In times gone by, a runecaster was a revered witch, and she had the ability to roam wherever and whenever she liked, encumbered by nothing and no one. Now it is rare to leave the village you’ve grown up in unless you are a warrior. For Sýr, and for me, our destinies are tied to our clan because we are needed on home soil to help our people. My mother was the last of us to voyage, when she won at the moonwater competition and secured the moonstone for our clan so many years ago. Even though I hate trying to make the runes, I envy Sýr’s chance to travel to find moonwater when it is time.

When we wake this morning, the red moon is visible in the sky, peeking above the horizon. We have perhaps a day or two before it moves higher and Sýr must gather her runes and set off to moonwater for the competition. She won’t go alone, perhaps taking a warrior or two with her, for the journey can be dangerous. No one knows exactly where moonwater is, for its location changes with every generation of the eclipse. To find it, Sýr will have to follow the path of the moon, her own intuition, and the great guiding lights to the north.

I will need to stay here because our amma needs me, and it will fall to me to cast runes for the clan while Sýr is gone. If I have my sickness, I will be on my own to deal with it.

Our people are anxious about winning the runecasting competition, and I am no exception. We must win to retain possession of the moonstone and ensure our clan’s prosperity, but I’m more worried about how I will survive back at the village without my sister. I’m hated enough as it is. Without Sýr around I’ll be like a fish caught in a tide pool, praying the ravens don’t come to peck my eyes out.

The smell of porridge bubbling draws me to the hearth, where Sýr has left the black pot simmering. I use the lifting stick to remove the lid and scoop a portion into my bowl. Sýr has left something else for me—a treat wrapped in moss next to the hearth. Its smell gives it away. Hákarl. Fermented shark, my favorite. Where did she get it? Hákarl takes a long time to ripen, and we haven’t had much whey to cure it with, as our clan has a shortage of goats. There’s a shortage of everything now that the moonstone is waning, and with the big ships gone, our fishing practices are limited to shoreline nets and traps. In my nets I’ve only caught little sharks that are not worth preparing in this way. Not enough meat.

For hákarl, it’s best to use the big, mottled green shark. Its flesh can withstand the fermenting process without falling apart. It must be aged a long time, for green shark is poisonous when fresh but safe and delicious to eat when rotten. But catching a green shark takes a huge net or a long line with a large hook, and I am not strong enough to haul those in on my own. I’ve always wanted to spear one from atop an ice floe, as father claimed to have done once. Perhaps I will in my dreams.

Unwrapping the hákarl, I take a nibble of its pungent, tender flesh. Sýr must have known this morning would be tough. I hope she saved some for herself. In case she did not, I wrap the rest and place it in my pocket. I slurp my porridge, then find my woolen leggings and socks and pull them on under my dress, the same one I was wearing yesterday. I’m not fond of dresses, and this is not my favorite. It is made of scratchy wool and is the same muddy brown color as sheep dung, but at least it is warm. Once I find my boots, I pull them on and note how they pinch in the toes. I can’t bring myself to tell Sýr they are too small, as it seems we only traded for these ones a couple of months ago. When I wrap my gray cloak around me, my boring look is complete.

A loud squawk interrupts my thoughts. Núna, my raven, flies toward me in the early-morning dim, barely visible until the glint of her black eyes is upon me. She flies through the window and alights on my ledge, ruffling her wing feathers and snapping her beak at me in pleasure. I open a little pot beside the window and pluck out a dried worm. It’s one of many I’ve harvested for Núna over the years.

Sýr likes to say that Núna is my fylgja, a guardian spirit connected to me and to my destiny, because fylgjur show up when babies are born, and Núna has been with me since the moment I arrived in this world, breathless and still. My amma likes to tell the story of how I was born dead, but then Núna flew down through the roof and brought my soul to me. She has visited me every day since.

When I was a little girl, Núna was young too, and she was always hungry and squawking. I would say, “Now, now,” as I fed her, and that turned into “Núna.” We are “Runa and Núna,” Sýr likes to say. Very best friends.

Núna has gotten rather fat from stealing bread from the villagers. She used to fit in my cloak pouch, but now she likes to rest on my shoulder. It’s a pleasant weight that I miss when she’s gone, off on her bird adventures, and I feel incomplete without Núna’s claws in my shoulder. I have permanent marks where her talons dig in.

I like to pretend that Núna isn’t a raven at all and that my mother sent her to me. Sometimes Núna brings me sticks and pebbles as gifts, and one time she even brought me the carcass of a white hare. I look at these gifts as signs from my mother, and I do my best to interpret them in case my mother is trying to warn me of something. So far I haven’t been able to divine anything, but I did manage to use the hare’s soft white fur to line some gloves for Sýr. Like Sýr, Núna has always been with me, and I hope she always will be.

Once Núna finishes her little feast of dried worms, she sits on the sill and watches over me. I am grateful for the company, because I am scared for Sýr. Today I will go down to the village with Sýr to assist her while she does rune readings and simple spells for the villagers, and I will seek out our grandmother. I can always count on my amma to help. She likes to live in the action, shunning our clifftop hideaway. One time, when he was still around, Father tried to convince Sýr that we should live among the rest of the clan. He argued that we should do it for safety and because we were already outcast enough. I don’t know what Sýr said to him, but he never mentioned it again, and ever since he has regarded me with a strange expression, part wonder and part something else. Fear? But what would a powerful warrior like Father, Unnur the Axe, have to fear from me? I’m the village strange-ling who can’t seem to be useful. I am never the bright star in the sky, never the girl they want me to be.

Núna chitters at me from the window.

I hold my arms out and spin in a slow circle so she can see my garments. “I won’t need an invisibility rune,” I say to her. She cocks her black head at me. “These clothes take care of that.”

Núna ignores me, preens her chest feathers, and then flies away. I pull the shutters closed after her, grab my set of wooden practice runes from the ledge, and head out to walk the cliff path to the village.

Aside from the red cast to the sky caused by the rising moon, this day is much like any other. Crisp air, breath billowing out from me in cloudy puffs, the icy crunch of semi-frozen pebbles and lichen underfoot, gusts of salty wind that whip up from the black sands below. As the path winds downward, I look out over our lands. The village sits to the left in a protected alcove beyond the beach, where it is surrounded by natural rock walls that buffer the winds. It’s flanked by a collection of stone dwellings on one side and by green hills and grazing lands on the other. Beyond are clusters of cultivated land, where we grow crops, and forest, where we forage for wild berries and mosses. As I walk down the path, I can see plumes of smoke from cooking fires and hear the clangor of our people living and toiling and surviving.

The clan is hard at work. People clad in leather, wool, and fur trudge about. No one is spared of responsibility. Children fetch water while their mothers scrape hides, weave new ropes, and care for horses and sheep. The men who’ve stayed back at the village dig to create a new waterway from the nearby river, as they are going to make a trough that runs under the heavy stones and into our longhouse. That way we’ll be able to lift the stones to collect fresh water.

To my right is the sea, my one great love, though I have never sailed far from home. As I look at the endless expanse of ocean, it seems like I can feel the power of the tides flowing into me. It’s an ancient power, pushing and then pulling deep within, and I have to resist the urge to run down the path into the waves.

Is there an end to the world’s waters? Will I ever see the unknown lands beyond? Will I discover the mysteries I dream of? Father and his fellow warriors returned from long journeys with wild tales of sea monsters, endless fog, and strange villages with creatures and people I can’t believe exist.

A girl like me cannot hope to conquer lands or wield a battle axe. I’m not large and strong like some of the women in our clan. To join the warriors on a quest, I would have to be free of my destiny as a runecaster and skilled in the ways of battle. I am neither.

A girl like me can never leave, so I will have to be content to dream. It’s not so bad, I suppose. There are worse things than having to dream through life. I could be like the banished ones, sent to wander alone in our island’s dead zone, scraping out a meager survival among the glacier’s caves and deep crevasses, haunted by the ghosts lurking there. There are always worse things, I remind myself, trying on Sýr’s optimism. Still, the sea calls to me.

Down at the beach I pick my way across the black sand, my boots sinking in the wet pools, and hop around the outcropping of black rocks and lava formations from centuries ago. Every now and then a new eruption springs forth offshore, the sparks and lava shooting into the sky and sizzling the ocean. Once I hauled in a huge net of cooked fish, and the clan had no choice but to eat it all at once. There was no preserving it. The fish tasted of both the sea and the earth, at once salty and stony, and it had a burnt flavor. We could almost taste the island’s anger. We took it as a warning from the gods, and we were careful to increase our offerings and thanks.

I make my way to my traps, nestled beyond the tide pools and moored with heavy stones and strong ropes, and flip them open to see that I’ve managed to catch spider crab this day. I’ve also collected a lot of seaweed, which will please Sýr, for once dried it provides us with the nutrition we need for long winters.

Sýr’s girlfriend, Frigg, will give me some goat’s butter in exchange for crab, I’ll bet. Frigg is a square-shouldered, steel-haired woman who reminds me of a wall in more ways than one. She raises horses and sheep in the foothills and keeps a stand in the village for trading her skins, meat, milk, and butter. I know why Sýr likes her so much—and it’s not for the delicious sheep wares. It’s because Frigg is gentle and generous, much like my sister herself. I have asked Sýr if they’re in love, and she always says love isn’t something you’re “in” but something you “do.” I think they do it a lot.

Cramming all of the catch into one trap, I reset the others and then hoist my full trap over my shoulder and scramble back across the rocks and up toward the village. Icy seawater drips down the back of my cloak, soaking me, but I don’t care.

Sýr will tease me, saying I’ve turned into a sea creature stinking of fish and covered in strings of seaweed, and Frigg will laugh. The crabs scuttle in the trap, clacking against each other. I jostle the trap to shock them a bit and keep them from killing each other. One of them reaches its long claw through the trap net and gives my thumb a pinch.

“Ow.” I draw my hand back and see dark red blood running from the gash in the fleshy part of my thumb. It drips onto the black sand and mixes with the seawater before running back down the shoreline to the ocean.

“At least a part of me will journey with you,” I whisper to the water as the waves retreat. I look at my hand, noting that this will hurt for some time and make it difficult to haul traps. No matter. My hands are scarred and thick from work and fishing. They are not the hands of a runecaster.

When I walk up through the village, no one speaks to me. “See? No invisibility rune needed,” I mutter to myself.

I pick my way through the working crowds, past men driving stakes into the ground, past children sifting seeds into sacks, past young women sewing clothes. Some men stare at me as I go by, and I avoid their gazes. I know I am odd and look different from the other girls. Sýr says it appeals to men the way a rare bird or wild game does. They want to hunt it, kill it, wear its feathers or hide. They want it for what it will mean about them. They don’t want it for its own sake. I don’t really want to find out if what she says is true.

I pass four older women weaving in a circle. They pay me no mind, as is typical, for the elder women in our clan don’t figure young ones like me have anything to offer. They guard their wisdom like their gossip, hoarding it and doling it out when it will have the most impact. They are the ones who set up marriages, start fights among brothers, and have the power to shun the unwanted from our shores. Sýr warns me to always be polite to the women. As I walk by I try to make myself even more invisible. They cackle to each other as I pass, and I wonder if it’s to do with me. They continue their weaving, intricate patterns and scenes designed to influence fate and bring their warrior husbands back from the great sea. I’ve wondered whether it would help to bring Father home, but I am a terrible weaver, and in my heart I fear it is a waste of time. No amount of dreaming has ever brought back someone I lost. Whether my father comes back alive or at all has nothing to do with my desires. I wish it did.

Sýr is set up and giving readings at Frigg’s stand. This way they can visit with each other while Sýr reads fortunes for the villagers and Frigg sells her wares.

When I walk over, I see Sýr and Frigg deep in whispered conversation. Sýr looks upset, and Frigg reaches out and brushes my sister’s hair from her eyes. Sýr’s expression brightens as Frigg gazes at her in adoration. They kiss, and I turn away to give them privacy.

“Girl!” I hear Frigg bellow to me. “Have you brought me spider crab?”

I spin back around and heft my trap onto the trading table.

“Maybe. Have you got any butter?” I ask, and Frigg chuckles. “I’ll trade a crab for some.”

Frigg waves me off, her arms well-muscled from shearing sheep. “Bah, never mind. You can have it.” She dips into a bin and gives me a wrapped parcel of butter.

I hesitate for a moment. She’s giving it to me for free? I look at Sýr, who nods.

“Thank you, Frigg,” I say. “If you come over later, we can all eat crab tonight,” I offer.

Frigg sniffs. “Yes, of course. Later,” she says, turning her back.

Something isn’t right. I look at Sýr. “What is it?” I ask. “Is it time?”

“Not now, Runa,” Sýr says, pausing to look at my hand as I hold out one of the crabs for Frigg to admire.

Ever the mother to me, she, of course, notices my injury. Sýr, twenty-seven years old now, took on our mother’s role at age ten. I try to imagine what it would be like to lose your mother as a child and to have to raise your baby sister yourself. It’s not as if she had a lot of help. Our grandmother is around, yes, but she is old and eccentric.

“What have you done now? That cut is deep,” Sýr says as she takes my catch of crab from me and tosses it into a large earthen pot next to her. It’s filled with seawater and the various mussels and limpets I collected on shore. What we can’t sell we’ll eat. She grabs my wrist. “Sit down.”

I obey and try to stay still as Sýr rubs a thick paste into the wound. At first it stings, but then the throbbing pulse of pain in my thumb subsides. She wraps a piece of clean woven cloth around it and then makes the rune of Úr, for healing, on the back of my hand with a mixture of ash and burnt moss.

Frigg looks on, always in awe of Sýr’s ability. “Can you use the moonstone to heal it faster?” she asks.

Sýr shakes her head. “No, I cannot afford to use the stone for small things. It’s almost empty of power. And every time I use it…” She trails off, looking tired.

Frigg and I both know what she was going to say. The stone is drawing her power and strength. When people demand that Sýr use the stone, what they are asking is for her to give up a piece of her own soul. There was a time when the moonstone would have healed my cut in mere minutes, but Sýr can’t risk using it now.

The red moon is rising. Soon we will have to contend with the desperation of other clans and the race to win control of the moonstone. Sýr needs to save all of the stone’s strength.

“It’s okay,” I say to Sýr, fibbing a little. “It feels much better already, and I’ve had worse cuts.”

“You’ll need to care for it. Who knows what gunk lives on those dirty hands of yours?” she teases with a smile.

“Even my sheep take baths sometimes, Ru,” says Frigg, joking along.

“Oh yeah?” I ask. “When do you bathe, Frigg?”

She shrugs. “When it rains.”

We all laugh at this, but I notice Sýr’s smile crumble, and her serious look returns.

The looming competition isn’t all we need to fear, and I know Sýr is concerned. Without Father and his warriors, our clan is vulnerable to attack so close to the red moon coming. If other clans, such as our closest neighbors, the Jötnar, find out we’re low on defenses, they could decide to raid us.

The Jötnar are not our enemies, but when the survival of an entire people is in question, even neighbors can become foes. Descendants of powerful giants, they used to possess the moonstone a long time ago, until my mother’s mother won it for our clan. My mother won it again during the moonwater of her time. Sýr, the one living person in our clan capable of possessing it, now holds the stone, having inherited it upon our mother’s death. That is the strength of Sýr. A ten-year-old girl inheriting a powerful moonstone and a baby all at once.

“Troubled, love?” Frigg asks, placing a comforting hand on Sýr’s arm. She has noticed my sister’s downcast face too.

Sýr pats her hand. “I’m fine. I wish…” She doesn’t finish, and I suspect that if I wasn’t here, she would tell Frigg her troubles.

“If you’re worried about the competition, don’t be,” I say.

“Runa,” Frigg starts, trying to cut me off. “Not now.”

“What? I think she needs to know that she is the only one worthy of the moonstone.” I look to my sister. “It’s you, Sýr,” I say.

She casts a quick glance at me. “I’m not worried,” she says, but I know this is a lie. “We don’t have to speak of this now.”

“No,” I say. “I see the red moon coming. I know it will happen soon. And I want you to know that you are the one who will win the moonstone.”

“What will be is in the hands of the gods, Runa,” she says, gazing up at the sky.

“Sýr, I know it the same way I know the stars. They do not lie.”

Frigg grunts and starts sifting through her piles of wool, ignoring me now.

“Have you been listening to the villagers?” Sýr asks. “Or talking to the elder women?”

I shake my head. “Not really,” I say. “But I guess I have heard some of them whispering as they do. They’re concerned about keeping the stone in the clan, but I’m not. I believe in you.”

Sýr nods, quiet now. It’s true that there are villagers who are nervous that Sýr is not the chosen caster, having only inherited the stone from our mother on her deathbed.

I have never asked Sýr whether she is scared, because I already know the answer. I hear her crying when she thinks I am sleeping, and I know she longs for a simpler life with Frigg, raising horses and growing food and tending to animals. She longs for a home life free of pressure.

While I have longed to travel, Sýr has longed to stay, to root herself into the soil of our homeland even further. And yet soon she will have to go. I wonder if everyone’s destiny is as confused as this. Is life just a trick the gods have played on us all?

Sýr scrunches up her face. “Oh no,” she says, looking at someone behind me.

I turn to see a village woman, Hekla Vondursdóttir, walking over to us. She regards me with contempt and focuses on Sýr. She’s a malicious person, with a hardened heart and demeanor to match. She never hesitates to use Sýr for anything she wants. I am too tired to deal with her today.

“Sýr,” Hekla says, approaching with a noticeable limp. “I need a cure for my foot rot.” She sits down with a thud and hefts her wide foot onto the table, banging her muddy boot into Sýr’s tinctures and supplies. She then pulls off the boot. The stench turns my stomach. Her foot is green, as if moss is growing all over it. I look away.

“You know,” says Hekla, her loud voice booming for all to hear, “I never had this foot problem until now. As well, my little horse died—the one we used to help carry our seeds—and we’ve had to live off the meat because my husband is still away with your father. Some are saying their ship has been lost in the great fog.”

Sýr casts a sharp glance at me and shakes her head. She’s warning me not to intervene, although all I want to do is smack this woman.

Hekla looks at me. “I won’t say anything about the weird-ling you have here. You are bad luck, eh, girl?”

Sýr bristles but continues mixing her potions together in quiet. If I had Sýr’s power and ability, I’d punish this ugly woman. Maybe I’d make the foot rot spread to her face, so everyone could see how vile she truly is.

“We all think this bad luck has something to do with you,” says Hekla to Sýr, who fumbles a small pot and spills green powder on her skirts. Frigg lays a calming hand on Sýr’s shoulder and shoots a look at Hekla as sharp as any sword I’ve seen.

“Is that so?” Sýr asks, pinching the spilled powder from her skirts back into the jar with an unhurried grace.

“Yes,” says Hekla. “It’s the moonstone, isn’t it? It’s failing.”

Sýr takes a deep breath. “The red moon is nigh,” she says. “According to custom, the moonstone must be charged at moonwater to render it powerful again. You know this. It is the natural cycle of things. We’ve been through this before.”

“No, that’s not it, not like this,” says Hekla. “It’s you,” she says, pointing a craggy fingernail at Sýr. “You never won the moonstone. You only inherited it from your dead mother. It is ill-gotten.” She leans back and crosses her arms, her mouth curled up in smug contempt.

Sýr stills at the mention of our mother. I want to grab the pot of crab and throw it at Hekla’s head. But I do not, because we promised Father we would keep peace while he is gone, and because I know it would only cause more trouble for Sýr.

Hekla will not give in. “Why not let us see the moonstone, hmm?” she says, her voice taking on a forced kindness, as if she’s speaking to a child. “See it? Give it a little touch? Hmm? Why not, eh?”

“Because you’d die,” says Sýr, looking deep into Hekla’s eyes.

Hekla recoils but continues ranting. “Why don’t you use a wand? Or make sacrifices? We hear the Jötnar witch is powerful, maybe so powerful she will win the moonstone. Then where will our people be? We’ll all starve.”

I scoff at this, and Sýr shoots me a look. The Jötnar don’t stand a chance of winning it back from us, as they don’t have a runecaster as powerful as Sýr. Their head witch, a mysterious newcomer named Katla, is rumored to be obsessed with dark arts and animal magic. Our older kinfolk claim our two clans could be friends and even work together to ensure our mutual survival, but the witch Katla is said to have poisoned the minds of the Jötnar leaders and elders. Tales of atrocity and violence follow the witch, and those who encounter her say she’s a nightmare in the flesh.

Some of our clan fear the evil Katla will win the moonstone, and clearly Hekla is one of them, but a caster who is not powerful or honorable enough to hold the moonstone will perish. It doesn’t sound as if Katla has pure intentions for the stone.

“You are fools not to worry about the Jötnar’s caster,” Hekla says.

Sýr stands, her fury evident. “The Jötnar witch is not a runecaster,” she says through gritted teeth. “I don’t kill for my magic. I don’t wear the skins of dead people like the Jötnar witch does. I am not a wand-weaver. I am a runecaster, and I will win the stone.” Sýr is glowing with anger now, and I see her fingers trembling toward the moonstone around her neck.

I cast a nervous look at Frigg. Though its powers have lessened, the moonstone can still cause great harm, especially in the hands of a powerful caster like Sýr. And in the hands of an angry Sýr, it could be downright murderous. With my sister pushed to her limits and under the pressure of her obligations, I’m not sure what’s going to happen.

Frigg steps in, her large frame coming between Sýr and the now-irate Hekla. Frigg is holding a stick, a thick sheep staff she calls Trollbonker. That is all she needs to do. The tension is broken. Hekla hobbles off in the mud, carrying her boot with her and casting nasty backward glances. I can hear her cursing us.

Sýr lets out a deep breath, her hands dropping to her sides.

Frigg turns to me. “Runa, go play,” she says.

“Play?” I ask, incredulous.

Sýr’s voice is weary. “Frigg, she doesn’t play. Runa is almost a woman.” She looks at me, seeming wistful for my long-past childhood years.

“She needs to go find a man then,” says Frigg.

“You’re one to talk, Frigg Baldersdóttir,” exclaims Sýr.

“I’m all the man we’ll ever need,” says Frigg, and I take this as a sign to wander off.

Still, I can’t help but sneak a look back. I like it when Frigg kisses Sýr, because she does so with the look of someone who can’t believe their good fortune. I once asked Sýr if she had love-spelled Frigg to get her to behave such a way, but Sýr just laughed her quiet, shy laugh and said that it was genuine, and that Frigg was the luckiest thing ever to have happened to her apart from me.

As I walk away, I clutch my runes in their pouch and wish with all my love that Sýr has even better luck than that. Please, I beg the runes, give my sister everything she dreams of.