Page 103 of The Viking in the Vault
Axl studies me for a long beat…then their gaze shifts back to Elena, narrowing not with suspicion, but curiosity.
“She doesn’t look like a warrior,” they say dryly.
Elena bites her lip. “Ragnar? Can you tell them they can’t understand me but I can understand them?”
I snort. “Axl, you had best watch your tongue; she understands our language.”
Axl’s cheeks flush bronze, then they look sheepishly to my mate. “My apologies,Vethari.”
My heart swells at Axl’s use of the word—an honorific used only for a Skoll captain’s mate. I watch her smile at my crew with a quiet pride that builds in my chest like flames.
My mate
My fenvarra…
Vethari of the Stormcaller.
Axl’s voice raises, and pride swells again at how my navigator has taken on the leadership role here. Axl was always shy…but they have come into their own in my absence. It gives me hope—hope that I can stay with Elena, that someone else will take charge.
“Tonight,” they announce. “We light a bonfire.”
The murmurs begin again, questions blooming, but Axl lifts a hand and quiets them.
“We will mourn Syf,” they say. “And we will celebrate the Captain’s return. We will honor our survival. We will grieve what was last. And we will welcome his mate—our Vethari—to our clan.”
There’s a beat of stunned silence…then a soft, reverent cheer ripples outward. A few fists are raised high, voice echoing inagreement. A skarnhound begins to howl, and Fenrik howls along with it.
Axl turns to me with a small, wry smile. “You’ll have to tell us what humans eat at sacred gatherings,” they say. “I assume dried rations are not on the menu.”
I look to Elena, half-expecting her to say that we should return—but she laughs. “We actually brought some better food, if that would be preferable.”
I pass on the information, Axl nodding along, eyes widening. “Yrsa blesses us,” Axl says. “Of course your Vethari has brought us food…the fishing has been poor here.”
I hum in agreement. “So…tonight, we feast. And tomorrow we return to the world above…victorious.”
36
ELENA
The fire burns low and blue at its center as it warms the whole cavern, Ragnar’s clan gathering around it. They—we—are here to do two things.
Mourn for their dead…and celebrate Ragnar’s mating.
I’m not really sure exactly what that means yet, but I’m confident it’s going to be weird. Okay, not weird—I think I’ve had to drastically change my definition ofweirdsince I started this thing with Ragnar—but it might be…uncomfortable, I guess?
We’ll figure it out.
We gather in a wide ring, Ragnar holding me tight at his side, the other Skoll looking at me with curiosity. Back when they went into the ice, the Skoll hadn’t even met humans yet; I’m fully alien to them, small and antler-less, with skin and eyes a different color than they’re used to. Strangely enough, they look at me with less hostility than somehumanswith different skin colors do.
But that’s beside the point.
Axl stands beside the fire, the de facto leader of the group, holding something wrapped in leather. They kneel and begin to unwrap the object, and I realize that it’s an axe: the bladechipped and worn, the hilt smooth from years of use…but the inlaid stones still glimmer. I recognize the pattern as a prominent constellation for the Skoll: Yrsa’s Cradle.
“This was hers,” Axl says. “Forged when Syf took the oath to save Kanin. It served her through war, through exile, and with it, she slayed many a Borean warrior.” They pause. “Now it will serve her once more.”
From a pouch at their side, Axl draws something small and iridescent—a shard of crystal, I think, though it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen. Axl draws closer to the fire, then throws the axe into its center, then the crystal—and when they drop it in, a sound bursts from the hearth.
Not a crackle, not a roar, not the shrill sound one might expect from metal cracking and melting…but a note.
