We hike into the northeastern woods with Lisa low at our backs. Freydis led me in a wide, confusing arc, skirting the far edge of the king’s orchards before doubling back into the foothills. I assume it’s so we won’t be seen.
As Mawu’s reign begins to take hold, the forest becomes something Other. Its nyama both quiets and quickens, thrumming with a different kind of life: the life of night creatures stirring from their slumber. Our dusk is their dawn.
A brook babbles in the distance. The sound carries with it the thought of Broskrap’s body. That stream runs east; his corpse could be in these same woods by now. If there’s anything left of it.
I shove the unsettling thought away, refocusing on my new surroundings. The trees here are old and sturdy, with fewer of the spindly, spiky-leaved trees that abounded outside the farmland. I’m no stranger to an evening spent in the bush, to letting my ears take over for my eyes as my guide. But this forest is still strange to me, with unknown animals and unknown spirits. I feel like I have the ears of a newborn baby, like I’m just getting acquainted with all the sounds of life outside the womb. There’s that rhythmic chirping in the air again. The rustles of bushy-tailed rodents, or maybe a lizard, skittering through the underbrush away from our footsteps. An owl calls down from the treetops, asking who, who are you, to step foot in this sacred place?
Night owl. That’s what Ampah used to call me, because I used to love the night. I thought that part of me had died, but I wonder if it wasn’t just…asleep, and now it’s waking up again.
The thought of Ampah should make me sad, but, somehow, it doesn’t. I feel like I’ve fallen into a strange trance. I feel acutely present in my body, yet I sense the familiar abstraction of a dreamstate. Every rustle becomes the whisper of spirits, every gnarled branch the arm of an ancestor clawing its way back to life.
A dry twig bends back, caught on the coarse fibers of my cloak. “Ow!” Freydis complains as it smacks her, drawing me from my reverie.
“Oops,” I mutter. I’m not used to maneuvering with so many layers; they add an unwieldy girth to my body. Even my hunter’s tunic—an item I’ve sorely missed—was not nearly as heavy as the clothes the Majūs have to wear to brave the cold.
I can’t help but smirk as Freydis edges closer to my back. “You’re okay,” I say coolly. I can feel her nyama as clearly as I can hear every one of her clumsy footsteps; she’s about as comfortable in the forest as I am at the loom.
Maybe we should have waited until dawn to go hunting. In Wagadu, Lisa’s rise offered more safety from predators. And even though Mawu’s face is supposed to be full and fat in the sky tonight, only a small portion of her light can reach us through the thick canopy; it’s easy to avoid smacking into a trunk but harder to detect any tracks. But Freydis insisted we go in the evening, so we wouldn’t risk running into other hunters. She sent word through Helge that she was feeling unwell and wanted to rest through dinner, so no one will be looking for us until tomorrow.
“Is this your first time outside of the city?” I ask, more to distract her than out of curiosity.
“No, but I don’t get to leave very often. And I never go into the woods…” She pauses, then lowers her voice to a whisper. “Helge once told me there are trolls living in these woods.”
“Trolls?”
“Monsters. Big ones. They eat human children.”
I smother a laugh. “I’m guessing Helge told you this when you were a child?”
“Yes,” she says soberly, completely missing my point. I’m suddenly overcome by the urge to whip around and shake her, just to frighten her further. As amusing as it would be, she’d probably scream loud enough to scatter all the prey for miles around.
And there will be prey, I think to myself with satisfaction, noting a pair of scratch marks on a trunk as we pass. Back in Wagadu, the male antelope used their antlers to scrape bark off the trees during mating season. When I described antelope to Freydis earlier, she said they were called deer and they lived in these woods too, but I almost didn’t believe her, since I haven’t tasted their meat or seen their hides anywhere. The sight of their tracks is as comforting as it is thrilling: Finally, I can use the skills I acquired in my old life in my new one.
“She also told me—” I cover her mouth with my hand, silencing her.
Hushed voices. And footsteps. Coming nearer.
I yank Freydis behind the scratched tree. Its trunk is far too thin to conceal us both, but we don’t have time to find a better hiding spot.
“…will see to your safety if what you claim is true, Chlothar.” The voice is nasally, grating.
“I swear by your gods and mine, I have spoken only the truth, my lord,” comes the timorous reply.
“If that is so, then all will be forgiven. But until I have proof, you will speak of this to no one. Once we are certain, I will tell the king myself. Do you understand?”
“Of course, my lord. I will keep my silence.”
“Good.” The footsteps stop. “If I find that you’ve betrayed me…” The nasally voice falls silent. My heart quickens.
“Lord?”
The swish of a sword being unsheathed. I hold my breath.
“You there, behind the tree. Reveal yourselves.” A command, not a question.
“Is someone there?” Freydis steps out from behind the tree before I can stop her. “Oh, heill, cousin! Good evening to you, and to your companion.” I scowl, but follow her lead, stepping out to join her.
The shards of Mawu’s light reveal two men. The first is lanky with a beardless hatchet of a face. He looks familiar; judging by his bearing, he must be a soldier in the army. As with many other Majūs soldiers, his limp hair is shaved at the sides and long at the crown. His companion, however, is clearly not a soldier. Maybe not even Majūs. He has a corpulent build, which he covers with a loose, almost dresslike robe and an elongated hat that flops to one side. He is also beardless, and even in the darkness, I can see the outline of fear on his face.
It’s not me or Freydis he fears.
Remembering his manners, the robed man offers a bow to Freydis, but Hatchet-Face narrows his eyes, keeping his sword in hand. “You’re far from your bed, Princess. What are you doing out in the forest at night?”
“I’m afraid I’m suffering from an upset stomach,” Freydis says smoothly. Her hand falls on my shoulder. “My maidservant and I are looking for some mugwort.”
“There’s none in the cookhouse?” Hatchet-Face presses.
“They ran out.”
“And they couldn’t send a thrall to fetch you some?”
“What are you doing out here?” I cut in.
His gaze flickers to me. It could be a trick of the darkness, but it seems like there’s something…sinister in the smirk he gives me. I sense it in his nyama, too. “Funny you should ask. We’re gathering yarrow for the journey tomorrow. It helps stop a wound from over-bleeding, as you may know. Good to have at hand in case any of my men sustain injuries during the raids.” His companion quickly nods in agreement.
“What a coincidence,” I say drily. “We’re all picking flowers tonight.”
A tense silence. Hatchet-Face stares at me like his eyes could bore a hole into my skull. I lift my chin defiantly. He would be crazy to attack the princess’s thrall, but I recognize the unspoken challenge in that look, and I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge. Even if he is a trained soldier with a sword and who knows what other weapons hidden away, and I’m just a thrall girl with some carving knives tucked into my belt, borrowed from the cookhouse.
Freydis is the first to break the silence. “Well, then. Good luck in your search.”
“You as well, Princess,” Hatchet-Face replies. He bows with his companion this time, then both men hasten past us.
“Will they tell your father they saw us here?” I ask when the men’s footsteps have faded behind us.
“I don’t think so. It didn’t sound like they want the king knowing what they’re up to any more than we do.”
We walk in silence for a long while after that. I can tell that she’s deep in thought, no doubt mulling over whatever those two men were talking about. I want to ask her who they were—she called one of them “cousin”—and if she suspects their discussion had something to do with Broskrap. But I’m too afraid of turning her suspicions onto me.
I remind myself for the hundredth time that I don’t have to worry about her discovering the truth. Despite the nightmares that torment me every night, despite the fear that lingers at the edges of my days, there’s just no reason for anyone but Alvtir to connect me to Broskrap’s disappearance. If anything, Freydis seems especially unlikely to do so; when we overheard those two guards earlier, she completely mistook my panic for concern. Thank the gods I was so overwhelmed with shock, or I would have laughed in her face again. As if I would be concerned about Broskrap’s well-being! Either she didn’t know Broskrap at all, or she’s even more naïve than she seems. Hopefully both, for my sake. No matter how badly she wants to be my “friend,” I have no doubt that she’d turn me over to her father in the blink of an eye if she ever did find out. I wouldn’t be surprised if Balli had killed a thrall for something as trivial as dropping a platter or burning a roast. For a thrall who murdered her master, death would be too merciful a fate. A shudder rolls through me at the thought.
I’m so caught up in these faraway fears, it takes me a moment to register the change in the air. I stop abruptly, letting Freydis bump into my back as I listen to our surroundings.
“What is it now?” she whispers.
More like what it isn’t. I lift my finger to my lips. The chirps, the swishes, the rustles have all ceased. Not because of us, or any other humans. There’s something else nearby. Something big. I can feel it.
A strangled squeal bounces off the trees, sending a jolt of excitement surging through me. I squint in the sound’s direction. There’s a wall of leaves between two intertwining trees; the animal that cried out must be right behind it. A familiar anticipation pulses in my stomach as I inch forward, sidestepping the roots and fallen branches, trying to make my footsteps as soundless as possible in these heavy leather boots.
Slow, slow, I remind myself in Papa’s voice. I haven’t done this in so long, I fear I’m forgetting everything he taught me. Forgetting his wisdom, the wisdom of Agé.
“Unngh!” Freydis stumbles on the fabric of her shift.
“Shh!” I hiss in annoyance, not taking my eyes off the wall of leaves.
I lower to a crouch, and we wait. After a few silent moments, I tiptoe closer and peek around the tree on the right. I get a glimpse of an antelope—at least I think it’s an antelope—limp and bloodstained, being dragged by the neck across the forest floor in the mouth of another, larger animal.
The predator stops at the base of a wide tree, as wide as an old baobab, a stone’s throw away from the wall of leaves. It begins to tear at the flesh of its kill. In the moonlight cutting through the trees, I can just make out its form. It’s some kind of wolf—not spotted but gleaming silver and gray, much larger than any painted wolf I’ve ever seen in Wagadu.
Much, much larger.
My pulse beats in my throat like a drum. I hold my palm up behind me, hoping Freydis understands the signal and stays put. The wolf’s coat shines like polished obsidian as it shifts its position, jerking the antelope to the side, completely absorbed in its kill.
I lower my hand to the carving knives. All three of them are fashioned the same way: medium-length blades with hefty bone handles, balanced well enough to throw, though not designed for hunting—and certainly not for bringing down a creature of this size.
The sound of crunching leaves is as loud as thunder as Freydis maneuvers into a crouch beside me. Instantly the wolf drops the carcass and looks over. Her growl rumbles the earth beneath our feet.
I whip around, meeting Freydis’s terror-stricken face. “Run!” I whisper, reverting instinctively to my native tongue. But fear needs no translation. With a gasp, she turns and flees while I press myself against the trunk.
The wolf rears and charges after her, eager for a second kill.
I raise the knife to the side of my head and call soundlessly to Agé. I desperately hope he can hear me here, that his power extends across the great ocean and through this forest, as it does through every forest I’ve known before.
The wolf hurtles past my hiding spot in a flash of gray. I let the dagger fly.
Thank Agé, it sinks into her shoulder. She whips her bloodied muzzle around and lets out a howl, soon joined by a chorus of howls from all over the forest.
She’s not alone.
I take off after Freydis, sprinting faster than I ever have before.
The wolf’s footsteps fall in rapid succession behind us, getting closer and closer. Freydis lets out a bloodcurdling scream. With no time to aim, I turn around and desperately fling another dagger.
It lands between the wolf’s front legs. She skitters to a stop and snarls, enraged, then charges at seemingly double the speed. My eyes widen in fear, and in something else—a mounting feeling that I’ve somehow seen this before. Maybe that’s just how it feels when you’re about to die, like some part of you knew it was coming.
No. This isn’t how it ends.
I have only one dagger left. The wolf is almost on us now.
I stand my ground as she launches forward from her hind legs, her teeth bared, her black eyes blazing with a fire I know well. The same fire rages deep in my core, banked but never extinguished. It’s the fire that would draw me out of the warmth and coziness of our hut to hunt before Lisa’s rise; the fire that sustained me when the slavers dragged me across the desert; the fire that burned through the stormy nights on Alvtir’s ship, when the sea threatened to swallow me whole; the fire that flared through my veins when I saw what Broskrap was doing to Airé.
Time seems to slow as I take the last dagger from my belt and raise it behind my head, aiming for the narrow space between her eyes.
My heart pounds so loudly between my ears, I almost don’t hear that the galloping behind me has ceased.
I’m no longer being chased. The wolf is gone.
I skid to a halt and fall forward on my knees, gasping and sputtering for air. As soon as I can breathe again, I turn around, ignoring the ache setting into my legs and chest, and scan the darkness for any sign of Yafeu.
She’s turned around to face the wolf. A wolf no smaller than Fenrir himself. And I ran for my life while she faced it alone.
My every instinct is screaming at me to keep running home, but I stir up the last dregs of my courage and force my legs to jog back into the forest. I must find Yafeu. I must. I can’t just let the wolf tear her apart. She was braver than Tyr when he put his arm in Fenrir’s mouth, knowing it would be bitten off. Now I must be brave too.
Sweat slicks the gussets of my linen shift to my sides. I tear off my cloak and draw out the carving knife still tucked into my makeshift waist belt—the knife Yafeu insisted I bring. I hold it out in front of me as I run. I have no idea how to use it, but it stokes my courage to pretend that I do. My eyes scan the moonlit forest for something familiar, but I can barely distinguish one tree from another. I’ll just have to trust my feet to carry me back to the point where I fled.
What was I thinking, letting Yafeu take me hunting at all, let alone at the turn of night? Helge was right: Nòtt and her daughters bring all sorts of evil to frolic in the wilderness under Máni’s lenient rule. The gods must have sent that wolf to punish us for lying to my family and sneaking out of the longhouse. How arrogant we were, playing like Odin’s huntsmen during the Terrifying Ride!
“I only wanted to make her happy,” I whisper, hoping at least that the dísir, the spirits of my women ancestors, will believe me.
I barely jog a homefield’s length when I stumble across Yafeu, alive and well, crouched over the fallen body of the wolf.
She killed it!
She killed the wolf!
Relief and awe wash over me like warm bathwater. My legs nearly buckle beneath me. “Yafeu!” I call out.
But she doesn’t hear me. She’s murmuring something in her language, one hand resting on the wolf’s head, the other on its chest. Almost like she’s praying to it, or offering it as a sacrifice.
I watch quietly, rooted as the trees around us, spellbound by the sight.
Maybe the wolf wasn’t sent to punish us after all. Maybe it was another kind of omen. Or some kind of test? The gods are fond of such diversions.
I hang my head in shame. Whatever the Wise One intended, I can only imagine my cowardice disappointed him. I’m weak and useless, as Father loves to remind me.
But not Yafeu. Yafeu is as strong as any man, and as fearless as any of the gods—man or woman.
I can feel the last of the wolf’s spirit dissipate into the air, and Yafeu falls quiet but does not move from its side. As the moments pass, I feel my body clamoring for my attention again. Every breath sends a throb to my chest; every muscle in my legs feels swollen and tender. My arms sting from dozens of tiny bramble cuts, a sensation I haven’t felt since I was a child.
I look down at my shift. The arms are almost completely torn asunder. At the very least I had the foresight to change into an old one before we set out tonight. I’ll have to throw it in the fire and add it to the list of garments I can only pray will go unmissed.
By the gods, I can’t believe I’m thinking about my clothing right now! Only a few moments ago, I was searching for Yafeu’s corpse and readying myself to fight a wolf.
Yafeu climbs to her feet, hoisting the wolf over her shoulder with a strained grunt. She turns to face me, unsurprised, as though she knew I was standing there watching her this whole time.
Well, of course she did. She hears things I can’t hear. She can hear things I didn’t think any human could hear.
“You’re taking it with us?” I gawk at her. Well, looking at the wolf now, slung over her shoulders like that, I suppose it wasn’t quite as big as I thought it was at first.
She passes me without so much as a word in response.
I came back for you, I want to say. Doesn’t that count for something?
Instead, I turn and follow her back to the longhouse, letting the silence between us grow thicker than the trees, thicker even than the tangy scent of blood seeping into her cloak.
I’ve never been so grateful to be back in this dark, lonely room in my entire life. Yafeu stokes the fire high and sets the leftover water in the cauldron to boil while I change into a nightdress. The smooth cotton feels wonderfully clean and soft against my skin. I wrap a marten fur around my shoulders and take a seat by the fire, breathing in the soothing scent of burning maplewood and sending a silent thanks to Frigg for the comforts of hearth and home. The room is near sweltering, but I can’t seem to warm my bones. All the excitement of the evening must have drained my body of its heat.
Across the room, Yafeu has the wolf slung over one of the empty benches along the wall. I stare at her profile as she works over the carcass. She’s freed her brown hair from its braids and it juts upward in all directions, grazing the middle of her long neck, almost making a perfect circle behind her. It reminds me of a painting Father took from a Christian monastery, of a man with a golden ring around his head. The top half of the shift I gave her is caked in dried blood. Her chestnut-colored arms are thick and sinewy, her practiced hands swift and methodic as she slices the hide from the flesh with one of the same knives she used to take its life.
Now that I know what knowledge her hands carry, I feel foolish for insisting that she learn to work the loom.
Curiosity nudges me, too insistent to ignore. “What were you saying, when we were in the forest? When the wolf…” I trail off, suddenly unsure of what I saw.
“I was giving his spirit to Agé,” she replies. “He oversees the forest for Mawu-Lisa.”
I bite my cheek, thinking. I wonder if Agé is like Vidar, the Silent One, son of Odin and ruler of the wilderness. Fritjof once told me that Vidar will survive Ragnarök and avenge his father’s death by slaying the wolf Fenrir. If Agé is another of his names, then perhaps it was he who sent the wolf, and he who took its spirit back in death.
A shiver runs up my spine. Does that mean the wolf was an omen of Ragnarök? If so, what portent does it hold for Yafeu, that she was the one to slay it?
I push the baleful thoughts away. This was only my first hunt; for all I know, everything that happened tonight could be ordinary. Except, of course, for Yafeu’s prowess. Nothing about that is ordinary. “Do all the women become hunters, where you’re from?”
“No.”
I wait for her to say more, but she grimaces and places a hand over her neck. When she draws it away, there’s fresh blood on her palm.
I gasp, noting for the first time the gash poking out from the top of her shift. I had thought all the blood was the wolf’s.
“Your neck!” I jump to my feet, dropping the marten skin.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll clean it later.”
“Sit,” I say, motioning to a seat in front of the hearth.
She sighs and heaves down in front of the fire, her legs shaking as she does. She’s far more exhausted than she’s been letting on.
My nausea has already returned at the sight of the wound, but I swallow it down and gather some scraps of cloth and a needle and thread from the cluttered baskets next to the sewing table. I approach her and move my hands to her shoulder cautiously, afraid she might swat me away.
When she doesn’t, I pull down the neck of her shift a bit to reveal the full gash. It’s as thick as the claw that made it, running from the middle of her neck down to her collarbone. A second claw mark runs parallel beside it, deep enough to blemish her dark skin but not deep enough to have drawn blood.
“You’re lucky it’s not worse, but it still needs stitching.” My hands shake as I thread the needle. I will them silently to be still.
She snorts. “ ‘Lucky’ is not the word I would use.”
I dip an absorbent piece of cloth into the boiling water and press it onto the gash, hoping it’s enough to ward off a wound-fever. Yafeu bares her teeth in silence.
“What is the name of your language?” I ask, eager both to know the answer and to distract her.
“Soninke,” she says, reaching for the green gemstone hanging around her neck. It would help if she took that necklace off, but something tells me not to ask her.
“How do you say ‘pain’ in Soninke?” I ask instead.
“Pain,” Yafeu says in her tongue.
It might be a good idea for me to learn some Soninke. If we could speak in her language, she might soften to me. “Well the pain will be over soon.” I say in Norse, swapping pain with the Soninke word.
She chuckles, then inhales sharply as my needle pierces her flesh. A familiar light-headedness washes over me; I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek and try to pretend that her gashed neck is no more than a torn piece of fabric I’m mending.
“If women don’t hunt where you’re from, then how did you learn?” I press. Now I’m trying to distract us both.
“My father taught me.” Despite the agony etched across her face, she manages to hold remarkably still as I work.
“What else did he teach you?”
“How to fish. How to find ore in rocks and caves, distill it, make tools and weapons from it. How to fight, to defend myself.”
I pause, surprised. “You know how to smith? And how to fight? Like a soldier?”
“Please finish,” she says through gritted teeth.
I clear my throat. “Sorry…there.” I finish the last stitch and use a clean knife to sever the thread from the spool, tying it neatly. I step back and admire my handiwork, rather pleased with myself. “It will leave less of a scar this way. But don’t turn your head too much, or you’ll tear the stitches.”
She rolls her shoulder back. “Thank you,” she says quietly.
I look around for another spare piece of cloth to wipe the blood from my hands. Oddly, I feel less queasy now that the blood has touched me.
All my life, I’ve been afraid of blood, of its sight and its scent. I hide every time the hird comes back from a raid, too terrified to see any wounds the soldiers might bear. Thinking of it now, perhaps I was afraid it was my own blood—I knew it wasn’t, but it felt like it was, almost as though my blood, my life-force, could be leached out through others’ injuries.
The image of Mother drenched in her own birth blood flashes in my mind’s eye, bringing with it a wave of guilt.
What if Mother had seen me tonight? I know what she would say: No king would take a woman who behaved so savagely as his queen. And she’d be right. I should have let Yafeu go hunting by herself. She’s a thrall: She can act as unwomanly as she pleases, so long as no one’s around to scold me for it.
But then again…if I hadn’t gone, I never would have seen what she can do. I doubt even Aunt Alvtir, with all her brutish ferocity, could kill a full-grown wolf with nothing but a few carving knives.
Ignorant of my turmoil, Yafeu climbs to her feet and heads back to the wolf, eager to resume her work.
As I watch her attempting to salvage the bloodstained pelt, I feel something stirring in me that has slumbered all my life. She has a kind of…knowing within her. It’s what gives her that pride, that self-assuredness. I find myself oddly jealous.
My gaze drifts to my ruined shift on the ground. Seized by an impulse, I pick it up and fling it into the fire. I watch as the flames lick up the sides, curling and shriveling the fabric.
When there’s nothing left of the shift but ash, I make a silent promise to myself: What happened tonight can never happen again.
Suddenly my eyelids feel like twin weights of iron. “Yafeu, I can’t stay awake much longer. But please stay. I don’t want to be alone.” I gesture to the empty benches along the opposite wall. There’re three on each side of my room, including mine and the makeshift sewing table—one for each child my parents thought they’d have. “You can put some furs there. They were supposed to be beds anyway.”
She appears to give a slight nod, though it could be a trick of the firelight. Resigned, I stumble over to my bed and let my body sink down into the furs.
When I finally find slumber through the maze of thoughts, I dream of the lurid colors and sounds of the forest. They beckon me toward something that can’t be found.