Page 115 of Kingdom of Embers and Ruin

Maude seemed to walk through her life like she was the worst evil in the world when everyone around her knew that was not true. She had a temper and pushed people away, but she was not evil. If those raiders were sent to kill her instead of him, and Herrick had been the one to face the impossible choice of wiping out the raiders, he wasn’t sure he would choose differently than Maude had. And that was what was bothering him more than anything.

Everything Herrick knew and believed about the world started to fracture. With Maude, he found himself straying from the rigid black-and-white view he had given to the world and started seeing the gray in between. With her, he could see that sometimes there was no right or wrong path but theonlypath forward.

Hakon’s footsteps echoed behind him, and it was only another moment before his brother sat next to him on the stairs in front of the temple.

“Do you want to talk about what is bothering you?” Hakon asked, handing him a bowl of stew.

“No,” Herrick said, spooning the hot liquid into his mouth.

“Okay,” Hakon said, leaning back on his hands.

The silence of Ljosa pressed in on him as he ate his meal but tasted nothing. Herrick spoke when the weight of the silence was too much for him to bear.

“She picked me up, threw me from the fight with her wind, and then took matters into her own hands,” Herrick said quietly, but anger was laced in his words.

“And you feel emasculated?” Hakon offered, biting on the inside of his cheek.

“No, asshole,” Herrick snapped. “She didn’t want my help.”

They were quiet for a time.

“Or,” Hakon said, breaking the silence again. “She knew you would get hurt if you stayed that close to her when she erupted. She got you out of harm’s way when she was at the end of her rope.”

“How do you know she lost her temper?” Herrick asked, eyeing his brothers.

“Eydis just told me.” Hakon’s ears turned bright red. “I guess Maude had roused enough to tell them about it. Shame seems to be riding her pretty hard right now, but she doesn't regret her decision to save your life. I can't say I can disagree with her.”

Herrick had no response. She had thrown him out of the fight and made a choice that had made Herrick uncomfortable for reasons he could no longer claim were valid. She chose his life over those of the raiders, just like he would have chosen her life over theirs.

That fact settled in him like a stone sinking to the bottom of a raging river of his emotions. Maude had chosen him even though she pushed him away.

She had tried all morning to pull him from his mood, had helped him build the longboat in silence, and had swiftly moved him from harm's way when the fight would not be won honorably. He had been trying to reign in his worry over seeing Gunnar seize the way he did all morning. Then, when she was trying to draw him out, he was angry that she couldn’t make up her mind about how she wanted to be treated.

It was clear that they were unable to stay away from each other, but what Herrick was feeling was more than a pull toward her. What he was feeling for Maude was terrifying if it was real. And Herrick thought today, for a moment, that she was feeling them too.

Foolish, he thought.She will only ever look out for herself. She told you as much.

The thought lay with him for a long while, but it still rang untrue in the echoes of his chaotic mind. Hakon went back inside, unwilling to encourage Herrick’s brooding, but not before he put a hand on Herrick’s shoulder and encouraged him to try and see things from Maude’s perspective.

His brother's footsteps echoed as he left Herrick with his thoughts on the steps of the temple. He heard his friends laugh from where they sat inside the temple, the sound drifting out to him. He wondered if Maude was laughing with them or if she had peacefully fallen into sleep for the night. He wondered if she really was ashamed of the blood on her hands.

She will only ever look out for herself, he thought again as he stared into an empty night sky.

But he did not believe it for one second.

The moon was high in the sky before Hakon came back to relieve Herrick of his watch. Sleep was heavy in his eyes, and Herrick thought about offering to stay on watch so his brother could sleep, but Hakon put a hand up to stop him.

“Go talk to her,” was all he said before he sat down where Herrick had been, hands scrubbing the sleep away.

Choosing not to argue, Herrick walked back into the temple and crept around his sleeping friends. He saw the outline of Maude’s form on herbedroll and started to walk toward her but found himself unable to keep going. He shook his head and turned to his bedroll.

Coward, he scolded himself.

Gunnar was snoring on the bedroll next to his, with no evidence of his fit from this morning. Herrick sat down, ready to settle into sleep, when he saw Liv turn toward him.

“You’re not one to run from a fight,” Liv teased, her white teeth peeking out from the darkness as she shot him a wide smile.

“Who said I’m running,” Herrick grumbled as he lay back and stared at the ceiling.

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