Thief Eyes

Chapter 9

I dreamed I held a bow made of fire. I dreamed I drew back the bowstring and released an arrow.

Flames leaped from the string, catching my skin, my hair. Fire roared through me. I knew then that I was the bow, the string, the arrow. Fire consumed me as I flew through the air. So much fire—but I also knew better than to scream—

I woke with a gasp, drenched in sweat. The air was calm, the storm gone. I heard water lapping at sand and saw the overhang above me.

I didn’t remember falling asleep. Ari’s leather jacket was draped over me; he lay curled by my side, shivering in his Star Wars T-shirt. In the thin light, his hair and face both seemed very pale. Svan was nowhere in sight.

Ari muttered something about ravens and dawn’s light in his sleep. It sort of rhymed and sort of didn’t. I sat up and moved to drape the jacket over him. I still couldn’t feel the cold.

Ari jerked awake, looked up at me, and frowned. “Don’t do this,” he said.

I didn’t have to ask what he meant. “Hallgerd killed her. I can’t just let her get away with that.”

“Hallgerd’s been dead a thousand years. For all that time, everyone’s remembered how horrible she was. Isn’t that punishment enough?”

“No.” Nowhere near enough. And she wasn’t dead for me, not when I’d only just spoken with her.

Svan’s fire had died to embers. The sky beyond the overhang was gray with patches of blue shining through. A few yards away, across the road, I saw black sand and a gray bay. A bit of sun reflected off Ari’s pale hair. I wanted to draw him close, to warm his bare arms.

But I had my memories now. I knew who the dark-haired boy in the photo was. Jared and I had only started dating in the middle of the past year, but even before then, he was my best friend. He went to every one of my track meets. I went to all of his soccer games. He’d been there for me when I got the phone call about Mom. He’d always been there, whenever I’d needed him.

Until I decided to go to Iceland to find my mother, instead of following him to study wildlife biology in San Diego. Jared and San Diego both seemed very far away now.

Even so, I wasn’t Dad. I wasn’t about to let Jared find out I’d gone away and forgotten him. I handed Ari his jacket. “Here. It’s cold.” Hadn’t he almost frozen to death once already?

“I live here. I’m used to the cold.” Ari drew the jacket on and looked at me. The red welts on his palms had mostly faded.

“Where’s Svan?” I asked.

“He went to gather some things. For the spell, he said. We could leave now. If we get a head start, maybe he won’t catch up—”

“No.”

“Haley—”

I left the overhang and walked across the road. Ari followed me. The puddles were beginning to ice over, and their thin crusts crunched beneath my feet. That made no sense—it’d been summer when we left Thingvellir. Not that I could even feel the cold. I unzipped my jacket; the wind brushed my ears and bare neck. “Ari, where are we?”

Ari shrugged uneasily. “I’m not sure. Somewhere in Iceland, I think.”

I glanced at the hills with their red and orange mosses. Autumn colors, though we didn’t get them in Tucson. “How long have we been gone?”

“I don’t know.” Wind tugged at Ari’s hair. “If we’re lucky three, maybe four months?”

From above the hills the sun cast long shadows toward the bay. In Iceland the sun didn’t set in summer, either, not for long. “And if we’re not lucky?”

Ari jammed his hands into his pockets. “I’ve been trying not to think about that.”

Thorvald has been dead many years. Warm as I was, I shivered. Muninn said time was fluid in his cave. What did that mean? How long had Dad been waiting for me? I scowled and dug my sneaker into the sand. Dad could wait forever, for all that I cared.

A gull flew low over the water. Behind it I saw two smaller birds, white-and-black arctic terns. If it wasn’t summer, shouldn’t they have migrated south? All three birds quickly flew on. “Do you know that ever since I met Hallgerd, all I dream about is fire?” I looked at the water, not Ari, as I spoke. “And about going up in flames?”

“So you want to cast a spell that could speed things along? No offense, Haley, but that doesn’t seem very smart.”

The worst part of the dream hadn’t been the burning, though. It had been knowing that when I fell to earth, the world would burn with me. Svan’s spell might take care of Hallgerd’s fire, but what about mine?

Ari shook his hair out of his eyes. “We could bring the coin to Hlidarendi with my mom, like she wanted. We don’t have to destroy it.”

“No!” My voice came out too loud. I didn’t want to even look at Katrin again.

“Haley. I’m angry with them, too, and believe me, I know all about doing stupid things because you’re angry. But this—”

“You were right to tell me about my dad and your mom. That wasn’t stupid.”

“Oh yeah, because if I hadn’t told you, you might never have run and climbed the rocks and fallen. I was so right to make that happen. To get us into this mess.”

“You didn’t make this mess. She did.” Not Katrin. Hallgerd. Ari’s mom and my dad had made it worse, though.

Ari kicked the damp sand. “I’d just like to see us both get out of it alive. Call me selfish, but I’d rather not have to explain to your father that Hallgerd’s spell consumed you, too.”

“About time this spell hurt someone besides me.”

“Haley!” Ari’s jaw fell open. It was several heartbeats before he spoke. “You don’t mean that.”

My stomach clenched. Why did I still care how Dad felt?

“Your dad was a wreck when your mom disappeared. You know that, don’t you?”

The awful thing was, I did know. I’d seen how lost Dad looked when he came off that plane last summer—how lost he’d looked all this past year. “Why’d he mess around, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why the hell did he talk about getting a divorce?”

“I don’t know. Maybe your dad and my mom both just screwed up. Maybe that’s how people are.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“I know.” Ari reached for my hand. I drew mine away. He muttered something that might have been “sorry”—about Dad or about holding my hand, I couldn’t tell. “Svan’s part of the same saga as Hallgerd, you know. We study Njal’s Saga next year in school, but of course Mom made me read it early. The sorcerer caused all sorts of trouble. It’s not like he can be trusted.”

As if I didn’t know that. Ari wasn’t the one Svan had tried to claim as a gift. The sun touched the hills behind us, turning the mosses to gold. Ari drew his arms around himself—was the air getting colder? In the distance, I saw Svan heading toward us along the beach, his staff in one hand, a second, smaller leather bag slung over his shoulder atop the first one. He whistled as he walked.

“Well. You two took your time waking up,” the sorcerer said as he drew near. The smaller sack was wriggling. What on earth?

“For the spell,” Svan said at my puzzled look.

“What do you mean, for the spell?” From inside the bag I heard a squeal.

Svan stared at me like I was a puzzle he was trying to figure out. “Does my kinswoman truly know so little of sorcery? We must go through all the steps of Hallgerd’s spell if we wish to break it, only differently. And if Hallgerd used the spell that I believe she did, it required the blood of a white fox.”

“You have a fox in there?” I felt sick and angry at once. Freki, I thought, but of course it wouldn’t be him. We’d left Freki back in the mountain. Some other fox, then. That wasn’t any better.

Nothing’s as important as hurting Hallgerd, I thought. “How much blood?” I asked.

Svan seemed startled by the question. “All of it.”

“Wait—you’re going to kill it?”

“Of course not,” Svan said. “You are.”

“No,” I said. Ari moved closer to my side, nodding his agreement.

“I don’t think you understand,” Svan said. “This is no small spell Hallgerd cast. If I’m reading the runes on that coin right, my niece intended to send her spirit—and yours—through time. She offered gifts to the fire realm to do so. So great a spell cannot be broken by a few drops of blood or a handful of pretty words. The breaking requires as much power as the casting. That power will be strongest if the spell is cast by Hallgerd’s target. By you.”

I shook my head. “There has to be another way.”

“Of course. Human blood works as well. Would you prefer that?” Svan’s face turned unreadable. I couldn’t tell whether he meant it or not. A nose tried to push through the bag.

My stomach churned. I wanted to work with animals one day. How could I kill one?

“Mom,” I whispered. Hallgerd killed her. Hallgerd has to pay.

The fox squealed once more. “You’re hurting it,” I said.

“Indeed. It is time to end the creature’s suffering.” Svan set his staff aside and handed the larger bag to me. “There’s a knife inside, and a driftwood bowl to hold the blood. Take them. I will teach you all you need to do.”

Svan reached into the smaller bag and pulled the fox out by its legs, which were bound together with a length of rough rope. The fox was smaller than Freki, little more than a pup, more gray than white. She writhed in Svan’s hold, then looked at me, just for a moment. Her eyes rolled back in her head, but she kept struggling.

I wanted to throw up. I thought of Freki, lapping at the mead I’d offered him, following me through the tunnels, digging his claws into my shoulders to give warnings even though he wasn’t supposed to interfere. Offering his companionship when I was completely alone, without even my own memories for company.

I thought of Mom in her vet clinic, patiently setting an injured dog’s leg, giving a trembling cat its shots. The clinic was the one place where Mom never yelled.

I’d watched Mom put pets to sleep, too. I wasn’t stupid. I knew not every animal could be saved. Sometimes there was no choice.

“Haley,” Svan said, “it is only a fox.” He glanced at Ari. “Surely even you know that, Ari, Katrin’s son. Tell her. Only a woman—a girl—would be so sentimental.”

“Actually, I’m rather fond of foxes,” Ari said, his voice flat.

“What is this small life against the fate of the world?” Svan asked.

I reached out to stroke the fox. Her teeth snapped at my fingers. She wasn’t wholly helpless, even now.

The sun was very low, its orange glow casting just a few rays of light on the water. The hills were turning to shadow. Soon it would be too dark to see.

Mom. I reached into the bag, knowing what I had to do. My hands shook as I drew out a wooden bowl the size of a cereal bowl. I set it down, then drew out a knife with a smooth bone handle, its blade encased in a leather sheath.

“No,” Ari said.

I unsheathed the knife. Svan looked at Ari. “Hold the bowl,” the sorcerer said.

Ari shook his head. He looked as angry as he had back at Thingvellir. “I’ll have no part of this. Haley—”

Svan laughed derisively. “Haley, at least, does not lack courage.” Svan knelt in front of the bowl. He took the fox’s head in his hands, bracing the body between his arms. The fox went limp. Svan pulled back her head, exposing her neck.

“Be quick,” Svan said. “If you’re quick, there will be less pain.”

Ari scowled. I knelt in front of Svan, knife clutched tightly, and leaned forward.

I sliced through the fox’s bonds so fast that, for a moment, Svan didn’t notice. In that instant I dropped the knife and threw myself at the sorcerer, knocking him off balance. We tumbled to the sand. The fox slashed at my sleeve, then leaped away and bounded across the beach. Ari let out a breath.

I thought of Mom bringing home one stray cat after another. My eyes stung. Mom would never have wanted me to kill an animal. Not to avenge her, not even to save her life. I’d wanted to, though. Some part of me had wanted to.

“You stupid girl!” Svan grabbed my arms and hauled me to my feet. “You’re more of a fool than she was. This is no mere game—the very land beneath our feet is at stake!”

I fought, but the sorcerer was too strong. His fingers pressed into my shoulders, bruising me, hurting me. Ari ran at him. Svan shoved him away with one hand, then grabbed me more firmly. Ari fell dazed to the ground as Svan began shaking me, dragging me down the beach. I fought harder. Anger and fear rose in me, and the fire in me rose with it, coals bursting into flame. A wind blew, carrying the scent of hot ash. Svan howled, and I knew my fire was burning him, but he didn’t let go. I tried to kick him instead. The ground gave a sharp lurch, knocking us both off our feet. I wriggled out from under the sorcerer. The ground shook harder, and I heard tumbling rock.

I thought of water thrown over a campfire, of red embers sizzling to gray. The fire in me flickered down to a few sparks. The ground’s shaking slowed, then stopped. Svan stumbled to his feet. I stepped back from him, gauging whether I could run before he grabbed me again. In the distance Ari stood, too, and ran toward us. The last rays of sun disappeared behind the hills.

Ari’s jacket turned to liquid and began to flow. My breath caught. The change was much faster than before—Ari didn’t stop, didn’t fall to his knees. In moments he turned into a huge white bear, loping on all fours.

A bear that roared and kept running, right at Svan.