Page 43 of Heart of Fire
“You work too much,” he replied. “You deserve atreat.”
“Someone must,” she replied, and folded her skirts neatly around her as she settled on the blanket. “Unlike others, I cannot rely onnisse.”
“No one can,” he replied, stretching out beside her. “They are unreliable little beasts, and if you don’t leave enough milk out for them, they’re liable to turn uponyou.”
A smile softened her face. “Do you know, sometimes I almost believe you when you speak of myths and fairytales.”
There was a hint of sadness around hereyes.
“Why would you not?” He stroked the edge of her skirts, fingers rubbing the soft wool betweenthem.
“Because I know what hand of fate life deals,” she admitted, opening the picnic basket. “Nisseandhuldufólkand trolls are all well and good, but they are stories forchildren.”
“You believed then, once upon atime.”
She set out the breads and meats he’d brought them, her face strangely devoid of any expression. “My mother believed. It was she who spoke ofdrekiandhuldufólk.”
He hesitated. “What happened toher?”
“Five years ago, she disappeared for several days. When we found her in the stone ring up near Krafla, she looked like she had aged a decade, and nothing seemed to satisfy her. She wouldn’t say where she’d been, or what had happened, but she began to waste away,” Freyja said gently. “She didn’t want to eat our foods, nor drink, but she consumed just enough to live. Yet it was as though someone took the light from her life. It took her two years to die, and no one knew what was wrong with her. My father has not been the same ever since.” Freyja sliced some of the soft cheese onto a piece of bread, and handed it tohim.
“I’m sorry,” he said, placing his hand overhers.
Freyja looked at him very steadily. “You remind me of her sometimes.” She turned her hand beneath his, her fingers lacing through two of his. “She was a dreamer too, but... I don’t think I have enough left within me todream.”
Dreams could be dangerous. He understood that. He’d spent thirty years hibernating within Krafla, trying not to think of the past, allowing the locals to bring him food so he did not even have to hunt. Merely drifting with his mind entwined with the volcano beneath him, feeling the earth crack and groan as he tried not to think of all that he’dlost.
Rurik’s thumb caressed the smooth skin of her hand. “I think... I had stopped dreaming too,” he admitted. “Until I metyou.”
That brought a blush to her cheeks. Freyja rolled her eyes. “Ofcourse.”
But she didn’t understand. He watched as she devoured the small spread of cured meat and cheeses, mixed with fresh strawberry jam and white fluffy bread, the kind Freyja had never eatenbefore.
The night he’d taken her ram, his entire life changed. Driven from Krafla by hunger, he’d thought little of the hunt behind the desire to fill his belly, but it had brought so much more into hislife.
It had broughther.
He could still recall Freyja brandishing that sword at him, her face full of determination and weariness. Years of sleepy dullness sloughed away from him in that instant. He’d stepped aside from the world, turning his attention to the earth and fire beneath him, but she brought him back in a single moment, slamming into his life like a thunderstorm of epicproportions.
He felt alive, for the first time inyears.
And he was starting to think of the future, of what part she would play in it. For he couldn’t let her go, not now. Not when she was the catalyst for this new awakening within hisheart.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, nibbling on one of the fat strawberries he’d hunted high and lowfor.
“I am wondering: what is your greatestdesire?”
“To finish my work swiftly, so I may have an hour or two to myself tonight,” she replied, red juice staining herlips.
He wanted to lick the taste of it from them. “That seems a smalldream.”
“Youwouldsay that, but just because it is a small dream, does not mean it is not a joy to me.” Freyja slowly rolled onto her back, resting on one elbow. Her braid slung over her shoulder, and she took her time with the last mouthful of strawberry, entirely innocent of what the sight of her eating it did tohim.
“If you were not bound by time, nor money, nor any other mortal constraint, what do you wish you coulddo?”
Freyja gave him that serious look again. Rurik caught the end of her braid, toying with the ribbon that bound it. Her breath caught, and she tossed the stalk of the strawberryaway.
Come on. Give me your heart. Tell me how to winit.
