Page 77 of Soul of Fire

I choked on the half-laugh, half-sob that escaped me, clutching her more tightly to me. The top of her head barely reached my shoulder now, and I desperately longed to be a child again, small enough to be folded into the comfort of her arms.

“I missed you.” The words were inadequate to convey how I felt, but they were all I could choke out between gasping sobs.

“Hush, child. What nonsense.” Sigrid clucked her tongue and released me, holding me away from her as if to inspect me. “Well, you look much better than when I last saw you. Come and let us sit by the fire.”

I choked out another sobbing laugh as Sigrid hobbled toward the hearth where the stern-faced woman was still stirring. The pot bubbled with something that looked to be soup, but smelled frightful, and I guessed that Sigrid had made it.

“Make tea then, Freya, that’s a dear,” Sigrid commanded, taking a seat in a rickety wooden chair by the fire as if it were a throne.

The stern-faced woman, Freya, scowled. “Amaya can stir this slop, then. Hearthmother divine, Sigrid, I don’t know how you manage to make every broth somehow both bland and utterly distasteful.”

Amaya took the wooden spoon that Freya had been using to stir while the older priestess went to a secondary, smaller fireplace inset in the wall.

“Kjære.” I jumped as Arik placed his hand on my back and propelled me toward Sigrid, guiding me into a second wooden chair. He gave my shoulder a squeeze as I sat, then took his place on a low wooden stool that would have made a lesser man look ridiculous.

“I’ll have you know that Eisa here loves my soup,” Sigrid sniffed haughtily, looking at me with hopeful blue eyes.

Lying in the house of the Goddess would almost certainly get me stuck down where I sat. “It tastes of home, Mormor,” I hedged, somewhat truthfully, “but we have many other things to discuss and not a great deal of time.”

“Ah yes, I suspect you have several questions, Eisa dear,” Sigrid said, turning her beady eyes on my mate. She frowned. “I see you have misplaced your bonded dragon somehow, boy. Mistletoe, was it?”

Arik blinked, his only sign of surprise. “How did you know, Sigrid?”

“You must call me Mormor,” she replied, waving away Arik’s question as if it were unimportant. She turned back to me. “And how do you like being his mate?”

I blushed, feeling the eyes of all three priestesses on me. “Quite well.”

“I just bet you do.” Sigrid cackled, the sound morphing into a wracking cough. She waved me away as I tried to pat her back. “I seem to be feeling my age more these days. It is a balm to see you,though, my dear. I suppose it is time, after all. I did promise her I would tell you once you were mated.”

“I…” It was my turn to blink in confusion. “What?”

I glanced at Arik, who was frowning at Sigrid. “Promised who, Mormor?”

I didn’t have time to melt at hearing Arik use my endearment for Sigrid as she dissolved into another flurry of coughing. Freya pressed a teacup into her hands, the smell of peppermint wafting gently from it. “Here, you old bat. Can’t have you dying before you tell her everything.”

“Dying?” I looked up at Freya in horror as I helped steady the teacup at Sigrid’s lips. “She’s not dying.”

“Everyone is dying, Eisa dear,” Sigrid choked out between sips. “I seem to be dying faster than others these days. Oh fret not, child,” she added, clasping my hand in hers as she saw my stricken face. “It’s far past time. I’m over eight centuries old, after all.”

“Eight…what?” I sat back in my chair and felt Arik’s hand slide to my thigh, a comforting weight. “How?”

“She’s Völva,” Arik replied, accepting his own cup of tea from Freya with a nod and sniffing it suspiciously.

“There’s no mistletoe in it,” Freya snapped irritably. “Though perhaps there should be, with manners like yours. No wonder your poor dragon hasn’t seen fit to return yet.”

“Kindness, Freya,” Amaya chastised, still stirring the soup, which smelled mysteriously more flavorful under Amaya’s watch. “We’ve spoken of this.”

“You can both be quiet so I can get on with my story before I expire,” Sigrid intoned, giving me a placid smile. “Now dear, where were we?”

This whole exchange had left me in such a state of confusion and bewilderment that I wasn’t even sure where to begin. But my mind was stuck on the question of Sigrid’s age. “Eight centuries?”

Sigrid waved an impatient hand. “Yes, yes. The völva live quite a long time, especially with one of Elysia’s tears. You still have it, I presume?”

“Have what?” I asked, feeling more ungrounded with each moment of this conversation. I had expected to feel reassured and steady in Sigrid’s presence. Instead, I felt like I’d been caught in a storm and turned in every direction before being set right again and told to walk in a straight line.

“Elysia’s tear,” Sigrid repeated irritably as she sipped her tea. She pointed at my heart—at the scar I knew sat beneath my tunic. “The necklace, child! Where is the necklace?”

Chapter twenty-five