A moment passed, and then he remembered. His eyes found their strength again. He pulled her up. She tried to kick herself away from the wall to make it easier. Finally she stood with her stomach pressed against the curved roof, clinging on. She found a foothold and dared to look down. The edge around the dome was narrower than her foot. There was ridiculously little to walk on. Rime smiled at her.
“Still think you can fly?”
They were the same words he’d used at the Alldjup. He started to laugh. She smiled and tried to shush him but she was laughing too, so it wasn’t much help. Laughing now of all times was so ridiculous that it took them a few moments to stop.
“Sure I can! You’ve seen me climb,” she managed to get out.
“I’ve also seen you fall,” he replied.
She wiped away the tears and managed to stop herself from bursting out laughing again. She was alive. “Before the summer, I thought the worst thing that could happen to me was being sent home from the Rite with a message to come back next year. Because I wasn’t strong enough. Two months ago I was like everyone else.”
“You’ve never been like everyone else.”
“At least I was a child of Ym! An ymling. I was people!”
“People are the worst. You’re probably better off being menskr.” He smiled. A broad smile that reached his eyes. Then he started to inch his way forward along the edge of the dome. It was covered in tiles, each the size of a thumbnail. They were closely set in every shade of red. Deep red, copper, blood-red. In some places there were faint trails in the red, where the rain had weathered them.
Then she spotted a dark cavity above her. She fumbled for it with her fingers. A window ledge. “Rime …”
He stopped. Hirka pulled herself up onto the ledge, and Rime followed. There were tall windows all the way around the dome. The ledge was wide enough to sit on. Rime pulled out his knife and started to pick at one of the hundreds of pieces of glass in the ornate window. It was pitch-black inside.
“Can’t you break it?” Hirka whispered, even though it felt like they were an eternity away from the walls of the hall and the unsuspecting guardsmen who patrolled below.
“They’ll hear us.”
“Who? They’re sleeping like babies! And anyway, all of Mannfalla is going to know we’re here before the night’s over.”
Rime kept fiddling. She shifted impatiently. “Can’t you use the Might?” Rime stopped what he was doing. He looked at her as though she had suggested wishing away the window. But then he grabbed her hand. This time, the Might was like an old friend. She felt Rime draw it through her and into his fingertips. She became his hand. His hand became the knife. The knife became the wrought iron. They became one. She could transform the world if she wanted to, at this very moment. The heat raced through her body, picked the iron apart, and put it back together again. Rime lifted it with the knife. The iron hung above the blade of the knife like a boiled eel. A couple yellowed pieces of glass popped out, free after a lifetime enframed. Rime cut off the flow of the Might.
Hirka grinned while he picked up a piece of glass and turned it in his hand, like it was something he’d never seen before. “You didn’t know that was possible, did you?”
“I thought it might be,” he said, but she could tell he was lying.
Hirka had slimmer hands, so she reached in where they had removed the glass. She managed to open the hasp on the inside, so that they could finally climb inside the Council Chamber. Hirka forgot to be afraid of encountering someone. She was just grateful to have her feet back on a floor. To be surrounded by walls again.
The room was impressive. The inside of the dome had an ornate ceiling, but it was impossible to see what was depicted. It was too high up in the darkness. A row of columns ran along the outer wall. In the middle of the room she saw the outline of the table with the twelve chairs surrounding it. She walked over to them. It was impossible to resist. She put her hand on the back of one of the chairs. If only Father could see her now! Or Sylja. How many people outside the Council had seen this room? The thought brought goose bumps to her arms. She saw something gleaming and noticed the golden names engraved in the surface of the table. She ran her fingers over the letters.
An-Elderin.
“This is where you would have …” Hirka looked at him. He suddenly seemed much bigger than before. His face was obscured by shadows. It was impossible to see whether he was nodding. “Do you think they’d engrave ‘Tailless’ and add an extra chair?”
Rime didn’t laugh at her joke. “Does it look like they’re ready for new blood?”
She looked at the names that ran around the table.
Kobb, An-Elderin, An-Sarin, Taid, Saurpassarid, Kleiv, Vanfarinn, Darkdaggar, Jekense, Fell, Jakinnin, Vangard.
They had been there since time immemorial. They were names everyone knew. She could see his point—you don’t engrave names in gold unless they’re meant to stay there.
It had been so easy to accept before. They were old families. Families who could interpret the Seer. Blue-blooded. Skilled in the Might. It was only natural that few could challenge them.
Now she was no longer certain. If what Rime had said was true, a lot of people might have been able to do just that, had it not been for the Rite.
“Come.”
Rime had clearly found the motivation he needed to continue. He carefully opened the only door in the room, and they emerged into a dark corridor with a vaulted ceiling. He led them down a staircase and into a kind of indoor garden. He stopped behind a row of trees and pulled her close. He shushed her before she could ask what they were doing. A moment passed, then a guardsman came walking along the corridor with heavy steps. He reached the end, turned, and went back again.
She was glad Rime had grown up here.
They snuck ahead to a wider corridor with a familiar door at the end. Red. Shiny. She’d been here before. Unease filled her body. She wanted to turn back. This wasn’t a good place to be.
She held out her arm to stop Rime, but he was too far ahead of her. She had no choice but to follow him through the door. Into the Rite Hall. She stood on the platform above a baying crowd, but this time there was nobody here. The voices were an echo. The hall was empty and colorless in the dark. She was standing in the exact spot where she had been dragged away like a lamb to the slaughter. A monster. The rot. She had to breathe from her belly. The way Rime had taught her.
You should be dead now.
They had dragged her off, and ever since then they had wanted her dead. But here she stood. In their most sacred place. Hirka could feel a smile blossoming on her lips. They had treated her like an animal. Like one of the blind. But they didn’t know what children of Odin were capable of. She hadn’t known either. Until now.
She turned to Rime, who was standing in front of the double doors that the Council had used during the Rite. There were no handles, but he placed his palms against them and gave a gentle push. Then he took a step back. Hirka heard three mechanical clicks in the wall, and the doors swung outward of their own accord.
The wind came in. Blew past them and into the hall. It blasted along the curved walls behind them. In front of them was a narrow bridge with tall spires along both sides. The bridge that would take them into the Seer’s tower. It was just as she remembered it. The floating tower, with no other support than the slender bridge. The tower that demonstrated His unfathomable powers. Some said He held it up with the Might. Others said He didn’t even need to. The Might flowed so powerfully around Him that it shaped itself. He was the Might.
Rime hesitated by the door. He stared at the floating black rock, which was adorned with golden pillars. Pillars that didn’t touch the ground. It was as though a mountain had fallen from the sky but never landed. It had simply remained suspended, and later people had seen fit to adorn it with gold and glass and make it into the Seer’s hall. Hirka had never seen another hall like it. The pillars and the yellow glass made it look like an immense lantern. A floa
ting light.
Rime placed a hand on her shoulder, but she didn’t think it was to comfort her. More to check that she was still there. This was his world, after all. Not hers. He had grown up here, but even he had never crossed this bridge. Nobody other than the Council had crossed it. Maybe that was why he had become Kolkagga? Because the notion of meeting Him was too terrifying?
I’m not afraid.
And she meant it.
She took the first step, and they crossed the bridge. The entire way she waited for something to happen. For the bridge to start shaking until they fell off. For the tower to start shining. For an omnipresent voice to speak to them. But nothing happened. They got closer and closer. Between the pillars were the tallest windows she had ever seen. Bits of glass shaped like teardrops, the color of fire, pieced together again and again, until they were the height of twenty men. The doors were a textured expanse of gold. This had to be the birthplace of all riches. A house built for the sun. For Him.
Hirka placed her hands on the doors and gave them a shove. Once again she had expected something extraordinary to happen, but the doors simply opened, like any other door. As if He was waiting for them. Hirka turned to look at Rime, smiled, and walked inside.
Hlosnian’s tree!
The room they stepped into was enormous, as was to be expected. But nothing could have prepared her for the tree. The Seer’s tree. It was a tree like no other. It grew from the center of the room, stretched upward, and branched off in every direction, like tendrils of ink. Black as the night. Gleaming. Was it stone? Or burnt glass? Both? She stared up at it, and it seemed to change character as she walked around. A storm, frozen in midair. Randomly, but always in the same direction.
She remembered the bitter look in the eyes of the stone carver as he spoke of his despair at not being able to create anything close to it. Hirka understood. She stared up at the twisted trunk and at the impossibly thin branches running around the outer edges of the room. Higher and higher. There were thousands of them—each touched by the grace of the Seer. Nobody could carve this from stone. It wasn’t possible. What was it Hlosnian had said? This was the Might as it used to be. Ancient forces. What else had he said?
You shouldn’t be here.
She’d thought he meant she shouldn’t be in his home. That he was busy working. On his sculptures. But maybe he’d meant something else entirely. Had Hlosnian found out that she had traveled here through stone? Hirka walked up to the tree. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Rime raise his arm as if to stop her, but she couldn’t stop. She ran her hands over the trunk. The stone was cold and soothing. It whispered to her. Called to her. She remembered the tree back home. Where she had sat counting the leaves in her head, until Father came and chopped it down. She started to climb.
“Hirka!”
She turned and looked down at Rime. He could never have done what she was doing now, she realized. He had made it here, but would go no farther. To his mind, the Seer was too powerful. Too holy to challenge. So it was up to her. Wasn’t that why they had come?
“How else are you going to meet Him?” she said, continuing upward. It was like climbing cold glass. She looked down at Rime again. “Besides, I’m already dead, remember?”
She reached the center of the tree. The place where the trunk branched out in every direction. The place where He lived. She pulled herself up over the edge and into the hollow in the middle.
It was empty.
Hirka found that she wasn’t surprised. A part of her had never believed she was going to see Him. Had they come all this way for nothing? Had He left the tower? Left His own tree? Rime had said that the Council had convened without Him. Had He gone away? Was He sick? Dead? Had they moved Him? Or …
Hirka leaned over the edge and stared down at Rime, who was on his knees looking up at her.
“He’s not here.”
Rime got up. She sensed she needed to repeat herself, so she flung her arms out and spoke louder.
“He’s not here!”
“Where … Where is He?”
It was a ridiculous question, but there was no need to point that out. She shrugged.
“Of course He’s here,” Rime said. He started to search the room, even though there was nothing else there. Just a door, directly across from the one they’d come through. Hirka climbed back down. Her unease was back. Stronger. She had to do something, but there was nothing to be done. This unease couldn’t be stopped. It wasn’t fear. It was certainty, like she’d experienced on the roof of the old watchtower. The certainty that comes when you realize something you ought to have known all along. It was a feeling of having seen something so hideous that you wished you’d never seen it. Like an open wound on your leg, or a stillborn child. She suddenly wished she could turn back time, so this wouldn’t go any further.
“Rime …”
“He’s here.” Rime grabbed a staff that was propped up between the wall and a polished black table. The Ravenbearer’s staff. The table was the only piece of furniture in the entire room. A couple of small bottles and a bowl had been left on it. Hirka recognized the smell. She wished it was something else, but it wasn’t.
“Rime …”
“He’s in here!” Rime threw the staff aside and pulled open the door. The room inside was like a cave, carved out of the rock. It was full of ravens. Maybe fifty of them. They’d been asleep and started to caw irritably when the door opened. They were perched on beams that crossed the room at various heights. There were the usual shelves of paper and sleeves along the walls. A ravenry. A perfectly ordinary ravenry.
“Where is He? Which one is Him?” Rime looked at her, but she didn’t have an answer. Didn’t want to answer. He shouted into the room. “Where are you?!”
The ravens’ cawing grew louder. Some of them moved uneasily to another beam. Hirka could feel a cold draft from what had to be open hatches in the roof, high above them in the darkness.
“WHERE ARE YOU?!”
Rime screamed. The ravens screamed. Some of them flew around the room before settling down again higher up. None of them answered. None of them came to Rime. They were just ravens. Nothing more. Hirka clenched her teeth, pained by what Rime was incapable of understanding. He walked back to the tree, all the while talking to himself.
“He has to be here. He is here. What have they done to Him?” He repeated it over and over again.
Hirka followed him. “Rime …” She picked up the bowl from the table. “Rime, this is dreamwort.” He looked at her in confusion. “Dreamwort. A plant. It can knock people out for hours. If you’d taken a sword to the thigh and had to be stitched up, they’d give you dreamwort first. Not in Elveroa, because it’s too expensive, but nothing’s too expensive here. That’s what Urd tried to give me when—”
“What does that have to do with anything?” The despair in his voice made her stomach clench. Outside, atop the red dome, he’d been afraid she wouldn’t be able to handle this night. But this night was not for her. It was for him.
“In small doses it makes people lethargic. Sleepy. Makes them sit passively and motionless for a long time. People. Or ravens.” She took a cautious step toward him. “Perfectly ordinary ravens, Rime.”
He understood. He knew. All she could do was watch the ground disappear from under his feet. She thought he was going to fall, but he didn’t. He looked past her. Past her and into himself. His eyes glazed over. Went blank. Suddenly he drew his sword.
He can’t handle it!
But then she heard it too. Footsteps on the bridge. Someone stopping at the sight of the open doors, but only for a moment. Judging by the footsteps, it wasn’t a guardsman. Just a lone figure. Rime held his sword out in front of him and pushed Hirka behind him. She slipped into the raven room and hid behind the door. She could see Rime through the crack between the hinges. He didn’t even attempt to hide. What if it was Urd? She wanted to shout to him, but it was too late. The figure entered from the bridge.
“There was just
no way you’d let me keep you, was there?”
Not even Ilume’s voice could fill this room. There was no indication of surprise in her voice. She didn’t ask how he’d gotten in, or what he was doing there. It was almost as though she’d expected it. Maybe when she’d seen the open doors? Or maybe all her life.
Her pale robe hung straight down from her shoulders, as though she was formless. A pillar of stone. Rime stood with his hands out. His sword was a morbid extension of his arm. His back was hunched and his teeth were bared. A wolf and a pillar of stone. What could an animal do against a mountain?
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
Only now was Hirka sure that Rime had accepted the truth. What he was actually asking was what she was doing in Eisvaldr, serving on the Council when there was no reason to be here. What was she doing here when there was no Seer? Ilume held out a scroll.
“Sending a letter. That’s what a ravenry is for.” She lit the torches on either side of the door, and continued into the raven room. Hirka pressed herself up against the wall to remain unseen. Ilume placed the letter calmly in an ivory sleeve, which she then fastened to a clip at the top of a raven’s leg. “And if you want to do something without being seen, night is the best time to do it. But apparently you already know that,” she said. Then she whispered something in ravenspeak. The black bird took flight and continued up into the darkness toward the hatches.
Ilume watched it for a moment, sighed heavily, and left the raven room. Hirka could see Rime in front of the black tree. The torches made the branches sparkle as though a fire was blazing behind him. His eyes darted around the room. He looked like he had a lot to say, but couldn’t get the words out. Hirka understood. Here he was, in the Seer’s tower, in front of His throne, and He was simply not here. And Ilume didn’t seem worried, or keen to explain. She just stood in front of him in her stone-pillar way.
“And you thought you’d honor me with your presence?” Rime seethed.
Hirka wanted so much to go to him. She could feel his pain. He had so much to say to his grandmother that he didn’t know where to start.
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