He sighed disapprovingly but nodded. “Of course.”
* * *
They climbedto the highest hill bordering the inlet, pausing frequently to settle the aggravation in her chest. Erik pulled her most of the way, supporting her weight with effortless strength. Regardless of his help, she was still weak and trembling when they made it to the top. It took her a time to settle her heart, which was currently racing like a thousand horses across an endless plain.
“This was a bad idea,” he muttered as she leaned against the smooth face of a boulder. “Calm down before you cause a rockslide with your hacking.”
Her fingers made a cursing gesture, but she smiled through the stars exploding behind her field of vision. She coughed into the sleeve of her gown, the one she didn’t care enough to change out of even though it was an added weight. “Never tell a woman to calm down,” she managed to say. “It is a quick way to get murdered.”
“Good thing your hacking cannot kill then, or I would be afraid.” He offered a piece of cloth he had torn from the edge of his tunic.
“Thanks,” she gasped, snatching the rag from his hand to catch the scarlet-tinged fluid loosened from the deep holds of her trunk. He turned away and gave her space, knowing she hated when people stared or hovered over one of her fits.
Erik waited on the edge of the drop off, his feet dangled over the edge when her body finally acclimated itself to the altitude and the exertion. Ailsa sat beside him, resting her head on the edge of his shoulder, the fur from his cloak warmed her cheek like an intimate memory.
This cliff side had all but marked the edge of her world, been the line at the end of her life’s map. From here she could see the moonlight illuminate the channel, the black water nipping the shore near her village. Lanterns speckled the hilly landscape between the cliffs where her clan gathered for a feast that could feed thrice the number of revelers, and music floated into the clear night. Her feet hung over the jagged edge, swinging to the lyrical sounds of the lyre.
A western breeze skimmed the sea and ascended the rocky cliff side to where they sat together, wrapping Ailsa in salt and ice. Erik draped the border of his cloak around her shoulders, feeling her shiver, and she burrowed into his side, pretending for a moment he was still hers and the fates had not torn them apart.
“Why did you offer to go?” he asked after a time.
She closed her eyes and breathed him in, savoring the heady scent as it caught in her throat. “I don’t belong here, Erik. My family is dead, my only marriage prospect is Nikros, and I can literally feel my life slipping away with every breath I take. If I don’t get out now, I’ll die sitting over the same view, watching everyone else leave andlive. It is not in my blood to accept anything less.”
He sighed against her temple; the gentle wave of his chest rocked her head in a soothing sway. “If you want to leave so bad, then leave. You want to live yet you're walking right into a den of wolves.”
“My going means someone else doesn’t have to, and if I can save one life then perhaps my time here meant something,” she replied.
“You mean something to me, is that not enough?” he asked. The question bit off a piece of her heart, letting something harder fill its place.
She sighed against his chest. “No, it isn’t.”
He shifted uncomfortably next to her. Her candor hurt him worse than he’d ever admit, but it was the raw truth. She loved Erik deeply, and he had loved her once as well. Even now, she could still see his love pour out for her unfiltered from his gaze. But it was not the love her father had for her mother, who would have traded his soul with the fates for one more day with hissváss.
If it was not a love that rewrote the stars, it was not a love worth having.
“If we were meant to be together, Erik, you would not live across the world, and I would not be sick. There would be nothing standing between us,nothingto keep you from me.” He opened his mouth in defense, but she settled his guilt with a light kiss upon the stubble of his cheek. “I do not fault you for choosing your family over me all those years ago, so do not fault me when I choose myself over you.”
“That’s not fair, Ailsa. You do not understand the position I was in, what your father—"
“What do you have against my father?” She withdrew from his touch like a reflex, her words spat from a bitter place. “Was it not your own father’s greed that forced you to travel an ocean away just for a position of power? Mine had nothing to do with you leaving.”
His hand drifted across the pointed blades in her back. Her skin seemed to hug her bones and sink into the hollow places where the fat never stuck. His touch only outlined the edges of her insecurities, traveling each peak and valley like it was a conquest. He would overthrow her heart if she wasn’t careful. “I will not speak ill of the dead, but if you knew the truth, Ailsa, you would not defend him so blindly. I would have given him anything for your hand—"
“You speak as if my heart were something to trade. But if you truly loved me, Erik, you would have done something as simple as stayed.”
Erik’s breath inserted sharply, and she felt his body go tense next to hers. She knew she was crossing a line with him, but at this point she didn’t care. “You’re a fool, Ailsa,” he murmured, “and you’ll die alone because of him.”
She scoffed. The harsh breath blew a white cloud from her lips. “Maybe so. But you will live a life you settled for. Which one is more dishonorable in your opinion?”
He stood suddenly, leaving her to sit alone on the edge of the cliff. For a moment, she feared he would push her off the side. But instead, he stroked the crown of her head with his hand. “I will live as half a man because you stole the other piece of my heart. And if I see Ledger Locharsson in the afterlife, I will kill him a thousand times over for spurning me of a life with you.”
She waited for him to walk away before standing and facing the channel, stealing a private moment with the view she used as a medium to manifest her dreams upon. The last time she would sit by on the side, watching the boats leave and return, hoping one day she might do the same and witness the world her people described in their raids and their adventures.
It was her time, she felt it in her bones.
“Erik?” She phrased his name into a question. There was something on the horizon, flames glittering in the veil of darkness. The sight so eerie she wondered if her eyes were playing tricks on her. “Do you see that?”
“What?” he asked, coming to stand behind her. She pointed in the direction of the lights. The quick insert of his breath informed her he could see them as well. “Strange,” he mumbled in her ear. “There are no more boats left to arrive.”