Page 74 of Soul of Fire

“Hearthmother above,” I cried, pulling his arm back. I turned his hand over in both of mine, looking for cuts from the glass. “What are you thinking?”

“Elysia’s tits,” Arik murmured. “Sigrid traveled through the mirror.”

I reeled back, certain that the mistletoe must have damaged Arik’s mind. “No one can travel through a mirror.”

“The völva could.” He placed his hand through the glass once more, then pulled it out again and turned it over.

The skin remained unmarred.

“You said they disappeared two thousand years ago,” I argued, searching valiantly for any other explanation. “And Sigrid doesn’t have any magic! She can’t be a witch!”

“Really?” He deadpanned as he stuck his hand through the glass once more.

“Stop that.” I tugged his arm back again. “We have no idea what’s on the other side of that!”

“Think logically, Eisa.” He gripped my shoulders firmly and gave me a little shake, his eyes fierce and bright as if the ghosts that haunted him had been temporarily chased away. “Sigrid left suddenly on foot to travel hundreds of miles and left you a note about a mirror. Do you really think this is a coincidence?”

He shuffled back over to his pack and began pulling on his trousers, a feat made more than a little challenging by the low ceiling. He threw my borrowed clothes and too-small slippers at me. “Get dressed.”

I gaped as he shimmied into his leathers, trying to find the right words for all the thoughts going through my mind. Sigrid didn’t have magic. Shecouldn’thave magic.

But couldn’t she?The voice in my head was not Idunn’s for once, but my own. Sigrid had been a terrible cook, but she was good with healing and poisons. She had an uncanny ability to know how to treat any wound, and unnaturally good hearing for someone her age.

But if she had magic… It just wasn’t possible.

“Eisa.” Arik was fully dressed, the pack slung over his shoulder. He squeezed my shoulders gently, his eyes searching mine. “What’s wrong?”

“My mother died.” I swallowed, feeling a lump rising in my throat. The sting of betrayal. “If Sigrid had magic, why didn’t she save my mother? Why didn’t she save me or Branka or Anders?”

His gaze softened, his hands tightening on my shoulders. “I know I laid a lot of truths on you, and Baldur is still gone, and everything has gone to shit.” He pressed his lips to mine in a kiss so firm and sudden that it chased away any of the arguments I might have made. “But do you trust me, Kjære?”

Idunn growled, her answer clear.

I nodded, releasing a breath as I pushed away my doubts and questions. “Always.”

“Good. Then get dressed.”

Two minutes later and hand-in-hand, we crawled through the mirror.

Chapter twenty-four

Eisa

Theworldtiltedaswe emerged knee-deep in a reflecting pool, magic shivering over us in a wave of blue as bright as the Rift.

My hand remained clasped firmly in Arik’s, the gaping hole where Baldur should be—whereArikshould be—making Idunn prowl restlessly as I took in our surroundings.

We were on a grassy hill, the dusky sky cold above us. In the distance was a river so wide it was difficult to make out the opposite shore. Trees stretched above us, their needles sparse as if the wind coming off the river had battered them into bareness.

“Where are we?” We were surrounded by broken pillars and crumbling walls, all overgrown with moss. Only the pool beneath us seemed in good repair, the runes carved around its stone edge inthe exact positions as the ones Sigrid had carved into the frame of the mirror.

“If I’m not mistaken, we’re on Àsynjaheimr.” Arik replied.

I frowned at the long-overgrown stone, which could certainly be the ruined remains of a temple. “Well, I suppose this means you were right.”

He huffed a laugh as he guided me from the pool. Both of us were completely dry, as if the water were the same liquid glass as the mirror in the tiny attic room. He lifted my hand to his lips as I stepped onto the grass, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I won’t let it go to my head, Kjære.”

“Better not.” I looked for some sign of where Sigrid might be—an ancient door, a hole in the ground. But there was nothing but the ruined stone and the wind. “What now?”