The atmosphere in Arune’s hall was a tumultuous mix of celebration and tension, hope and anxiety. Half the village was crammed between the walls, everyone from bent elders to fussing babies. Food was distributed by children while clan leaders and warriors clustered around Arune, Thray, Berin, Seera, and Askir. The rest of our companions were outside, taking their turn at watch. Isik and I sat near the council, Nui draped heavily across my lap as I dug my fingers into her fur and tried to forget the horde of Revenants in the forest. It was easier when the Aruth chattered in their own language, less so when Thray or Arune translated their words.
“We cannot hold out forever,” Thray related the words of Aruth’s spokesman. The Winterborn woman was clothed in a fresh kaftan now, her broad, muscular shoulders accentuated by a fur-trimmed cloak and a waist cinched by two weapons belts—one with an axe ring and hooded short axe, and the other with the bone-handled knife that had once belonged to Frir, her aunt and Goddess of Death. “We—the Aruth—are discussing fleeing into the ravines.”
“That’s a long run,” Arune muttered in the Divine Tongue, looking around the hall through his white lashes. His gaze lingered on the children and elders. “Too long for some.”
The Aruth spoke again, falling into rapid conversation I couldn’t understand and Thray ceased to translate.
Isik reached to scratch Nui’s ears, and she obligingly flopped her massive head into his lap. He smiled fondly, his expression too soft, too gentle for this room and its talk of war. I enjoyed the expression, watching him until it occurred to me to wonder how he would look if I placed a child—our child—in his arms.
I slammed the door on that and forced my eyes back to the assembly.
“We must send word to Omaskat and the High Priesthood,” Thray said. She sat back, surveying the rafters. “Where’s Mawny?”
Arune turned to one of the Aruth leaders. “Where’s my owl?” he asked in the Divine Tongue.
The Aruth replied in their own language and pointed to Askir.
“It’s gone,” Askir said, looking satisfied with himself. “I sent it to Eangen as soon as Berin and Yske disappeared.”
Arune made a discontented sound, but I felt only relief. News that our expedition had gone awry was already on its way to my mother. She wouldn’t know of Logur or Imilidese, but a warning had been sounded. When the owl returned, hopefully it would be with some measure of counsel, and we could send the whole terrible truth back to Eangen.
A wave of fatigue beset me. I felt the scars on my hand, knotted and smoothed, and looked down at them.
There would be many more wounds to heal in the coming days, and not all of them could be treated by salves and stitches. With each one, I would pile more pain upon my own head.
“When is the full moon?” I asked Isik quietly.
His brows furrowed in passing curiosity. “Soon. Within a few days. Why?”
I shrugged. “I’ve just lost track of the days.”
He accepted that, taking Nui’s face between his hands and muttering nonsense while her tail thumped. But my mind churned. Days. That was too soon. Perhaps I should bring someone into my confidence, someone who could help me if, when the full moon rose, I was in too much pain to make my sacrifice to Aita without help.
“Isik,” Arune’s voice called, dragging us both back into the conversation. “When will you leave for the west?”
Isik stilled then, giving Nui’s ears one last scratch, and got to his feet. When he spoke, it was in the rolling, distant-thunder timbre of his Divine Tongue. “Soon. If we’ve any luck, the Eangen and Algatt will already have organized some response to the owl. But they have no idea how grave things have become.”
Thray glanced at Arune, reluctance in her eyes. “You can move more quickly than him,” she pointed out. “What if you went instead?”
“I’ve no desire to go,” her half-brother replied smoothly. “And I’ve a responsibility to my people.”
The Aruth murmured their agreement at that.
Arune went on, “It may be that Yske’s power healed the rift, or the tree, or both. Maybe in the next few hours, the binding will shatter. Maybe it will grow stronger. Maybe nothing will change. But Logur’s forces will not stop assaulting us here. He’s out for blood.” At this, his eyes sought out Isik and me, and my heart twisted as he included Berin in the glance. “He will do everything in his power to open that rift, however small the chance of success.”
“Bindings on a being this powerful do not unravel quickly under the best of circumstances,” Thray interjected thoughtfully. Her tone was plain and sure—speaking from the knowledge she’d gained during her years as a priestess, before her exile. “During the Upheaval, the Omaskat began the process of waking Thvynder years before the Vestige was born and the god awoke.”
“Does Imilidese have a Vestige?” Askir asked. Vestiges, like my cousin Vistic, were pieces of a god—or Miri—which could be bonded with a human and used to pull their creator back from death or out of a binding.
When no one else replied, I shook my head and spoke. “Imilidese’s goal was to remake creation. I doubt she had the inclination or chance to bind herself to it.”
“My blood is the most dangerous in this company,” Isik pointed out. There was no arrogance in his voice, only regret. He looked at me and switched back to Eangen. “I have to go. Though I hate to leave you.”
I felt a flush creep across my cheeks. He had spoken loud enough for everyone to hear, even if only the Winterborn, Berin, and our companions could understand.
“I’m here,” Thray said, whatever she thought of Isik’s and my relationship obscure. She added without falter, “She’ll come to no harm.”
Berin glanced at her quizzically, then swept his gaze to Isik and me. I saw the moment his inevitable suspicion solidified into understanding. Wariness sparked in his eyes, but I saw no accusation or surge of proprietary instinct.
I offered him a small smile and a look that I hoped communicated, I’ll explain later.
“Of course,” Isik replied to Thray, nodding grudgingly. “I’ll leave tonight.”
* * *
I washed shaking hands in a bowl of steaming water out the back of the hall as night closed in. Archers patrolled the walls and Nui, who’d refused to leave my side since I arrived, sat nearby.
“Yske.”
Isik stood nearby. He carried a small satchel and bedroll—even as the wind, it would take him days to reach home—along with an Aruth bow. Snow caught on the fur collar of his cloak as he looked down at me, his expression open and melancholic.
I finished washing and shook droplets of water from my fingers. I’d been thinking of him and I and this moment since the council, and when I spoke my words were calm. “Did you mean what you said back in the forest? About the lure of worship?”
Isik searched my face. His already thin façade weakened and his lips twisted unhappily beneath his freshly trimmed beard. “I always mean what I say.”
“Isik. Everyone faces temptations, whether they’re human or Miri. Those temptations don’t define you. What you do in response to them does.”
He held very still. I saw his eyes flick to my lips, but his focus remained on my words. “Why are you saying this?”
“Because we agreed we’re fools,” I said simply. “But we’re not children anymore, Isik. And I’ve seen enough of the world, and myself, and you, to realize what I want from my days. And that you and I are not too different to be together, if we do so with awareness, and patience.”
He was closer now, his head bowed, his fingers ghosting across my hips. “What do you want?”
I took hold of his forearm, and I wasn’t sure if the tremble I felt came from him or me. Perhaps it was both of us. “To go home and live a quiet life. To heal and care for those I love. To have them close. And to have you with me.”
His one hand lifted to clasp my arm in return, the other resting on the curve of my waist. His touch was familiar, full of youthful memories, but his hands were more callused now, heavier and more intentional.
“We have our differences. I have my battles and so do you,” I told him, wondering if he could hear the hammering of my heart. “But if you choose me instead of them, I’ll be here.”
“You’ll die,” he said, his voice rough with want.
I gave a short, soft laugh. “Swords and spears could kill either of us tomorrow. Imilidese could Unmake the world. And just because I’ll age and die doesn’t mean my death is the end.”
He pulled back slightly, his grip tightening. “Are you saying… you’d linger in the High Halls?”
I resisted the urge to smile and pushed past the weight of his question. “As long as I could. There’s much I can do for the world, in body and in spirit.”
There was hope in him, then. “Yske… I—”
Nui barked, startling the both of us. We turned as she bolted after a small, long-tailed shadow and vanished off into the village.
I became aware of the night again, the cold and the snow-capped rooftops all around. I heard the voices of the Aruth, continuing daily life even when they were besieged by monsters.
“It may be months before I return with help,” Isik said quietly. I suspected that wasn’t what he’d intended to say. “You may have to flee into the ravines with the Aruth.”
I nodded, but I couldn’t think about myself just then. My thoughts were still full of him, us, and the glimmer of hope that we had kindled. It was a frail thing, crowded on all sides by challenges and fears.
“What were you going to say?” I pressed.
He raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
I just stared at him, pinning him with my gaze.
“It’s nothing, Yske,” he placated, taking my shoulders in his hands.
A new thought surfaced in the back of my mind, like a whale from a darkened sea.
“Isik…” I began, slowly translating my thoughts. “The Binding Tree may be the only reason the eastern High Halls are inaccessible. I saw lights there, like the foxfire. If the rift reopens and the power of the binding returns to the Halls… the Halls may heal. They may become traversable again.”
“If that’s so…”
I nodded, encouraging his train of thought. “You could bring aid back through the High Halls. My parents. Your parents. The Watchman. The Vestige. The armies of the Eangen and the Algatt. Even the Duamel and the Arpa.”
“That is a great deal to hope for,” Isik cautioned, but his eyes were brighter. “Help could be here in a day. Even hours.”
I nodded quickly. “But the timing would be difficult. If the rift does open, Imilidese will begin to break free.”
“Vistic and Omaskat will know more,” Isik decided. I felt him shift, easing his weight back as he began to step back. His fingers slipped away. “I’ll send you an owl as soon as I reach them.”
A second breath of silence passed, both of us skimming across the surface of what we wanted to say.
Leaning up, I cupped the side of his face with my free hand, feeling the warmth of his skin and the snow melting in the roughness of his beard, and I kissed him. The scent of him surrounded me—woodsmoke and sweat, damp wool and storms, the oil in his beard and the brush of warm breath.
He held still for a moment, then bent in, slow and deliberate. He kissed me back until, eventually, the gentle brush and part of our lips began to slow—thoughts and worries seeping back through the haze of warmth and want.
I pulled back, but his teeth nipped at my bottom lip, and I laughed in surprise. He laughed too, still close, hushed and relieved.
“We will find a way through this,” I repeated to him. I held his eyes, and his smile was so honest and my heart so full that I ached. But he held something back, a truth unspoken.
I wouldn’t press him. My mind had already begun to slip back to the island, and the tree, and the image of myself with my hands upon the stones of the fallen doorway. Healing. Opening. Breaking.
We will find a way.
Or I will make one.
* * *
Winter settled over the forests of the east. The nights became vengefully cold and the snow ceased to melt, even under the unrepentant sun. Other days, woodsmoke trailed into a snow-cloud sky. Livestock was packed into hutches attached to the Aruth’s houses, or in some cases, brought right in to share the hearths of the forest people. Each morning was a chorus of animals, sleepy calling voices, and the crack of ice in barrels and troughs but all birdsong faded from the woods, leaving only the raucous rattle of ravens on the bodies of the dead.
There were many, many dead. I watched from the town wall as the black birds swarmed frozen corpses between us and the forest. Some were Revenants, slim pickings for the hungry birds, but others were human—Logur’s living devotees, who now stalked the forests with short bows and quick, deadly arrows.
“They’ll attack today,” Berin said from beside me, cloak wrapped around his upper body and cheeks reddened with cold. He looked tired but hale, his eyes keen and his brows furrowed.
“How do you know?” I asked, watching a raven alight on a horizontal arrow, stuck in the head of a dead attacker. We were far enough away that I couldn’t see the gruesome details of the corpse, but it was still obvious when the raven began to peck not at the body, but its own feathers. It plucked them out, one by one, twitching at the pain and heedless of the blood.
“That,” my brother returned, prying his eyes from the raven. “Like the doe you saw. Another omen?”
I couldn’t deny that, but affirming it felt too dangerous.
Below, wind caught at black feathers, scudding them across the white of the snow.
“And there’s the stillness,” Berin added. “It feels like the forest is holding its breath.”
Behind him, down the wall, I glimpsed a few Aruth warriors clustered around a steaming pot. The pot was held by a pretty young woman with a baby strapped to her back. The infant slept, its cheek heavy on its mother’s shoulder and tiny bowed lips squished to one side. One of the warriors leaned in to kiss the woman and gently brush the baby’s cheek with the back of one finger. The child did not stir.
I missed Isik. The kiss I’d given him before his departure had been more than a meeting of lips—it was an admission, an acceptance of something that we’d denied for many long years.
Berin’s expression twitched and his lips parted to speak, but it took him a while to get the words out. “I’ve been thinking of Isa.”
I watched the little family and pondered the empty ache in my heart. “I’m sure they are both well. The women of Albor survived without me for centuries.”
“That’s not what you said before we left.”
“I think too highly of myself,” I admitted, slipping closer and leaning against his arm. “Apparently we’re both known for that.”
He grunted. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you’ve taken up with a Miri, then?”
“You might not realize it, Berin, but between your sunny disposition and our infamous parents, not many human men have approached me.”
“So you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel with the son of dethroned gods?”
“I have to take what I can get.”
“What about Esan?” Berin gave a considering frown. “I know he tried to kiss you once.”
I peered up at him, startled. “You knew about that?”
Berin pointed out one of the white scars on his knuckles. “Of course I did.”
I tried to stifle a laugh and failed. “I wondered why he never tried again. I didn’t stop him, you know.”
Berin grinned nostalgically and looked out over the forest. “I wouldn’t mind if you married him now.”
“Isik and I have been friends since Father first brought me to Aita, and we were together, once we grew older. He’s always been kind to me, and gentle.”
It had begun to snow again—sparse, small flakes fluttering out of the gray sky above.
“He’s a Miri,” my twin repeated. “But considering the world might end before spring, perhaps it doesn’t matter.”
I smiled, a little sadly, and wrapped both my arms around his one, fully burrowing into his side as if we were children listening to our father sing stories.
“Happiness is worth having,” I told him. “Even if it’s brief.”
“Some might call you short-sighted,” Berin pointed out.
I snorted softly. “Says the man who gave a boar a bucket of ale and tried to saddle it.”
I felt the rumble of his laughter, but when he spoke again, his voice was raw with honesty. “Love is difficult, Yske. If you choose to be with Isik, you are guaranteeing yourself pain.”
“Every path in life has pain. I don’t want to spend my days hiding from it,” I murmured. “Or mourning a future that might not come.”
The truth of the words sank into me as I said them, half-formed thoughts and emotion coalescing into truth.
I heard a soft laugh from behind us and turned to see Thray stepping up onto the wall, her hair bound in two thick, long braids. The last handspans of her braids were encased in delicately embossed leather in the style of the Aruth, and it suited her well.
“I spend seven years in the ice,” she commented, “and awake to find my little cousin fifty years wiser than me.”
I smiled, preening a little. “You were betrothed before your exile? I remember you speaking about a man.”
She looked up at the sky as a cool breeze brushed past, perhaps searching for Arune. “I was. But I made my choices, and walked the path I chose to walk. It was not with him.”
“Do you regret it?” I asked. I knew the question might cause her pain, but I needed to know.
The Winterborn smiled, crooked and a little sad. “I don’t know. I’m not as wise as you yet,” she quipped, still watching the sky. “Arune is coming.”
I touched my Sight and followed her gaze. There was silver on the wind, shifting and turning as it surveyed the world below. Then it swept down to the wall and coalesced into a human shape.
I blinked away my Sight. It was not Arune who stood on the wall before us but someone else entirely. Tall and broad-shouldered, with white hair shaved here and there to reveal intricate tattoos in a looping, unfamiliar style. The rest of his thick white hair hung in a braid down his back, twined with simple leather strands, and his kaftan was a deep, rich blue. Legwraps cinched loose trousers at the knee and a sword hung at his belt, along with a pair of long, slightly curved knives.
Thray went pale and her hand dropped to her own knife. Berin immediately stepped in front of me and drew his sword as, all along the wall, Aruth archers noticed the confrontation and nocked arrows.
“Thray,” the newcomer said, his voice low and rumbling like the first tremors of an avalanche.
“Kygga,” she breathed.