. . . Gilly was not sick. Gilly had brought her water.
She tried to say his name, but her tongue lay heavy against her teeth. She pushed herself up, swaying under the weight of her head and the resistance in her limbs. The water was there, and she drank gratefully, though it dribbled out the sides of her mouth and ran down the front of her shift. It was not cold and it tasted odd—like it had sat in the cup too long.
Someone had started a fire. She felt the heat at her back and the smoke in her lungs. The wood was too wet. She could smell the damp.
“Gilly?” She could see his boots just beyond the foot of her bed. He’d slept thus for nights on end. She braced herself and rose on teetering legs. He had tried to care for them all. Poor Gilly. She would bring him her cup.
He’d pulled a blanket over his shoulders and shoved a pillow under his head, but he was not asleep. He stared up at her with glassy disinterest, not answering, not responding, not moving at all. A fly landed on his eye and he didn’t even blink.
The fire had escaped the grate. It was crawling up the wall between the rooms.
“Gilly . . . we have to go,” she whispered. The fly on his face was joined by another, but the smoke billowed and the flies flew toward the open door.
She reached for Gilly’s boots and began dragging him across the floor. His boots came loose with a wet swoosh, and she staggered back, still clutching them as she fell to the floor. She might have screamed, but the fire had begun to roll above her, popping and spitting, and she stared up at the ceiling, waiting to be consumed. Suddenly, a man was there, hoisting her up and dragging her from the room.
He set her beside the well, but he took Gilly’s boots and threw them back toward the flames, an offering to the beast that had consumed her home. Other figures—more soldiers—flickered in the orange glow of the waning day. Red skies were mother’s favorite.
But it was not the sun that made the heavens burn.
The soldiers were setting the village on fire.
Cottages and fields, barns, and wagons. Animals. People.
People were piled one atop the other, a teetering pyre of flesh and bone. They too were set ablaze.
Ghisla pushed herself up, coughing and groaning, and took two steps toward the house before her legs refused to carry her and she fell again. A long blade tickled her nose, but she could not find the strength to move or the will to open her eyes.
The voices came again, and she willed the soldiers not to spare her, but to take her swiftly. She did not want to burn, but she did not want to live. Mayhaps they could toss her into the well and let her sink into the cold darkness.
“Should we take her with us, Gudrun? She might live.”
“Leave her there. If she lives, she lives. But I’ll not be bringing her into my keep. You should not have touched her.”
“I will burn my clothes.”
“We will all burn our clothes. And then we will petition the gods that we aren’t next.”
“If she lives, she will be the only one,” another voice grunted. “The only one in the whole village. All the Songrs are gone.”
“Ghisla.”
Her name echoed from far away. She ignored it. She was ready to burn with all the others. She was not even afraid. But she would miss the nest Hod had made for her.
Hod. It was Hod who was speaking.
Memory settled as she rose from the deep well of sleep.
She was not home. She would never be home again. There was no home.
“Ghisla.” He was closer . . . or maybe she was. She was rising through the layers of sleep, rising against her will to the surface of the sea and the boy who hovered over her.
“Ghisla, you must wake now.” She felt a hand on her brow and fingertips at her lips, as though he tested to see whether she still breathed. She was not dead. Sadly, she was not dead.
“Ghisla. You must wake,” he repeated. “Your lips are dry and your skin is too hot. You need water and food. Ghisla . . .”
She raised a weary hand and swatted her name away. She did not want to wake. She did not want water or food. Suddenly, she was floating again, and