Thorolf's Arc

Chapter 11 of 10

Astrid came back from the dead road three days later. She found Thorolf at the burial mound, where he went when the anger rose in him. He knelt among the weathered grave-stones, his black shield propped against the earth. The air there held no breaches. He had come to practice where no soul could slip free. Sedna lay at his side, the shy wolf's blue and gold eyes watching the slope. Astrid climbed to him. She carried the amber-tipped staff Freyja had given her. The golden tear amulet hung at her throat. "Another breach opened," she said. "A woman's cottage, past the river. She used your rite to grieve her son. The hole is still open." She stopped. That was the whole of it. Thorolf stood. "Then teach me the sealing, and I'll close it. You walk to Hel. I stay and hold the ground." She had shown him before. He had failed before. His messed-up hand shook on the gestures. The words came out crooked. Each time he tried, the seal cracked and the breach stayed open. He hated the watching. He hated needing her. "Try it here," Astrid said. "Clean ground. No soul to lose." She pressed the amulet into his bad hand. "Hold grief. Not control. You want to force the seal shut. Freyja's trial taught me that. You can't force it." Thorolf closed his fingers around the warm amber. His anger wanted to muscle through the rite. That was the thing. He had always strong-armed every wound. He breathed. He thought of his father's grave, the loss under the rage. He let the grief sit instead of fighting it. He spoke the words. His crooked hand moved slow, but it moved true. The amulet glowed gold against his skin. Astrid lifted her staff and held it steady, saying nothing. The light sank into the mound's old soil and held. The seal closed. Clean. Thorolf opened his eyes. "That was it. I felt it take." "You stopped forcing it," Astrid said. They walked to the widow's cottage before dark. The breach pulsed in the dirt by her door, cold and wrong. Thorolf knelt. Sedna sat guard at his back. He held the amulet, found the grief, and spoke the rite with his broken hand steady. The gold light spread. The breach sealed shut. The cold left the ground. The woman wept and thanked them. Thorolf stood, shaking, but whole. Astrid shouldered her staff. "Now I can go to Hel. You can hold the breaches while I'm gone." She looked at him a long moment. "There will be more. People keep finding the oath-rite. You seal one, another opens somewhere else." Thorolf nodded. He was a keeper of the sealing now, not only the man who had spread the harm. But Astrid was right. The rite kept spreading faster than he could chase it. He could close breaches now. He could not stop them from opening.