The agony of that statement cut a new gash in his jagged heart.
"I did," Maude said softly.
"But here you are, talking to me and wielding earthgalder."
"Yes."
Herrick hesitated, feeling the need to say anything that might bring them back together.
For a moment, the soft crash of the waves on the ship and the wintry breeze that pulled the sails taut were the only things Herrick could hear as he tried to think of what to say. Speaking with Maude used to be as easy as breathing for him. Their push and pull was effortless, the silence comfortable, but now they were more like strangers sitting at the top of a mainsail with nothing to say to each other.
Now, he tried to absorb everything that had happened since she had come into his life. Maude seemed uneasy with returning to how things had been before. Her cool exterior was new to him; the woman he knew would burn with her fury until her dying day. Except shehaddied, hadn't she? Maude seemed to have been reborn as something new in the time they had been apart.
Before, he would have teased Maude about climbing up to the highest point of the ship just to get away from him.
Before, she would have rolled her eyes and made a sharp-tongued comment about how he was a beast who acted first and thought second.
But that was before Dagsbrun. Before she had died in his arms. Before Baldr.
Maude knew Herrick well enough to know that his silence was unusual, even for him. She had seen the burns on his skin and how much leaner he looked compared to before. The muscle was still there, but he had wasted away in that dungeon. And it was her fault.
Her friends each tried to take the blame for Herrick's capture when she had spoken with them all after waking in Nida, but they were all wrong. She had never been theself-sacrificing type, but she felt truly at fault for everything that had happened to Herrick. He had followed her to Logi when she had tried to leave him behind. He followed her into the palace when she ran to face Helvig and got captured trying to get to her side.
In a lot of ways, Maude was also irrationally angry with him for following her the way he did. If it weren't for her allowing him into her heart and her body, he never would have followed her to Logi.
He would have followed you into a swift death if that's where you were headed, she thought bitterly to herself.If Helvig hadn't given the order to capture him, he would have died just to follow you to Valhalla.
All of these reasons were why she knew Herrick was the better of the two of them. Herrick was noble and moral, his loyalty unmatched even if he was as reckless with his life as she was with hers.
And all the while, she was angry with him for getting captured when she had been killed.
She shuddered to think that if Herrick had been successful in his suicide mission, he would still be dead right now. It was unheard of to have the rune for transformation and reincarnation pulled during a fate telling. Since Maude had woken from her stasis, she hadn't spent too much time lingering on the information that the Valkyries had reincarnated her. Though reanimation was more accurate, the thought still rang ridiculously in her mind.
Reincarnation? Impossible.
Except… here she was, even after taking the coward's way out.
She shook her head, banishing the thoughts as quickly as they arrived. Another day. She would deal with this another day.
Embers sparked to life in her fingers the longer her thoughts spiraled into her anger. Soon, she wouldn't be able to hold her tongue, and she'd lash out. She knew her patterns well enough now to see that she needed to walk away before she permanently destroyed whatever was left between her and the man who had forced her to feel again.
She swung her legs over the side and started to drop to the deck, the rushing air blocking out Herrick's reaction to her sudden jump. All too soon, the deck began rushing up at her, so she pushed her hands down in a swiping motion to move the wind beneath her so she would land easily.
Instead, ice sprung from her palms and formed a slide from where she had been free-falling toward the hard floor of the deck. Too startled to control her movements, Maude yelped as her hip slammed into the ice ramp, causing her to go sliding toward the helm where Yuri was watching with an amused look on his face. Elven bastard. She cut off her connection to hergalder,and soon, the ice ramp ran out, but not before it forced her to slam into the door that led down into the lower deck.
She groaned as she tried to pick herself up from the cold wood beneath her, the slightly damp feel of it making her shudder. As she stood, Maude could see that Herrick was still making his way down to her, following her yet again. At her rise in anger, the ice ramp liquified and crashed onto the deck, soaking the few Elven and rescuedvitkiwho were curious about the woman making a fool of herself and had come to investigate the commotion.
As soon as Herrick's feet touched down on the deck, Maude spun and ran for the captain's lodging that she had woken in. The faces that passed her were blurred, but she noticed Liv speaking with thevitkiwho had wrangled the vines that allowed her to go after Bryn when they were in Logi. Then saw her sister passing out clean clothing to the rescuedvitki, who hadn't had the chance to clean up yet. Her complexion was a bit green, but she held a brave face for the citizens she had tried to protect for so long.
Maude did not slow her pace until she was within the confined space of the tiny room below deck. It was empty now, giving her the space and privacy she craved in her rising anger. Her peace was short-lived, though, as Herrick burst into the room shortly after her, his chest heaving with the effort he expended to chase after her. His golden eyes were harsh in the darkness of the cabin, their usual glint of humor long disappeared as he stepped closer to her.
Widening her stance, Maude reached for the dagger strapped to her thigh as her breath caught. As usual, her heart and her mind were not in agreement when it concerned Herrick Kolbeck.
Taking a second to really look at him now that they stood before each other alone, Maude ran her eyes over his stalking form. Standing in his trousers and loose linen tunic that showed a bit of his upper chest where she noticed the hateful iron band that remained fastened around his throat for the first time. Maude tried to swallow the hunger she knew was sparking in her gaze even as her wary curiosity sparked. Herrick's hair was loose around his face, the curls longer than the last time she had seen him, and his arms were loose at his sides, his fingers twitching as if he was holding himself back from reaching out to her.
"Are you going to fight me,minn eldr?" he asked softly, his head tilting to the side a bit as he ran his gaze down her body and back up again. "You know I'm always willing to go a few rounds with you."
"Don't give me a reason to fight you," she responded, her eyes firmly on his. "Did it occur to you that I might need a minute alone? That maybe I went to the top of a mainsail to getawayfrom everyone? That—"
