“Your father brought you?”
He shook his head. “My father had his work at the king’s side in the south, demanding work that left few opportunities for family trips. But my mother loved the Mystic life. She would come often to the Vildelund for lengthy visits. Much of the time I would come with her.”
She thought of her brother and wondered. Sif had said he used to come here. “And Valbrand? Did he come, too?” He sent her a look. She bristled. “What? Now I can’t even ask you about him? We talked about him the other night.”
He considered for a moment, then granted, “That we did.”
She set down her half-eaten grain bar. “I just want to… know about him. Please. It means a lot—to hear how he felt about things, about how he was.” She used the past tense without the slightest hesitation, though she didn’t for a minute believe her brother was really dead. It only seemed to her the best way to show Eric that, right now at least, she wasn’t leading him anywhere, wasn’t trying to trip him up. She was only a sister longing to learn about the brother she had never had the opportunity to know. She asked again, “Did Valbrand used to come to the Vildelund with you?”
And he answered. “Yes. Many times.”
“Did he like it here?”
“He did.”
“Why?”
“He liked the wildness of the land, I think, the peace that can be found in living simply.”
“The same things you like.”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t think much of the life at court, then?”
A ghost of a smile haunted Eric’s fine mouth. “Ah, but he did. He loved the life at court.”
She made a small sound in her throat. “Well. Easy to please, wasn’t he?”
“You could say that, I suppose. Valbrand had a talent for living within each moment. Wherever he was, he never wished himself elsewhere. He always seemed to enjoy himself at functions of state. No matter how long or tedious the event, he would be alert and smiling, thoroughly engrossed.” Eric stared into the fire as though looking into a kinder past. “That was your brother. Always interested. And seeing the good first, in every man.”
Though it was off the all-important subject of her brother, she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “And what about you? Do you enjoy the life at Isenhalla?”
“Not as much as Valbrand did.” They shared a glance. He added, “But I do find it stimulating. After all, His Majesty and my father are responsible, to some extent, for the well-being of every Gullandrian. It’s important work that they do. I grew to manhood knowing that the time would come when I would step forward to assume the sacred duty of helping my king—your brother—to rule this land. I was content in that knowledge. I was committed to preparing myself fully for the future I knew awaited me.”
“And now?”
His mouth had a rueful curl to it. “Now I would say that I no longer see my future as a clear, straight road before me. There are twists and turns, corners I cannot see around.”
“You mean, since my brother was lost at sea?”
He studied her face for a moment, his eyes narrowed. And then he stuck out his right arm, wrist up. She saw the white ridge of scar tissue. He said, “Valbrand had a scar to match this one.”
“From when you were bloodbound to each other?”
He nodded. “In the bloodbinding ceremony, each of us was bled—a copious bleeding, believe me—into the same deep bowl. Then, our wounds still open, we took turns, the blood running free down our arms, passing the bowl back and forth, drinking our mingled blood until every drop was gone.” He let his arm fall to his side. “So I have drunk your brother’s blood—as he drank mine. When he was lost, I lost not only my dearest friend and bloodbound brother, but also my future partner in the work of ruling this land. It was a terrible blow, a cleaving at the center of who I am. As if half of my true self was slashed away.”
She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing, only reached out and brushed her fingers down the side of his arm in a wordless acknowledgment of his loss. Though she remained certain Valbrand had returned, she had no doubt Eric had once believed him dead—and that that belief had changed him in a deep, irrevocable way.
Eric caught her hand, clasped it briefly, then let it go.
She felt a warmth all through her. A closeness to him that had nothing to do with desire. This was something else. It was what she’d sensed between them two nights ago, in Rinda’s tent in the camp of the kvina soldars.
The closeness of comrades…
There was wood—maybe half a cord—stacked near the supplies against the cave wall. And a much smaller pile of logs nearer the fire. He rose with surprising grace, given the way the blanket was wrapped so close around his legs, and got a fresh log from the smaller pile. He crouched to add it to the flames.
She let herself admire the fine, strong shape of his back, the play of light and shadow on the bumps of his spine, the healthy bloom on his smooth skin as he positioned the log in the fire. A few winking sparks shot up, weaving toward the darkness above for a brave, soaring moment, then surrendering to gravity and gently showering back down.
He returned to the blanket and got comfortable against his saddle. “And what of you, oh fearless one? To whom are you bound?”
She rolled her eyes. “Fearless. Right.” She met his eyes. “No, really. I’m far from fearless.”
“Yet you never let your fear rule you.”
“That’s right. Hey. Talk to my mother. She claims I actually seek out the things that scare me.”
“And you would do this because…?”
“Well, my mother would say, for the dangerous thrill of confronting my own fear.”
“And does your mother have it right?”
She sighed. “Maybe. Sometimes. I’ve always felt… out of place, I guess. As if I’m looking for something and it’s never there.” She swallowed, though her mouth was empty.
He asked, his voice gentle, “What things truly frighten you?”
She thought for a moment. “Oh, dying. Original, huh? I guess I’m like most people—not up for that yet.”
“Yet you could face it. You have faced it. Recently.”
Her hand went automatically to her shoulder. He nodded and she found herself nodding in response.
He said, “You will face death again, there is no escaping that.”
“Yeah. But I’d seriously prefer if I didn’t have to do it anytime soon.”
“Your mother might say otherwise.”
“She would definitely say otherwise.”
“Mothers can be so irritating—they are too often right.”
She made a humphing sound. “Unfortunately.”
He shrugged. “The time will come, for all of us, when death will win the day. Our forefathers understood this. They asked only for the chance to die fighting.”
Our forefathers. If she closed her eyes, she could almost see them. The bold Norsemen of old in their serpent-thin ships, brutal men bound only by their warrior code, eyes on the far horizon, rowing hard and steady toward the next settled, prosperous, ripe-forthe-picking coastal town.
Eric said, “Death is the one constant, the thing to which we all ultimately surrender, even as we spend our lives denying that death will have us in the end.”
What