It was a crisp night, the kind I had always loved. If we were back home, and things were as they had always been, I would have sneaked out of doors by now and would be traipsing through the woods, off to find some high point from where I could see the stars. I would spend hours searching for the one I had dubbed as Sølvi, tell him hello, ask how he’d been. Tell him I missed him. And in the early morning hours I would make my way back home, with a heart that felt both empty and full.
But this wasn’t one of those nights. Tonight, I walked a wide ridge in mountains on our way to the sea, the stars raging like a hundred thousand fires to illuminate the darkness. I felt comfort in their presence, like they were old friends who were glad to see me after my descent into the mountains. And somewhere deep down in my heart, I could see the face of that girl, the one I needed to save, and I could feel how desperately she would love the stars as well. Right now they were mine, burning for me and those I loved, but one day they would belong to her, and she would command them in a way I could never imagine. I wished I could see it, but just knowing what would happen filled my heart with peace.
A firm determination burned through my veins, a mixture of fire and ice. I wanted a wedding and I got a funeral. I wanted a family and I got all-consuming loneliness. Life wasn’t in the habit of making my dreams come true, so I made a new dream, a dream to save someone I would never know, and I would fight for it until the last beat of my heart echoed in that cursed god’s ear.
The god was no longer stone, but shadow and flame that walked before us, both there and not. The orange glow of the flames looked sickly against the bluish light of the night. He kept his eyes on the ground ahead of him, never looking up, and I suspected it was because he didn’t want to see the Goddess. Light always makes evil uneasy.
We had said goodbye to Siiva in the foothills. One of the wolves had spoken to him, and he had climbed into Enja’s arms for a final embrace before he left us, tiny footsteps trailing to the south. Whether back to the village or somewhere they had instructed him, I didn’t know, but there was a peace in my heart that told me he would be safe.
Enja trailed behind us, so I slowed to match her pace.
“I’m sorry,” I said, placing an arm around her shoulder. How much she must have been suffering.
“For what?” she asked, and there was more strength in her voice than I would have supposed.
“For … everything. Everything.” I shook my head and felt suddenly as though I was about to cry. I stopped walking and turned to face her, starlight glistening in her eyes. “For your brother. I am sorry you lost him, and for my sake.” Tears blurred my vision, and I pushed knotted hair from my face. “He might still be here if it wasn’t for me.”
She put two hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes. I blinked away the tears to better see her. “Janna,” she said softly, “you have nothing to be sorry for. You loved fiercely and lost greatly, and for that, I will always be sorry. I have missed my brother every day since he died, but I have never once blamed you.”
As she spoke, a weight lifted from my chest and disappeared into the cold night air. A sob shook my body, and I hugged her like I had never hugged anyone. In a world filled with terrible things, she was a small piece of goodness. “Thank you,” I said, and then repeated it over and over and over again. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
She was a friend – my closest, dearest friend, but knowing what was in her heart, knowing she did not hold me responsible for her brother’s death, lightened my heart enough to make the coming events just a little less frightening. I smoothed her matted hair away from her tired face, wishing there was something I could do to make her a little more comfortable, a little less pained.
I turned away to keep walking, and Enja fell to the ground. She coughed and coughed, and droplets of blood fell on to the snow and rock around us. The image of that person in the woods back near that village, of the red blood marring the white snow, and the strangled noises coming from their throat, took shape before me, but I pushed it far away.
“Enja,” I said, and I crashed to my knees beside her. “I’m here. It’s all right.” Even in the darkness I could see how pale she was, all life and colour drained away.
“Janna,” she said, and held tight to my hand, the whites of her eyes sparkling with fear. “Please don’t let another moment go by where you think it was your fault. It wasn’t. It was never your fault.”
I brushed her hair from her face, losing a battle to hold back my tears. “I won’t,” I said. “I promise.”
“I don’t know where I’ll go after this, but I hope Sølvi’s there.” She knew. She knew what was happening, and I couldn’t lie to her. I would soon be gone as well, but not like this. Not in such a wretched, violent way, and my heart ached to watch it.
“I’m sure he will be. Tell him I miss him.” I laughed a little, and she smiled.
“Stars above, snow below,” she whispered, and I joined her.
“Hear the echoes of my soul.
Raging sea and summer rain,
Don’t let the world forget my name.”
“I’m sorry,” I started to say, but stopped when she shuddered. “Enja?”
She didn’t speak again.
“That changes things,” the god said as I stared at Enja’s face, lit only by starlight.
She had come so far and done so much. I would never have made it without her, never have found the god who could save the baby, not be on this ridge, surrounded by eight immortals if she hadn’t given it everything she had. We had hardly spoken in a year, and then over a matter of days, she had become my dearest friend. And now she was gone, so simply, like a candle blown out by a breeze.
“You now have only your life to give,” the god continued, and I stood slowly, lying Enja gently on the ground. “So who will it be: the woman, or her baby?”
Overhead, the stars twinkled and danced, as though making plans for a future so distant I would never be a part of it. And that was all right. I was here to do something big in a small way, a way that might never be known by another living soul on this island. Every word, every action, every breath trickles down through time and changes the world in some small way. The tide doesn’t crash against the coast in one thundering motion; it drifts in, so subtle at first that it might escape your notice, until, little bit by little bit, it has drowned the shores.
“We save the baby,” I said, and I had never been more certain of anything in my life. If the mother were here, she would make the same choice. That baby would do great things, and right here, right now, I could ensure that those things happened. My vision flashed suddenly, and as if these dealings with a god had ruptured something in time, I was filled with images of the girl with light hair, on a boat in a storm, in a cave late at night, plucking the stars from the sky to use in her battle. It was as though she were living right now, all around me, as though our two stories had managed to collide.
We climbed a cliff that sat high above the sea, so high it was nothing more than a shadowed expanse far below. Up here, I felt as though I could fly, or touch the stars, or see distant lands which we knew nothing about. It was freeing, and knowing that I would never again touch the island made me sad that I had spent so little time by the sea.
I looked up at the stars of the Goddess, all worry and fear dissipating. I knew what I needed to do, and I knew how to do it. I knew where I was going, and I knew that I would be happy. It wasn’t death, but a new life far from here, and because of that, there was no reason to be afraid.
Remember, the beautiful voice said. So long as you do not touch the island, I can take your hand.
This was the end of a story, and the start of another. A transition from one era to the next. The beginning of the end of the fear in which Skane had been forced to live. And even though no one knew it yet, it brought me comfort and joy.
I reached into my pocket and drew out the paper I had carried around for the past year. Sølvi’s last new words to me. I had never truly wanted to read them until now, to accept his final gift and put an end to the new memories we could make. But it was time. I unfolded the paper, and I read.
The letters on the page ebbed and flowed, a quick but elegant hand that stung with familiarity. I read every word, and then read them again.
Tears burned my eyes, but they weren’t tears of pain, as they had so often been. For the first time since Sølvi had died, I finally felt peace.
I turned to the immortals, lined up and waiting, waiting for the sacrifice they would never have to make, but had offered so willingly. That was goodness, in its purest form. That was the sort of love and kindness I wished my village could learn.
“Thank you,” I said to them, looking into each of their eyes in turn. “Your Goddess thanks you for what you are willing to do, and I thank you, on behalf of Skane. Such selflessness is rare and beautiful.” They all bowed their heads to me one by one, in a wave of grace and elegance.
Then I turned to the god. “Do you know what destroys paper?” I asked, and the flames drew back in confusion, and a moment of silence yawned between us.
“I do not understand the question.”
“Fire,” I said. “Fire consumes paper, wood, almost everything. I’ve seen it destroy. Seen what it leaves behind. It nearly ended my own life, not so long ago.”
Silence.
“Do you know what consumes darkness?”
He said nothing.
“Light. It floods the shadows,” I answered. “A candle in a dark room might as well be the sun on a summer’s day. It devours the darkness.” I sighed, and quietly took in the stars for a moment, admiring how brightly they shone against the black sky behind them. “And do you know what destroys evil?” I asked.
“This is foolishness,” he replied. “The heat has gone to your head.”
“Good. Good destroys evil.” I remembered, faint though they were at the time, the feelings of admiration and warmth when Eri had crested that hill to stop Ragna, the way their two souls had clashed for all to see. One good, one evil. I was only standing here because he had won.
More silence. I moved closer to the god, closer to the precarious edge of the cliff, and I took in a breath.
“Do you know what destroys fire?” I asked in a whisper. My heart beat like thunder, all noise vanishing for a handful of seconds as I focused on what it truly felt like to live, to be alive, and to be me. I let my life play out from beginning to end in a flash, all the memories I would ever have from my time in Skane, all living one final time in my mind. This was the end of the Janna as she was, and the start of the Janna she would be for the rest of time. “Water.”
And I ran at him with all the strength my body had left, and in a rush of air and flames, we both went tumbling over the edge of the cliff.
I fell and fell and fell, the cliff shrinking further and further away, and while I soon heard the crash as the god disappeared into the depths of the sea, that crash never came for me. I just continued to fall, the cliff and the island growing smaller and smaller until it had disappeared altogether. She couldn’t help me while I remained on the island, but I was not on the island any more. There was a void where my life should be, a void that would be filled by the baby, born tonight, who would grow up to rule the sky.
As I fell, the darkness around me was slowly replaced by stars, and I was falling through the night sky I had spent so long admiring from below. And a voice echoed off the stars and lit up the darkness around me, and I could see Her constellation shimmering before me.
Come with me, Janna. Come to the stars, that you may watch over the island for ever. At last, you will find peace.
And beside her, another star flickered and shone, and in it, I could see him. I could see him, and I wanted nothing more than to go to him.
“Take me,” I said, and I reached up to the stars that burned above me. “Take me with you.”
The lights overhead grew bigger and brighter, and then Sølvi’s voice welcomed me home.
Far away across the island, a baby was born. She let out a weak cry, one that barely registered in the ears of her father, who sat shuddering with sobs by the fire as a neighbour wrapped the baby in blankets to keep her warm – a neighbour who quietly gave her the name Ósa, and whispered it tenderly into her ear. She would never know her mother, never know how desperately she had been loved, loved by the woman who had birthed her. Loved by a girl who had given her life to a Goddess. Loved so that her cry could echo off the mountains, the trees, the walls of every cave on the island and let everything within it know she had arrived. A baby’s cry that could bring evil crashing to its knees.
A baby’s cry that made the stars tremble.