Astrid Soulweaver's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

Astrid left the river temple with two gifts. The ring to carry grief sat on her finger. A golden circlet pressed cool against her brow, its lapis eye sharpening every sense. Hemet-Aset walked her to the door. The priestess watched the flame behind them, not Astrid. "The man is close to breaking," she said. "The ring works only if he opens his hand." She did not say goodbye. She turned back to the fire. Astrid rode hard for the burial mound. The circlet let her feel the seals failing before she saw them. Each hour, another snapped somewhere in the hills. Each break let a soul slip through. She did not have days. She had the time it took to reach Thorolf and press the ring into his palm. If he would not take it, nothing she carried would matter. She found him at the mound. He had his fist against a tree. He drew back and struck the trunk again. Bark split. Blood marked his good knuckles. His ruined hand hung at his side. He had been sealing breaches alone for days, and every one he lost had gone into his arm. Astrid dropped from the horse. She crossed the wet grass. She reached him before he could swing again and caught his hand in both of hers. "Stop," she said. "You can't punch your way through grief." "They keep slipping." His voice shook. "I seal one. Two more open. I can't hold it." "Because you're fighting it." She turned his bleeding hand over. She lifted it and kissed the torn knuckles. Then she set the ring in his palm and closed his fingers around it. "Isis made this. It won't seal the breach for you. It helps you stop fighting." He stared at the green stone. "I don't know how to stop." "You feel it. All of it. Your father. The war. Your hand. Everything you've been swinging at." Her amber eyes held his. "The seal holds when you let the grief hold you. Not when you force it. I learned that this week. I had my own thing I wouldn't feel." His jaw worked. He looked at the ring, then at her. He did not laugh, the way he laughed for everyone else. He let his shoulders drop. He sat down hard in the grass against the tree. The ring stayed in his fist. She knelt with him. "Breathe into it," she said. "Don't breathe away." He did. His breath broke. He wept the way she had wept on the temple stone, ugly and whole. The circlet let her feel it happen. Somewhere in the hills, a seal held and did not break. When it passed, he wiped his face with his wrist. "I felt that one close," he said. "I didn't force it." "Now you can teach the others." Astrid rose. "But Hel gave me a condition. Stopping the spread isn't enough. She wants me back."