Iron Seas 03 - Riveted

taken to Heaven.”
    God. That was true enough. Would such a story inspire girls to keep their virginity, or rush to lose it?
    “Only in Manhattan City,” Dooley said, and not to be outdone, gave his own spin. “In Johannesland, they’ll say the fissure spirits from Iceland stole their souls.”
    “They’ll all say it was a Horde plot,” David said.
    Dooley nodded. “That’ll be the way of it, though using that as your prediction is akin to cheating. They’re always saying it’s a Horde plot. Is all right with your girl, Kentewess?”
    Annika had emerged from another cottage. The weight of sorrow had returned, slumping her shoulders. Despite the bulk of her heavy clothing, she appeared small and fragile. Brittle.
    His voice roughened. “I don’t know.”
    “It’s awful work. I wouldn’t want to be in her place for anything,” Goltzius said quietly.
    David would give anything to take her place, but he could only watch and wait.
    Hours passed. Several soiled handkerchiefs found in the cottages showed evidence of winter colds and put paid to suspicions that the women had been infected. His aunt finished her examination—and due to the concentrations of blue-burning gas in her lungs, she believed the woman had died of asphyxiation, but she couldn’t be certain.
    The afternoon light had faded by the time Annika and the others returned to the ship. David waited on the deck. The devastation and sorrow had passed. In their place he saw utter exhaustion.
    Should he go to her? Annika took the decision out of his hands. She came toward him, dragging off her hat. Her arm fell back to her side as if the motion had been a momentous effort. Even her black curls lay flat, hours under the wool plastering them to her head.
    He frowned at her. “You should rest.”
    “We have to be ready to fly in thirty minutes, so I have to be in the engine room in five.” She glanced over as Mary Chandler stopped at her side. Puffy red skin surrounded the woman’s eyes. “Go on to your bunk. I’ll take the first watch.”
    The older woman patted her shoulder. “You’re a good one, Annika. Don’t you let Elena tell you you’re wrong.”
    Sudden tears shone in Annika’s eyes. She nodded and waved the older woman on. “Thank you.”
    David waited until she’d gone. “What happened?”
    “The rumors about the island are true. Elena thought the women deserved it—and that it was the Horde’s fault. I told her that was all guff, and she said I was naïve and stupid. Then she said the same about the women to Mary later, and Mary laid into her.”
    Good for Chandler. She couldn’t have known how much Annika would have needed to hear that.
    Perhaps she needed to hear it now. Her tears spilled over. She bent her head, turning away from the deck to hide her face.
    “Is there anything I can do?” His chest ached. God, he wanted to hold her. “Anything at all?”
    “Yes.” She looked up with a watery smile. “Pretend that I’m brave.”
    “I don’t have to pretend.”
    A quick laugh escaped her. She wiped her cheeks. “You’re good at this.”
    He’d persuade her. “You’re brave to trust me.”
    “No.”
    “Yes.” He lowered his head toward hers. “I could use what you’ve told me of my mother’s people—and your own history. I could trade my silence for Hannasvik’s location.”
    Her smile returned again. “That doesn’t require trust. I’d never reveal it.”
    “Never?” He might not have helped, but at least he’d distracted her. “Is that secret worth dying for?”
    “Yes.”
    “You say it so quickly.”
    “So you don’t trust that it’s true? But it’s an easy answer. It must be the easiest way to die: protecting someone you love. Your mother did.”
    “Yes.” Without hesitation.
    A long breath shuddered from her. Her smile faded. “For some one , it’s easy. For some thing , though…I think it’s harder to die for something you believe in. To stand up and to say that something else is wrong . I said it to my friend, but would I shout it aboard this ship? I don’t know. I’d be too afraid of what would happen to me, because so many think as she does. I hate myself for this.”
    “When you’re surrounded by stupidity, self-preservation isn’t a sin.”
    “Refusing to challenge that stupidity and letting it continue might end up hurting someone you love, later. I’d die to protect them, but not to tell people that I’ve kissed a woman, too?”
    Alarmed, David shook his