AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Eirik roared. "Alfdis!"
The girl twisted and her boot skid, sending down a shower of small pebbles. She gasped and, finding purchase with a grasping hand, regained her balance. "Go back," she cried.
Eirik ignored that, leaping up to confront her. She scrambled back out of his reach, hissing.
"Are you mad?" he exclaimed. Did the mad ever know their own madness? Alfdis looked wildly fey, holding on to the mountainside with one hand, the other tangled in her muddy skirts, and one golden plait escaping its weave. Her slender face was set, her blue gaze sharp.
/>
Sharp, but sane.
Eirik growled. It didn't matter if the girl thought she knew herself. She was fifteen and only half huldu, and her sense of the hidden paths was stunted. He reined in his temper with some effort. Directing battle crazed warriors could not be easier than handling his little sister.
"Alfdis," he repeated firmly, but without accusation. "You have to calm yourself. You'll get where you're going no faster if you slip on the ice and fall to your death." He kept his words measured and his tone reassuring. "I want to help. Please, tell me where you are headed, what you must do."
Pale brows quirked. "You would help me, priest's son?" The mockery was fond and bitter at once.
Eirik captured her gaze with his own. He stared hard at her for a long moment, then spoke without relinquishing her eyes. "I would, little sister." He kept his words level and calm. "If you let me help, I promise not to stop you." That was right; make it a deal. Children and huldufolk loved bargains, and Alfdis was half of both. Eirik bit his tongue to keep it from telling her he feared for her safety. Alfdis's pride was a giant shield of thorns.
Still, she hesitated. "It's more dangerous for you than me," she began, but the words trailed off as Eirik slowly pulled himself up towards her, and when he extended a strong hand, she took it.
Eirik gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "Where are we going?" It started to rain, water and ice.
Alfdis shot him a guilty frown. "I'm not sure."
Eirik knew better than to erupt at that. He swallowed his anger at her recklessness and waited her out.
"I am... called," she murmured finally. "To the paths. I can sense the need, and something in me wants to help. A birth, maybe. Or a death. I... I think if I'd been taught, I could feel it clearer." Frustration burned in her soft words, but it was not aimed at Eirik. It was not aimed at their mother, nor at her vanished father and his clandestine huldufolk brethren, who would in theory have done the teaching. No, all blame went to the priest, as Alfdis had referred to him since she had started talking in full sentences at eleven months old.
Eirik winced as a sudden blast of wind blew ice flakes into his face. Unwilling to give up his grip on Alfdis, he rubbed his eyes clear with the hand that should be securing him to the frozen rock face. He cut straight to the heart of the matter. "And you feel that the way lies at the top of the falls?"
Alfdis nodded with certainty. "I thought I was headed to the waterfall, at first," she said. "But then the pull brought me behind it, and up this way."
Without warning, she bent over sharply, gasping and tightening her grip on Eirik into a painful vise.
"Alfdis?" Eirik asked in alarm, but the spasm was over as quickly as it started. His sister straightened, her face pale.
"The call," she breathed.
"I felt nothing," Eirik ventured, but fell silent under the weight of his younger sister's scornful gaze. The beginnings of fury with the huldufolk who had spawned and then abandoned a beautiful child, only to subject her to unquenchable thirsts, stirred deep in his gut. "How," he tried again, "can they give you a summons, but no directions?"
Alfdis shrugged angrily. "It's not their fault I'm too stupid to understand."
"You are not stupid," Eirik shot back automatically.
"Not as stupid as he is," said a voice from above them.
Eirik surged forward to place himself between Alfdis and the unseen source of the voice. Bodiless laughter filled the night.
"Ugly," Alfdis exclaimed in relief. Eirik spared her a puzzled frown, but stayed at full alert, one ax falling from his belt into his hand as he scanned the rocks above them.
"Oh yes, you're much smarter than he is," the voice gloated. It sounded more solid, suddenly, deeper and with a hint of gravel. Eirik squinted into the darkness, expecting a figure to coalesce directly before them.
"Eirik," Alfdis said in a strange voice. "Can't you see it?"
"It?" the voice echoed in outrage.
"Obviously not," Eirik grated back the clipped words. "Where is it?"
