As if through a deep tunnel, I hear Njål shouting my name. I blink and try to face him. He’s close. Why does it sound so far? The ringing in my ears intensifies, drowning his frantic cries. I think . . . he’s throwing himself at the portcullis, trying to get to me, but unlike the supplies, I’m too far for him to reach.
I hear the groan of him ripping the gate up entirely, and I think he’s trying, trying so desperately to reach me, but I feel the pressure now because I’m part of the wards. It’s a thousand pounds weighing him down. He’ll be crushed, all the pain of dying without the peace, and his crazed effort sparks some hidden reserve. With the goats shoving at me, I stir my fingertips and then my toes, and with the last of my strength, I crawl.
Inch by inch, until I’m near enough for Njål to pull me in, and I come through the barrier with a pop that nearly deafens me. I can pass through it, but he can’t. And it’s definitely there, crafted by someone much more experienced than me.
Njål tumbles backward, though he’s careful to shield me from impact, arms around me like he’ll never let go. “Amarrah! Can you speak? You’re bleeding, oh gods, what am I supposed to do? I can’t—”
“I’ll live.” It’s all I can say.
Because Bitterburn is chattering at me in ways that I didn’t know were possible. It’s not the voice, but the echo of ten thousand lives that imprinted on this place and eventually, it acquired life of its own, although not the sort anyone in the village would acknowledge. This is strange, witchy stuff, and I can’t process half of what the keep’s trying to tell me with my ears still ringing, blood oozing down my shins, and my brain doing its best to turn off.
“I thought you left. What were you doing out there?”
“Protecting us.” With unsteady hands, I touch the bruises he’s inflicted on himself, the blood trickling down his face. “You tried to break the portcullis? And the barrier? With brute strength.”
“It’s nothing I haven’t attempted before. And with you lying there as night fell . . . please don’t do this again,” he begs, hands still roving over me like I’m made of glass.
“You can’t feel the difference, can you?” Njål has lived here for ages, and he has no clue that Bitterburn cares for him in its way.
It’s why the keep let me in.
He peers at me in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“Never mind. I’ll explain later.”
We pass through the courtyard and neither of us turns into an ice statue. That means I can come and go as I please. Not right now, of course, with my bones on fire and my mind pulled in a thousand directions, from whispered input that I can’t filter or understand. My wards are tied to older ones, complex in ways it might take me forty years to understand.
The goats chase us as Njål carries me into the kitchen, quietly muttering to himself as he tends my wounds. I don’t respond until he puts a cup of warm herbal tea in my hand and folds my fingers around the mug, leaving his in case I can’t manage on my own.
Please, I tell the keep silently. I’ll listen later. I promise. Can you give me some peace?
Slowly the noise scales back to a more tolerable level, and the ringing in my ears dies down. I sip the tea and realize that I sense a fox sniffing at the spot where I fell outside the keep. The animal prowls the area for a while before fleeing for the familiarity of the forest.
When I return to myself, my injuries are wrapped and Njål is staring at me with an unreadable expression. “You were a thousand miles away,” he says softly.
“Not so far as that.”
I don’t know how to bridge this. Now that I’ve done it, I do think these wards could have killed me. I’m not strong. I’m not practiced at this. Most likely I ought to have started smaller, warded a room, not the whole keep. Even I think this isn’t one of my best decisions, and I’m rather known for strange fancies in the village. Once, in the middle of winter, I convinced Owen to search for pixies, like the angry ones from that story. We both caught a terrible cold with nothing to show for our efforts.
In a small voice, I explain everything.
As I speak, he touches me compulsively—my cheeks, my throat, my shoulders. He doesn’t interrupt, but his hands hold a hard tremor, as if he’s controlling strong emotion through sheer effort. He must be furious, and I’ve seen the wreckage in the wake of his temper, haven’t I? All that broken furniture, left for me to tidy up.
But the wrath I expect doesn’t erupt. Instead, Njål drops to his knees before me and rests his head against my knees. The broken sounds tell me that he’s crying, shoulders hunched in a way that hurts more than the stinging scrapes on my shins. Bewildered, I rest my hands on his hair, comforting him as best I can.
At last he says, “Don’t risk yourself for me. I would rather be trapped for eternity than for you to suffer the slightest harm, especially for my sake.”
20.
“I’m here,” I tell Njål, though it’s clear that he’s not listening. “Safe and sound.”
I end up stroking his head for a long while, until the shakes subside in us both. Since I’m entirely depleted, I would’ve gone to bed on an empty stomach, but he insists on cooking for me. He’s not good at it, and it’s difficult for
