“Older? You’re eighteen,” Ramoja laughed and crossed her legs, making the golden beads on her hems rattle.
Her expression suddenly turned grave again. Rime steeled himself for what he knew had to be coming.
“What are you doing, Rime?”
“What do you mean?” He was buying time. He knew exactly what she meant.
“They say you’re training to be a guardsman. A protector.”
Rime nodded and looked for somewhere he could rest his gaze. Two rabbit carcasses lay on a worktop by the hearth. Probably for the ravens—they often ate better than people. Vetle wandered aimlessly behind the fishnet as if searching for something without knowing quite what.
Ramoja caught Rime’s eye again. “Have you spoken to her since you got back?”
“She’s in Ravnhov until this evening. I’ll talk to her then.”
She shook her head. “Rime An-Elderin, Ilume’s only grandchild, born and raised in Eisvaldr—and you refuse your seat on the Council?”
“I’m not refusing anything.” He knew it sounded hollow. It was impossible to explain such a decision as anything other than refusal. But the truth was worse.
“Is this really what you want?” The doubt in Ramoja’s voice wasn’t unjustified. She leaned forward with her hands on the table. Her bracelets jingled.
“I just want to serve,” he heard himself tell her.
Ramoja leaned back again. “Well, it’s hard to deny the need for protectors.”
It was true, but her support made Rime cringe inside. He longed to tell her the truth. To stop hiding behind all the masks. To Ramoja, he was a weak son of a strong family. To his grandmother, he was a traitor. Only the Council knew the true path he had chosen. He couldn’t share it with anyone else.
“Did you know that augurs in Mannfalla are already protesting?” she asked.
“The Seer’s eyes are always protesting. It’ll pass. They’ll have forgotten all about it by next month.”
“Forgotten?” Ramoja scoffed. “The first time there won’t be an An-Elderin on the Council since the Twelve? Rime An-Elderin, the child spared by the Seer? The boy they were naming Seer’s halls after, even before he was born?”
Her words made the corners of his mouth twitch. He fought a primitive urge to bare his teeth. It was more difficult than usual. Perhaps because it would soon be over. He would no longer be required to perpetuate his own legend. All that remained was the confrontation with Ilume.
Ramoja was still searching for the answer in his eyes. He let her look. She would never find it.
“Have you sworn the Oath, Rime?”
He nodded and watched pain ripple across her features. So she had also thought he would change his mind.
“You think I’m betraying my mother’s memory,” he said.
“No, no!”
Ramoja’s eyes widened and her veil of composure slipped for a moment. Few other than him would have noticed. He had grown up with untruths and learned to see through them. She was telling the truth.
“You have to follow your own heart, Rime. Not the dead’s. No one can take that from you, not even …”
“No. Not even her.” He smiled. That was always everyone’s first thought. What would Ilume say? How would the matriarch of the An-Elderin family take the news of her grandson choosing the path of a warrior, not the obvious path to one of the twelve chairs that ruled the world, and which always had?
Ramoja shook her head. Not even she could imagine what awaited Rime.
“I’d always hoped—thought …”
The final word came fast, to cover up the slip, but it was too late. Ramoja had hoped he would follow in Ilume’s footsteps. Rime was surprised. He would never have believed that she, of all people, would cling to tradition. She had plenty of reasons not to. It made her loyalty to Ilume and the Council all the more touching.
Ramoja got up, and then Rime heard one of the ravens come in through the hatch behind the curtain. She pulled the fishnet to one side and ushered Vetle out. The raven perched on her hand without being commanded to. It knew the drill. She untied a sleeve attached to the inside of its leg.
Rime noticed that the mark of the Council had been burned into the ivory sleeve. He had grown up under that mark. The mark of the Seer. The black raven everyone had thought he would also bear on his forehead.
Ramoja took the letter out of the sleeve and checked the seal, making sure it was intact. The letter was for Ilume’s eyes only. She put it back in the sleeve and put it in her pocket.
“There was a raven yesterday as well. About the Rite. I hear it’s early this year?” She looked at him as if he might be able to explain.
“Yes,” he said simply. There was no point talking about Council business as if he knew nothing about it. At least he was no longer destined to become one of them.
“People will think the rumors are true,” Ramoja said. “But you know how tongues start wagging in the run-up to the Rite. There’s always at least one sighting at this time of year.” She chuckled, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes, which were fixed on Rime as if seeking a reaction to what she was saying. Just like everyone else, she assumed he knew more than most about what the Council was up to. To be fair, he generally did.
“The Council should be glad people have such vivid imaginations,” he said. “What would the point of the Rite be if it weren’t for the blind?”
Ramoja gave him a crooked smile.
“It’s Vetle’s year too, isn’t it?” Rime looked at the boy, who had settled on the bench with his head against the wall. His eyes opened when he heard his name, but then closed again straightaway.
Ramoja gathered the empty bowls and turned away. “Yes,” she replied.
Rime got up too. He knew Ramoja rarely traveled to Mannfalla, only when she had no other choice. She was so averse to it that she was staying in Elveroa even though Ilume was moving back to the capital. It seemed his visit was over, but that didn’t stop him from laying a hand on her shoulder. He was unlikely to ever see her again. He might glimpse her in the crowd during the Rite if he was able to be there, but he had come to say goodbye. She just couldn’t know that.
Ramoja turned to face him again with an apologetic smile. “I haven’t got used to the idea of being here without you.”
Rime smiled. “I haven’t been here in three years.”
But he knew what she meant. Ramoja was part of the An-Elderin family. Ramoja had lost her best friend when his mother died. Rime knew she had never entirely gotten over it. There was nothing he could say to make her feel better.
“We should never have come here in the first place,” he said. “It was a fool’s errand.” He was surprised by his own honesty. Perhaps it was because they were going their separate ways. Perhaps it was the freedom of knowing he would never follow in his grandmother’s footsteps. He wasn’t sure. But he pressed on. “The Council stationed Ilume here for years because it’s the closest they can get to Ravnhov. That’s no secret. But how many Seer’s halls have they managed to open in Ravnhov?”
Ramoja gave him a guarded smile. They both knew the answer to that. None. Ravnhov was strong. An old chiefdom and the thorn in the Council’s side. Ravnhov was the only place in the world Mannfalla would never convert, even though the cities were only a few days’ journey from each other. But between them lay Blindból, the dark heart of Ym, the impenetrable mountains everyone feared and took pains to avoid. So while other kingdoms had bowed to the will of the Council, one after the other, Ravnhov had retained its independence. They had paid their debts and were getting stronger every day.
“We’re leaving a couple days before the others,” Ramoja said. “Nora’s going to watch the ravens while I’m gone. She’s ready for the responsibility.”
Rime nodded. To think the blacksmith’s daughter was old enough to apprentice in a ravenry. He remembered her as being a terrified child who refused to join in with any of their antics. Antics like climbing the western face of Vargtind …
>
Rime could remember sitting at the summit, convinced he was the only person who would manage to scale the vertical mountainside. That was until Hirka had heaved herself over the edge, her knees scraped to ribbons. She had plopped herself down a short distance from him, nonchalantly, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. She had tried not to smile, but he could see she wanted to. The girl had been like nectar. The only child in Elveroa who never yielded to him or used his title. She was like Vetle, in a way—always exactly herself. It didn’t matter who Rime was. She used to challenge him and tell him to go to Slokna—an outburst that would have cost her dearly had anyone overheard. Rime had seen people killed for a lot less.
But it didn’t matter now. He was no longer a pawn in the Council’s game. He had found his place. He was already dead.
ODIN’S CHILD
Hirka sat in the birch tree with her cheek resting against the bark. Her body felt like a sack of firewood. She stayed there as the sun went down and the colors faded. The turfed roofs of Elveroa merged into the surrounding landscape. Hirka had lived in many places, but never for as long as she had lived here.
The village lay at the bottom of a valley that opened to the sea. One of the old gods had tried to crush the first travelers with an enormous thumb, but they were northern folk, and they had refused to be broken. They had settled in the resulting depression in the landscape, exposed to the sea but protected by blue cliffs and lush forests that stretched as far as the eye could see, east toward Gardfjella. Some distance off, the Alldjup ended as a fissure in the cliff face. The Stryfe thundered tirelessly onward, flowing down into the valley and wending its way to the sea. Farms sprawled across the hillside up to the cliffs, surrounded by fields. They were concentrated on the far side of the valley, where there was sun all day.
Magnificently situated on that hillside was Glimmeråsen, Sylja’s farm. It was bigger than any other farm in the area. The family at Glimmeråsen had spent an inconceivable amount of coin preparing Sylja for the Rite. It was all the girl could talk about. Dresses, jewelry, gold tail rings, perfume. A new carriage with shiny blue varnish—it even had doors! Nothing would be left to chance when Glimmeråsen’s only daughter was coming of age and receiving the Seer’s protection against the blind.
Hirka felt her chest tighten. Looking forward to the Rite had to be a wonderful feeling—imagine it was her? Imagine she was like Sylja, like all the others, with butterflies in her stomach. Dreaming of visiting Mannfalla, of seeing Eisvaldr—the home of the Seer—said to be a city in its own right, and the legendary Rite Hall, the music and the dancers and the Council and …
Rime.
Why had he even come back? Ilume An-Elderin was a madra, a family matriarch on the Council, one of the twelve. She was fully capable of traveling on her own—that was all she ever did. Surrounded by guardsmen on all sides, as if anyone would have dared to attack. And even if an entire pack of highwaymen were to make the mistake of doing that, Hirka would still put her money on Ilume.
Rime hadn’t needed to come. He hadn’t needed to strut around bearing the mark of the Council on his chest, as if she didn’t already know that he belonged to a different world than hers. As if she didn’t know his name.
Rime appeared in her mind’s eye. Dressed as a warrior. Probably one last hurrah before he had to don the tunic for good. Everyone who was selected during the Rite and schooled in Eisvaldr wore the tunic of the learned, until they had chosen their place—or their place had chosen them, as it were. Until they had sworn the Oath. The Council schools produced the world’s most learned people in every art, from warriors to chroniclers. But what many people dreamed of was becoming an augur: one of the Seer’s eyes. One learned in His word. All who sat on the Council had been augurs, and Rime was Ilume An-Elderin’s only grandchild. Destined for a seat on the Council. A seat many would be prepared to kill for.
Hirka had never understood why, and never would. No song of Mannfalla or Eisvaldr made the thought of traveling there more enticing. Sylja could keep her daydreams of being chosen for the schools to herself. Fraternizing with Council folk? Drinking wine from crystal? Hirka snorted. She would gladly have sacrificed everything to get out of the wretched Rite.
I’m not afraid.
What was the worst that could happen? Maybe nothing would happen. Maybe she would never even make it as far as the Rite. Not even enter Mannfalla. Maybe they’d see her for what she was as soon as she reached the city gates, and bar her from entering. Or maybe the entire city would be able to tell that she couldn’t bind, and then they’d stone her. People mean danger, Father always said. Maybe they’d have her dragged through the city streets by horses until she was unrecognizable. Imprisoned. Tortured, or put on display for all to see. Or burned alive!
Hirka heard a creak below her and gave a start. She caught a glimpse of Father through the foliage. She had been so caught up in her nightmare that she hadn’t heard him approach. The creaking of wheels had intermingled with imagined sounds of swords clanging amid a screaming throng of people. She pretended not to see him. If she made eye contact, he would win, and they would end up on the road again. The trick was not to look. She could wait. Up here she was nothing but a leaf in the wind.
The powerful blow of an axe broke the silence.
The tree trunk shook against her body, and she nearly fell. She clung on and stared down in disbelief. Father raised the axe to strike once more. Was this really happening? He took another swing, and the tree shook again. His upper body strength was unbelievable. He could pick up Hirka and Sylja at the same time as though they were kindling. Three able-bodied men couldn’t measure up to him. After just four swings, she heard the trunk give way. Just like in the Alldjup. It was a bad day to be a tree.
Hirka leaped up on the branch and prepared to jump. She swayed with the tree for a brief moment before it crashed to the ground. She flung herself to the side for all she was worth and hit the grass at a roll. The tree with over ten thousand leaves struck the ground behind her. Hirka swiftly rose to her feet and spat out a blade of grass.
Father watched her. He didn’t look happy. But not furious either. More as though he was wondering if he would ever figure her out.
Hirka crossed her arms and looked away. “I was about to head back anyway.”
“Come,” Father replied. He rested the axe on his lap and started to wheel toward the cabin. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
He struggled to get the wheeled chair inside. Hirka didn’t help him. She’d learned it was best not to. The wheels got caught on a swollen board in the doorway that didn’t normally cause him any problems, but on this occasion his movements were too sudden. He was tugging too hard on the wheels. Was too tense.
With one final push, he made it inside, and Hirka followed him. The cabin seemed smaller than normal. The air was thick and smoky from the smoldering hearth. It took some getting used to when you had spent the whole day outside.
Hirka sat down and by force of habit started to sweep dried leaves and remains of ground herbs off the table. She caught the sweet smell of opa, but said nothing. At least he had removed any visible traces of it. The Council’s healers guild imposed strict rules for handling and trading the plant. Father had always sold it under the table, and Hirka had always passively indicated her opposition. But opa was far from the only risky plant they dealt in. That was another reason they’d spent so much time on the move. A traveling peddler and his daughter.
And now he wants to leave again.
Father rolled the chair up to the table and slid a bowl of fish soup toward Hirka. It was lukewarm, but she was so hungry that it tasted like a gift from the Seer. She ate greedily with one hand, while Father cleaned her wounded hand with a cloth. She wasn’t going to tell him that she had run into Rime. Father had made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t to trust men. But he had no problems with Vetle. She could tell him about Vetle if he asked what she had been doing. But he didn’t ask.
“
I found you,” he muttered, without looking at her.
“I wasn’t trying to hide, if that’s what you think,” she replied.
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
Father rubbed some salve onto her hand. It stung. He turned away and rolled over to the hearth. He sat there, blocking the fire like a solar eclipse.
“I didn’t have you, I found you. It’s not difficult to grasp, girl.”
His words stung like ants. They warned of danger, even though she didn’t understand them. Or didn’t want to understand. His voice sounded like distant thunder. Stormy words, with nowhere to seek shelter.
“This was years ago. You were a baby. I hadn’t yet left Ulvheim. Did well for myself there. Bought and sold with little risk. The Council’s dominion has always been weaker farther north. They didn’t even have a healers guild. Wise women drew out illness, teeth, and babies without giving the Council a second thought.”
Hirka heard longing in his voice. As though he were talking about a dream world.
“But they had a man in Ulvheim. A binder, it was said, but Olve couldn’t have bound a fly to the ground. Any abilities he might once have had, he’d drunk away by the time I met him. He used opa. I knew he was the Council’s ears in Ulvheim, not that he heard much, and he knew what I got up to. Neither of us had any reason to complain. It was early in Ylirmana, just after the polar night had set in. The days were short. It was bitterly cold. The kind of cold you only get in Ulvheim.”
Father leaned a little closer to the hearth.
“Olve was good and drunk when he arrived. It was late, and I told him to go home. I lied, said I had nothing for him. He used too much as it was. But he just needed a ride. He could barely walk and was waving a bottle around, but he was deadly serious, saying that he had to get to the stone circle in Sigdskau. By order of the Council. The entire trip the snow was drifting down, and he was going on about all the senseless errands the Council sent him out on.”
Odin's Child Page 3
