, resting his calf against mine. It was a gentle turning, a tentative suggestion through layers of leather, but it burned through me so thoroughly, it might as well have been a fiery tumble, the crush of hips and tongue. I shifted my own calves ever so slightly in response. The whole vastness of the sky gave way, and I could think of nothing else but the small point where we touched.

I tried to drift into the world of clouds and giant distaffs, but I felt his eyes acutely, watching me watch the sky. I glanced down at our bodies, side by side, such hunger between us. When would he kiss me?

I rubbed my leg along his, gradually increasing pressure, contact. I reached under his furs and found his hip, followed the slope to his waist, so warm and hidden. Spoke a breathless word, against his chest. “More.” Knives and belt were in my way, and I slipped my fingers under.

Heirik made a sound of longing under his breath. He murmured something I couldn’t understand, spoke a choked word into my hair. He was touching my shoulder. But he wasn’t embracing me. He wasn’t pressing his mouth to mine like he had at the coast and in the pantry. I wanted to get my hand around enough of his waist to really hold him, to bind him, but I was too small. He went rigid with restraint.

“Ginn.” It was apologetic.

The cold rushed in. Something was wrong. Miserable snow was inside everywhere, between us, in our clothes.

I felt the pressure of his chin through the fur on my forehead. My hand still rested on his waist, fingers trapped under his belt, frozen. In the brittle silence, I extracted them, and curled my hand up inside my coat instead. I pulled away to see his face, and his dark lashes swept the soft skin under his eyes.

He gripped the snow between us, crunched it in his fist. “I want to take you, crush you.” His words started a brush fire, his voice as violent as his hands had been the first time we touched. I held my breath and waited for the rest. The wrong part. There was something wrong. “I can’t.”

When he opened his eyes again, they were piercing like ice. I could hardly make out their color in the night.

“I’m marked by the gods. This blood—”

He was worried about his mark? But it was meaningless to me. He must see that.

“Heirik—“ I tried to stop him, to tell him. Better than meaningless, it was part of him and his beauty.

“—Nei.” With a word, he commanded me to listen. “Many close to me have died. My parents, my brother’s wife. His son.”

I opened my mouth, but he cut me off again.

“The day we rode to the sea, I watched you on your horse, thought I could someday hold you. You kissed me.” His words were choked with disbelief. “Minutes later, you were at life’s end. In Ageirr’s grip.” His words dripped pain and rage.

“What Ageirr does is his own fault, Heirik, not yours.”

He wasn’t listening. “—After … I came to you. I brushed your face.” His fist loosened, eyes misted, his mind gone back to that moment, with me in the sleeping alcove. “Your lips opened and searched for my hand like a small bird.” Whole parts of his speech went missing. “Desire for your mouth, any way you would give it.” I pressed my forehead to his chin, and he pressed a kiss there, despite himself.

Composed again, he pulled away. “Ginn,” he said with an air of formality. “I promise you.” Though we were lying in the snow, he looked at me with such intent, such submission and resolution, it was as if he knelt before me with
Slitasongr
to swear on. “I will not invite danger again.”

What did he mean, that he wouldn’t invite it? I saw it in my mind, danger like a mist coming in under the mudroom door, or a giant black bird crashing into the house, fanning the hearth-flame with its wings. How did you ask danger to come to your home, to the woman in your arms?

Oh.

Salty, freezing sea water seemed to trickle into my gut. Oh, nei. He wasn’t holding me, because he thought he was dangerous. We were dangerous.

I was alive, though. Here I was. “Look,” I whispered, “I am fine.” I exhaled gently on the back of his hand where it rested between us. He groaned and turned away, lay his head back, and his throat was exposed to me. The thrust of his chin, his parted lips, tortured me.

“Heirik, I am not afraid.”

He shook his head. He watched the stars, but was seeing something beyond them, or deep inside.

“I am,” he finally said. “I will not.”

The force of his curse was powerful. Powerful enough by far to overwhelm the fragile thing growing between us.

I struggled with tears, trying not to make a sound, but he must have felt me shaking, where we still touched, his leg resting against mine, his hand on my hip despite his vow. I didn’t dare move.

Moments later, he spoke again. “You have a family somewhere.”

Another cold stone dropped into my gut.

“A husband,” he told me with dead determination. “You are so beautiful. Someone is searching for you.”

“Nei.” I wanted to tell him, I have you. Always you. “Nei.”

“I will help you find him.”

Terror was quick in my throat and gut. I grasped onto him without thinking. And I begged.

I begged Heirik not to look for anyone. Not to make me look. If he made me go, if I had to leave Hvítmörk, oh gods, I couldn’t wrap myself around him enough, make him know that he had to keep me. He was huge with furs and cloaks. My arms were insufficient. His hand came up behind me and pulled me close and shushed me. He opened up the fur around him to take me inside, and he rocked me like a child, as much as he could in the snow. He held me, and even as I struggled with hitching breath and terrible fear, I sank gratefully into his arms. I belonged right here. Couldn’t he see that?

He deliberately pulled us apart. “It is hard, Litla.” He disentangled our arms. “The hardest thing I will ever do. To be so close, and stay away from you.”

I knew it in my bones and skin. Já, I knew exactly what that was like. One hand clutched at him, wishing him back.

“Would it be okay?” My voice was wobbly in the endlessness of snow and stars, my fingers like talons in his clothes. “If I wanted to stay?”

He looked right into my eyes. “I want you to.” His voice sounded thick. And he seemed surprised at what he’d revealed, as if the truth had snuck out into the air between us.

Nothing made sense. He wouldn’t touch me, but he couldn’t let me go. Even as he admitted his desire, he took it away. His body against mine would bring violence into my life, disfigurement, loss and death. Blood would spill on our union, and a murder of crows would follow us when we rose from our bed. He wanted me, and would never do this to me.

As long as we wanted one another, I would stay. Though the gods themselves tried to keep us apart, I would not leave his side. I unclenched my hand and let his clothes go.

“I will not leave here.”

He rested his head in the snow and stretched out, his gaze once more on the sky.

“Já,” he said in the faintest voice. He looked at the stars, not at me. “Good.”

I wanted to nestle into his chest and press my body against the length of his. I could lay my head near Thor’s hammer and feel his pulse.

That moment wouldn’t happen, though. I felt him shifting, as if we’d get up and go back soon. And all the polar air and snow I’d been denying came rushing in and my teeth started to chatter. I trembled and then began to shiver more forcefully. So cold without him, though he was inches away.

“Inside.” He said it like a command, but softly, with a lover’s voice. It broke my heart.

Another man would have given me his hand and helped me to stand. Heirik turned away and surveyed the grayish valley, taking in the snow-bright farm. When I stood, my limbs were heavy and stiff.

He turned to retrace his deep footsteps, and I lifted my skirts high to follow.

He’d just made a vow to protect me. And I made a vow of my own, right then, to the gods and the night and his big form ahead of me. As long as I could be near him every day, I would slowly soften his heart and ease his mind. I would coax him like a wary animal. And one day he would have me. I would be his.

The little gable over the back door shone with starlight, its dragon heads crossing forever at its peak. Heirik smacked the wood with his palm in satisfaction, and hunks of snow fell and broke up on the stones. “The house is good.”

Já, it was, I thought.

We entered, and a blast of heat and steam moistened my face. I let my hood down, and I watched him let his hair free from his hat. He was beautifully flushed.

“It is good, Heirik,” I told him in that same soft lover’s voice, meaning everything—the house, his family, his soul, heart, blood-stained body.

Then I noticed Svana was there, in the mudroom.

An unbearable sensual tension remained between me and Heirik, despite his promise that he would never act on it. I was sure we looked sex-tumbled with our damp hair hanging down, and the intimacy of our touching lingered on us like a scent. We stood still for a second, like two foxes disturbed in the wood.

He nodded to Svana, stamped his boots and sat to take them off. I did the same. And looking up from under my lashes, I tried to send her a silent message with my eyes. I pleaded with her to get out and not say a word. She raised an adorable eyebrow and ducked back into the house.

The days and weeks were long, sometimes spent in close quarters with each other for endless hours. Sometimes Heirik would leave the house for a day or more, heading off alone on snowshoes or skið, to places no one wanted to guess, or could imagine. I missed him, then, so much. Even though being close to each other was harder, I wanted him near.

Then he would come home and things felt worse. A terrible gloom settled over the house, or maybe only I felt it. It weighed on me, like something massive pressing down on the roof, pressing in on the walls. One morning, I drew out the ice blue dress from under the sheepskins. I smoothed it over and over until it was a perfect, lovely square, then wrapped it in a soft skin and tied it. Sealed it with my tears. It wasn’t mine to keep, and so I gave it to Hár, to make sure it went to its rightful place.

Then after some time, no matter how enduring our desire was, the desperate pitch of emotions just couldn’t last. My wishes came and went, sometimes flaring up at the sight of him tucking hair behind his ear or tossing away a piece of wood, dissatisfied with carving. But sometimes the yearning left off for a while, leaving behind a tranquil tenderness.

He stopped leaving so much. He broke into smiles for me all the time now, brilliant and touching. He stayed in the main room of the house more than anyone could remember, and even if we didn’t speak much, I knew he was here just to be with me, and I would smile to myself.

We played tafl together, until it became an every-night ritual, struggling our way into friendship. And instead of suffering because of his vow, Heirik seemed to be freed by it. He settled into wanting me with a loving and patient grace. I would be patient, too.

When Heirik and I played, every eye watched us, with the cool composure of hawks.

No one, not even Hár, was bold enough to openly stare, but the sidelong attention was palpable. The chief was different because of me, and even if we remained only friends, that alone was dangerous enough to cause bony fingers to clutch charms in the dark. Many times, I wished that we were doing something illicit and delicious enough to deserve it. I wanted forbidden things, thoughts with dark wings, bodies slick with sweat.