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Skarde grimaced. I could have sworn he looked… embarrassed.
“I’m not certain… I can walk.”
Of course, he couldn’t. Things could never be simple. I gestured broadly at the vines slithering across the ground. At a muttered word, they shot upward, braiding themselves into a canopy above us. It wasn’t foolproof, but it would keep the wind off us and give us advance warning if something approached. With some rest, I might have enough energy to take us directly to Marshall Heights instead of indulging the berserker’s obsession with the outdoors.
“What do you expect in return for saving me?” he asked, attempting to sit up.
It put his back to my front, and I was acutely aware of the way his muscles bunched against me. He was strong. Strong enough to keep the others off me until I could act.
“Nothing,” I said wearily. “You saved my life, and I saved yours. We’re even.”
He shot me a skeptical look over one shoulder. “I am grateful you saved my life, but I do not believe you.”
“And why is that?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Since when do you have a code of honor?”
“Since Jovi. Death magic changes you,” I said with a shrug. “I hear the voices of the dead louder than I ever heard the living. They cloud my mind and often lead me astray, but… lately, they ask that I help Jovi. It seems the spirits of Midgard have put their faith in the half-breed.”
At the less-than-friendly term, there was a shudder that rippled through the forest. I didn’t want to help the half-breed. She was ridiculously naïve, willing to fling herself into Muspelheim after a man who should have known better, ignoring the one who was truly loyal to her. If she had any sense of her own magic, she’d see exactly who he was to her. But I owed it to my goddess to try, even if I found her newest favorite unworthy.
Skarde’s eyes softened as he stared at me. “You speak with the dead?”
“Yes.” A question trembled in the air between us, but his lips didn’t move. I breathed sharply through my nose and snapped, “Just ask, fool.”
“What of Eir?” he whispered. “Has she truly passed into Niflheim?”
I could lie. It would be easy, and it could very well deliver him into my hands. Grieving men were easily manipulated men. But… he’d saved me without a thought and now that I’d saved him, I felt as if we were bonded in some small way. There was a compassionate man in there somewhere. I couldn’t look Skarde in the eyes when the answer finally came.
“I do not sense Eir among the dead in Midgard and yet I do not hear her echoes in Niflheim.”
“Then that must mean… she… is alive?” he asked, voice strained with barely suppressed hope. “But how?! I watched her die! I held her in my arms!”
“The gods are fickle,” I answered vaguely.
“Is Eir really Torsten’s woman?” he asked. “Are Jovi and Eir the same being?”
And there it was. The question I’d been dreading. Mostly because I didn’t have a satisfying answer, and I hated admitting weakness.
“How am I supposed to know? I am not a god. The answer lies beyond the range of my power. I am powerful, yes, though not omniscient.”
That response seemed to satisfy him. He lapsed into pensive silence. It took us both a moment to realize I’d threaded my fingers into his hair and was tracing patterns onto his scalp idly with my nails. He went very still under my hands.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m bored,” I lied. “And I’m trying not to notice the cold.”
“It’s easier to share heat if we’re side by side.”
“Are you saying you want to cuddle a witch?” I teased.
A growl rumbled through Skarde’s chest. “It is not a matter of want, but a matter of need.”
“Oh, you need me,” I said, pressing the back of my hand to my forehead in a mock swoon. “Well, in that case I have no choice. I’ll strip off and—”
Powdery snow struck me in the face. I coughed and spluttered. When I could blink my way clear of it, I found Skarde smirking up at me unrepentantly.
“Don’t mock me, witch,” he said. “I do not like being toyed with.”
