Odin's Child

by Siri Pettersen

  She let the tail fall to the floor and folded her arms across her chest. She had done what she could. The others stared at the tail. She recognized the reactions on every single face. The same disgust she had felt. Some eyes widened. Others closed. One woman put her hand over her mouth. Hirka said a silent prayer, hoping they’d realize what she’d been through. That the coiled piece of dead flesh on the floor would explain what sort of situation she and Rime were in.

  Vetle reached out to touch the tail, but Ramoja stopped him. She nodded to the others. Hirka heard swords sliding back into scabbards. She closed her eyes in relief, and breathed out for what felt like the first time since they had arrived. Ramoja took a step toward Rime.

  “How will we ever be able to trust you?” It wasn’t an accusation. It was a genuine question. She wanted an answer.

  Rime met Ramoja’s mournful gaze. “You can trust me because I don’t trust Urd.” He looked between Ramoja and Vetle. Hirka didn’t understand what Urd had to do with anything at that precise moment, but his words seemed to have an effect.

  Ramoja stared at Rime.

  “I’ve always known,” he replied to her unasked question.

  She lifted her chin. “Let’s eat,” she said, and it was the most beautiful thing Hirka had heard in days.

  ON A KNIFE’S EDGE

  Rime ate in silence while Hirka shared the whole story with the others. She was inexhaustible. She talked with her mouth full, unable to decide what was more important: eating or talking. He’d never seen her like this.

  She described a deluge of events that had randomly befallen her, and how she’d had little choice but to take things as they came. But that wasn’t the way it had happened. Rime could hear what she couldn’t hear for herself: the decisions she’d made. Not because she’d had to, or because she’d hesitated until she’d been forced into action. Hirka had made decisions simply because they were the right thing to do. Difficult decisions. Dangerous decisions. Like traveling to Ravnhov. Like leaving Ravnhov to stand face-to-face with the Seer. Like warning Eirik.

  What would Rime have done? Why had he chosen Kolkagga? To serve the Seer? To fight the system from a safe distance? Really? Or had he made the simplest choice of all? Rime felt an unease growing in his chest. A warning. These thoughts were taking him down a path he’d prefer to avoid.

  Hirka related the events with sensitivity and humor. From her days in the pit, the interrogation by the Council, the fall from the roof in Ravnhov, to carrying around a dead man’s tail. Laughter came easily to those around the table. Had Rime not been able to see the pain in her eyes, he would have thought she was unmarked by everything that had happened. But he knew better. He had held her when it had been too much for her. Now she was talking like she couldn’t wait to see what would happen next.

  He remembered the look in her eyes when she had realized that he was Kolkagga. How the light in them had gone out. Since then she’d barely spoken to him, and then only reluctantly and flatly. As though he was some kind of monster, that she had no choice but to walk next to.

  Rime finished the food in his bowl and soaked up the remains with a piece of bread. He tried to ignore the fact that he was being stared at. The group around the table made little effort to conceal their glances. Nervous. Scrutinizing.

  They stared at Hirka, too, but more out of curiosity. They leaned back when they spoke to their neighbors, a blatant excuse to look behind her back. The tailless girl. He assumed she was used to it. But he was happy that nobody avoided sitting close to her. Near the rot.

  Vetle sat right beside her. Next to his bowl sat the stone figure with the broken tail. “I have no idea,” Hirka responded to a question from Joar, the youngest of the men. “All I know is that Urd has brought the blin—” She looked at Vetle and found another way of putting it. “He brought them here. The first. I swear.”

  The blind had many names. Nábyrn. The deadborn. The nameless. The first. The songless, Rime had also heard.

  “He’s not acting alone,” Knute replied. “The Council knows. They’re using it as a pretext to attack Ravnhov.”

  Rime knew that the raveners had few illusions about the powers that be in Eisvaldr, but Knute was wrong. All the same, he didn’t say anything.

  “The Council doesn’t know a thing,” Hirka answered. “I got these scars on my back because they wanted to know how I brought the blind here. That’s how little they know. And Urd came to me and got me out of the pits on his own. He’s sick. And not just in the head. I think there’s something seriously wrong with him.”

  Ramoja got up from the table. “We’ve sent the help home, so we’ll have to manage on our own tonight. Letters from the city will arrive over the course of the night. Will you see to them, Knute?”

  Knute nodded. Letters had to come and go as normal, particularly now that they were harboring a good deal more than just ravens and raveners. Rime could tell that this lot meant business. They weren’t just a bunch of disgruntled, overtaxed merchants, or families with children whose Rites never led to anything more than a brief visit to Mannfalla. These people discussed their problems so openly that they had to have been doing it for a long time. They knew each other so well they could have entire conversations without speaking a word.

  Hirka had been right. Ramoja had betrayed the Council. But she was doing more than that. She was leading a group of men and women who wanted to topple them.

  Rime felt his anger rise to the surface. An anger he had no right to feel. He stared out the narrow peephatch in the wall. Far below them lay Mannfalla. Sunlight broke through the clouds, making the wall shine. It was always the first thing to catch the light in the morning, and the last thing to let it go in the evening. The rest of the city had to make do with the wall’s inclination to reflect it. People entered Eisvaldr through the tall archways, moving from darkness into light. The red dome was pale, as if asleep. The irony made Rime smile crookedly. The dome had never seen more activity in living memory. Inside sat twelve families deciding the fate of the world, simply because that’s what they’d always done. And they did it for their own benefit.

  He was meant to have joined them in a few years. Taken over Ilume’s chair. The youngest ever, she’d said. He was the An-Elderin who had renounced his seat out of pure contempt, and now he felt anger at Ramoja’s betrayal. He felt his blood boil because someone wanted to remove the twelve. Wasn’t that what he’d always wanted himself?

  The difference was that Rime had always respected the fact that the inner circle was the will of the Seer. Inherently flawed, but still His choice. So there were no alternatives.

  “Vetle, it’s time to go up to our room,” Ramoja said. “You can play up there for a while.”

  Vetle voiced his displeasure loudly, but he let himself be convinced by Hirka’s promise to play word games with him later that evening. Ramoja asked the rest of them to gather in the letter room, telling them she’d join them in a moment.

  They sat in silence while they waited for Ramoja in the cross-shaped room at the center of the building, which had doors at all four cardinal points. Heavy beams crossed the ceiling like in a funeral ship. There was one window. It was bigger than any of the others, and revealed more of Mannfalla, but the frame was crooked. As if the walls had leaned outward and forgotten to take the glass with them. The walls were covered in shelves and drawers, all filled with letters and ivory and metal sleeves. There were also gloves, leather straps, oils, and feather trimmers. Letters were received here throughout the day, then marked, sorted, and delivered. Or collected and distributed to the city’s inhabitants. At least those who could afford to pay for the service. The poor seldom used ravens.

  Normally there’d be people working in the room, but Ramoja had sent them all home for the day. Nobody was to see her two guests. The slightest rumor of strangers or a tailless girl would be the end of them all.

  Hirka had spotted the beams and started to climb. She sat on one of them with her legs dangling down. Two of the ot
hers sat down at a table that was hinged to the wall so that it could be folded up. The others stayed standing with their arms crossed, leaning against beams and walls. Rime remained on his feet too. Sitting down made you vulnerable. If anything were to happen, valuable time was wasted getting to your feet.

  The ravens quieted down behind the closed door he was standing next to. They had started to make noise as soon as they heard people. Now maybe they’d noticed him, even though there was a door between them. It wasn’t impossible. The Might grew stronger in him every day. He assumed that the ravens were the reason Ramoja had chosen a room with only two seats. With hundreds of ravens in the adjoining room, nobody could overhear what was being said.

  Rime was very aware that he was being observed. They were six men and two women, not including Ramoja. Joar stood to his right. He was a broad-shouldered fellow with brown curls, maybe four winters older than Rime. Knute had seen twice as many winters, and his arms bore the most obvious signs of years spent in the company of ravens.

  Rime had noticed their dialects. They came from every corner of Ym. A secret group within the worldwide raveners guild. The best raveners in the eleven kingdoms. The elite of their trade. Few knew the Council’s secrets better than those who handled the letters. But how they had come together, and what kept the nine of them together, was more difficult to determine.

  Ramoja came in. She asked Lea, who was closest to the window, to secure the hasps. The wind had picked up. An oil lamp hanging from a beam flickered in the draft.

  “Does he have to be here?” asked Torje, a slim fellow from the north, with hair trimmed close to his head. There was no need to clarify to whom he was referring.

  “He has already sacrificed more than all of us,” Ramoja answered.

  “If the girl is telling the truth,” Lea said.

  “I’m not lying,” Hirka answered from her perch.

  Rime was tense. Restless. He didn’t have time to waste. He’d thought he had put the world behind him when he’d chosen Kolkagga. Now he’d been thrown right back into the middle of it—as an outlaw. Kolkagga were still on the hunt for Hirka, and it wouldn’t be long before he was missed. It would be time to report back soon, and he would be absent. Nobody would have heard from him. How long would it take for the Council to start putting two and two together? He didn't have time to stand here arguing with treasonous raveners.

  “Why would she lie? Use your head. Her face is plastered all over the city. She’s been condemned to death and has no one to turn to. She’s a child of Odin. An embling.” Rime addressed each of them in turn. “If you woke up tomorrow and found out that you were in the same boat, what would you do? Where would you go?”

  Several of them glanced up at Hirka. Rime continued. “And why would I pose a threat to you? I became Kolkagga to escape Eisvaldr. To escape having to deal with the twelve families. You think you know them, but you have no idea …” He shook his head. “Still, I know enough to have you burned alive, each and every one of you, if that’s what I wanted. And I could have taken every single life in this room, and nobody would have held me responsible for it. So tell me: why would any of us here speak with forked tongues?”

  Nobody answered for a moment. Only Torje was willing to challenge him. “Because you still don’t know who we are. You don’t know what we’re going to do, or when. You don’t know whether there are more of us.” The stress on that word was meant to suggest that there were a great many more. That was a lie. A strategic bluff, thrown out there to intimidate him, in case he was still loyal to the Council.

  “What does it matter if I know or don’t know?” Rime took a step toward Torje. “Nothing the guild is planning can make the situation we’re in any better or any worse.”

  “We can eradicate all of you! Is that worse?”

  “Torje!” Ramoja’s voice came like the flick of a whip. Torje backed off with a snarl. His hand was at his hip even though none of them carried their swords. Rime felt the same reflex but managed to restrain himself.

  We can eradicate all of you.

  It didn’t matter to Torje or anyone else here what he had or hadn’t done. He was and always would be Rime An-Elderin. A symbol. An enemy, with a name they despised.

  “At least then you’d have done something useful before you died,” he replied and stared at Torje until the Northlander looked away.

  “Slokna take me, you’re all so dense!” came from above. Hirka smacked her forehead. “We’re all in the same boat here! Can’t you see that?”

  Ramoja broke in. “Hirka is right. We have to assume that we have the same goal, and that it will cost all of us our lives if we fail. Rime, you and I have chosen our paths. You serve the Council as an assassin, as their weapon. I don’t know where your loyalty lies when all is said and done. In any case, it’s too late. The Council is going to fall.” The others muttered in agreement around her. Ramoja continued. “If you want to honor your parents, do not try to stop us.”

  She was obviously trying to bait him, but Rime was too curious not to bite. “My parents had the same regard for the Council as everyone else.”

  “I doubt that, Rime. Ilume is good at keeping secrets. I had no better friend than your mother. Your parents died near Urmunai, taken by the snow, it was said.” Rime pricked up his ears. “And maybe the snow did take them. We’ll never know. What I do know is that they weren’t going to Urmunai. Gesa woke me the night they left. You were asleep in your father’s arms. Her eyes were like glass. There was something in them that I’d never seen before. I asked what was wrong, but she didn’t say. All she told me was that you were leaving. For good.”

  “To go where?” Rime could feel himself growing restless. He knew what was coming.

  “To Ravnhov.”

  Rime studied Ramoja’s face for signs of deceit. She had a lot to gain from lying, but he found himself believing her. “What does it matter where they died?” His voice was sharper than he had intended it to be.

  “Knowing where might not be important, but surely knowing why has to mean something?”

  “You’re making it sound like someone brought the snow down on us intentionally. There is no why.”

  “Come on, Rime! You said so yourself, use your head. They showed up at my home in the middle of the night to say goodbye before fleeing to the only sanctuary in the eleven kingdoms.”

  “Ilume would never have allowed it.”

  “Ilume didn’t know. I kept my word to Gesa. I never told anyone that they had come to me first. Not just for her sake, but also to save my own skin. Had I said anything, it would have revealed that I knew their trip to Urmunai was a fabrication. Trust me, I have good reasons for never telling a soul about this.”

  “Why? Why would they want to leave Eisvaldr?”

  “Why would you, Rime?” The warmth in Ramoja’s eyes had returned. They revealed that she’d finally understood why he had chosen to be Kolkagga. It wasn’t a thirst for blood. It was a necessity. Rime barely recognized his own voice when he answered.

  “Because it would have cost more to stay.”

  Torje approached Rime and began to speak. Rime realized that he had suddenly become a new weight on the raveners’ scales. An ally in the fight. Torje trembled with indignation, assuming that they had to be talking about murder.

  “The Council has served its last lie! Blood will be repaid with blood!”

  “Wait!” Rime grabbed his arm. “Not now. You can’t do anything now, while the Rite is still on. Rumors or no rumors! The blind are in Ym and people need all the protection they can get.”

  Rime could picture a Mannfalla controlled by the blind. Destruction. Powerlessness. A place without the Might, and without life. He couldn’t let anyone set out from Mannfalla unprotected now that he knew the blind were real.

  The others glanced uncertainly at one another. At Ramoja. He had a point.

  Hirka hopped down from the roof beam. She cocked her head. Her eyes were full of wonder. “How does the Council actual
ly protect people? I felt no protection on the day of my Rite. But I felt the Might.”

  “You can feel the Might?” Lea’s eyes widened.

  Rime concealed a smile. They really knew nothing about Hirka. Had it been up to him, it would have stayed that way. She’d be safer that way. “She can feel the Might,” he affirmed.

  Torje was still skeptical. Or he was the only one willing to express his doubt. He may have been too quick to judge, but at least he said what he thought. Rime felt a seed of respect for something he had seen far too little of in his life.

  “Even blue-blooded folk can barely feel the Might. You’re lying, girl!”

  Hirka hissed at him. “I can’t feel it in chickens like you! But when it’s strong, I can feel it. In Rime. In the Ravenbearer. In Urd.” She shuddered. “When the Ravenbearer offered us protection on the day of the Rite, it felt cold. The same as when Urd killed the prisoner who … when he killed him. Using the Might! He put his hand on the man’s head and I felt the Might fill the room. Fill me. Not like with Rime. It was painful. Destructive. Familiar, yet unfamiliar. It’s hard to explain. Everything was drawn toward the man’s body. It was shaking. His eyes …” Rime watched her swallow. “His eyes rolled back into his head. And he fell. There was blood. In his mouth. He …” Hirka looked at her hand as though she had done it herself. “Urd was leaning against the wall. He was panting. I wanted …”

  Rime heard a sob behind him. Ramoja had wrapped her arms around herself and was slumping to her knees. He grabbed her before she collapsed entirely.

  “Vetle … In the Seer’s name …” She gasped, burying her face in Rime’s shoulder. Lea came over and pulled her away pointedly, as though Rime’s mere presence was going to make things worse.