She said his name, the word full of love, like she was remembering what had transpired between them. He instantly abandoned the woman in his thoughts for the woman in his arms. He turned to her, rolling onto his side, and gathered her close.
Ghisla’s hand curled against his chest and he pressed his lips against her brow, greeting her. She moaned and burrowed her face into his neck, wrapping her arms around him. She opened her mouth against his throat, as if she wanted to sink her teeth into his veins and draw him—blood, body, and soul—into her lungs.
His love for her was an inferno, scalding his throat and burning his chest, and he ran his hand over her rumpled hair and down her back, memorizing the way she felt against him, the swell of her hips, the length of her legs entwined with his. He would relive their union on an endless loop, the stars exploding behind her eyes, the silk of her skin, the depth of his devotion, and the moment nothing else in the world had mattered.
Awareness skittered down his back like a spider inside his clothes.
He stiffened, the inferno becoming a glacier.
Ghisla felt his frisson of alarm, and her lips stilled on his throat.
The chatter of the birds continued. The buzz of bees, the flow of water over stones from the river nearby. But something—someone—was watching. It was a sensation he easily recognized—especially in a setting like this.
He knew better than to react with fear or flight. It was what separated man from beast. A deer would bolt. A wolf too. But running away from the unknown was always a mistake. Better to face it—to name it—than to run headlong in circles that could only bring one back into its clutches.
The sensation continued; the spider had grown. It skittered up his back and over his face leaving ice in its wake. Yet the birds gossiped and the trees hummed, and the earth beneath him was still. Not a single footfall or even the shifting of a man’s weight rippled over the ground.
Then the sensation was gone. The ice of the unknown gaze disintegrated against his warm skin and the spider legs up his spine became nothing more than the press of Ghisla’s hand. For a moment they didn’t speak, even though they knew their time was up. To speak would be to come back to earth, to step into the future that lurked just beyond the silence.
“I have to go,” she whispered. “Don’t I?”
He nodded, his emotion making speech almost impossible.
“Then I will go back. And I will wait for you. However long it takes.”
She had become the brave one, the believer, and he found her lips, kissing her with all the gratitude and grief he could not express. It was a kiss of solemn swearing, an oath of teeth and tongues.
With a final press of his hands and his lips, he ripped himself away from Ghisla and rolled to his feet. Ghisla rose silently beside him.
The chatter in the trees suddenly ceased and the leaves shivered. Then the bells began to ring, the clanging easily discernible even with the distance of the temple walls.
Ghisla moaned in dread. “They know I am gone.”
From beyond the treetops Hod heard the pommeling of hooves and the blaring of horns. It was too far away to know how many or how fast they were moving, but not all the seekers would be on horseback. Even now he could feel the creep of company, the hush of the forest, and the expectant silence of the trees.
“You must go, Hod,” Ghisla begged, pushing at him. “Go deep into the wood. Go now. If you are found with me . . .” Her heart thundered with her fear for him, and for a moment he could hear nothing else.
“If they find me, they will not keep searching,” she said. “And you will be safe.”
“I love you, Ghisla,” he whispered.
She was in his arms for a moment, and then she was gone, running toward the mount, her skirts whooshing and causing her to stumble. She cursed and gathered them, impatient, and she was gone again, her small feet dancing over the soft ground, the crack of branches marking her flight.
She was singing softly as she fled.
“Hody, Hody, Hody, Hody.”
He did not leave the clearing to plow deeper into the forest as she had demanded, but stood, listening, sensing, her taste on his tongue, her musk rising from his skin.
It was better this way, an easier goodbye. To prolong it would have been unbearable, but he could not go until he knew she was found. Until he knew she was safe.
She was one hundred yards away. Two hundred, weaving and winding through the trees at an angle to the mount. She would not come out at the bottom of the east face of the hill, but farther north, nearer the entrance to the mount. A search party on horseback would descend that way, and she was purposely running right for them. It was not more than half a mile to the edge of the wood from the clearing. He’d marked it as he’d entered the night before.
He heard a muted bellow of triumph. She’d been spotted.
16
WARRIORS
Hod was so intent on Ghisla’s flight, the sound of her song, and the vibrations coming from every quarter—the mount, the horses, the bells, and the men who spilled down the mount to search for the stolen daughter—that he did not hear the keeper until it was almost too late.
Hod could have eluded him. He could have turned then and slipped back into the trees and hid until it was safe to come out. Arwin would worry about his absence, and he would miss the final day of competition, but there was no help for that. He could not return to the mount now, not yet; he would have to wait until the fervor had died and Ghisla was safely ensconced inside the temple.
Hod recognized the keeper—the sound of him, both the rhythm of his heart and the echo it made in his chest—and he wasn’t afraid. So he waited, turning in the direction of the man’s approach, and kept his staff and his feet planted. He didn’t close his eyes to make his visitor more comfortable. He knew his strangeness disconcerted most people, and he didn’t yet know if Dagmar was an enemy. He hoped not.
Dagmar paused when he was still some distance away. He whispered Odin’s name like he was preparing himself or pleading for intercession. He couldn’t have known that Hod could hear him far better than the Allfather.
“You don’t need to fear me, Keeper. Do I need to fear you?” Hod called out to him.
He heard Dagmar put his hand to the blade at his waist, fingering the handle.
“You are considering your dagger. Mayhaps I do,” Hod said.
“You can hear a man’s heartbeat . . . I suppose I should have known you would hear me approach and . . . reach for my knife,” Dagmar said.
“Aye. You should have known. If I were as evil as Ivo fears, you would be dead, Keeper.”
“I’ve come for Liis.”
Liis. The name did not sit right in Hod’s chest. He didn’t like it, and he was suddenly angry that Ghisla had been made to answer to it.
“Liis of Leok has returned to the mount,” he said, his voice bitter. He did not bother to explain himself or make up a story. He simply told the simplest truth and left it at that.
“But she was here. With you.” It was not a question.
“She came here alone. She left alone.”
“Was she the reason you entreated the Highest Keeper for supplication?” Dagmar asked.
“I have trained my whole life to be a keeper.”
“That is not what I asked, Hod.”
When Hod did not answer, Dagmar continued as if it was obvious.