Odin's Child

by Siri Pettersen

  A raven had come from their allies in Mannfalla with news of the Rite Feast, the spectacular celebration that marked the final day of the Rite. Today was a festive occasion. Ravens had also come from the battlegrounds with reports that groups of men had clashed in the forests: soldiers from Mannfalla, from Ravnhov, and a couple from Ulvheim. There had been sporadic attempts to break through the outpost line around Hrafnfell. A small group had succeeded, but they were caught before they reached the chiefdom.

  So it had begun. The war was a fact. But in Mannfalla they were dancing. Hirka didn’t ask how many had died. She didn’t want to know. There was nothing she could do.

  She went back to the great hall. Hlosnian was waiting for her inside. The old stone whisperer was standing with his eyes closed and his hands against the stone column he’d been working on for so long. He called it a gossipmonger. A feeler. He nodded at her. Much too quickly, the time had come.

  She looked around. She had nothing apart from her bag. What more would she need where she was going? No one knew, not even Hlosnian. Hirka shouldered her bag and they headed out. There were no horses to carry them. They’d all been given far more important jobs. Instead, they walked, along the paths behind the town and up toward Bromfjell. The wind picked up when they reached higher ground, and it started to snow.

  Neither of them said anything. The sky was gray when they began their final ascent. They reached a peak and rested for a few minutes. According to Hlosnian, Bromfjell had three peaks. Three caves leading in to the dragon that people had once thought resided within the mountain. Hlosnian’s breathing was labored. She felt sorry for him. He would have to walk back in the dark. Alone. Without her.

  But he wouldn’t be completely alone. Several ravens accompanied them, dancing in the wind like animated scraps of cloth. Maybe they sensed something was going to happen. Or maybe they were monitoring the ebb and flow of the Might, just like she and Hlosnian were.

  Kuro sat on her shoulder for the last leg. Now and then he took off and flew around them, communing with the other ravens, but he always came back. What would happen to him? Would he cross the divide with her? Into an unknown world?

  They reached the final peak and Kuro once again took flight and disappeared. Hlosnian stopped to catch his breath. Hirka looked around. The world looked boundless. She couldn’t see Ravnhov anymore, but she could see the mountains in Blindból. She could see the open countryside where the war would be fought, though it was too far away for her to see any people. And before her stood a stone circle, in a crater at the summit.

  It was bigger than she had expected. She counted sixteen stones in the outer circle and eight smaller stones in the inner circle. She and Hlosnian walked along the edge until they found a good place to approach it from. The bottom of the crater was covered in yellow moss. No snow had settled here, even though it was still coming down. It felt warmer in the crater. The air was thicker, almost thrumming. Or was it just her? A flight of white butterflies danced among the stones. She’d never seen the like.

  “Winter whites,” Hlosnian said. “Apparently this is the only place they can be found.”

  It was like walking through living snow. On any other day she’d have happily danced among them. But now she was too weighed down by the knowledge that she was leaving forever. And that Rime was probably dead.

  He’s alive.

  The stones were silent gray giants that paid them no heed. They’d always stood here and always would. Ymling or embling, it was all the same to them.

  “Should we wait?” Hlosnian looked at her.

  “No. There’s no reason to wait. Do what you have to do.”

  Hirka swallowed a feeling of helplessness. How would she survive all alone in the unknown when she didn’t even know what Hlosnian had to do to send her there? Which of the stones was hers? Where was she supposed to go? She had to trust that Hlosnian knew. Or that he would figure it out.

  They walked in toward the middle, and Hlosnian found the Might. At first it was like a whisper. A trickle. A lot weaker than when she was with Rime. It gradually intensified, as if drawing strength from each of the stones around them, but it was still only a shadow of what she had felt with Rime, and her longing for him threatened to take over. She was leaving him for good. And she didn’t know what she was walking into. Fear gripped her, and it was too much for the Might. It couldn’t be stopped.

  “Wait!” She put a hand on Hlosnian’s arm. He looked at her mournfully, the furrows in his forehead deepening. He thought she was backing out, but that wasn’t why she’d stopped him. Hirka could see shadows along the top of the crater. She squinted to see better. Had the blind found them? Had Hlosnian done something wrong?

  No. It was horses. Men on horses.

  Hirka pointed. Men! She felt her fear loosen its grip. Rime! It had to be Rime. Or someone with a message from him. She was saved! Everyone was saved! Hirka ran to meet them.

  When she saw who it actually was, her body stiffened. Dozens of men had spread out and surrounded them. Urd jumped off his horse and stormed toward her, his cloak flapping behind him. The Council mark on his forehead made him look like he had three eyes. Three narrow slits. Hirka stumbled back. Urd. It had all been for nothing. Memories flashed before her eyes. The guardsmen in the vaults. The stew she’d hidden in his chair. The way he’d tied her up and stuffed her into a crate. He wouldn’t think twice about killing her.

  Urd pulled off his glove and raised his fist long before he reached her. She turned to run, but it smashed into her jaw. Her face went numb. She fell backward onto the moss. Hlosnian shouted. She looked up at the sky. Dark clouds edged with gold. Urd’s face appeared above her. She turned away, but he wrenched her face back toward his own. Hirka could see a distorted reflection of herself in the gold collar around his neck. He shook her head and smiled.

  “Shall we call it even?”

  THE BLIND

  Hirka was on her back, lying on cold stone. Her arms had been forced beneath her, tied behind her. Every time she tried to flip onto her side, pain shot through her shoulder. Had they broken something? She wasn’t sure. Her feet were bound, too, with a leather belt around her ankles. She’d tried to feel for the edge of the stone with her feet, but it was too wide. Instead, she wriggled backward, bracing herself for a fall.

  I’m not afraid.

  But that was a lie. Hirka was afraid. She’d never been more afraid. Not for her own life—she’d feared for that so many times now that practically every moment she lived was a gift. She was afraid of other things altogether. Afraid of all the answers she was never going to get. Afraid that Ravnhov would fall. That the Council would yield to a madman who would destroy everything she’d ever known. Everything anyone had ever known.

  Hirka lifted her hips and kicked with her heels so she could inch back a little farther.

  Most of all, she was afraid of the certainty that nobody would be able to prevent it. The Council’s holy men and women had always been the truth. The law. They’d had all the answers, and the will to look ahead.

  But they weren’t holy. They weren’t even strong. They were just men and women. None of them could do anything to help her. None of them had stopped Urd. People feared the blind, but who was more blind?

  Rime had been right. The world was too big to change. She’d seen that for herself, during the Rite. How pointless it was to try to talk sense into so many people at one time. It couldn’t be done. Rime had known that. But he’d set out for certain death anyway, and she’d let him. She fought back tears. They wouldn’t help her here.

  Hirka felt the edge of the stone against the back of her head. She wriggled a little farther, and then bent her head back. Finally she could see more than just clouds. The downside was that everything was upside down, lying as she was. The stone pillars were still there. They looked like they were suspended in midair. With men between them, hanging like bats. She smiled, until she felt a stab of pain in her jaw.

  Maybe she’d already been tran
sported to another world? Was that what it was like to pass through the stones? Looking at a mirror image of reality? Distorted, but still recognizable? Upside down?

  She spotted Urd. He was talking to the man who had sacrificed his leather belt to keep her feet together. A heavyset warrior fiddling with the blade of a straight sword. He already had a short sword hanging by his hip, so presumably he had taken the one he was playing with now from one of Ravnhov’s soldiers. One of the many on the battlegrounds. One of those they had killed to reach Bromfjell unseen. Maybe someone she knew. She tugged at her hands, and the ropes chafed against her skin. It was no use. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Hirka?”

  She gave a start, but then she recognized Hlosnian’s voice. “Hlosnian? Where are you? Are you okay?” She looked around but couldn’t see him.

  “I’m here. On the ground. I’m all right. Are you?”

  “Never been better.”

  “Hirka, you have my word. I’m never going to help him. I’ll die before I help him!”

  Hirka smiled out of hopelessness, despite the pain in her jaw. “He doesn’t need help, Hlosnian. He can open the doors on his own.”

  Hlosnian snorted. “Urd Vanfarinn? Never in Slokna. He wouldn’t recognize a stone whisperer if he sat on one. He wouldn’t know where to start.”

  Hirka didn’t have the strength to argue with him. She let Hlosnian feel safe for a little while longer. Soon he’d realize that everything was lost, regardless of what he did or didn’t do.

  Urd approached her. She braced herself for more blows. He grabbed her by the jacket and dragged her off the stone. She fell to the ground, ending up with her feet drawn up in front of her and her back against the stone. Urd crouched down in front of her. He studied her and picked a bit of dust off her jacket. A gesture Hirka neither understood nor appreciated.

  She stared at him. It hurt to open her mouth, but she refused to give him the pleasure of seeing that. “I’ve never done anything to you, Urd.”

  “Fadri. Urd-fadri. Didn’t anyone teach you any manners?” His eyes roamed around her body. “No, that’s right. You’re not people, are you?”

  She swallowed. “I’ve never done anything to you. You’ve no reason to kill me.”

  “Oh, no. I’m not going to kill you. That pleasure is reserved for someone else. That said, I’m sure I’ll get some pleasure out of it too.”

  “Why? How in Slokna can you find pleasure in other people dying? Don’t you understand how sick that is? How ruined you are?!”

  He grabbed her by the neck and pulled her closer. His pupils were black pinpricks on a pale background. “You like to underestimate me, girl, that’s your biggest mistake. What do you think I am? An angry drunk killing someone outside a tavern? Some base scoundrel stabbing people for coin? Do you even know where we are? The kind of power that lies here?”

  “So you’re killing me for power? I don’t see the difference.”

  He growled like an animal and tightened his grip on her neck. His face was right in front of hers. “I wanted to keep you alive for power. But I’m going to kill you for something far more important.”

  His breath smelled of death. Hirka pulled back in disgust. She stared at his gold collar. The truth behind Urd’s madness hit her, and it was more terrifying than anything she’d imagined. The truth behind his desperation. The reason for the unreal risk he was willing to take, with no regard for anything or anyone else.

  “You’re dying,” she whispered.

  A shadow of pain crossed his face, like it was a feeling he no longer owned, but remembered from when he was a child. His hand tightened slightly around Hirka’s neck. He caressed her skin with his thumb. “Not anymore, girl. The scar will be a useful reminder to never trust in the rot. I’d rather put my faith in the blind than in your father.”

  “My father is dead. You’ve never met him, and he’s never done anything to you.”

  Urd laughed. The sound ended in a gurgling splutter. “So the myths are true, then. Children of Odin have the brains of sheep.” A drop of blood ran from the corner of his mouth. He grabbed his neck. “Your father let me rot on the inside when I ceased to be useful to him. That’s doing something to me, wouldn’t you say? It’s true that I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard his voice. And you know what, I’d rather swallow my own sword than hear him again.”

  Hirka felt her fear give way to a need to know more. Of course. Father wasn’t the father he was referring to. She was a child of Odin. Her real father was somewhere in another world. And she would never meet him. Or find out anything about him. Unless she survived. Unless Urd survived. This couldn’t end here. Not now.

  “I can help,” she said. Cautiously at first, then she grew bolder. “I can help! Give me my bag. I have yellowbell and vengethorn! I have a salve of soldrop and—”

  “A salve?” Urd looked at her as though she were witless. “You have a salve?” He laughed again. The blood at the corners of his mouth ran along his lower lip and between his teeth. He loosened the collar and bared his neck to reveal an open wound. Hirka recoiled from the stench, but she couldn’t bring herself to look away.

  A raven’s beak. Half-open. Embedded in his throat, surrounded by rotting tissue. Discolored skin. The rot.

  It was unspeakably horrible. Her father had given Urd the rot. It was no myth. She swallowed. Sadness and disgust welled up inside her.

  Urd closed the collar again, and the smell dissipated. “Only the blind can heal blindcraft, child of Odin. And they’re going to do just that, as soon as they get the tailless girl. It’s as simple as that.”

  He stood up and looked down at her. “You’re a stone sacrifice. You should have been theirs the day you were born, girl. You’ve just taken a detour.”

  Behind him, the ravens danced in the wind.

  Hlosnian sat on the ground, rocking like a child. He’d tried to move away from the stones, but two of Urd’s men had kicked him and dragged him back. Hirka had whispered to him about the Might, and how it saw everything and everyone. About how they would get their punishment, but Hlosnian wasn’t listening. He’d disappeared into himself. He was muttering about blindcraft and blood.

  Seeing Urd kill the raven had tipped him over the edge. It had been hanging from one of the horses, tied up like a chicken. Urd had slit its throat and collected its blood in a bowl. It had shrieked the entire time. Dead, but not dead. Like Hirka.

  “He’s going to force stone. Force stone,” Hlosnian repeated.

  His voice reminded Hirka of the whispering pleas of Mannfalla’s most wretched inhabitants, the ones who stood with their hands against the walls of the hall every night. “It’s all right, Hlosnian. Everyone dies sooner or later.” Hirka no longer felt any fear. The intensity of it had been unbearable, so it had simply disappeared. The space it left had now been filled with sorrow and anger. There was nothing else.

  “You can’t force stone. Broken doors can’t be locked. The dragon … He’s going to wake the dragon. The tree is no more.”

  A peal of thunder gave Hlosnian a start. He was fragile as glass. The only consolation was that he wasn’t the only one. Urd’s men had pulled back from the stone circle. They were whispering together in the shadows, while Urd walked around smearing one stone after the other with raven blood. There were seventeen men left. One had already fled, and he certainly wouldn’t be the last. Their fear wasn’t hard to understand. As terrifying as Urd must have seemed, the deadborn had to be worse. Hirka guessed that none of the leather-clad men would have come had they known the blind were also invited.

  “He can’t pay the price for forcing it. No one can pay the price …”

  Hirka was close enough to Hlosnian that he could rest his head on her shoulder. It didn’t make the stone carver any calmer, but it made her feel better. Supporting him gave meaning to the meaninglessness.

  The sky had blackened. The stones jutted out like the pale teeth of a toppled giant. Hirka hoped one of them would fall and break ev
ery bone in the body of the figure walking around and making them bleed. Had she not been tied up, she would have toppled them herself. She tried to move her fingers, but there was no feeling left in them.

  We are already dead.

  Would she meet Rime in Slokna? Father? Was there a Slokna for everyone, no matter where you came from?

  Three men approached Urd. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could guess. They’d witnessed the killing of the raven. Urd had brought bad luck on them all. Superstition or not, the men were agitated. They were only guardsmen, after all. Men with a job to do. Some of them had probably been in the service of the Vanfarinn family for generations. Their families were clothed and fed because they were accompanying a lunatic to Ravnhov. How much did they really know? One of them took off his helmet and pointed at those who had been too afraid to join them. Urd raised his voice, and the men shuffled back outside the stone circle with their tails between their legs. The horses neighed nervously from the shadows, but nobody went to calm them.

  Urd came and stood a couple of steps away from Hirka, his back to her. He looked half dead. His fingers were stained red with sacred blood. She caught his smell again. She was amazed that the others could talk to him without showing disgust. They were talking to a dead man. Surely they had to know? She’d saved enough lives and seen enough death to smell the difference.

  Then came the Might. It wasn’t like Rime’s. This was an unwanted presence in her body. Like the heat of a stranger trying to force himself upon her. Like the prisoner who had died in the pits. Then it grew stronger. Harsher. Hirka fought against it. Shut off her body. Urd couldn’t possibly know that she was a tool that could amplify his Might. That was a secret she intended to take with her to Slokna.

  The winter whites were gone. She thought she saw them, but it was just snow falling outside the stone circle. For some reason it wasn’t falling inside—maybe it, too, feared the blind? The ground beneath her felt like it was breathing. The air grew thinner and had a foul taste to it. Hirka suddenly had a sense of infinite space. An emptiness she could fall into. Between the stones, the landscape grew hazy, as though she was looking at it through a fire. So imperceptible that she almost doubted it. Thin blades of grass inexplicably flattened against the ground.