Tags: anti-soulmates, aromantic character, internalized aphobia, mentions of classism, norse mythology, norway, pov third person limited, present tense, soulmates, unreliable narrator
*
On the day when the world celebrates the union of the two mages, the cumulonimbus clouds unfurl over the ridge of the mountains. The mist whispers over the vaulted arches of the cathedral, singing a lullaby that no one hears over the rustle of wedding guests turning up the collars of trench coats against the wind. The stained glass inside the rose window—the pride of Ålesund, they say—tells of an ancient ash tree, one who sees all and knows all.
Under the cover of the dusty gray sky, unseen gardenias bloom at the foot of the stairs and stretch to the burbling river. They’re all pristine, shivering in the breeze, except for one: its stem is ragged, lonely; its petals and pistil are missing among a sea of white. Yggdrasil knows, and hopes for, this flower—and so does she wait.
*
Inside the cathedral, Alina stands near the altar. Her arms cradle a sprawling bouquet, but she curls the fingers of one hand around a single white bloom. Her sister stands in front of her in lace of the finest flowing alabaster, so Alina can’t see her smile, but it’s reflected on her partner’s face, lopsided with the uncertainty of this new world into which they embark. They’re no longer halves, but instead are united as one whole. His smile stretches from cheek, to jaw, to that invisible space where joy catches fire and spreads, unfettered, to all who witness it.
To all but Alina.
Her smile is pasted on her cramped cheeks. Twenty-seven years of grass-stained knees, of laughter alone in the garden, of falling behind her baby sister in all that mattered, culminates in this moment.
“Now, you are prepared,” the priest says, standing between Elisabeth and her intended, Åse. He lifts his hands, palms up, to invite them to follow.
“With the removal of this ring,” the priest continues, “we honour the entrance of these soulmates into magical society. In so doing, we pay heed to Holy Yggdrasil and our untenable connection with her branches and roots.”
Elisabeth and Åse raise their hands. Matching thin, pure-silver rings around their index fingers respond to their closeness—to the proximity of their soulmate. Two bands of light, tethered together like chains, emerge from each of their hands.
“With the removal of this ring,” the priest repeats, “we honour the entrance of these soulmates into magical society. In so doing, we pay heed to Holy Yggdrasil and our untenable connection with her branches and roots.”
A smile blazing on his face, Åse slides Elisabeth’s ring off with a tender touch. The light crackles as Elisabeth does the same with his. Their palms press together, and the bright bands sizzle and multiply around them, fuse into a single opalescent beam, and rise above them for a single moment that suspends the cathedral in breathless anticipation.
Then, it shatters.
Finally released, the light spreads like fire over the congregation, high up to the flying buttresses, low down underneath the toes of the watching souls. Alina breathes in, the air suffused with colour and magic that she will only ever be able to witness, never experience. In seconds, the light fades, but the energy remains.
The priest’s voice is soft when he speaks once more. “May Elisabeth and Åse love each other forevermore, as Yggdrasil loves us.”
Alina crushes the bloom in her hand.
*
The next morning at Baker Hansen, Alina puts on her favourite scowl and dismisses the wedding from her mind. Time to return to real life: research, work, and solitude. Things familiar and safe.
The musky scent of rising yeast welcomes her first steps into the small corner shop. The sun pours into the room’s corners and reflects off cozy tables made of painted oak. Alina settles at one, tuning out the murmurs of the other customers as they speak in mixed Norwegian and English. She opens her notebook to work, and the relief that escapes her lips when her fingers wrap around the fountain pen is more acute than any bullshit Yggdrasil supposedly offered.
In non-magical society, the ring is a symbol of commitment, joy, and love, which is a sharp contrast to its role as a shackle in magical society, Alina writes. All mages should strive for such a transition. Someday, we shall not be bound.
Alina takes a satisfied sip of her coffee. A stunning paper, truly. Remarkable as they come.
The coffee burns her tongue.
She leans over to write more, but a whispered giggle nearby makes her turn.
“Skatten min,” the girl says in a light, warning tone. My treasure.
The tealight in front of them is lit, its flame too large for its small body; it flickers and dances under the hand of the person who sits across from the girl. His eyes aren’t on the flame but on the girl, brighter than a thousand candles and more adoring.
Despite his distracted gaze, the flame grows under his hand, sputtering in web-like tendrils above the edge of the tealight, reaching with greedy fingers towards the open window.
Alina turns away with effort; something about the creak of her chair sounds defiant, and that heartens her. Their laughter seems to rise up in mockery around her, just as the smoke does.
“I’d appreciate if you didn’t burn down the establishment.” The voice comes from behind her, lilting with a foreign accent and an air of uncalled-for command. As quickly as she’d turned away, her gaze is tugged to the speaker—a woman with chestnut-red hair that cascades down her shoulders. She appears to work here, dressed in a forest-green apron with the name “Sjöfn” embroidered on the front with a tiny heart over the “n.”
“Sorry,” the boy mutters, reducing the flame with a wave.
The woman—Sjöfn—glares at the couple and walks off, a plate of rye bread and cheese in one hand and a kokekaffe in the other.
Warmth pulsates around the knuckles of Alina’s left hand; there’s a tiny amber glow around the band on her left index finger. Alina looks up once more, her heart clawing for a way out of her chest, but Sjöfn is gone.
When she looks back at her hand, the glow has disappeared.
*
Alina tucks her books against her chest and flees outside. Breathing heavily, she leans against the wall beside the bakery’s backdoor, gazing blankly over the tables and umbrellas scattered about the tiled patio before her. She ignores the curious gazes that other customers send her way and settles down at the table nearest to her.
Surely, she’d imagined it. Surely, it was a cruel trick of the light, a delusion spurred by shadows from the wedding the day before.
I don’t have a soulmate, her brain repeats wildly, in opposition to the rhythm of her heart. I’ve never felt the pull. I’ve never felt— That’s not who I am—
The glow had been weak, the feeling warm instead of searing hot. What did it mean? Where were her books on this when she needed them?
But there are no books here, only memories of days when she’d tried and failed to summon the same enthusiasm her friends had for when they’d find their soulmates, when they’d finally be able to harness the true magic of Yggdrasil. There were so many days when she’d sat alone, waiting for it to hit her—waiting for the moment she would want it to hit her.
“Sorry about those kids,” says that voice she’d just tried to convince herself she’d imagined.
Alina jumps. Sjöfn’s eyes are startlingly blue, like a quiet shade of the sea at low tide. Absently, Alina hides her hand behind her back, craving and dreading that receded flicker of warmth.
“They weren’t bothering me,” Alina says.
Sjöfn leans against the wall beside her, planting one foot against it in a supercilious display and pulling a cigarette and a lighter from her pocket. Setting the cigarette aflame, she lifts it casually to her lips. “It was written on your face, darling.”
Alina recoils and digs her nails into her palm. This can’t be her soulmate—someone who so blithely sullies the air? Yggdrasil has got something wrong. As Sjöfn exhales, smoke twines around her in ribbons of shining slate.
“Do you have to do that?”
It’s so long before Sjöfn responds that Alina isn’t sure she heard. Sjöfn taps her fingers over the cigarette, watching the ash as it flutters into the dirt. “It helps me commune with the spirits.”
“You’re still wearing your ring.”
“Why should I need a partner to commune with the spirits?”
Alina wants to laugh in bafflement. “That’s kind of how it works.” She’s not sure how this whole soulmate thing goes—is she supposed to ask a total stranger on a date? One who doesn’t even strike her as particularly lovely?
Sjöfn shrugs. “It is if you buy into the propaganda.”
She twists the smoke; the ribbons coil into a bow. Alina stares at it, spellbound, until it’s drawn towards the forest and dissipates into the wind.
“Love isn’t propaganda,” Alina says. “I saw it happen just yesterday.”
“Did you?”
“At the wedding. Surely you’ve felt what happens when the rings come off.” Warmth nudges at Alina’s hand once more. She doesn’t dare peek down as it spreads through her fingers and palm like lava in her blood. Stubbornly, Alina props her chin in her hand and stares at Sjöfn’s face, pale save for where a faint blush obscures the freckles dotted over her nose and cheeks.
“Maybe that part is real,” Sjöfn says.
Her statement has a mild air of sarcasm, but the shine in her eyes gives Alina hope. Over the years, her soul has frayed into a whispered shadow of what she once was promised, but maybe Yggdrasil hasn’t lied. Maybe Sjöfn is the person she’s been waiting for her entire life. Maybe Alina’s time has finally come.
They talk briefly about nothing, dancing around a flimsy, fake connection that neither of them seems willing to acknowledge.
“I have to get back inside,” Sjöfn says, snuffing the cigarette against the wall. “But would you tell me your name?”
“It’s Alina.”
“Hyggelig å møtes, Alina.” Sjöfn holds out her hand, and Alina takes it. She barely holds back a gasp when the warmth that had flirted about her hands throughout the conversation takes root in her skin and spreads like fire through a perpetual winter’s night.
And then she knows: Yggdrasil never lies.
*
The next morning, Alina wakes to a stomach in knots and eyes puffy from lack of sleep. The warmth is long gone from her hands, but lingers around her, slipping under the duvet to nestle between her outstretched arms. She spent all night researching sjelevenner in hopes of finding something new, something she’d somehow missed during her years of research. Sjöfn had seemed so sure of herself. Was it possible to have magic without a partner? Wasn’t acquiring the magic the only reason anyone tried to find a partner anyway? She can’t find anyone answering these questions. It can’t be that easy.
Her feet carry her back to the bakery; she’s drawn there as if beckoned by the sea itself.
From the moment the aroma of bread and roasted coffee beans tugs her into another world, her eyes are on Sjöfn. Her unruly hair is tossed into a bun, her gaze focused on the milk that she’s frothing for a latte as if it’s of paramount importance. Alina trades her weight between her feet, heart in her throat. She isn’t used to caring about being more important than someone’s coffee.
She steps up and orders from a girl who she forgets instantly, shoving fifty kroner across the counter like a teenager on her first trip away from home.
And that’s when she catches Sjöfn’s bright-blue eyes, and Sjöfn smiles.
Alina tries to smile back, but she’s not sure she manages it before her traitorous feet launch her outside. To safety. To the table she’d been sitting at yesterday when they first spoke.
Not that she’s hoping for Sjöfn to follow.
A few minutes later, the door opens with the chime of a bell, and Sjöfn does follow her, and Alina might collapse.
“God morgen, Alina,” Sjöfn says cheerily. “You came at a good time. Your kokekaffe?”
“Takk,” is all she trusts herself to reply, wrapping her hands around the steaming mug. She inhales the smoky, bitter scent, utterly lost for what to say. Sjöfn seems unconcerned, drawing out another cigarette. She conveniently seems to be able to take a break each time Alina shows up at the café.
The anxiety that had been rising in Alina’s stomach all morning takes hold of her throat. Her frantic searching returned little, but she had learned that it was risky to acknowledge the connection with a soulmate. Many relationships started aflame, then went south because of the intensity of early passions—and when the nascent bond shattered, with it went their chances of ever being mature mages.
Alina certainly doesn’t want that.
“Do you believe in Fossegrim?” Sjöfn asks over a plume of smoke.
Getting the deal-breakers out of the way? Alina is tempted to reply, but she worries what such an answer would imply. Instead, she shifts in her seat, thinking of her school friends cooing over celebrities on TV and fussing over their nail polish before dates, as if such frivolity was worth something. Is this bumbling uncertainty what they had felt? It couldn’t have been.
“Why would I need folktales when I can have the real thing once I have a partner?” She means it to sound flirtatious, but it comes out far too genuine.
Sjöfn crosses her arms. A smile plays at the corner of her lips. “I happen to think it’s good to be part of something bigger than yourself.”
Isn’t that the whole point of having a partner?
Alina holds her tongue. She crosses her arms across her chest, pretending her eyes aren’t drawn to the sliver of Sjöfn’s ring that peeks out from between her chest and arm. If only she could see if it was glowing; if only she could see if Sjöfn was the key to the freedom she craves.
“Shouldn’t we be talking about the weather?” Alina says. “Or your favourite colour, maybe?”
Sjöfn puffs out a curl of smoke as if that’s an answer. It twists through the air like a serpent, its raised head peering into Alina’s soul, and she simultaneously wants to lean in and run away. “Partners don’t approach that level of communion with the world, Alina. Magic can’t fix what’s broken. It can only pretend.”
Alina exhales, trying to subdue her irritation. She’s learned a lot about soulmates, but this is not in the rulebook. Maybe Sjöfn feels nothing for her. Maybe she’s expecting too much from this complete stranger. Maybe one-sided soulmates are a thing. With her luck, that’s exactly what Yggdrasil would deliver to her after decades of loneliness.
“Next Thursday, take fenalår for Fossegrim,” Sjöfn says. As if Alina looks like she would ever steal smoked mutton from someone, much less offer it to a water spirit, especially as an unpartnered mage. “You have to keep going back for him to teach you, but you should be able to feel him there, watching you.”
“Your favourite colour is purple?” Alina says, winded by the effort it takes to hide her interest. “That’s lovely. I’m partial to green, myself.”
A grin spreads wide across Sjöfn’s face. She snubs out her cigarette against the brick wall. “Du er søt. But it’s blue.”
Like your eyes, Alina doesn’t say.
“I should get back,” Sjöfn says as she straightens. “You might dismiss Fossegrim, but I think if Yggdrasil made us soulmates, it will have been for a reason.”
“What do you think the reason is?”
Sjöfn just smiles and turns away.
*
“So, what do you do when you’re off work? Adventure through the forests?” Alina asks. With all Sjöfn knows about the creatures of legend, she’s probably traipsing around with fairies or elves on any given evening.
Sjöfn’s eyes twinkle as she takes a sip of her coffee. “Well, Asgard gets lonely.”
Asgard. The name is familiar, reminiscent of a grand kingdom in the air connected to the rest of the world by a rainbow bridge.
“Who’s Asgard? Your pet dragon?” She knows they don’t exist, but the fantasy is pleasant, and she can’t help but smile.
Sjöfn blinks, but recovers quickly. She leans forward as if to tell Alina a secret. “Yes. I like to fly on his back over the fjords. But only at dawn, to avoid traffic in the skies.”
“I hear it’s unbearable at twilight,” Alina says sagely. “All the youths coming in, pretending like they understand anything about how to respect the Earth.”
“You get me!”
“Mmhmm. Dragon-riding etiquette is serious business.”
Sjöfn’s bright smile softens as she looks down, mixing the froth in her coffee. “He’s my calico cat. I read him poetry.”
Alina bursts into laughter. Flying with dragons is one thing, but thinking about Sjöfn cozying up in her recliner with a cat nestled in her lap makes Alina flush with warmth. And not in her fingers this time, but in her cheeks; a feeling that, just for a moment, exists outside Yggdrasil’s influence.
*
Alina returns to the bakery six times over the next seven days. Talking with Sjöfn doesn’t feel quite like she’s used to hearing about—it’s comfortable and friendly, not like buzzing sparks—but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t be soulmates. There’s magic hidden there. There must be. But while Sjöfn will joke about her cat or share her favorite colour, getting more information about anything that actually matters proves impossible. Finally, desperate to hear more about the magic, Alina returns to the one topic that might provide the answers she seeks.
“What happens if I bring fenalår for Fossegrim?”
It’s only a folktale, and as much as she loves to indulge the idea, she can’t pin her hopes on it. Besides, if she embarks alone on such an endeavour, everyone she knows will gossip about her even more than they already do. Their whispers always lurk in her conscious:
“Alina’s a weirdo.”
“She doesn’t even have a soulmate. She’s not a mage if she can never do magic.”
“She just thinks she’s better than us.”
But Sjöfn hears none of those insidious whispers. Instead, she pokes at the dessert Alina has convinced her to share. “You know the story. He’ll connect you with nature.”
“Do you think it’s true?”
“It was for me.”
“Will you go with me, then?” Alina asks. “You know, as my soulmate?”
Sjöfn makes an impatient noise. “You have to go alone. Soulmates are Yggdrasil’s nonsense. They don’t cut it there, not for Fossegrim.”
Alone, to the edge of the forest! A place kept sacred for couples! As if she can just ogle the magic that isn’t hers and scurry away like a mouse. It goes against everything she’d been taught.
“It’s just that… Fossegrim is shy,” Sjöfn says quietly.
Alina laughs. According to the legends, Fossegrim is a massive water spirit who lures in unsuspecting innocents. He’s not afraid.
“Alina, usually only couples go there. If you’re single, you go in secret, by cover of night. Why do you think he’s never seen?”
It’s certainly one explanation. And she’d be lying if she claimed she didn’t yearn for the clatter of branches overhead and the rush of water between her toes.
“Okay,” Alina says. “I’ll go.”
Sjöfn’s eyes light up with pleasure. She reaches her hand out to Alina, palm up, silver band glinting in the sun. The air whistles around her in an invisible embrace as their fingers twine together, warmth kissing warmth, and the glow engulfs them.
She may not understand the secrets—of soulmates, of love, of Sjöfn, or of the Earth—but she can’t deny the feeling that this is exactly where she is supposed to be.
*
Alina twirls in front of the mirror, her red, pleated dress flowing about her legs. She grins, but the smile in the mirror looks smaller than it should. She stretches her cheeks wide, coaxing her face to match the picture in her head. Sjöfn is stubborn, insistent that having a soulmate is valueless, but it’s only a matter of time before she sees all that she’s missing. It’s up to Alina to show her how beautiful love is.
She gazes at the reflection of pale, slender fingers that don’t feel like hers. The band around her index finger emits a constant glow, more gold now than silver. Has Sjöfn felt the same emotions as she has? The little catch in her throat when she tries to speak, the prickling desire to touch—the butterflies! They must be real. Sjöfn must have felt them too.
Her expression in the mirror eases into a smile that crinkles around her eyes. She raises her hand to hover just short of touching the glass, and joy sparks a bright glow through the ring. In truth, meeting Sjöfn is the best thing that’s ever happened to her. To no longer be forced to pretend! To be allowed to sink into a world that’s never been hers! How could this be anything but the realization of Yggdrasil’s sacred promise?
When her hand finally touch the mirror, the glass splinters.
Alina inhales sharply. She runs her fingers down the broken web of shards, trying to summon energy that she doesn’t know how to control. But nothing moves; the glow around her ring disappears, like it’s whispering that she will be shackled forever.
Alina closes her eyes. It doesn’t matter. Soon—Soon, she will be united with Sjöfn in the way they were always meant to be.
She can no longer wait.
*
At the bakery, Alina waits outside at their normal table until Sjöfn joins her, setting down a plate of kvæfjordkake for them to share.
“Would you like to go out sometime?” Alina says, tapping her feet underneath the table. “On a proper date?”
Sjöfn stares at her, her spoon suspended in midair. Alina swallows. The silence that stretches between them is unbearable. Why is it so difficult to ask out one’s soulmate?
Finally, Sjöfn laughs. It’s almost a cruel sound.
“That’s not something I do, Alina,” she says, then adds, as if in apology, “and, frankly, it doesn’t seem like something you do, either.”
The words slam into her with more force than Sjöfn delivers them with. “What do you mean?”
Sjöfn sighs. “You know how I feel about soulmates.”
Alina does—of course she does—but she wants to cling to that feeling that coursed through her in front of the mirror: that sense of inevitability, of sureness, of the world and Yggdrasil’s magic. She craves the butterflies that flutter between her ribs and murmur a story that is easy to tell.
“Don’t you want the magic?” Alina whispers.
Sjöfn looks baffled, and Alina’s cheeks burn. “Is that what this is about? You don’t need that.”
“Of course I do,” Alina protests. “It’s… it’s the only way your life can have any… status.”
Frowning, Sjöfn puts down her spoonful of cake. “What, exactly, do you think I do? Sit around all day serving coffee, then go back to my pathetic, no-magic life at the end of the day?”
“It’s not… you.” It’s the clearest way Alina can say, I wish I was like you. “I’m just—I’m sick of feeling like this, Sjöfn.”
“I’ve already told you that you don’t need a partner to have what you want. Why don’t you believe me?”
“If it was that easy to just learn magic, why would anyone bother trying to find a partner?” Alina asks. She can’t back down about this.
“It’s not as powerful as partnered magic. But that doesn’t mean you can’t—”
“Then why are you so resistant to having a soulmate, when you could have it all? You could have me! You could have love! You could have more than just these… stories that people tell to make themselves feel better about not having a soulmate!”
Sjöfn is quiet, her gaze intense, but she leans forward. Alina sucks in a deep breath.
“I want you to look at me, and tell me you want that,” Sjöfn says.
Breath lodges in Alina’s throat. It steals the words from her mouth.
“Look at me, and tell me you’re in love with me, Alina.”
The words don’t come, though she tries to summon them. How easy they should be to say!
Sjöfn leans back once more, apparently satisfied with herself. “That’s what I thought.”
Baffled, Alina flounders, afloat at sea with no raft. Without the certainty of love… what’s left?
“There’s a place I know,” Sjöfn says. “A place you’ll like.”
“Take me there,” Alina whispers, and unlike her past feelings, this conviction feels like maybe it could be her own.
*
They meet the next morning at the burning edge of dawn. Alina doesn’t bother with a dress, and Sjöfn doesn’t bother to tell her where they’re going, instead tying a midnight-blue cloth over Alina’s eyes as casually as if she’s asking about the weather. Sjöfn refuses to answer any questions, instead coaxing her to “pay attention to how the Earth feels,” as if that’s easy with her vision restricted, as if that means anything.
The trill of blackbirds celebrates morning; their song floats over crackling branches as squirrels chase each other through the brush. Alina longs to shed everything dating and soulmates and run into the arms of the sea, but she has no idea how far from home they are. She shuffles forward, unsteady on her feet, the whispers of yesterday’s conversation keeping her uneasy.
“Can’t you feel it, Alina? The wind calling for you?”
“Maybe,” Alina says.
The grip around her shoulders tightens. “Tell me something. Do you believe that everyone who gets married actually loves their partner?”
“I don’t know, Sjöfn.”
“Well, maybe you should ask.”
“Maybe you should let me have what I want!”
Alina tugs forward harder than necessary and loses her balance—though whether she’s unbalanced by the root underfoot or by the weight of her frustration and longing, she doesn’t know. She barely catches her footing in time to press into the sandy sludge that forms the edge of the fjord. The sound of rushing water fills her eardrums; she somehow hadn’t heard it previously, but now it’s everything, has been there all along, since long before she and Sjöfn forged a connection.
She needs to be free.
She needs to see.
Alina tears the blindfold off.
Before her stands a grove of knotted yew trees that protect the water’s narrow shore, their branches spread towards the sea’s tender cerulean heart. The mountains crest high above them on both sides, the morning mist now cleared from their peaks. Power oozes from limb to limb of the ancient wood, seizing her soul and heaving her into the depths of the fjord. Yet, despite the might before her, the water is gentle as it kisses the grass, and the leaves above them knit a canopy that houses them alone.
“Where are we?” Alina breathes.
“In the place that has been waiting for you,” Sjöfn says softly.
Alina turns to her, but Sjöfn is focused on pulling something small from the folds of her coat. It’s long and thin, with evenly spaced holes and intricate patterns carved into antique rosewood.
A flute.
Alina watches with baited breath as Sjöfn brings the instrument to her lips and begins to play.
As the notes sing upon the breeze, the stream seems to redirect, straining towards their herald. The wind strikes an anthem, calling them into a harmony that Alina has never bothered to hear. The clattering of branches, the shivering blades of grass, the rattling of granite pebbles along the shore: all coalesce into an effortless symphony.
The water joins too: first in a rushing hiss, then in rising waves that glisten in the sunlight as if sharing a whispered secret among raucous joy.
The water sings, and it calls Alina to dance.
Without care for her clothing, she leaps, first at a wade and then in a hungry dive.
Weight barrels into her—Sjöfn enveloping her, warm and constant. The water takes them up, and up, and breathtakingly up, until they’re flying on the current. They’re soaked, cresting high over the Earth for exhilarating seconds that stretch and fold into eternity. Alina tries to breathe; the water plunges into her nose and throat, but she doesn’t choke. Instead, it flows hot through her like she’s inhaled pure mountain air, warmed by the relentless shining of the sun.
And then the music fades.
The water slows and washes them ashore.
Alina lies, splayed on the ground and panting.
“You said you couldn’t do magic,” she rasps.
Sjöfn’s panting, too, lying beside her, drenched hair clinging to her neck, water dripping from her skin. “It wasn’t mine,” Sjöfn says. “I listened to the call of the forest, and Fossegrim taught me. I learned, Alina.”
Alina rolls to Sjöfn’s side, closes her eyes, and presses their foreheads together. She feels like she’s standing on the precipice of the rest of her life.
“Welcome to the magic of the Earth,” Sjöfn murmurs.
Sjöfn takes Alina’s hand, lifts it to her mouth, and places a tender kiss on each of her fingers before settling on the silver ring on her index finger. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about… something else I want to try. But I don’t know what will happen.”
“What is it?” Alina says, her voice nothing more than an exhale.
“Let’s throw them away.”
The rings?
Of course, the rings. Someday we shall not be bound, she had written, and the idea that someday could be now—that all along, Yggdrasil had never lied—takes her breath away.
Alina nods. They each pry the rings from soaking fingers with held breaths as the quiet burble of water laps at their ankles. And then, simultaneously, they cast their rings into the unfathomable depths of the sea.