“I agree with Ailsa,” Erik spoke at her side.
“Of course you do,” Rollo spat.
Gunnar spoke before she could counter. “I agree with Jarl Ailsa as well.” Her brows raised at his support. “This is not a fight we will win with force. We need to send someone to speak with these brutes and settle this debt. Otherwise, they will burn the world down in search of what they lost.”
“And who will go?” Rollo threw his hands up, his drink sloshing from the deep pit of the tankard.
None of them spoke, each waiting for the other to offer a better alternative.
Ailsa sighed deeply, stirring the heavy fluid in her chest and triggering a noisy exhale. It was an obvious choice. One she chose quickly without the chance to think of the repercussions. Before her fear silenced her courage. “Clearly these monsters have an issue with my family. I don’t know why, but I intend to find out. Send me.”
“Skide!”Erik swore. “To Hel you’ll be the one to face them—”
“I’m the least intimidating of anyone here, Erik. Surely you must agree it would be better to send someone who appears as frail as I am, obviously not a threat, to speak of peace with our enemy.” She touched his arm, feeling his own fear tense the corded muscle solid beneath his hot skin. “This is what I’m supposed to do, I can feel it. It is time for me to do something for this clan, something that will echo the worth my family has brought this fjord for generations. Perhaps I was born for this, and the gods allowed me to live this long for this purpose alone.”
She rationalized her thought process as she explained it to Erik. In a way, she was taking fate into her own hands, and if this led to her end, so be it. It was an ending she would decide for herself, not sit around and wait for. Even if dread was slipping its icy fingers around her heart. “Our lives have always been decided by the gods, now we must have faith. And if they ask for my life, I will place it in their hands with my gratitude,” she said.
Erik did not meet her gaze, only stared ahead with a scowl that could spark a wildfire with its intensity. He hated when she talked of her mortality like she was expendable, when she used it to get what she wanted. But she longed to have a strong ending to her fragile life, to serve her clan as her family had done before her. And perhaps this way she could see her family again, to die in battle would mean an afterlife with warriors. It was the only honorable way to die.
Lattimer nodded. “I feared there was only one way ahead, but you have given us another path, Ailsa. Let us hope this will lead to our salvation.”
Ailsa agreed with a slow nod, but inside her chest threatened to cave. She was not immune to fear as her father had been. She felt her nerves like they were a hot iron in her flesh, a thick smoke in her lungs.
She stood hastily from her chair. “Have someone prepare a longboat and send me the written coordinates of our enemy’s camp. I’ll leave at first light.”
“Let me come with you,” Erik spoke softly from the doorway of her longhouse. He lounged against the frame as he watched her pack.
She took a long puff from her pipe, settling the anxiety that consumed the space in her lungs. Each breath made it a little easier, the ache more bearable. “You have a clan to lead, Erik. I am not your responsibility, nor should I be.”
Her bag was filled with the basics: a few changes of clothes, her blade, an extra pipe, and a sack of herbs. Her mother’s ring now back around her neck, the one token she would take to the grave. Whether that was a hole in the ground or the sunken depths of the sea, a piece of her family would be with her until the end. Their presence was all she needed to make peace with her decision; their blood in her veins assured her she had the strength to face this.
Gunnar had agreed to arrange a small crew to take her across the North Sea, where she would then board a separate vessel to approach the enemy camp. There had been a brief discussion concerning if someone would join her, but she refused the idea. Her solidarity acknowledged she had no fight with the demons, and she did not want them to think she was afraid. Respect was earned, not given, and she would demand it with her very presence.
“I’m replaceable, Ailsa. I have three younger brothers who would kill to have my place.” His hands settled on her shoulders as she tied her bag. “Literally, I must sleep with a blade beneath my pillow. They are that ambitious.”
The mental image brought a small smile to her lips. “Don’t pretend you are not promised to someone yet. Don’t insult me by avoiding the truth. You are too powerful and too handsome a man to not have kings trading their castles for your place beside their daughters.”
He was quiet as his fingers slipped from her skin. The smallest gesture spoke volumes. “It was not my choice,” he muttered.
“It doesn’t matter, Erik.” She turned to face him. “You should not be in my room, begging to board my boat, when your hand and your heart—” He broke her words with a kiss, his fingers gently tipping her chin to meet his staggering height. His tongue brushed the seam of her lips, but she did not give him admittance. She broke their connection, despising the distance it created. “—are spoken for.”
“I speak for my heart, Ailsa. As do you.”
“My life was spoken for the day I took my first breath.” The one that wheezed and gurgled, the one thattaintedany pursuit of her hand. Had her father not had his magic and the ability to choose anyone he wanted despite their clans’ arguments, her mother would have met the same fate. He was too powerful to challenge, and he wanted only his beloved.
But she had no one like her father. Everyone had too much to gain without her, and it was better this way. Her condition should not be allowed to pass on to anyone else, the curse it was, and Erik deserved to have a fleet of offspring. She did not deserve him, and he did not deserve her.
“Will you still deny us, Ailsa? Even when this may be the last time I will ever see you again?” His hands skimmed her skin like she was feverish to the touch. She shuddered, wanting nothing but to collapse into the heat of his embrace and indulge the fantasies that pestered her nightly dreams.
“Why admit I want something I can never have?” Her voice was strained through the grief tight in her throat. Her hands clutched over her chest if only to hide the way her heart still beat for him.
“Because I adore you,” he whispered, kneeling on the floor to catch her gaze. “And because I see right through you. I see what I know to be true.”
She shook her head, defiant and decided. “You see what I want you to see.”
“Ailsa,” he breathed. She looked away from his gaze. The desperation in his eyes made her heart swell and she could not afford to burst. She wanted to leave this life behind, not take it with her.
“Will you come with me to our old spot? I want to look over the fjord one last time.” She tied her bag shut and set it on the bed until she needed it, ignoring his plea with a subtle change in subject.