by Jae Waller
“Don’t go,” Tiernan said one day. For a moment I was the water wanting to please him — but an ache had settled deep in my muscles, and it was cruel to leave wildlife trapped in my snares. He was staring at the floor runes when I left.
•
Snow drifted down, covering the circle he’d melted when the soldier came. Rain washed away the top layer. After the cabin flooded, I tried to form a barrier around it but couldn’t sustain it for more than a few hours. I got used to drying the floorboards while I read folk tales. I took down Tiernan’s book with the nine-branched tree on the cover, trudged through two pages, and gave up.
On the evening of the winter solstice, I went into the workshop. “Will you go for a ride with me tonight?”
Tiernan set down his quill. “Where?”
“It’s a secret.”
He gave me a look, but agreed. We bundled up in our warmest clothes. Snow had built up in the woods, so we rode along the creek until I smelled the ocean. We tethered the horses just before the inland forest gave way to a dense tangle of salt spruce. The branches of the tallest trees didn’t start until several times my height, but I’d rigged a cottonwood by slingshotting rope over a branch. I grabbed the rope, braced my boots against the fissured bark, and started climbing.
“Kateiko—” Tiernan said.
“Come on. Once you reach the branches, it’s easy.”
He said something in Sverbian I didn’t want to know the meaning of, but followed me up. We sought footholds on leafless limbs until they were barely strong enough to hold us. My clothes were covered in sweet-smelling resin by the time I turned around.
We stood above the canopy of North Iyun Bel, the ocean and forest like an endless dark blanket around us. Treetops swayed under the moonlight. I could see the lights of Caladheå and silhouettes of ships in the bay. It was silent except for rustling evergreen needles and the slow beat of waves.
Kujinna kobairen. Today we fly. The solstice was one of the few times I truly felt Rin.
“Tonight is Yanben,” I said. “On the longest night of the year, Aeldu-yan and Eredu-yan overlap. The worlds of the dead and living unite, and we commemorate those we’ve lost.” I fished a torch from my flail sheath and held the tallow-soaked end out to Tiernan.
“Is that a good idea?”
“You’re a jinrayul. I’m an antayul. We’ll be fine.”
The torch burst into flames. I murmured in Aikoto and tossed it into the canopy. A treetop ignited, flames slowly catching on wet wood.
I pointed across the bay to South Iyun Bel. Far on the horizon, orange pinpricks of light burst into existence, glittering in the clear winter air. I wondered if Dunehein was out there with the Iyo. If he knew his brother Emehein’s blood was in the ground.
I offered a torch to Tiernan. “Each person makes their own beacon.”
He stretched his arm out to take it. Branches creaked under us. “What do I say?”
“Whatever you want the dead to hear.”
Tiernan spoke into the darkness. The only word I understood was Jorum. He lit his torch and flung it into the forest. A second treetop caught fire next to mine.
We stood in silence, balancing under twinkling stars. Moonlight reflected on the rippling ocean. We floated in a crystal sphere that was the same upside down, east to west, north to south, dead to alive.
At the edge of my hearing, gentle words drifted back to me on the wind.
13.
SKAARNAHT
My fishing line drifted back and forth with the current, nudging against a circle in the ice. Snow crunched. I turned to see Marijka.
“Had any luck?” She brushed off a boulder and sat down.
I tipped the fish bucket forward to show her two creek trout. “It’s something.”
“Say, Kateiko . . .” Marijka tapped her mittens on her knees. “Would you like to come to Caladheå for the new-year festival?”
“What do you do for it?”
“Well, I always attend rites at the stavehall in afternoon, but at night people celebrate. Music, fireworks, that sort of thing. I thought you might be going a bit crazy out here.”
I tugged at my hair and tried to laugh. “More than a bit.”
Winter was a social time for Rin. During those long nights, I heard stories about aeldu and saidu, learned the history of the jouyen, watched embroiderers and woodcarvers make goods to trade for wool and steel. Tiernan was in better spirits after Yanben but couldn’t hold a conversation about anything other than his research. Maybe in Caladheå I’d run into more Iyo, get a feel for what they thought of Rin without intruding on their homes at Toel Ginu.
A few days later, I put my dress on over the woolen underlayers and fumbled through lacing the bodice. I braided my hair after giving up on the pins. On the way down the loft ladder, my feet tangled in the skirt and I tumbled to the floor in a heap.
Tiernan raised an eyebrow. He was seated at the kitchen table with a book. “Perhaps you should stick with your normal clothes.”
“You’re always telling me not to attract attention.”
“Yes, no one will notice you gangling about like a newborn fawn.”
I ignored him as I made tea.
Everyone from the outlying lands must’ve been in the city. A rumble of voices carried down the street as Marijka and I rode toward the Blackened Oak. We squeezed into the pub and sat on a bench made of split logs with bark on the edges. Nhys greeted us with a warm smile and hurried off to mop up a spill, pausing to glare at a patron lighting a pipe from the fireplace.
“The clientele is eclectic, but Nhyskander makes the best blødstavohl in Caladheå,” Marijka whispered with a smile.
I believed her. The stew was rich and thick, goat’s blood bringing out the savoury taste of the meat. I was more fascinated by the patrons though. A group of itherans took up most of our table with a card game, their laughter echoing off the low ceiling. The man in the patched cloak was slumped over as if he hadn’t moved since I was last there. Everyone had red cords around their wrists.
“You’re welcome to come to the stavehall, but the rites are in Sverbian,” Marijka said as we left, joining a stream of people that parted whenever a sleigh would whisk down the street.
“Ai . . .” I held up my bag, heavy with pelts. “Actually, I wanted to go to the market.”
“Will you be able to find it?”
“Plenty of people to ask for directions.” I swung my arm out and hit a passerby.
Marijka grabbed my hand as the woman glared at me. “The stavehall’s on the way. I’ll direct you from there.”
The stavehall was a tiered timber building surrounded by snowy lawn. Everything about it was triangular, from its numerous gables to the shingles covering its walls and roofs. The handrails on the steps were draped with crimson cloth. With peeling white paint and a sagging porch, it looked as out of place among identical brick shops as grass trapped between flagstones. The Colonnium’s domed tower rose behind it.
Eighty years ago, after the construction of Caladheå, Ferish immigrants flooded the coast. We had an uneasy truce for a decade until a Ferish naval captain tried to seize the city, declaring the Colonnium and its surrounding land had been stolen from Ferland in the First Elken War. The Sverbian-Aikoto alliance fought back. We almost won. Then in late summer, the driest time of year, fire ripped through Caladheå. People later realized it started in a dozen places at once.
I gazed at the highest gable, carved with the leafless nine-branched tree from one of Tiernan’s theological books. “Is this one of Caladheå’s original buildings?”
Marijka nodded. “We’re on the border of Førstown and Bronnoi Ridge, the old Sverbian and viirelei districts.”
“I’ve heard of this stavehall. Antayul in my family helped save it from burning in the Second Elken War, after they realized our district was lost.”
I imagined flames tearing down the street where we stood. The Rin had buried their dead near Toel Ginu and returned north. They forced Fendul’s great-great-grandmother, Okorebai-Rin at the time, to promise we’d never live in the south again.
“Was that the same fire that burned down the Blackened Oak?” I asked.
Marijka smiled. “No, that was recent. Better not ask Nhyskander about it.”
She dropped two pann into a rattling metal basin on the sidewalk. An elderly man in a white cleric’s robe handed her two red cords from a bundle and inclined his head to me. He must’ve heard me talk about the stavehall. I’d have to be careful if I was going to pass off as Iyo like Falwen advised.
“What’s this for?” I asked as Marijka knotted a cord around my wrist.
“We call tonight Skaarnaht, which means ‘Red Night,’” she said. “The knot represents the link between the old and new year. It’s bad luck to remove it before midnight.”
I waved my arm back and forth and watched the ends flutter. “So if you already have bad luck, you’ll lose it and get more bad luck?”
“Don’t lose it.” She laughed and shook a finger at me. “I’ll meet you at the steps of Nen Divinus, the sancte in the city square, at five o’clock. Once night falls, it’ll be too hard to find each other.”
Marijka headed into the stavehall, and I headed downtown. Caladheå was decorated for the holiday. Fir boughs and knots of blood-red berries hung over doorways. Garlands of scarlet ribbon wound through fences, stark against the snow. Most shop windows were dark, but dozens of white-garbed people sold cords. I flowed along with the crowd, watching the endless stream of faces. I felt too tall among delicate women who walked with ease in long skirts. A gangling fawn indeed.
The snow had been cleared in the square, revealing a circular pattern of white and grey cobblestones. Stocky men nailed boards into a platform near the sancte. I wandered laneways criss-crossed with ribbon until I found the Iyo embroiderer. As we haggled, I learned her name was Segowa. Ingard had told me the white winter pelt of a cloud weasel fetched the same price in Caladheå as a marsh rat twice the size, but I didn’t believe him until I held the sovereigns.
A strange energy filled the market, as if the loud conversations and laughter were a sheet of ice holding in an undercurrent of whispers. Women held their purses close. Men spoke in rapid Coast Trader littered with foreign words. As I wandered down a narrow street, the sky blocked out by buildings, I caught a fragment of conversation.
“—Crieknaast all over again. Damned mess,” a man said beside me.
I whirled in time to see the back of his head. I pushed through the throng, keeping my eyes fixed on his felt cap until a towering man with a furry hat blocked my view. I stood on my toes, thinking I’d lost him, until I saw him hold a door for his companion.
Voices spilled out of the red-brick building. It had boarded-up windows and a drainpipe covered in dripping icicles. The paint on the sign was flaking away, but I could make out an otter with a bottle in one paw. I pushed the door open and entered a room choked with pipe smoke, packed with people at round tables and a bar along the back wall. The only light came from sputtering candles that lit the place with an orange haze.
My hopes plummeted. The patrons were mostly men, and every single one had removed his hat. I lowered my hood and edged along the wall. A few people looked at me suspiciously. Everyone was in high-necked Ferish clothing. My boots stuck to the floor like it was coated in sap. By the time I reached the far end, finding the man with the felt cap seemed like a lost cause.
I glanced down the bar. A guard in a blue coat sat on a stool, spear leaning against the counter. I wondered why a Colonnium guard was downtown — then I recognized the auburn bun. Pelennus stared straight ahead, hands around a pewter mug. A man with stringy black hair and flushed cheeks leaned against the bar, talking so loudly I could hear him over the crowd.
“That uniform don’ suit you. Shouldn’ you have an apron or somethin’?” He pounded the counter. “Barkeep! Don’ you have a nice apron for the woman?”
The barkeeper ignored him. Pelennus took a sip of her drink.
“The Antlers are no place for a lady. Lady elk don’ even grow antlers! Iss not right, you know?” The man leaned closer. “How ’bout you show us a differen’ rack instead?”
Her hands tightened around the mug.
“How about you shut your fucking mouth?” I said, and Pelennus finally looked around.
“Wha’s it to you?” he slurred. “Wanna join the Antlers too? Maybe the Elkhounds will take you. Bitches and wood witches, what a match.”
I crooked my right arm, thrust my fist upward, and slapped my other hand twice against my right shoulder.
The man’s face twisted. He lurched away from the bar, grabbed my elbow, and pulled me close. He reeked of alcohol. “Lis’en here, I won’ be insulted by some flea-bitten little—”
“Don’t touch me!” I tried to shove him away. He twisted my arm and I cried out.
Pelennus was on her feet in an instant. She drew back her fist and slammed it into his skull. He dropped like a sack of rotten brassroot.
She shook out her arm. “Thanks. I’ve been wanting to do that for a while.”
“Uh . . .” I looked down at the man.
“I’m not allowed to use force on civilians until they assault someone.” She rolled the man onto his side and loosened his collar. Only when she stood up did she notice the faces staring at us. She slammed her spear into the floorboards. “What are you looking at?”
Everyone turned away. The clank of mugs resumed.
“Thanks.” I rubbed my elbow.
She looked at me closer. “Weren’t you at the Colonnium a few weeks ago?”
I nodded. “Pelennus, right?”
“That’s my surname. Call me Iannah. I’m off duty.” She gave me a clipped bow.
I returned the gesture. “Kateiko R— Sohikoehl.”
“Now there’s a mouthful. Koehl okay?”
“Um . . . sure?”
“Well, Koehl, let me buy you a drink.” Iannah glanced at the man, who was drooling onto the floor. “Non-alcoholic. Some people start the festivities too early.”
I hesitated, then slid onto a stool. She flagged down the bartender, who poured a mug of cloudy brown liquid from a kettle warming on an iron stove. Iannah clanked her mug against mine. I put my face into the steam, inhaled the scent of spices and took a sip.
“Ginger mull,” she said, watching my expression. “You can get it watered down.”
It took all my willpower to swallow without spluttering. “Nei. I like it. Thanks.”
“We made it every winter back home. Too strong for most city folk.”
“You’re not from here?”
Iannah shook her head. “Born in Laca vi Miero on the other side of Burren Inlet. Been in Caladheå almost nine years.” She tipped her mug toward me. “What brought you here?”
“Just . . . seeing the city.” Lie, Falwen said. “I was born near here but grew up in the north. I’m going to the square in a few hours for Skaarnaht.”
“Going to be a hell of a night,” she muttered. “Maybe I’ll see you there. I’ll be on duty.”
“I didn’t think Colonnium guards served anywhere else.”
“They’re pulling us down the hill for the night. Council’s making a speech.” She nodded at the pub. “Only reason you’d find me in the Drunken Otter.”
I shifted on the hard stool. “There must be nicer pubs nearby.”
“Not really.” Iannah nudged the unconscious man with her boot. He groaned. “You here with your mage friend?”
“Nei, I’m with someone else. We’re only
here for the night. I wish I could stay longer.”
“Why don’t you?”
I wrapped my hands around the steaming mug. Why, indeed? I had enough money to stay at the Blackened Oak a few nights. “I don’t know what to do here.”
Iannah gave me a long look. Her green eyes stood out against her light skin. “Tell you what. I have tomorrow off. If you’re still in town at noon, meet me by the Colonnium gates.”
“Really? You must have better things to do.”
“I’ve never seen someone give such an impressive two-hand salute. And that,” she held up her mug, “is worth celebrating.”
•
Iannah walked me back to the square and left to find her captain. I waited on the steps of Nen Divinus, watching a teenage boy go around with a long pole lighting glass lanterns as the sun dipped toward the horizon. Marijka appeared just after the bell tolled five times. We went to the docklands to find somewhere quieter for dinner, over which I told her about meeting Iannah. She warned me not to mention it to Tiernan.
Night had fallen by the time we returned. The square was transformed, packed with people all the way from Nen Divinus down the laneways. I could barely hear Marijka over the noise. The sancte’s portico was lined with torches to illuminate the newly-built platform where a couple in brocade robes performed a slow dance with complicated hand movements. On the corner of the stage, a man plucked a stringed wooden instrument with a bent neck.
“They get the boring Ferish culture out of the way early,” Marijka said, and I grinned.
We saw one performance after another. Two soldiers in full armour gave a sword-fighting demonstration, the clash of blades echoing off the brick. A woman recited a poem I couldn’t understand, but her voice carried me away like a raging storm. Actors in exaggerated costumes gave a silent performance that sent waves of laughter through the audience.
Then space was cleared by the platform, and two lines of people formed as a new group climbed onstage. Three men with drums strapped to their hips, a red-haired man with a flat handheld drum, two women with fiddles. They all looked Sverbian except for one, the tallest, and when he turned our way I saw the dark blue Iyo dolphin painted on his drum.
