Two men climbed over the edge together. Gunnar whirled away, axe raised, even as I thought, He knows.
Gunnar sliced at one man’s leg, another man’s arm. The men stumbled but kept fighting. A third man came up to fight beside them. I still held my knife, but it was little larger than a steak knife. What use would that be against swords? I sheathed the blade at my belt, stood, and backed away. Splinters from what remained of the roof caught my hair. The wood began to smolder. I quickly ducked away.
I should get out of here, I thought, before they attack me, too, or worse. I could run for it, escape down the ladder … I didn’t. If I couldn’t save Gunnar’s life, the least I could do was stay and watch. Surely he had other family. They’d want to know what had happened.
Like you can tell anyone anything once you’re dead, I thought. But still I waited. I owed him that much.
Gunnar fought for a long time, way longer than I thought possible. Three more men came up into the loft. Gunnar fought them all, spinning from one to another with inhuman speed. His battle cries joined the roar of fire in my ears. Yet in the end he stumbled, and one of them struck a blow to his arm. His axe fell, and another man seized it.
Someone thrust a spear into his chest. Blood bubbled up as that man drew his spear free. Gunnar gave a little gasp and fell. His axe arm twitched, and then he was still, eyes staring at the too-blue sky.
Hallgerd’s keening burst into my head, a terrible sound. She loved him, I thought numbly. The story got it wrong. She really loved him. I fell to my knees and threw up.
I heard footsteps approach me, looked up to see myself surrounded by Gunnar’s killers. Their expressions were grim. There was blood on their clothes, and one of them held his arm to his side. Shit. I unsheathed the little knife, knowing it couldn’t possibly do any good against them all.
One of the men nodded at me, a surprisingly respectful gesture. “Lady,” he said. It was hard to hear him over the fire’s roaring and Hallgerd’s keening. “Will you give us land to bury our dead?”
Was he serious? “Fuck off,” I told him in English. Then, in Icelandic, “No, I have a better idea. Why don’t you dig a hole deep enough to bury you all?”
The men laughed, all but the one who had spoken. “You have reason enough for anger at us,” he said soberly. “You have lost much today.” He turned away, and the others followed him. Together they tossed their fallen friend over the wall, then climbed down after him. Just like that.
Blood still flowed from Gunnar’s chest. I knelt beside him and felt for a pulse, though I knew there was no point. My hands came away sticky with blood.
I hid my face in my burning blond hair, the hair a man had died for, and I wept.
Hallgerd’s cries in my head fell silent at last. “Oh, you have not yet begun to grieve, Haley. I will give you something to weep for. Your knife is sharp enough, I think.”
“No!” I forced myself to my feet and grabbed the coin from the pouch. “Here. You can have it!”
“What use have I for your gifts now? Keep the life you’ve destroyed. I may have given over control of the coin and the spell, but its tools—the bowl and the stone and what remains of the blood—lie with me. Until you gather them all again, you cannot cast the spell, not without my consent. And that I will not give. I will not return!”
The coin flared hotter. “Free,” roared the powers Hallgerd had bargained with—the powers I’d bargained with. Against my will I felt my other hand draw the little knife from its sheath. “Free us,” the fire spirits roared. “Free the doubled power you now hold.”
My tears were fire. My thoughts were fire. Fire surged through my hair, my blood. I touched the wood beneath me, and my fingers left black charred prints behind. “Free,” the fire creatures cried. “We will be free.”
With a sick lurch I knew that refusing Gunnar my hair hadn’t been enough. No one could hold so much power for long and live.
This wasn’t over yet. It would never be over, not until the fire consumed me after all.
Chapter 17 
Somehow I unclenched my hand, and the knife clattered to the floor. I drew my hands into fists, right around the coin. My fingers sought my palms. I had only to break skin, and the fire would leave me, and I would be free.
I shut my eyes. I saw a vision of my blood hitting the earth, turning to flame as it landed. I saw earth splitting open around the flames, and a huge fiery hand reaching for the sky.
My skin was burning away from within. The burning hurt—but I forced my fists open, dropping the coin. I could handle pain. I’d hold this fire for as long as I could. I opened my eyes. Flames still danced before me. My hands went right through them, as if they were ghosts.
“Shall I let you know,” Hallgerd said, her voice high and taunting, “the moment my blade breaks his skin?”
“Please,” I begged Hallgerd, because I knew there was no reasoning with the fire inside me.
Hallgerd’s laughter in my head was a wild thing. “Would you bargain with me? What compensation can you possibly offer for Gunnar’s life?”
“You have my mother’s life.” My voice grew wild as hers. “Isn’t that enough?”
“There’s no such thing as enough, not anymore. He flinches quite nicely, Haley. Even so, he says you should not listen to me. Foolish boy. Do you think whether Haley listens or not matters to me anymore?”
I clutched the broken roof with my free hand, but drew away when it began smoldering again. In the distance below, from the smaller outbuildings that surrounded this one, people—servants?—began making their way nervously outside. Closer by, Gunnar’s killers were indeed silently digging holes for their dead, while an old woman shouted at them, cussing up a blue streak.
“She refused him her hair,” one of the gravediggers said. He laughed. “Did you hear? She is a bad woman, that one.”
As if they hadn’t wanted him dead. As if they hadn’t struck the blows that killed him. I moved closer to the edge. I swayed, dizzy a moment, ghost flames all around me.
“Jump,” the fire in me roared. “Jump.”
“Yes,” Hallgerd agreed. “Why not jump? What’s left for you to lose?”
“Only this island,” I whispered. “Only the world.”
“What good has the world ever done either of us?”
No. You didn’t destroy the whole world because your own life was messed up. I stepped away from the edge, though it would have been easy—too easy—to set the fire loose.
Down below, a young woman rode up on horseback, taking in the men and the old woman with a glance. The old woman cursed at her, too. The young woman ignored her, dismounted, dropped the horse’s reins, and ran for the house. I heard her footsteps on the ladder below. “Mama?” she called, her voice tight with concern.