My hands pulse with fatigue as I finish carving a small design in the last wolf tooth. A circle with six triangles trailing its perimeter, peaks pointing outward. I lean back on Freydis’s little stool, cracking my cramped neck. Framed by the smoke hole in the thatched roof, the sky is streaked with soft pinks and oranges as Lisa stretches his fingers over the land. Soon he’ll rise over the green tips of the foothills we journeyed into last night, sending the night creatures to bed.
I turn back to the hearth. The stew bubbles low and thick in the pot and I give it a quick stir. I take a small taste, then add another handful of each of the assortment of herbs that I—most likely breaking one of the thousands of rules I was told—took from the cookhouse after Freydis fell asleep. But I returned two of the three knives, so I consider it a fair trade.
On a bench across from the hearth, Freydis’s sleeping body undulates with each breath. I chuckle, amused at how she slept like a stone the entire night through, oblivious to my ceaseless work. She just couldn’t handle the stress of the hunt.
I hang the necklace on the same post as the vest I made for Freydis from the wolf pelt. It should fall just to her hips, with claws for clasps and my new favorite finishing touch, the red-dyed sinew I found in one of her baskets.
I step back and observe my creations, feeling that same sense of regaining something I thought I’d lost—along with a sense of accomplishing something new. Mama always urged me to try my hand at more delicate and precise carving patterns, but I always resisted. Now I think I’ve found it: the middle ground between my natural talents and what Mama tried to teach me. After everything I’ve been through, I can finally embrace her knowledge.
Sorrow and gratitude congeal inside of me. I grab the green wolf. “Oh, Mama, I wish you could see this. You would be so proud,” I whisper to the tiny work of art. I close my eyes, fighting back tears.
A yawn and a stirring snags my attention. Freydis’s disheveled blond hair resembles a bulbul’s nest as she emerges, red-faced, from a pile of furs.
I wipe the sleep from the corner of my eyes, blinking them open to find Yafeu grinning at me. I startle; I’m not accustomed to waking with someone else in my room, save for Helge rousing me for breakfast on the days I oversleep. I almost ask her what she’s doing here before I remember that I asked her to stay the night. In my groggy haze, I don’t know which I find more peculiar—that she listened to me then, or that she’s smiling at me now.
I stare at her incredulously, noting that she’s changed into her old thrall’s tunic. She must have disposed of the bloodied shift and overdress in the night. A tantalizing scent flows from the cauldron, wresting a groan from my empty stomach.
“Good morning,” she says pleasantly.
“Morning, Yafeu,” I croak.
“You slept like the dead. This morning I thought you were, and I almost escaped. But then you stirred.”
I gasp, shocked and more than a little bruised at her bold words. But then she breaks into an even wider grin.
She’s joking.
Relief floods through me. I grin back at her. “Sorry to disappoint.”
She points to the post above the sewing table. I squint, straining to discern the unfamiliar cloth. She sets the ladle down and picks up the cloth with both hands, holding it up to the light for me to see. “For you,” she says, her expression warm.
It’s a shirt of some kind—no, a vest, an extraordinary vest, fashioned from the fur, tendons, and claws of the wolf.
My chest tightens. “It’s been so long since I’ve gone on a hunt, and yesterday…I felt alive again.”
“I felt it too,” I say quietly, surprising myself.
No sooner do the words leave my mouth than I realize how true they are. I’ve sought Odin’s wisdom in learning the runes, but last night I felt his wildness for the first time. It was terrifying, but it was also…exhilarating. I felt the presence of the dísir in every rock and branch and root. I felt them consecrate the death of the wolf, felt their solemness all around me as its spirit ascended to Asgard.
I take a deep breath, reminding myself of my promise: I can never go hunting with Yafeu again. But as I gaze into her dark-amber eyes, so animated and brimming with gratitude, I feel my resolve snapping like a twig underfoot.
“Why do you love to hunt so much?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me, as usual. “Is it just that feeling, or is there something else?”
She cocks her head to the side, considering. “I guess it’s about proving that I can rely on myself. That I don’t need to depend on others to survive. It makes me feel free, even if it’s just an illusion.”
I feel a blush creep into my cheeks. “I’ve never heard a woman talk like that before.”
There’s a bitterness in the curve of her lip as it tilts upward. “Women aren’t supposed to. But I’ve never let that stop me.”
I can’t think of anything to say to that. My gaze returns to the vest in her hands.
“My father taught me to hunt,” she continues, her bitter smirk relaxing into a coy smile, “but my mother taught me how to do this.” She gingerly lays the vest in my lap.
I stare down in shock at the breathtaking piece of clothing, letting my fingers roam over the unfamiliar details. It’s well cut and tidily sewn. From the back, the hood appears to be of one piece with the rest of the garment, but a blind stitch on the inside reveals her skill.
And here I thought she had no patience for sewing.
“Yafeu,” I begin. “I…I don’t know what to say—”
“You can say you’re starving.” Yafeu cuts me off before I can babble further, grabbing a bowl from the wall. “Or your stomach can keep saying it for you.” She saunters over to the hearth and ladles a hearty scoop of stew. “Meat,” she adds in Soninke.
“Meat?” I enunciate carefully, wanting to get the pronunciation right.
Yafeu cracks a wide smile. She thrusts the bowl and a spoon into my hands. “Taste meat,” she says, urging me on with a wave of her hand.
I bring a spoonful to my mouth. The very fibers that held the meat together dissolve on my tongue, giving way to an overwhelming mixture of herbs and spices. My eyes water.
“It’s wonderful!” I say between bites, covering my mouth. “And very spicy.”
“Your food is too bland,” she says flatly. “It needs more flavor. We have pawuda in my homeland, but I had to guess with the other spices.”
“I taste dill,” I say, chewing thoughtfully. “And a bit of mustard seed. And thyme.”
She shakes her head, not understanding. I’ll have to go to the kitchen pantry with her to teach her the names of the herbs. She sits down beside me and waits patiently as I slurp down the rest, eating like a wild animal.
When I look up from my empty bowl, I notice the darker circles under her eyes for the first time.
I frown. “How long have you been awake?”
Yafeu glances up at the sky through the smoke hole. “It doesn’t matter,” she replies in Soninke with a shrug. I struggle with the meaning of her words before grasping the gist. She stares at her hands. “The sunrise was beautiful,” she continues in Norse.
She stayed up all night to make this for me.
“Yafeu, I’m the one who should be grateful to you,” I say. “How do you say ‘grateful’ in—”
The door flies open. Helge’s guarded gaze falls on us. Panicking, I thrust the vest under a fur.
“Good morning, Helge,” I greet her.
“Oh, there you are,” she says to Yafeu. She sniffs the air and wrinkles her nose at the cauldron. “A stew? For breakfast?”
“I woke early and was starving from missing dinner, so I had Yafeu cook for me,” I say quickly.
She raises a suspicious eyebrow, wrinkling her age-lined brow even further. “Your parents are taking their meal in the hall now. I’ll tell them you’ve eaten. We will be seeing the hird off to the raid as soon as Sól is full in the east.”
I nod eagerly, silently urging her to leave. She starts out, then stops and looks Yafeu up and down, contemptuous. “Try to look presentable,” she adds before closing the door behind her.
As soon as her footsteps are out of earshot, I take out Yafeu’s vest and hug it close to my chest. “I’m sorry to lie, but we have to be careful.”
“What’s the ‘raid’?” Yafeu asks, brushing past my apology.
I relax a little at her seeming indifference to me hiding her gift from Helge. “Every summer, the hird journeys across the seas in search of new lands and new riches,” I explain. “They bring back magnificent spoils.”
“Spoils,” she repeats slowly. “Am I ‘spoils’?”
Her eyes are fathomless oceans, pulling me in. Afraid to drown in their depths, I look down at the vest. There are many questions nested within those three simple words. Questions I’ve never had to ponder. My people tell one story, but my deepest instincts whisper another.
I force myself to meet her hardening gaze, hating myself more and more with each silent moment. “N-no! Of course not. Y-you’re my handm—”
Yafeu takes a deep, exasperated breath before interjecting: “Alvtir’s warriors will be there, right?”
I choke on my half-formed words. “Where?” I manage to squeak.
“At the harbor,” she says, furrowing her brow in annoyance.
“Oh.” I was so lost in the depths of her words, I’d almost forgotten the matter at hand. “Yes, the entire hird will gather there.”
“I want to come.”
My eyes flit nervously to her thrall’s tunic, my full stomach churning at what Mother would say if a royal maidservant came to see the hird off looking as Yafeu does now. “You can, but you can’t wear that.”
She shoots me one of her mischievous looks. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
I pace back and forth outside the back door. I don’t want to rush Yafeu, but any moment now, the trumpet will sound, and my parents will be annoyed if we’re not ready.
I walk over to the thrall’s shed and am about to knock on the door when she emerges. My breath dies in my throat at the sight of her.
She obeyed Helge—and more. Six serpentine braids stretch from the tip of her forehead to the middle of her crown, allowing her curly mane to stretch free in the back. The pressure of the braids pulls her almond-shaped eyes up at the sides, heightening their allure. Along with the green gemstone, she’s wearing a fitted necklace of…teeth. The wolf’s teeth, I realize. She must have made it last night, along with my vest. Over the dark-green dress I gave her, she’s wrapped two thick leather thongs around her waist, accentuating her hips. I gulp at the sight of the carving knife she tucked into it—one of the knives from last night, cleansed and polished.
“Am I presentable?” She does a playful twirl. Between her free hair and the necklace, you can hardly see the stitches on her neck. At least I don’t have to worry about that.
“You will certainly stand out—in a good way,” I add hastily, studying the intricate designs carved into each tooth.
Just then, the trumpet sounds from the guard tower, one long, unbroken note. I nod at Yafeu. “It’s time.”
She follows me to the front of the house, where Father, Mother, Helge, and the guards are waiting for us. I look past my parents’ irritated expressions, focusing instead on the vista. The whole of Skíringssal stretches out before us. Every line in the city seems to draw the eye to the commanding sight of two dozen dragon ships bobbing up and down on the Agdersfjord, the full force of Father’s fleet, gathered from every town in Agder. The farmland path seethes with the bodies of farmers and shepherds and thralls alike, all marching toward the dockyard like ants to an anthill. Even from atop the hill, I can hear the cacophony of their shouts and cheers and tearful goodbyes, carried up on the breeze off the fjord. I can almost smell the barrels of smoked fish, dried meats, and freshly baked flatbread as Father’s men haul as many as the ships can carry aboard the decks.
Mother purses her lips as we approach. “It is unwise to keep your elders waiting.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “It was my fault. I haven’t been feeling well.”
Father’s lip twitches as he eyes Yafeu. Mother shares a look with Helge before casting her own sidelong glance. I blush, unsure whether it’s Yafeu or my parents embarrassing me.
We pass the Great Hall, then Father’s stables. The horses whinny and buck against their stalls, sensing the commotion in the air. When we reach the path to the harbor, the guards move to surround us, and I fall into step behind Mother and Father. I motion for Yafeu to walk behind with Helge; she rolls her eyes but, thankfully, does what I ask without complaint.
Mother is as lovely as ever, with her snow-fox fur draped over a gossamer red dress with a silver brocade, a string of rubies dangling between the silver brooches. But she keeps looking back at Yafeu, who, without any lavish trappings, still seems to draw every eye in Skíringssal.
I send a quick, silent prayer to the gods, praying this morning passes without incident.
I look past the bustling swarm of bodies to the flock of wooden dragons floating on the water. The warships’ balance between brute power and supple grace strikes me like a bolt of Sogbo’s lightning, same as the first time I laid eyes on them. Of course, Alvtir’s ship invariably draws my gaze, with its rich, red-striped sails and the dragon prow that’s somehow larger and more domineering than the rest. I swallow hard, struggling to keep my composure.
The king and queen lead us up to the shoreline, then we turn our backs to the fjord and observe as warrior after warrior files onto the ships tethered at the docks. As they pass us, I notice for the first time the disparity among the men: Some are wearing nothing but a tunic and leg-strapped trousers, while others sport gleaming byrnies, greaves, and vambraces. But every man has the same yellow shield with the black birds painted on either side, marking them as King Balli’s soldiers.
Most of them nod respectfully to the king and queen and either openly gawk at or purposefully avoid looking at me. I’m not sure which bothers me more. I’m not the only foreigner in this city, but I am the only “black elf,” as the king likes to call me. To the merchants and other cityfolk I’m a regular sight, both from my solo trips to the harbor and from my forays with Freydis. But many of the soldiers haven’t seen me before—or at least, not since the journey from Anfa.
The hatchet-faced man arrives in a full and spotless suit of armor. In the daylight I can see his features better. Even compared with his people, his hair is too thin and too pale, reminding me, with a wave of nausea, of Broskrap. He throws me a pugnacious look as he passes.
Anger crashes like a tidal wave against the dam around my heart. I glare back at him, my fingers instinctively grazing the hilt of the knife tucked into my belt. He climbs onto one of the ships, where he immediately starts barking orders at the other men on board. I clench my teeth, staring daggers at his back. But it’s not long until I feel another pair of eyes on me.
I turn back to the procession, steeling myself for another dirty look from one of the soldiers. Instead, I meet the opposite.
Blue-gray eyes, like the sea on a cloudy day, gentle and searching. They wash over me, and just like that, I feel some of the anger ebbing away. It’s the same man who spoke to me here a few months ago, the one who stopped me from attempting to escape. He breaks my gaze, looking to the wharves. I study him curiously as he marches by. He’s tall and leanly muscled, not quite so barrel-chested as many of the other Majūs men. His armor is different from the others’ too. His chain-mail tunic extends down almost to his knees and is made of interlocking planks of metal instead of rings, and he wears leather vambraces over his forearms and shins. At his side rests a broad-headed ax with an elongated handle. As he leaps gracefully onto the deck of a ship—Alvtir’s ship—his neatly trimmed beard catches Lisa’s rays and turns from brown to auburn.
Was he on Alvtir’s ship on the journey here from Anfa? As I watch him unfurl the sails with practiced hands, I wonder how he didn’t draw my attention then. I guess I was too focused on the women to notice the men. “Who’s that soldier?” I whisper to Freydis.
She looks over. I incline my head toward the man with the strange armor, trying to point him out without him noticing.
“Who?” she asks loudly.
I grimace and open my mouth to shush her when a growl of a voice rips through the din.
“March!” yells the voice, scattering the people in its way.
The crowd cleaves like stalks of grain before the scythe of Alvtir’s presence. Everyone falls silent. The two women I remember from Anfa follow close behind, along with another one—a younger girl, no older than myself.
A pang of longing rips through me. I watch with a mixture of awe and envy as the four women march with thunderous strides toward Alvtir’s ship, moving together as one, the strike of their boots creating a drumbeat against the wooden dock.
Alvtir’s long black hair billows in the wind as she peers at us through the strands, a hint of amusement lighting up her electric eyes.
Expectation rises palpably around the king and queen as she approaches, but instead of talking to them, she stops directly in front of me.
What?
My eyes widen and my heart starts to pummel my rib cage.
She smirks at my unabashed awe, then leans in close, sending a whiff of iron to my nose as she whispers in my ear: “Soon.”
My mouth falls open in shock as Aunt Alvtir pulls away from Yafeu. Without so much as a word to Father, she spins around and heads for her towering warship.
What in the name of Odin could Aunt Alvtir possibly have to say to my maidservant?
I regard my father’s sister with new eyes. I’ve seen the hird set sail every summer for as long as I can remember, and yet I never noticed before how the wind whips my aunt’s black hair into a fury as she strides across the dock, the fluid grace in the way she leaps onto her ship, how Angrboda’s silver hilt catches the rising sun as she turns, the runes there sparkling.
Alvtir waits patiently as the last girl climbs onto her ship. Then, in one fluid motion, she unsheathes her sword, whirls around, and slices the tether behind her, eliciting a gasp from the crowd. Taking it as their cue, the other captains cut their moorings, the soldiers hauling out the oars as the ships begin to drift toward the rest of the fleet. The onlookers hesitate, confused, then break into a scattered cheer.
I spare a glance at Father, who narrows his eyes at his sister’s receding form. He has always been the one who gives the order to cut the tethers. Out of the corner of her eye, Mother is watching him too, no doubt wondering as I am how he will react to Alvtir’s misconduct.
Normally, we would watch and cheer along with the rest of Skíringssal until the sails disappear around the bend. But this time, Father turns to Yafeu, that steely glint in his eye. She’s staring after the ships so intently that she doesn’t even notice him.
Fear drags my heart into my stomach. Yafeu is an outright spectacle—almost as much as the hird itself. I should’ve made her change into normal clothes, I chastise myself silently, though another part of me wonders if it would have made a difference.
Odin help us.
Thankfully, the Allfather answers my prayer: Father turns away from Yafeu and starts trudging up the path to the Great Hall. The guards hasten to flank him, as bewildered as the rest of us by all these unexpected breaks from ritual.
I move to follow, but a tight grip on my arm stops me short. I flinch instinctively.
“Your elf-girl thinks herself a queen,” Mother hisses into my ear. Even through the shift, her nails dig painfully into the flesh of my arm. “Get her underwing or we will sacrifice her to Njord for the hird’s safe passage.”
“No!” I blurt out, panic clawing at my chest. “I mean, let me punish her myself,” I amend, adding a bite to my tone. “I will make sure she knows her place.”
Mother hesitates, then releases her grip and strides past me after Father. I take it as her agreement. Helge catches my eye and shakes her head, a silent warning not to follow. She catches up to Mother and I let them go, all too glad to put some distance between us.
The rising sun blinds me momentarily as it engulfs their frames. I shield my eyes as I watch them ascend the hill. Mother’s head bends toward Helge in that familiar conspiratorial angle, the embroidered hem of her dress swishing imperiously behind her. They look like Frigg and Fulla, the goddess and her most trusted maidservant and confidante, ascending the bifrost to Asgard together. My mind flashes to the image of Alvtir marching across the dock. I can’t help but compare the two sights, like a pair of tapestries I might weave: Frigg and the Valkyrie, the goddess and the warrior.
Mother has all but forbidden me to interact with Alvtir, so afraid is she of the curse that has haunted my aunt since long before I was born. The same warnings were repeated over and over, like a mantra: Alvtir is abhorrent. Alvtir is unwomanly. You must stay away from Alvtir at all costs, lest she give you her curse, or turn you into one of her kind.
But…would it be so terrible to be one of Alvtir’s “kind”?
For the first time in my life, it strikes me that I can’t be sure which of the two, between Mother and Alvtir, truly deserves to be pitied and despised. Mother does all the things she commands me to do to be a praiseworthy woman, to be beautiful and obedient, to please men. But as I watch her trailing behind Father, giving him the same distance she always gives my aunt, it’s all too evident that she cannot please him no matter what she does. He barely tolerates her, let alone loves her—and less so after every year she doesn’t give him a male heir. But she remains tethered to him, regardless of his feelings or hers.
Of course, Mother could request a divorce. But Father controls the Thingmen: On what grounds could she succeed in convincing them to defy him and grant it to her? And even if she did succeed, where would she go? She was born a farmer’s daughter in Alfhaimar, and her bride price was likely no sizable amount, since she married Father before he became wealthy, when he was still a jarl to the Danish king. She could go back to Alfhaimar, where her brother runs the farm with his own wife and children. But I could never imagine Mother living as a servant in her brother’s house, waiting on her sister-in-law and living as a leech off whatever hospitality they would show her. That would be a fate worse than death for Mother, for whom being a royal is the highest calling.
So Mother is bound to a man who all but despises her, unable even to take a lover without risking her station. The gods know Father has strayed from Mother from time to time, as all men are wont to do. But I never heard even a whisper about a child resulting from one of those trysts. I may not have so many skills as Yafeu, but one thing I have learned to do well is to make myself so unnoticeable as to be almost invisible, to lend an unheeded ear to the whispers of king and thrall alike. What bittersweet solace for Mother, that the gods haven’t granted her husband a bastard.
Meanwhile, Alvtir sails across the world. She owes no man her livelihood, her property, her body. And she isn’t afraid of Father, unlike everyone else in Agder. She doesn’t have to be. She leads a life of violence, to be sure. But is she truly “abhorrent”? Is she truly “unwomanly”?
Yafeu, for one, would rather be like Alvtir. Yafeu is like Alvtir in many respects, and from the way some of the men look at her, I know she is no less desirable than any other woman. Despite her strength and her wildness…or maybe because of it.
I turn back to Yafeu now. She regards me blankly. I wonder for a moment if I imagined everything that just happened, like some kind of waking dream.
Then I remember the sharpness of her ears. Even with the crowd cheering around us, she must have heard what I said to Mother.
I hang my head in shame. “I’m sorry, Yafeu,” I say, and I mean it.
“I will be punished now.” She states it rather than asking, as though she’s already accepted her fate. I wonder if Yafeu has ever apologized for her actions, ever begged for forgiveness in all her life. I’m sure Aunt Alvtir has not.
I heave a deep sigh from the very center of my being. “No,” I say weakly. “That was another lie.”
I’d lied to my mother, for the second time in as many days. The thought thrills and chafes at the same time.
There’s a loosening in Yafeu’s face, a release of tension I didn’t notice there before. She nods solemnly.
“What did my aunt say to you?” I ask, suddenly overwhelmed by curiosity.
She shrugs. “I didn’t understand her words.”
Now Yafeu is the one lying to me. We both know that she understands enough of our language to grasp the meaning of most things, even if she misses a word here and there. But if she doesn’t want to tell me yet, then I’ll just have to accept that. I still have to earn her trust.
“Yafeu,” I begin, “I’ve saved you from a beating today, or worse. But if you don’t learn our ways you’re never going to”—I hesitate, taking in her chestnut skin, the wolf teeth dangling brazenly around her neck, dissent encased in her liquid eyes—“fit in.”
She smirks, and again I’m reminded of Aunt Alvtir. “I don’t think I’ll ever fit in here, Princess.”
“No, not completely,” I agree. “But this is your home now, whether you like it or not. And you’ll need to abide by our customs if you want to avoid my father’s fury.”
Yafeu scowls, as surprised as I am at my own boldness. But she doesn’t reply. She knows I’m right.
“I will teach you everything you need to know to pass as a proper woman of Agder,” I continue. “But I want something from you in return.”
She raises an eyebrow.
“First, you have to promise me you’ll be discreet in front of Mother and Father. Keep your head bowed, say nothing. Follow orders.”
She makes a sound of displeasure in her throat but dips her head in acknowledgment. “All right.”
“And second.” I raise my chin triumphantly. “I want you to teach me how to fight.”