Astrid Soulweaver's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

Astrid had sealed the breach at the widow's cottage, but the rite still spread faster than she could ride. She could close doors. She could not close the man who had taught them. The rift between her and Thorolf was wider than the breach itself. So she climbed the burial mound at dawn, her staff in one hand, Sedna padding at her heels. She found him at the top, kneeling among the weathered stones. His ruined hand rested on his knee. He did not laugh the way he did for strangers. He only looked at her, then away. "You came to blame me again," he said. "No." Astrid planted the staff in the earth. The amber dimmed in the gray light. "I came to say I was wrong. I blamed you for the souls. You only wanted to help a widow grieve. That isn't a crime." Thorolf said nothing. Sedna crept to him and pressed against his side. His good hand found her fur. "I'm fixing it," Astrid said. "Freyja gave me a rite. I'm closing the breaches, one by one. I'll keep riding until they're all sealed. I'll do that whether you forgive me or not." Her jaw tightened. She breathed into the fear instead of away from it. "I just want you to be happy. That's all I want." He stood. He was a head taller, broad as the stones around them. For a long moment he studied her face. Then he pulled her in. "I can't stay angry at you," he said against her hair. "I tried. I can't." She felt the amulet warm between them, the golden tear steady against her chest. His heartbeat was slow and hard. She let herself rest there. "I want to come," he said. "I want to protect you." Astrid pulled back far enough to see his eyes. "You can't. Hel's road only opens for one grief at a time. This part is mine." She touched his ruined hand. "But you're with me. You've been with me across every life. That doesn't stop at a gate." His jaw worked. He wanted to argue. He didn't. "Teach me your rite," he said instead. "The closing one. I started the spread. Let me help end it." She hadn't expected that. The problem had been too many grieving hearts and only two hands, hers. Now there were four. "Yes," she said. "Learn it. Close the breaches here while I walk the road." He nodded. The anger had gone out of him. What was left was plainer and harder to carry. Loss, and the choice to stay anyway. "I'll return," she said. "You always do." He let her go. "Go." Astrid took up the staff. Sedna rose to follow. At the foot of the mound she looked back once. Thorolf knelt again among the stones, already shaping his good hand the way she had shaped hers. The breach would close twice as fast now. The road to Hel waited. She was ready to walk it.