Sky in the Deep

I leaned into the tree, pinching my eyes closed against the pain in my arm. Against the ache in my chest. Because Iri was alive. And if he was alive, it meant something terrible. Something far worse than losing him.

“I don’t belong to you.”

“Yes, you do.” He pulled the hair back out of my face so he could look at me. “Like I belong to you.”

“Are you better with a sword or a knife?” I knew he wasn’t very good with the axe. I’d seen it.

Things belonging where they didn’t. Like two night skies on a frozen lake.

“Ǫnd eldr.” I whispered his people’s battle cry against his lips. Breathe fire.

He smiled, taking the back of my head with his hand and kissing my cheek. “Ǫnd eldr.”

I took hold of his armor vest, pulling him back to me. But the guard was going back up over him, one thought at a time. “I don’t belong to you.” I repeated the words I said to him the night he pulled the stitches from my arm. This time, to lift
the weight that pressed down onto him and silence whatever words were whispering in his mind.

And because a small part of me still wanted them to be true.

“Yes, you do.” He pulled the hair back out of my face so he could look at me. “Like I belong to you.”

To choose him the way he’d chosen me.

Once, he’d loved me enough to jump into the frozen water for me. But then he left.

Like little warriors. Like Iri and I had been. Like we still were.