Tara Runeweaver's Arc

Chapter 6 of 19

They rode out at dusk. Bjorn had set a black draft horse beside his own, its coat painted with red marks, its tack thick with fur. Tara mounted without help. In her palm, hidden in her glove, she held her grandfather's silver ring. She had carried it for weeks. It was the shape of every word she had not said. The warband moved in a long line through the snow. They passed under a curved stone arch at the edge of the valley, gray and weathered, its base packed white. Bjorn slowed his horse there. The men rode on ahead. For the first time since the bear's head had appeared at his door, they were alone. Tara opened her glove. The silver wolf caught the last light. "This was my grandfather's," she said. "I have kept it close since I came to your hall." Bjorn looked at the ring, then at her face. He did not nod and look away. He held. "I did not stay for duty," she said. Her voice stayed even, the way she had practiced in her head a hundred times. "I did not stay for the wolf or the warband or the seal you gave me. I stayed because I wanted to. I want to." She closed her hand again. "I needed you to hear it from my mouth before we ride at him." Bjorn reached across the space between their horses. He took her closed hand and pressed it flat against his chest, over the leather, where she could feel his breath move. He held it there. He did not speak. He did not need to. She had measured him long enough to know the shape of an answer when it stood this close. They rode on through the arch and caught the line of men. Tara slid the silver ring onto her thumb where he could see it. The thing she had never said was said. Whatever waited at Erik's tent, it would meet a woman who had stopped carrying her own silence.