The glimpse of his face tore at Hirka’s heart. Grief had extinguished the light in his eyes. Emptied them of everything but blackness. Grief over Ilume. Over the Seer. Over the fact that this was how it was going to end for them. Because if they were being honest, even Ravnhov couldn’t stand against Mannfalla. It was only a matter of time now. The Council had all the reasons it needed. Urd would paint a picture of the rot and the outlaw, and the whole world would lap it up. The fugitives who had broken in to kill the Seer. Who had killed Ilume. At the behest of Ravnhov. They didn’t stand a chance.
Rime had wanted to stay. Wanted to fight in Eisvaldr alongside Ramoja. But he had realized that it was impossible. Whatever their plans were, he would put the raveners in even greater danger. And Hirka wasn’t too stupid to understand that he had come along for her sake. She would never make it through Blindból on her own.
He’d lost everything helping her. Maybe she could talk it away, talk away the suffocating blanket weighing them down—like she always did. She could indulge her curiosity, maybe ask him what had been niggling in the back of her mind the whole way here.
“How could the tower float without the Seer? Isn’t He the one who shapes the Might that holds it up?”
“It doesn’t float. It’s never floated.” Rime’s voice was dark.
“What do you mean? I saw it …”
“Mirrors. They make it look like the tower is floating. Especially from inside the Rite Hall, when the doors are opened. Genius, right? I was nine when I figured out how it worked. But I didn’t say anything.”
Hirka shrugged. “Would it have mattered?”
“Of course! Had people known, then maybe they’d have realized—”
“Realized what? That He doesn’t exist? You didn’t.”
The white fire in his eyes returned. She was nearing the heart of the matter. A raindrop splattered against her hand. Soon there would be more.
“Would you have realized? What if you’d seen a lot more, Hirka? Seen the Council manipulate people your whole life so they could appear more powerful and cleverer than they actually are? Yes, I knew how they twisted the law to their own advantage. I knew that mirrors made the tower look like it was floating. I knew that a number of ingeniously placed windows bathed the twelve in light when they sat down in the Rite Hall. I’ve always known. Their hoods are lined with gold so their faces are always aglow. A mallet is pulled over a brass gong beneath the platform when they enter. You don’t hear it, but you feel it in your body. It’s like the world is vibrating when you see them. Simple, yet effective.” He tugged on the collar of his tunic, as though it was suddenly too tight. “I never believed in them. How could I believe in Him?”
Hirka knew why. She had always known why. All her life she had seen it, in the eyes of the sick. Of those who bled. Those who suffered. She knew Rime better than he realized. She looked at him and tried to smile.
“Because there was nothing else to believe in.”
The rain came, the heavens weeping over a conversation nobody ever would have thought possible. Rime’s eyes wandered. The immensity of what they were talking about was starting to sink in. Hirka feared the fallout. She wanted to tell him she was relieved that there was no definitive answer. It meant nobody could claim to be in the right. Nobody controlled her life. The fate of the child of Odin was not predetermined. She determined her own fate. Orphaned, homeless, and godless. She was free.
But that wouldn’t help him now. She had to give him something he could hold onto, now that everything had been taken from him.
“Nobody actually lied to me about the tower, Rime. People assumed that it floated and went on assuming for a thousand years. A thousand years is a long time. And the more people say something, the truer it becomes.”
He laughed cheerlessly. Then he clenched his fists, opened them again, and stared at his palm. “I’ve killed for Him! Fought for His word!”
Hirka bit her lower lip. Rime had always been the strong one. The one who had to pull her up. Now he was unraveling before her eyes. She couldn’t let that happen.
“Who are you, Rime?”
“You know that better than anyone, don’t you? You’ve said so yourself. I’m one of the Council’s murderers. An assassin for a false seer. I’m already dead.”
Hirka moved closer until she was right in front of him. She wrapped her hands around his face. He was so ridiculously beautiful. She had never seen eyes like his. Light gray rings of wildness where his soul fought for control. She ran her thumbs under them, where the skin was bluer. His pupils dilated and contracted with his pulse. Wolf eyes. He blinked as though he’d never seen her before.
“Who are you?” she repeated.
“I’m Rime. Rime An-Elderin.” He spat out his family’s name.
“What’s important to Rime An-Elderin?”
He laughed, almost scornfully. His jaw clenched under her fingers. “His word. The Seer’s words were important. The only thing that was important.”
“What were the Seer’s words, Rime?”
He recited them automatically, as though they bored him for the first time. “Strength. Love. Truth. Justice.”
“Are those words still important? Without Him?”
He looked at her as though the question was impossible. “There’s no Seer, Hirka. They’ve—”
She let go of his face. “Do you mean to tell me that you’ve fought for a raven? A mangy old bird?! Or have you fought for what He meant to you? What He meant to you still exists, even if He doesn’t. For a thousand years the Seer has been the answer to everything we don’t know, and Ilume was right! Whether He exists or not doesn’t matter! Because Rime An-Elderin exists. Does strength matter to him?” Rime stared at her. “Answer me, Rime.”
He gave a slight nod. He was so close to her that her chest ached. She could hear Father whispering warnings from Slokna, but it was too late now. His voice couldn’t drown out her desire. The weakness in her body. Rime nodded again, a few times. The sky succumbed and the rain hit the mountain with the force of a landslide. It soaked through their clothes in an instant. The ground turned to mud around them.
“It matters,” he answered hoarsely. The rain ran down his face. Dripped from his pale lips, almost blue in the dark. Hirka fought to allay her thirst for the Might, but her body wouldn’t obey. It readied itself. The blood exploded in her veins, as if in anticipation that he would bind. Something was happening. She could see it in his eyes. She knew it was coming before he grabbed hold of her. His hand plunged into her hair and he pulled her toward him. His lips pressed against hers. Dripping wet. Fierce. Hirka lost all feeling in her arms. She wanted to wrap them around his neck, but they wouldn’t move. He grabbed her head with both hands and it felt like that was all that was holding her up. He kissed her like a man starved and she reciprocated. She didn’t know where the instinct came from. The fearlessness. The certainty. The need. She didn’t even think he’d intended to bind, but now the Might had seized both of them. Her body awoke and demanded it. She pressed against him and heard herself gasp.
Dangerous! This is dangerous!
The Might brought with it the truth of who she was. This was not for her. Rime was not for her. She was the child of Odin. The rot.
This will kill him! He knows that!
She felt the strength return to her arms. Rime was kissing her because he no longer had anything to lose. He didn’t care whether he got the rot. Hirka tore herself free and pushed him away.
He gave her a joyless smile. He knew what she was thinking. “Is the rot the only thing you choose to believe in, Hirka?”
Her body screamed at her to give in to him. He had kissed her without rotting. A little more couldn’t hurt … But the blood coursing through her veins told her that it was a false hope. If she drank in more of him now, she’d never be able to stop. Never be able to get enough. And then it would be too late. The rot would either show itself to be a lie or to be the truth. The risk was too great. It would always be
too great.
Her forehead fell against his chin. He put his arms around her and pulled her close. “I’m Rime An-Elderin,” he mumbled into the top of her head. “Strength matters. Love matters. Truth and justice. We’ll get them. Not in His name, but in my own.”
She closed her eyes against his chest and listened to his heartbeat. The most beautiful sound she’d ever heard. The most beautiful thing she’d ever felt. And yet the worst thing. She’d gotten a taste of what could never be hers. Not without it taking his life. It was unbearable.
BLOOD
Blindból was almost more difficult to navigate in broad daylight than in the dark. The mountains cast overlapping shadows to create a forested labyrinth where people were never supposed to set foot.
The valley had started to turn yellow and orange. It got cooler as they traveled farther north and up to higher ground. That was a sure sign they were approaching Ravnhov, but their progress was intolerably slow. Half a day’s toil across mossy rocks seemed completely wasted when they realized how little distance they’d put behind them. It made Hirka think back to the evening Father had revealed the truth about her. She had run to the Alldjup, taken a tumble, and dreamed she was an insect that could disappear in the moss. Now her dream had come true, whether she liked it or not.
The worst thing was that there were easier ways of getting there. They could have followed small streams along the valley floor where the terrain was easier. They could have enjoyed the sun on their faces. Or they could have gotten almost all the way there using Kolkagga’s network of rope bridges and paths. But if they used any of those routes, they’d be easy targets for the black shadows.
Up ahead of her, Rime was like a millstone grinding relentlessly onward, strong and lithe. When he paused—sitting down to drink from the one waterskin they had, or to eat a handful of golden cloudberries—she knew he was doing it for her sake.
She might have been faster if it hadn’t been for the plants. These mountains were a healer’s dream. No matter where she looked, she saw vengethorn and soldrop. There was enough yellowbell to bring down the fevers of everyone in Mannfalla. Opa grew wild at slightly higher altitudes, often on the eastern slopes. If she hadn’t seen what opa could do to people, she’d have chewed it the whole way to give her a boost. They’d walked past bloodweed at one point as well. The poison that had taken Father. Enough to send twenty men to Slokna if you didn’t know what you were doing. She could probably have bought a house for just that one clump, had it been legal. Had she not been a condemned outlaw, of course …
Her backpack was so stuffed full of plants that she couldn’t carry any more. Leaving behind the plants she passed was unbearable, so she’d started looking at birds instead. Owls with speckled blue plumage, hawks, and colorful songbirds. There were also animals they needed to steer clear of. They’d seen a bear a couple of times, and the night before, they’d heard a wolf howling at the moon. Luckily, there were easier pickings than Hirka and Rime, so they were able to walk in peace.
Hirka could see the Might at work in this place. The timelessness. How everything was interlinked with everything else. How nothing could have been any different, or anywhere else, at any other time. It was a mixture of mortal danger and perfect safety, like being close to Rime when he was binding the Might.
She told him how the Might felt different in different places. Familiar, but not the same. He smiled broadly for the first time in days. It seemed the Might was a good topic of conversation for him. It never stood still. It trickled through the earth, flowed with the water, pulsed with life. The Might was all that was. All that had been. And nothing was the same in any two places in this world. There were stone whisperers in Eisvaldr who believed the Might was also all that would happen, but that was a discussion as old as the life force itself. No one could prove it, but fortune tellers still made a living from reading the Might in people.
Hirka felt a pang of guilt. She’d done exactly the same when she’d patched people up, or given them teas or extracts for illnesses. No one liked hearing that she had reasoned her way to what they needed. They wanted to hear that she listened to the Might. That she just knew. Just like that. What would they have said if they knew she couldn’t even bind? That the only Might she knew was that which flowed through those with blue blood, like Rime? The certainty that she would never belong anywhere started gnawing at her again.
You shouldn’t be here.
Hlosnian’s words echoed in her mind as if he were right next to her. She was becoming more and more convinced that he was right. If Urd’s madness had even a grain of truth in it, it was the only way of stopping the blind. She would have to go back the same way she’d come.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d known. She’d suppressed the thought. She didn’t even know whether it was possible. Or whether it would solve the problems. Not to mention what awaited her on the other side. The great unknown …
No! There were other ways. She could live in Ravnhov.
Until Mannfalla’s army breaks down the wooden gate.
She could flee farther north! To Ulvheim. Live under the ice. She’d heard people did that.
Until they realize what you are and hunt you like one of the blind.
Anything seemed better than going into the unknown, but vanquishing the blind from Ym had to come first. As long as she was here, on the wrong side. As long as she lived, Urd had opportunity. People would die. And Urd had clearly lost control. What would happen if he made a mistake? Would deadborn swarm into the eleven kingdoms? Would there be another war, like the ones described in legends? And what would they do this time, without the Seer? Hirka felt dizzy. She’d caused so much suffering already, so much death, just by existing. There was so much blood on her hands. And Rime’s hungry kiss had made it all too clear that she still had more to lose.
She was still battling that thought when she caught sight of something irresistible. A hot spring. She’d been tired and itchy for days. There had been moments when death seemed a tempting solution to all her problems, so the prospect of a hot bath was a godsend. Steam rose from the surface. A sickle-shaped blessing at the foot of a rock that plunged deep down into the water. It was so deep she couldn’t see the bottom. The water was pale green and clear. It whispered to her. Come. Rest. Cleanse yourself.
She stopped. She looked up at Rime, who was still walking. It wasn’t the first they’d seen, and apparently there were several that Kolkagga used. “Rime …”
Rime stopped and turned to look at her. It didn’t take him long to work out what she wanted. He shook his head. “The hot springs are the first place I’d look.”
“Do I look like I care?” Hirka could hardly remember what they were running from anymore. Or why Kolkagga were something to fear. After all, Rime was one of them. “We’ve been walking for five days, Rime. If they haven’t found us by now, they’ll never find us.”
Rime gave her a stern look. Hirka sat down on the ground with her arms crossed. “The way I see it, either Kolkagga slaughter us or we get eaten by our own fleas. Your choice. I know about these things. I know we’ll be killed by a fever if we carry on like this. Tiny critters will gorge themselves on our filth and dig into—”
“Fine. We’ll stop here, but be quick.” Rime disappeared around the side of the rock to keep a lookout and to give her space. Hirka tore off her clothes and dropped them into the undergrowth. Her skin puckered into goose pimples. There were small black flowers growing around the life-giving water. They reminded her of fairy’s kiss, but they were the opposite color. She’d heard that all things had their opposites in the kingdom of the dead. Maybe she was already dead and had actually been wandering around Slokna for days.
She was about to jump into the water when she heard Rime shout from the other side of the rock, “Needless to say, don’t forget to check how hot the water is before you jump in.”
Hirka blushed. “I’m not stupid, you know!”
She dipped her big toe in. It was hot. Best to ta
ke it slow. Little by little, she coaxed her body down into the water, until she was sitting on the rock slope with her feet drifting in the deep and only her head above the surface. No ymling had ever had it so good.
Embling. No embling had ever had it so good.
She grabbed a fistful of moss and scrubbed herself until she was red. She still had the soap she’d been given when she first arrived in Mannfalla. It had been broken into two pieces by the arrow that had pierced her bag. The mark of the Seer was split down the middle and almost washed away. She needed to get clean. To wash away the heavy thoughts and what remained of the girl who had once been afraid of the Seer. Hirka ducked under the water and rinsed the last of the bark dye from her hair. The red was back, brighter than she remembered it. She felt the water tug at her feet. A current far below. Like the Might. The earth lived and breathed beneath her. Where did this water come from? And where did it end up? When she breathed out and let her body sink deeper, the pull felt stronger. Dangerously strong. She could just let go and let it take her … Drown her. Would she be accepted by the earth? Would they flow as one? Would that solve all the problems? Or would the paths between worlds stay open as long as she was here, dead or alive?
She could hear Kuro cawing somewhere far away. An echo from a dream world above her. She pulled herself back to the surface and sat down in the undergrowth until she was dry enough to get dressed again. Not without some reluctance, because her clothes really needed cleaning as well. Not just cleaning—boiling!
“Have you drowned?” Rime’s voice came from the other side of the rock, more irritated than worried.
“Yes.”
He met her halfway around the rock. “I won’t be long,” he said as he took off his shoes.
“I wasn’t long either.” Hirka picked up her bag and walked around the rock. She sat on a ledge and emptied her bag out next to her. It had rained heavily. She was worried about the condition her things might be in. This was a good time to repack. The air was cooler, the light whiter. It wouldn’t rain again now. She started to sort the plants she had gathered.
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