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A tremor went through Cathy, both relief and desperation. If she had no way of going back home, she’d stay with Andor. She wouldn’t need to make the choice to leave him. The thought filled every cell of her being with bubbles, and energy coiled upwards around her spine.
She looked at him, and if her eyes didn’t betray her, she saw the same reaction in him—relief and, well, fear.
He was probably still afraid of the internal ghosts that had been haunting him this whole time.
She could relate. Brad’s ghost was haunting her, too. Through Brad’s familiar face, Andor’s sad eyes looked at her.
“But I have a thought,” Ljota said.
Cathy’s stomach sank. “A thought?”
“Yes. A possible solution. I have heard stories—seen visions—of this happening already. There were others before you who traveled in time. If we had a sacred grove here, with a rune stone, that would work. But we do not, not yet. So you need to find a place where the stones are saturated with the ancient magic of life and death, as they are in a sacred grove. You could write runes on them and perhaps travel in time.”
Cathy swallowed. “Really?”
Ljota shrugged. “This is just a thought. You could try. If you truly want to go back, that is.”
Andor’s gaze fell heavily on her. “Do you truly want to go back?” he asked.
Cathy’s throat clenched till it ached. “I must, Andor. I cannot leave him to die.”
“But you can leave me? Even almost dead, he is still more important to you than me, is he not?”
Cathy’s stomach dropped, but before she could answer, Ljota intervened.
“No, no, no. There will be none of this talk in my house in front of my children. Here.” She took a thin wooden plank and a piece of coal and wrote something on it. “These are the runes you must write on the rock. Any ancient rock on a burial mound should do. There is one near Jorvik, so that is your best chance. Good luck.”
She was practically shooing them out of her house. When they were outside, Cathy stared at the plank with the runes, which sent tingles through her fingers. She looked at Andor, whose expression was as dark as the clouds above them.
“Will you help me find that mound?” she asked.
He held her gaze, his eyes so heavy Cathy felt pinned in place.
“Please, Andor.”
“No.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“You’re refusing to help me?” Cathy said, her eyes big.
Andor ground his teeth. Watching her in pain because of him was like stabbing himself in the heart, but he would rather be eaten alive by a forest troll than hand her, like a danegeld, to another man. “I am not going to help you go back to your betrothed,” he grated out and walked away from her.
She followed him. “You helped me get all the way here. You brought me to Ljota. How is this different?”
He walked fast through the narrow streets, evading traders, villagers, animals, and carts. Cathy hurried after him.
“It is different,” he threw back.
“How?”
He breathed fast, even though he was trying to calm down. He should not think about it. He should not explain to her. He could not even say it out loud, not with Svana’s memory banging against the door.
The door that was getting thinner and thinner.
“You know how,” he said.
She caught him by the arm and whirled him around to face her. “I don’t! Tell me.”
