By afternoon, the sky is the color of slate and spitting icy drops onto our sprawling settlement, contempt from the heavens. I sit wrapped in a coarse blanket by the fire in the large shelter for unpaired warriors, shaking with weakness, knowing I deserve every wet reminder of defeat that reaches me through the leaky thatch. I’m alone in here—most of the young warriors who shared this shelter with me traveled in the first wave. We were eager to prove ourselves, and we fought for our spots in the boats. Now most of the people I came up with, the ones I was tussling and laughing with only two days ago, are sleeping forever at the bottom of the Torden.
Thyra has been in the council shelter for hours, explaining our catastrophic defeat to our remaining warriors, the few hundred mostly older or weaker ones who stayed behind to guard the andeners, led by a gray-bearded but thick-bodied warrior named Edvin. I begged to be by Thyra’s side as she took her place on the chieftain’s chair, stumbling after her on faltering legs as soon as our makeshift raft reached shore. Instead she put her arm around me and led me here.
She left me stunned and ashamed that I did not have the strength to follow.
Outside, the andeners are wailing, their quiet toughness shattered. Their warriors are not coming home. Their widows cannot cut themselves and bleed one last time over their lost loves. They cannot bury their mates with their swords on their chests, ready to meet eternity. This is worse than death, worse than loss—it is nothingness. Utter defeat. And there is more than grief in their cries—I can hear their fear. With thousands camped on these shores, stretched from Ulvi Point to Sikka Harbor, the southernmost tip of our territory and the launching point for our ships, we have been unassailable, a marauding people who sleep safe, unafraid of the nomad tribes that make their shelters as near to the lakeshore as they dare.
Now, though . . . as winter descends, and as news of our devastation spreads, we will become the hunted.
I raise my head as Sander and Aksel, Edvin’s only son and another of the second-wave warriors, trudge into the shelter. Sander has a wineskin in his hands, and he holds it out when he sees me huddled by the fire.
I shake my head, and he frowns. “Have you eaten?”
“Not hungry. And we should save what we can.” I stare at the fire to avoid their gazes, and the flames dance for me, twining together like the fingers of lovers.
“There’s plenty,” says Aksel, shaking raindrops from his mane of tangled brown hair. He doesn’t remind us that the surplus is because half our number are dead, but I have no doubt they’re thinking it, same as I am.
“We’ll need it when the snow comes.”
“Doesn’t mean you should starve yourself today. If you expect to help keep watch, you can’t be faint and weak.” Sander’s voice is sharp as his ax blade. “Unless weakness is your new preferred state.”
Icy anger flashes across my skin, so cold I imagine I can see my own breath as I exhale. I almost say Wasn’t it yours, just a few hours ago? But I don’t have the energy or strength to fight him right now, so instead I mutter, “When have I ever shirked my duty?”
Aksel plops down next to me and nudges my blanket- covered arm with his bare, wiry shoulder. One kill mark decorates his upper arm, and bruises bloom like nightflowers around his left eye. He fought like a crazed animal to gain a spot in the first wave, but now I wonder if he’s glad he and his father both lost. He gives me a sideways smile and offers a hunk of bread. “Put that in your stomach. We need you out there.”
I take it, meeting Sander’s dark eyes before looking away again. He sits down on the other side of the fire. “Thyra’s still in the council shelter,” he says, running a hand through his shorn black hair. “She won’t be able to keep us whole.”
I sit up straight, the hard bread clenched in my fist. “Don’t underestimate her.”
Aksel shifts uncomfortably next to me. “My father says she’ll face a challenge soon.”
I give him a peeved look. “Your father should hold his tongue. That kind of talk spits on the memory of Lars—and it could tear us apart.”
“Or unite us.” Sander leans forward suddenly, staring at me through the dancing flames.
The flames between us rise with a burst of cold wind from outside. “Behind her, I hope you mean. You’ve seen her fight, Sander. You know how clever she is.”
“Oh, we all know that,” he mutters. “Have you ever wondered if she’s too clever?”
Jaspar, Nisse’s son, used to say that all the time. “Stop it. She is a force to respect. Her father certainly did, and that should be good enough for you.”
Sander looks into the fire. “What if she doesn’t lead us down the path he would have chosen?”
I glance at Aksel, who is studying his boots. “Thyra is our new chieftain,” I say. “It’s her path to choose now.”
Aksel sighs. “Our tribe is broken.”
Panic punches through me. This tribe is all I have. “You sound like a weakling,” I say savagely.
Aksel’s fists clench, but he relaxes again as he takes in my sweat-sheened face. “I don’t like it any better than you do, but some are already talking about taking their andeners and striking out on their own. Such a big settlement, with so few warriors to guard it . . . They think it might be safer if they head to the northwest. Or the south.”
“Toward Vasterut?”
“Chieftain Nisse might take us in.”
“Or he might skin us alive and turn our hides into saddles.” I scoff. “He’s a snake, and a poisonous one at that! We may have suffered losses, but we are not defeated. Why should we crawl to him as if we were?”
Sander clenches his jaw and tosses a stone into the fire, sending sparks into the air. “Because we might not survive the winter if we don’t!” He gestures angrily outside, where a group of andeners, nearly all women, are beating their breasts and howling at the sky, while their rag-footed children watch with solemn eyes from inside the shelters. “We have herds of horses but no riders! We have thousands of mouths to feed but no raiders to plunder!”
Aksel stares out the shelter door. “Thyra thinks we should stay put, use our cached supplies for the winter, and plant in the spring. Like a bunch of farmers! She sounded like an andener. Several warriors walked out of the meeting.”
“Including the two of you.” Now I understand why they’re here, why Thyra isn’t.
Sander nods. “We couldn’t stomach it.”
“You must have misunderstood what she was suggesting,” I say. “We’re Krigere, and she knows that.” We don’t root ourselves in the earth—we rule it, taking what we want when we want.
Aksel shakes his head, pushing tangled locks off his brow. “She wants to be a sheep, not a wolf.”
Sander’s eyes narrow. “You know this, Ansa. You just don’t want to see it.”
He’s pulling on the tiny voice of doubt inside me, and I hate him for it. “Are you just lashing out because we witnessed your despair and pathetic weakness after the battle?”
Sander gives Aksel an uneasy sidelong glance. “My weakness was momentary. Thyra’s is part of who she is. She has no thirst for blood. The others see it. You would have walked out too, if you’d heard what she was suggesting. Whatever you are, Ansa, you’re not a sheep.”
I bare my teeth. “The first intelligent thing you’ve said since coming in here. But Thyra has my loyalty and my blades.” My cheeks heat. “As soon as I earn myself some new ones,” I mutter.
“You won’t have to earn them,” Aksel says, his broad face sagging with sadness. “We’ve lost nineteen out of twenty warriors, and many of them will have left weapons behind.”
The thought of all those blades, made for vital, ferocious men and women who died scared and helpless, feels like a ball of ice in my gut. I hunch over it, my eyes stinging.
Aksel curses. “My teeth are going to chatter right out of my skull. I’m going to get more wood for the fire.” I listen to the shuffle of his feet as he heads out.
“It would be warmer if we were in here with all our brothers and sisters,” Sander says to nobody in particular. “The least we can do is honor their memories instead of pissing on them.”
“Now honoring the dead is important to you?” The crackling roar of the fire matches the rush of irritation through my veins. I jerk my head up. “One more nasty little insinuation about Thyra and I’ll tear your throat out.” The fire is burning so high that it’s blackening the thatch above our heads, but it wanes as I slump, as if it somehow knows my mood. “I won’t believe a thing you’ve said until I speak with Thyra myself,” I say, suddenly tired.
“Fair enough.” Sander eyes the fire, then glances at me. “You don’t look well, Ansa.”
I lay my blanket along the edge of the fire and sink onto it. “I’m fine. Just tired. Aren’t you?”
“I am. But . . .” Our eyes meet. “I wasn’t struck by lightning.”
“Obviously I survived. So obviously it wasn’t lightning.”
“Your eyes glowed like lanterns. Your body arched up like it was about to snap in half. The light was so bright I was nearly blinded.” He makes an impatient noise as he lies down on the other side of the fire. “If it wasn’t lightning, what was it?”
I am so sleepy that I barely hear him. “Doesn’t matter now,” I mumble. I had wanted to stay awake until Thyra returned, but I can’t. Exhaustion is pulling me under its waves. I sink into blackness, happy for the temporary respite from the memories of shattered ships and thrashing limbs and Lars’s burning body lost in the fire.
A spark, really. In the dark pit of my rest, it flares to life, orange and bright. I stare, fascinated, as it burns without fuel, growing slowly, licking the air around me with its serpent tongue. I have never seen the sun burn in the night, but I imagine this is what it looks like. The heat slides over my face. It’s such a relief after all my cold despair, but as sweat beads my brow, I wish I could scoot away from it. It’s growing by the second, expanding into my space. I cringe back, whimpering, as it nips at my toes, the tip of my nose, my eyelashes and hair.
I cry out as it licks my stomach and chest, as it presses against me, setting me aflame, boiling my blood, cooking my eyeballs. The shrill sound of my own scream pierces the roar and crackle, but the flames jump down my throat, and then they’re inside me, filling me up.
“Ansa!”
My eyes fly open to find my dream made real. The air is filled with sparks and smoke and screaming. Sander’s silhouette fills the doorway of the shelter, and he’s beckoning me toward him while he holds a cloth over his mouth. Between us is a wall of flame. I’m surrounded by it. If I stand here, I’ll burn alive, but my only alternative is to run through the fire. There is nothing between my skin and those flames, and the thought sends an icy chill over my body. Even in the inferno, I shiver; it feels as if frost is covering my skin.
I don’t spend more time thinking about it. As the roof begins to rain chunks of burning thatch and splinters of wood, I leap through the wall of fire. Sander grabs my shoulders and tosses me through the doorway of the shelter. I hit the mud and roll.
The night is lit with the orange flames shooting from the top of the shelter. Andeners are running and shouting all around me, evacuating their own shelters for fear the blaze will spread. Some of them are tossing pails of water onto the fire, and the weather is helping—the rain intensifies, drenching all of us. I slide my hand over my short hair and sit up.
Sander squats by my side, the strangest look on his face. It’s not fear, exactly, but it looks like a near cousin. “Why are you staring at me like that?” I ask impatiently, as he helps me to my feet.
“You were completely enclosed by that fire,” he says as I wrench myself away from him.
“So?”
He gestures at my tunic and breeches, at my cloak that hangs muddy and wet from my shoulders. “You’re not even singed.”
I stumble backward as the air suddenly becomes too thick to breathe. “I don’t even know what happened.”
“You were thrashing in your sleep, and then your blanket was on fire.” He takes a step away from me as the wind blows thick smoke between us. “You are the luckiest Krigere in the world, escaping death so many times in the space of a day.”
Suddenly, I need to get away from his prying eyes. Every glance feels like an accusation, and I’m going to kill him if he looks at me one more time. I whirl around and march toward the shore, needing fresh air and silence. As I walk, the rain thins to a mist. Andeners run past me every few seconds, carrying full pails up from the lake. On the other side of the docks lies a quiet hollow, and I make for it, desperate to outrun the shouts of fright echoing behind me. The scent of burning wood is sharp and rich, and like Sander’s stare, it feels like a finger pointed straight at my chest. Reeling with rising panic and confusion, I reach the edge of the rocks and slide down the pebbled trail toward the hidden cove. Halfway down, I lose my footing and collide with someone climbing up the path. I end up on my back, staring up into Thyra’s face, which is lit by the faint glow of the inferno in the settlement.
“What are you doing here? Is there trouble?” she asks, her voice high with alarm. “I heard screaming.”
“My shelter caught fire,” I reply. “It’s good to see you, by the way. How are you?” I sound much calmer than I feel.
“You don’t want to know.” She lets out a strangled laugh. “I came down here to think.” She grasps my shoulders and pulls me to my feet. “Are you all right?” Her gaze travels down my body. “You aren’t burned?”
I shake my head, fighting the urge to press myself against her, to wrap my arms around her waist and cling. “I’m fine. And the rain is helping.” As if it hears me, the drops grow colder, making my breath fog.
“I should go help,” she says wearily.
My hands grasp her elbows, fingers digging into the lean muscles of her arms. “Don’t go.”
“Why not?”
“I—” My mouth hangs half open, words shriveling. “Sander and a few others came into the shelter a little while ago. . . .”
The edge of her jaw could cut flesh. “They want to go running to Nisse. And they accuse me of being a coward.”
“Did they actually say that to you?” And why didn’t you cut their hearts out?
She gives me a look that says she hears my unspoken thought. “No one’s saying anything out loud.” She lets go of me and runs both hands through her wet hair. “I wouldn’t have spoken as I did, especially so soon, but the suggestion that we take a knee before my uncle, after what he tried to do . . .”
“I know.” I swallow hard. “I’m with you. Whatever you want to do.”
Her hands fall to her sides. “You might not say that if you knew what I’ve done—”
“Sander told me what you proposed.”
“Oh . . . yes.” She closes her eyes. “Ansa, I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Of course you can. You are Lars’s daughter, and you were born to be a great warrior!”
“Sometimes I feel like it’s just a skin I wear.”
I squint at her. “How can you say that? It’s in your blood and bones. All you have to do is embrace it.”
She gives me an uneasy look. “And what, exactly, is in my blood and bones? War? Killing?”
I hate the distaste with which she says those words. “The thrill of conquest. Territory and triumph. Blood and victory.” I laugh, but it carries an edge of frustration.
“How can that be enough for you, Ansa? It certainly isn’t enough for me.”
“Tribe, then,” I shout. “You were born to lead this tribe. Born to keep us strong. And if you don’t—” I clamp my lips shut and turn away. “Give us our pride back. Build us up. Remind us who we are. Plan our revenge on Kupari. But don’t let us become prey.” Please. I wrap my arms around myself as the memory of blood and fire and my parents’ empty eyes makes me feel so small, so small, like anything could snatch me up and take me away from everything I love.
“Ansa.” Thyra touches my arm. “Ansa.”
“Do whatever you have to do,” I say in a choked voice.
“I always have.” Her blue eyes are wide and unfocused as she stares at the lake. “But . . .” She blinks and tosses me a quick, sad smile. “Never mind.”
“You will triumph. I know it,” I whisper, reaching up to touch her hollow cheek. Perhaps, if she feels my faith in her, she’ll find the strength she needs to fight, to keep us whole.
A tired smile pulls at her lips. “Your hands are so warm. As if you brought the fire with you.”
That’s what you do to me, I want to say. But I don’t want her to push me away. “If I did, I’m glad. At least I can say I did something for you tonight.”
She bows her head, but presses her palm over my hand, holding it to her cheek. “In the last day I have watched nearly everyone I love die,” she says quietly. “And I suspected that what I had to say tonight might make the rest walk away from me, yet it was a risk I had to take. But I couldn’t bear . . .” She looks at me through eyelashes sparkling with mist and firelight. “If you looked at me with disappointment, if you walked away . . .” Her voice is so soft that I have to move close to capture her words, my gaze focused on her mouth.
I’m your wolf. Your fire. Your knife, your blanket. If only you ask. “All I see when I look at you is my chieftain.”
“Is that really all you see?”
“You want all my honesty?”
“Yes,” she murmurs, and then slowly, so slowly, she turns her head and kisses my palm. A tiny but potent pang of ecstasy streaks along my arm and straight to the center of me like a ray of sunlight focused through a crystal drop of dew—one that awakens a wildfire inside.
My heart pounds, sending heat pulsing along my limbs. Caught in a storm of hope and searing need, I rise onto my tiptoes.
Thyra gasps and steps away from me, her hand clamped over her cheek, leaving mine suspended between us, reaching. She lets out a surprised laugh. “Are you feverish?”
I tuck my hand into the folds of my cloak. “What? No. Why would you think that?”
“I think you burned me.” She pokes at her cheek, wearing a bemused smile. There’s a reddish outline on that side of her face, her pale skin blotchy with heat. I blink at it, telling myself it’s just a shadow as she begins to walk up the narrow path to the settlement. “I’m going to help get things calmed down. You coming?”
I nod, but as she turns her back, I stare down at my hand. At my fingers.
And at the tendrils of flame swirling merrily in the center of my palm.