Chapter Four:
The Gods’ Pity

Cold all around me. Wet.

My body was heavy under the weight of water and exhaustion. Above me, the waves roiled, slow and furious as they sought a new meal.

No.

Not waves.

Storm clouds.

I wretched as the realisation hit me then twisted and vomited something dark. It pooled out next to me on the beach. Blood and seawater. Iron and salt.

Weak daylight broke through the pregnant clouds and illuminated the cove I had washed into. I lay on a thin beach surrounded by rough cliffs that curved out into the ocean as though trying to claim part of it for themselves.

Small waves lapped at my feet. I looked down to watch the foaming surf gum at my sodden shoes. All the fury of the ocean replaced with an insatiable, unending caress.

I tried to pull myself up, but pain beat me back down. Instead, I rolled over and dragged myself away from the water. I crawled, scraping sand under my fingernails until I could lean against the bottom of the cliffs.

“Why wouldn’t you take me?” I croaked. My throat ached, but I sucked in a breath and screamed out to the ocean, “Why not me?”

The sea hissed. Waves peaked in the distance like shrugging shoulders.

I inspected my sliced palm and scored leg. The sea had washed away the blood from each and left only a pallid slit in the skin. I pressed my hand against the wound in my side. The wound that had almost killed me. That should have killed me. Instead of soft, parted flesh, I found something hard and cold. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Perhaps Soren’s axe only carved away the flesh and exposed the bone.

As I cursed whatever god or Sea Giant had saved me from my ocean grave, images from the night before sparked in my mind.

The Wind-hunters.

I pulled myself up and tried to run but stumbled and scraped my palm on the sharp cliffside. My injured leg was weak and trembled as I put weight on it, but did not give way.

I found a path out of the cove and got my bearings. The gentle hiss was replaced by a ravenous roar. Churning waves leapt up against the cliff like sea wolves hungry for another taste of me. My head started spinning as I watched the ocean’s endless gnashing mouth. I fell to my knees and shut my eyes tight. I couldn’t face the sea again. Not now.

After a few deep breaths, I opened my eyes and made my way inland without looking back.

I soon saw the tips of trees swaying east of me and realised I was not far from where they had kicked me into the ocean.

As I walked, my cold-saturated tunic peeled itself from my skin. I knew I couldn’t keep these clothes. I had seen enough warriors win bloody victories only to lose the slow fight against the cold. Reluctantly, I turned away from the forest and limped along the cliffs until I saw a shape huddled on the ground. The dead Wind-hunter. I stripped out of my soaked outfit and dressed in the Wind-hunter’s. My clothes were a deep, ocean cold but these were only as cold as death.

Without the heavy, wet clothes draining my energy, my strength returned with every uneven, limped step. My mind, too, cleared a little more and I realised this would be where I had lost the runestone.

For a moment I froze. The runestone could save Bjolfur’s soul.

I circled the stripped corpse and searched desperately for the runestone in the rocks and mud. Churned patterns showed where the fight had been and a furrow in the ground marked my journey to the cliff-edge. I sifted through the wet soil and rocks until my arms were caked with mud, but I could not find my precious stone.

Fjola’s face flashed in my mind. Had the Wind-hunters found her? I couldn’t stay and risk losing her too. I bunched my fists until my fingernails cut into my palms and cursed the gods and their fates.

“Could you not give me this?” I screamed. My voice sounded small against the clap and hush of the waves at the base of the cliff. “Will you leave me nothing?”

I needed to go. I hobbled away from the cliff and broke into a limping run as soon as the ground was even enough.

It seemed like I stumbled through the forest and along the stream for hours. By the time I burst from the trees behind my farmstead my breath was a conflagration in my chest, each gasp like a bellows fuelling my pain, but after battling through brambles and low branches the last hundred paces felt easy.

My feet knew this ground.

I was home.

Or where home had been.

I fell to my knees when I saw what was left.

Blackened wood jutted from a scorched patch of earth and the smell of burnt hair and flesh wafted on the breeze. Charred pillars plotted the corners of the house and between them, my home had been reduced to ash clumped together like snowdrifts.

A sob escaped me, then another, and I wept.

My home. The memories I had made there. All of the things I had to remember my husband by. Destroyed.

Something shifted in the wreckage and one of the immolated pillars collapsed. There was an axe at the edge of the woods behind me, surrounded by half-chopped logs. I picked it up and stalked forwards.

Someone stepped out from behind one of the ash-drifts. A familiar face framed with wild red hair turned to me and her single eye went wide. I dropped the axe.

“Edda!”

Fjola rushed over and wrapped me in her arms. I tried to take her weight but was still too weak, and we fell back onto the ground.

“Oh Edda, I thought you were in there. Where have you been? I thought they’d killed you!”

She squeezed me so close it was hard to breathe, but I held her just as tightly. She was an anchor against the storm of grief and loss the gods thrust on me and I couldn’t let go, otherwise I too would be lost.

We pulled apart and knelt side by side in the dew-clogged grass. I watched the smoke and steam rise from the wreckage and dissipate into the blue sky.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I said. “I needed to give Bjolfur a runestone, but they found me before I could finish. I got one of them, but the others got past me. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, Edda, no. You don’t say sorry. I’m just glad you’re alive.” She took my hands in hers. Dried blood crusted her fingertips and her forearms were covered in scrapes and slashes. “Gods, Edda, your hands feel frozen. Even your hair’s got ice in it. Here, have my cloak.”

“What happened?” I asked as she wrapped me in the warm fur.

Fjola glanced at the remains of the farm and shook her head.

“We didn’t notice them right away. Ulfur was putting the animals to bed and he saw the burning. I sent the children to fetch help and then we all rushed over here.”

“Did they hurt anyone?”

“No,” Fjola said. She stared at the wreckage. “There were only three of them and six of us. They were easy to put down.”

Fjola had always been the most tenacious of the raiders. She never stepped back, never dropped her weapons, no matter how many enemies she faced. It was how she’d lost her eye. It had taken the strength of her love for her husband and their children to keep her from raiding.

We sat and stared at my home. The crow in my chest grew restless at the sight of it and spread its grief-coloured wings until it felt like my ribs would crack.

Something glinted in the ashes. Probably a knife. If a knife could survive, then could my plunder have made it through? If it had and I could get a blood-debt from the Wind-hunters, then I would have enough money to get away from Dagnur.

“Where are the raiders now?”

“They’re dead, I think.” She turned back to face me. “Hildr and Sten have taken them back to Dagnur’s hall.”

I nodded, but inwardly cursed. You couldn’t claim gold from a dead man. My renewed hope cracked like a frozen stream, exposing a flowing river of raw sorrow and regrets.

“What were you doing here, then?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you be back at the farm?”

She looked at the house and then back to me. Tears shone in the corner of her eye. “I wanted to see if the house was cool enough to look through, to see if you were in there.”

Her voice cracked and she threw her arms around me again. It was a swift embrace filled with relief.

We turned to watch the smoking timbers. I looked past the broken shape of my home and saw myriad intimate moments that were built into its bones. I thought of the time Bjolfur hit his head on the door frame and I’d laughed so hard I’d fallen off my bench. I remembered the rune Bjolfur carved into the wooden beam above my head to keep my dreams happy. There were so many tiny scars in that house that made it a home. Now it was ashes and charcoal.

Fjola put the back of her hand against my forehead, bringing me back to the present. She shook her head.

“You feel frozen,” she said. “Come on, let’s get you warm.”

 

*

 

When I walked into the house, Ulfur swept me into an embrace so tight I thought my ribs would crack.

“By the First Wolf’s furry tits, Edda, we thought you were dead,” he said when he finally put me down.

“So did I.”

He raised an eyebrow at me, but Fjola ushered him off to warm some mead.

Once I had removed the blood and mud-splattered clothes Fjola threw them into a corner and gave me some of hers. They were snug on me as Fjola was slim where I was broad, but the gesture warmed me for the first time since I had fallen into the sea.

Soon we sat around the fire in the middle of their longhouse with a blanket draped around my shoulders, and hot, spiced mead in everyone’s hands. Their home was covered in the debris of living with children. Carved animals and small clothes were scattered everywhere. I took a sip of mead, but for some reason, the warmth of it didn’t reach me.

“What happened out there?” Ulfur asked. He gestured to the blood covering the Wind-hunter’s clothes with a horn cup.

“Ulfur!”

“What?” The big man looked at his wife with incredulous indignation. “We fought off the first raid in winter I’ve ever seen, then Edda shows up in clothes covered in blood and looking like she decided to go for a midnight swim. Don’t you want to know what happened to her?”

Fjola looked like she was about to throw something at her husband. “She’s clearly been through—”

“It’s okay,” I said.

I finished my drink and took a deep breath. The children, supposedly taking care of the animals, could be heard screaming at each other through the walls.

I quickly told them what had happened. Fjola’s eye went wide then she reached out to me before putting her hand to her mouth when my story reached the cliff edge. Ulfur’s brows furrowed with concern and he stayed stone-still. When I was done he shook his head and put his hand on my shoulder.

“You did well to survive against three of them,” he said. “The gods must have been watching.”

I scoffed at that. “If they were watching, they didn’t try to help. There were four of them, though. I got one, then they overwhelmed me and kicked me into the ocean.”

With those words, the memory of the surging, ravenous waters swelled inside my chest and I thought I would vomit. I closed my eyes, but then I was back under the waves and sinking and I snapped them back open. I watched the dry, bright cookfire until my breathing returned to normal.

Ulfur laughed, a booming sound that bounced around the house. “Listen to her. The way you tell it, Edda, surviving against four insane fighters is a punishment.”

“Isn’t it?” I whispered.

They didn’t answer.

Ulfur refilled our drinks. I watched the flames. Last night, whilst my home burned, how tall had the fire been? It must have dwarfed the forest if Ulfur and Fjola saw it. Would there be anything to salvage from the ashes? We had carved a life into those beams only to have it fuel my grief.

“Did someone fish you out of the water?” Fjola asked.

I looked up to see her gaze soaked with concern.

“No, I don’t think so. I woke up on the beach and came straight home.” I took a swig of mead and sat up straight to try and shake off the black feathers that had settled on me during the conversation. “What happened here?”

Fjola leaned back and glanced at Ulfur. “He saw the light coming from your farmhouse. At first, we thought that there’d been an accident, but something didn’t feel right.

“We sent the children off to get help as we dug out our old weapons. It didn’t take long for Hildr and Sten to come out and Steinar and Varin soon after that, but by the time we got there the fire was rooted. There was nothing we could do.”

Fjola paused. Her gaze rose from her feet and met mine. I could see the hurt in them. The regret that she hadn’t been able to save anything.

“It’s okay,” I said. “You tried.”

We shared a sad smile.

“The fight was easily won. You softened them up for us,” Ulfur said and slapped me on the shoulder. “We managed to surround two of them and herd them back to the house. Hildr got the last one. Easy kills.”

“Are you sure they’re dead?” I said. Not all those killed under the Winds’ dancing eyes became Windborn, but I wanted to make sure those fuckers hadn’t come back.

“I saw Hildr’s spear go right through here.” Ulfur slapped the centre of his chest. “Trust me, they’ll be feeding the crows by now. May the Three Ravens take their eyes.”

Fjola and I murmured in agreement.

“I don’t understand it,” Fjola said. “Why would they do that? Why attack now?”

“They were Wind-hunters,” I said. “They were already outlaws, so why would they care when they attacked?”

Fjola’s eye widened in surprise, and Ulfur nodded as though I had revealed the last piece of a riddle.

The fire snapped between us and the children came running in, turning the tense quiet into chaotic, joyful noise. When they saw me, Nona and Bersi screamed my name and leapt at me. We toppled back into a heap and they peppered me with questions.

“Where have you been?”

“Why are you wearing that blanket?”

“What happened last night?”

“Are you okay?”

When I had fended off their questions and they realised I didn’t have any hidden sweets they ran off. Their shouts and screams trailed them as they found some game to occupy themselves with. I smiled. Fjola shook her head in mock incredulity.

“They’re relentless,” she said as she pulled me up from the floor and helped me back onto the bench. “Are you sure they were Wind-hunters?”

I nodded.

“They were talking about offerings to the Winds. They only had weapons, no armour, and they had war-paint all over like they thought looking like the Winds would help.”

“Gods,” Ulfur muttered and took a swig of mead. “Some outlawed bastards fancy their skills and all they’ve got to show for it is a burned down house. At least they’re slowly turning into bird shit.”

At the mention of my burnt home, Fjola glanced at me. I felt the familiar press of tears as the memory of the blackened ribs of the house resurfaced and my soul grew heavier. It felt as though the crow in my chest had risen from the ashes and now gripped my heart, its grief-coloured beak poised to puncture me from within.

“It’s getting late,” Fjola said with forced brightness. “Why don’t we turn in? There’s nothing to be done now that can’t wait until tomorrow. We can go back up to the house then. It should be cool enough to see what we can find.”

I nodded and pushed myself up from the bench.

“Come on,” she said and took my arm to help me along. “Ulfur’s made you up somewhere to sleep.”

Fjola helped me to the furs thrown hastily down a little way from the fire. I slumped down on them and my exhaustion surged over me like a wave. I wanted to thank Fjola but as I opened my mouth sleep overcame me.

 

*

 

The cold woke me three times.

Each time I found another blanket, but nothing could keep me warm. By the time the sun rose, it felt like I hadn’t slept at all.

Fjola presented me with a fresh set of clothes as she came in and then began to tidy the debris from the children’s rushed morning.

“Thank you,” I said as I pulled on the trousers she’d given me. “I—”

Something in her expression stopped me. The corners of her eyes crinkled and she bit her lip to stifle a laugh. I frowned and then realised what she was laughing at. The tunic was far too big and stretched down to scrape my knees, and the trousers were so short and tight it looked like my shins had turned green. I looked like a small troll-wife wearing white socks. I glanced up at Fjola and we both burst out laughing.

Our laughter echoed around the house and lifted something in me. It felt good to be in a home full of warmth and love and some of the sharp darkness within me smoothed away.

“I’m sorry, Edda, but you look so silly,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye. “That’s the tunic I wore when I was pregnant with Bersei, but those are Nona’s trousers. Ulfur’s mother made them much too big. I thought they’d fit you. Come on, I’ll find you something else then we can go to your farm.”

She got me a different pair of trousers and a belt to keep the tunic from billowing too much and we prepared to leave.

Fjola paused by the door and picked up her shield and axe.

“Just in case,” she said. “Do you want to take Ulfur’s?”

Ulfur’s axe leaned against the wall of their longhouse. The handle was as tall as me and the axe-head was bigger than any other axe I’d ever seen. I would have struggled to use it on my best day and cold exhaustion still glazed my bones.

“No, it’s fine.”

“You should have something.”

She hurried over to the cook-pots and plucked one of the longer knives from where it hung on the wall.

“Thank you,” I said and tucked the knife away.

Once Fjola was happy that the house was in order, she led us outside. She shouted goodbye to her family as they took care of the animals and they cried out a farewell in return. We nodded to each other and began the walk to where my home once was.

It was a long walk.

Our usual comfortable silence, smoothed over with years of friendship, was replaced by a quiet anchored with dread and apprehension. Even the birds around us seemed to sense it and stopped their singing. I wanted to forget the last few days as we approached the house. Fjola and I had made this journey hundreds of times together. As we made the final climb up the hill to the house, I wanted it to be the same as it had been. I wanted my home to be there. Then I caught sight of Fjola’s shield and the charcoal spires of the house and my heart broke all over again.

Fjola slowed the closer we came, then stopped, letting me circle the house on my own. Ash lay over the charcoal bones like sand covering a shipwreck. Birds fled from their perches on the burnt beams. Their silhouettes looked like pieces of the wreckage flying away, black marks against the sky.

The morning mist still clung to the ground and swirled around the house as though the gods were trying to swallow this reminder of the Wind-hunters who brazenly flouted their laws.

Metal glinted as I walked. What had once been a knife, an axe, or perhaps a shovel was now reduced to a shapeless clump of iron. I realised that I stood near to where our bed had been. I stepped into the wreckage and began rummaging through the damp ash.

“What are you doing?” Fjola called. She walked up to me but didn’t step into the house. “Do you want some help?”

“No.”

My hand wrapped around something cold, shapeless and I pulled it free. The bag disintegrated as it came into contact with the air leaving only our melted hoard. The metals had swirled together like blood in a stream and it was difficult to see where the gold ended and the silver began.

Fjola’s eye widened as the metal shone in the sunlight.

“This is it,” I said. “Everything we managed to save.”

“It’ll be fine.” She held out a small sack in front of me. “It’s still gold, isn’t it?”

I nodded and let the nugget drop into the bag. As the hoard left my hand I felt a weight lift from my heart. Part of me had worried that everything would be destroyed, that the treasure-hoard we had squirrelled away over the years would be gone and with it any hope I had to escape Dagnur.

With the hoard safe, the house looked different to me. Instead of a scar, a patch of razed earth where once there was home, I saw possibility. It was the fertile ground after a wildfire.

After that, the morning was a blur. We sifted through the rest of the house and piled up anything worth saving. We continued in industrious silence for what must have been hours until Fjola called out, but my focus was on the ash-covered trinkets and the memories they sparked. I picked a lump of charcoal from a cup warped by the heat then tossed it onto the grass behind me.

“Edda,” Fjola called again.

As I stepped out of the burnt and fallen timbers ash billowed out behind me like a ghost moving in my wake.

“What is it?”

She pointed to a circular patch of flattened grass.

A shield.

Bjolfur’s shield was still where I had thrown it. Its preservation may be the only good thing that came from my rage at losing my husband.

It lay in the grass with the shield boss pointed up like a tiny shining barrow. Morning dew had collected in the rough carvings and it looked like the spiralling saga took place underwater.

I fell to my knees and tore it from the ground, smearing ash over the saga as I ran my fingers over it. Tears fell onto the shield.

This was all that was left.

Ash and tears.

Fjola let me weep. She sorted through what we had recovered and when I ran out of tears I joined her. She put a hand on my shoulder and gestured for me to put Bjolfur’s shield with the rest of the salvage.

I looked from the pile to her and then to the shield in my hand.

“No.” I put one arm through the leather strap and threw it over my shoulder. “I’m not letting this go again.”

Fjola nodded and we went back to searching the house.

I tried to focus on the coarse touch of the dust so that I didn’t think about what I was sifting through. If I had, I might have wept and not been able to stop. I was focused enough that I didn’t notice we had company until I heard a horse snort and stamp.

Spinning around, I tried to pull my borrowed knife free and yank the shield in front of me, but I stumbled on the uneven ground. I threw a hand out to catch myself on one of the burnt beams, which cracked under the impact.

“Easy,” Fjola murmured, but she too had her hand on her axe. “It’s only Ingvar.”

His horse stood on the lip of the hill and he had both hands raised. His heavy cloak fluttered in the cold wind, but I couldn’t see any obvious weapons.

“What do you want, Ingvar?” I spat and sheathed the knife.

“Dagnur sent me to check on the house.”

He dismounted and tied his horse to one of the few untouched fence posts.

“Tell Dagnur he can fuck off.”

Ingvar looked like he wanted to scold me, but then his eyes softened.

“I’m glad you’re safe Edda.” Ingvar’s voice was tired, strained. “We feared the worst.”

He came over to us. We must have looked like ash covered ghosts next to him. Ingvar turned to me and then to the wreckage.

“I did survive. Now go and tell Dagnur to leave us alone. We’re busy.”

His jaw bunched and he looked away.

“I can’t go yet. Dagnur’s sent me to find out how badly the farm’s damaged, to see if any animals survived.”

For a moment the crow stopped stabbing at my heart and exploded in a fury.

“Is that all?” I spat. “To see how much money he’s lost? Why don’t you take a piece back for him and see if he can sell it as charcoal?”

Without waiting for an answer I grabbed the nearest chunk of wood and wrenched it free. The wood splintered easily. I threw it at Ingvar. He ducked, but the burnt wood sailed far over his head, trailing black dust through the air

I went back to sifting through the ash.

“Edda,” Ingvar said softly. He walked a slow circuit around the house, trying to keep himself in my line of sight as I turned. “I’m so sorry about all of this. I can’t imagine what this must be like. Come back with me and we’ll see Dagnur together. No one knew you were alive. We can talk to Dagnur and rebuild.”

He continued around the house and I felt his eyes weighing up what could be salvaged like a wolf sniffing around a corpse. Disgust prickled at the back of my throat. Fjola put a hand on his chest as he approached her. He stopped and looked from her, back to me.

“This is all there is, Ingvar,” I said. “Don’t you think that Dagnur could at least give me a few days to recover before he starts rummaging through the wreckage of my home?”

Ingvar’s shoulders slumped, his gaze went from Fjola to the pile of salvage behind her.

“I wish I could say yes,” he said as he played with his silver arm-ring, “but he doesn’t know that there is anyone to recover. Come back with me and we’ll convince him to give you some time.”

I wanted to believe him. My heart ached for a few days to stem the bleeding, a couple of days to wring myself free of tears, but I couldn’t trust him. Ingvar might have been a good man once, but years being crushed under Dagnur’s avarice and spite left him a puppet.

“Give me five days to mourn, a day for every year of my marriage, and then we can talk about rebuilding. Go and tell your master that.”

“Edda, I can’t give you that long.” Ingvar’s posture changed. His shoulders bunched and fists clenched. “You need to come back with me.”

I stomped over to him and pushed my nose against his. Ingvar’s eyes widened and he took half a step back. The tip of his nose was coloured with ash where I had brushed against it.

“The way I see it,” I said. “I don’t owe you or Dagnur shit anymore. This was my home. I swore to work Dagnur’s farm and give him his due. In exchange, he promised to protect me and mine. From here, it looks like only one of us has held up their end of the deal. Now you’re telling me that I need to ask that piece of shit for permission to grieve?”

Ingvar’s eyes looked into mine. I saw fear, but also calculations whirring in his mind, and something else I couldn’t figure out.

“You’re right.”

I narrowed my eyes. I hadn’t expected him to agree so readily.

“You both had oaths to one another and you’ve fulfilled yours. It’s only proper that a widow gets her time to mourn. If you come back with me and officially state your case to Dagnur, I can rule in your favour and give you your time, but I can’t do that if I go back alone.”

Widow.

My fists clenched at my sides. To stop myself from hitting the law-keeper, I walked over to Fjola.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered back. “Have you ever known Dagnur to do the right thing?”

“No, but I’ve never known him to openly break the law before either.”

We looked at each other for a long moment. Relying on Dagnur to do the right thing was like relying on a fox to live peacefully in a chicken coop, but if the law forced him to do something without room to wriggle out of it, then he would.

“If I demand five days mourning then Dagnur has to give it to me, legally?” I asked Ingvar.

“He may decline the request for five days but it’s the gods’ law that you be given at least three days and nights to mourn.”

I searched Ingvar’s face. He looked nervous, but I couldn’t see any deception.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll come with you.”

Ingvar’s shoulders sagged as the tension left him.

“I’m coming too.” Fjola stepped up beside me.

“No, it’s okay.” I turned to her and took her hand. “Fjola, you’ve already done so much for me. I won’t keep you away from your family anymore.”

She put a hand on mine. Her eye looked into mine and then she nodded.

“I’ll keep this safe for you,” she said and gestured at the pile of scrap and gold.

“Thank you, but I won’t leave our hoard again.” I scooped up the sack with the heavy metal nugget and tied it to my belt.

Fjola looked like she wanted to protest, but began to collect the rest of our salvage.

Ingvar stepped up again and looked at my hoard. “I need to take that with me as proof of the damage done to the house.”

“You can’t do that.”

“That’s theft.”

Fjola and I shouted at Ingvar over one another and he held his hands up in supplication.

“I’m sorry, I need to give him proof or he’ll come up here himself.”

“Your word should be proof enough,” I growled.

“It should.”

There was such a weight of disappointment and regret in those words that they doused my anger. They were the words of a man broken after years under the boot of a spiteful master.

We stared at each other for a moment longer. Something glinted in the morning sun and I looked over at the pile of tools now reduced to formless lumps.

“If you need proof,” I said and scooped up some melted tools and cutlery. “Then take this. I am not giving you my hoard.”

Ingvar opened his mouth as though to protest then nodded. “This should be proof enough.”

 

*

 

We shared the horse on the way back. Ingvar rode for a mile or so before offering it to me. Normally, I would have been grateful for the gesture, but I felt restless. I wanted to sprint ahead and get this over with. Instead, we trotted along and enjoyed the scenery.

After what felt like a lifetime, we arrived. People meandered around the square, carrying bundles of cloth or meat. All eyes turned to us.

“They look like they’ve seen a ghost,” I said.

“By all accounts, you were dead. And you certainly look the part.”

I glanced down and realised I was still covered in ash which had collected in my tunic and my hair. I shook myself to get rid of the worst of it.

As we made our way across the clearing, I noticed the patch of burnt earth where the ceremonial longship had been. It seemed wherever I went I couldn’t escape reminders of my failure to save Bjolfur’s soul and do him justice.

The word echoed around my head.

Justice.

Perhaps that was all that was left for me. There was no hope left to build the life we had always dreamed of, but I could seek reparations for what had been taken from me. Bjolfur’s soul might take some solace from that.

People moved around the edge of the clearing like driftwood circling a whirlpool. They stared at us as we went by and if we locked eyes, they paused in their whispers to smile with half-hearted sympathy.

“Ignore them,” Ingvar said.

“I am. I wish they’d do the same to me.”

The whispers followed us like a rising tide, but we were outside Dagnur’s hall soon enough. Ingvar passed the reins of his horse to one of the servants and I made to walk straight into the hall, but Ingvar held out his arm to stop me.

I cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Let me do the talking. I know how to deal with Dagnur, okay?”

“I can deal with him,” I snorted and made to shove his arm out of the way.

“Please, Edda.” He stepped in front of me, showing me his palms in surrender. “Dagnur’s temperamental at the moment. He’s still upset at how badly the raid went.”

I bit my lip to keep myself from screaming. What did Dagnur know of loss? I took a moment to calm myself and forced my face into a neutral expression.

Ingvar took my silence as agreement and went inside. I gritted my teeth and followed.

A fire crackled in the long pit running down the middle of the hall, sending shadows dancing and it took me a moment to adjust to the half-light. Three guards stood along the raised platform where Dagnur lounged on a small throne. He held a cup lazily in one hand and his other arm draped loose over the armrest. He slouched so low that he had almost slipped from the seat. Several people lurked about the hall waiting for gossip like gulls waiting for scraps.

Dagnur’s voice slithered from his throne, “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. What could I, a humble farmer, possibly do?”

The question was aimed at the torch-lit stranger a few paces in front of Dagnur. The stranger’s cloak looked like it was lined with the thick fur of the white bears that roam the far north.

“Forgive me,” the stranger said. Her voice was uncertain, and she looked around as though seeking help. “Is there someone else I should be talking to? Is this not the hall of Dagnur Olafson, who sent out a longship on the summer raids?”

The hall’s half-light twisted Dagnur’s sour look into a monstrous grimace. A smile tugged at the edges of my mouth. Dagnur had preened like a prize cock when the ship was built and had made sure that everyone knew he had financed it. After a moment Dagnur’s grimace smoothed into a sickly smile.

“I am he,” Dagnur said, his voice tight.

“Then I must ask again. My king has tasked me to beg any chieftain strong enough to send warriors raiding for their aid.”

Flattery.

Dagnur was too wily for that. He could twist between humble or arrogant in a heartbeat if he stood to gain from it. There had once been a new tax levied on large holdings and Dagnur had managed to avoid the worst of it despite having the largest holding for miles.

“I am no chieftain, merely a custodian on behalf of the High King. Perhaps, the tales of the ship we launched did not say how small a venture it was. These things tend to become exaggerated. The longship is barely large enough to carry twenty warriors, and it was a hard raiding season. There were many brave deaths this year.”

Ingvar put his hand on my shoulder. Without realising, I had started forward with one hand searching my belt for my knife. Behind the throne, one of Dagnur’s guards turned to watch me.

“We cannot help you,” Dagnur continued, seemingly oblivious to my aggression. “To send men and women away from their livestock over winter would endanger their farms, and all for some argument between kings I’ve never heard of? No. We can’t.”

A tense silence descended. The guards’ attention alternated from me to the stranger, unsure which of us they should throw out.

“You should come back in the summer,” Dagnur said and waved a limp hand. “The fjords are lovely that time of year.”

With their decision made for them, the guards ushered the stranger out of the hall. In the rafters a crow cried out and followed them.

“Dagnur, you fool,” the law-keeper whispered to himself.

Surprised, I turned to Ingvar. He blushed and looked away.

“Just because I’m his law-keeper doesn’t mean I agree with everything he does. If he wants to be a chieftain and send out raids, then he needs to act like one when strangers come calling for help. He needs to learn that those asking for help now may be the ones that hear his cries for help later. Even if he does not wish to send aid, then he should at least honour the traditions of hospitality.”

We waited whilst Dagnur demanded beer, gave his servants orders, and cracked jokes at the stranger’s expense. All the while he glanced back to me, taking pleasure in making me wait.

Eventually, he slumped back down in his throne and raised a hand to us.

“Let me do the talking,” Ingvar whispered.

We stepped in front of Dagnur. I felt exposed standing in the light of the torches. I had hoped the on-lookers would disperse once the stranger left but they looked pointedly at me and began to whisper amongst themselves.

“Law-Keeper,” Dagnur said, trying to put too much gravitas into his voice. “You weren’t expected back until tomorrow.”

“No, but—”

“Would you so easily shirk your duties to your lord?”

Only a moment ago he was calling himself a farmer, and now he’s a lord. I snorted. Dagnur glared at me.

“Of course not, my lord. It is clear that the entire structure needs to be cleared and rebuilt. When I arrived I found Edda Gretasdottir.”

Dagnur leaned back into his throne and pursed his lips. He laced his fingers together and rested them on his chin. “Nothing can be salvaged?”

I gritted my teeth at Dagnur’s disinterest in my apparent resurrection.

“Only this, my lord.”

Ingvar stepped forward and tipped the melted tools onto the floor. Glinting globs of metal tumbled and clattered in front of the throne. Naked avarice flashed in Dagnur’s eyes until he realised it was only iron. Dagnur moved forward and nudged each with the tip of his boot.

“And these are...?”

“Tools, my lord, utensils. The only things that have not been burned to a cinder.”

“And there was nothing else? No tapestries, food, or anything useful?”

I shifted my weight and the melted gold at my belt thudded against my hip. Panic thrashed in my chest. Please, by the broken eye of the Father, let Ingvar keep it secret.

“No, that’s all,” he said.

I let out a deep breath and made a mental note to thank Ingvar when this was done.

“Very well.” Dagnur slumped back onto his throne. “And you, Edda, how will you pay me back for this?”

The question caught me off guard. I blinked and looked around, to check that everyone else had heard the question too. Their wide eyes told me they had. My mouth opened and closed. My fists clenched. I had no words, only the desire to throttle Dagnur.

“Well?” he said with a scowl. “You were in charge of the farm, weren’t you? It was your responsibility. Don’t just stand there and flap your lips like a fish. How will you pay for the damage? Ingvar, why is she not answering me?”

“It has been a trying time for her, my lord,” the law-keeper began, stepping between me and the throne. “She has lost so much.”

“A trying time for her? Do you know what I’ve had to go through today? Njal, Mata, search her. She must have something on her.”

Two guards out from behind the throne. They wore poorly made chain shirts, old swords hung at their hips, and their helmets had a wolf’s head crudely etched into the metal. Dagnur received a stipend from the High King, who truly owned the land we worked, to pay for the defence of the whole community but Dagnur only used it on his personal guards. These weren’t true huskalar, the sworn guards of chieftains and lords, but well-outfitted lackeys.

The guards stretched their arms to encircle me and I instinctively protected the most valuable possession I carried: Bjolfur’s shield.

As I twisted to keep it away from them, Mata, judging from the stench of beer on her breath, snatched at the bag at my waist. I tried to grab her wrist, but Njal held me back.

“No!” I twisted again to keep them from the bag at my waist, but Njal was there again.

Dagnur leaned forward, his interest piqued by my attempts to fend off his guards. “What is it?”

“Some sort of metal,” Mata said as she peered into the bag. “Might be gold.”

“Show me.”

Mata shoved a sweaty hand into the bag and pulled out my misshapen hoard. Dagnur leapt from the throne, all pretence of nobility and leadership drowned under his greed. He snatched it from Mata and twisted it next to a torch.

“This looks like it will do nicely.”

“You can’t take that,” I snapped.

“Can’t I?” Dagnur said in mock surprise. “The way I see it, I now have to rebuild a farm, buy food for winter, and get new livestock next year. All because of you.”

I shook off Njal and turned to Ingvar.

“He can’t do this. I won’t let him do this.”

Dagnur chuckled behind me, but I ignored him. Ingvar squirmed and looked from me to Dagnur and back again.

“You are a tenant on his farm. Dagnur can ask for a contribution to repairs for any damage to the farm whilst you are the tenant.”

Fury burned in my chest, battling against a cold confusion and despair. I clenched my fists until my knuckles cracked.

“I came here to get time to mourn, Ingvar.” I kept my voice quiet, firm. “You’re telling me I have to pay this shit for the privilege of having raiders burn down my home? Isn’t it his responsibility to protect the people he works so hard to exploit?”

Ingvar wouldn’t meet my eyes. His shoulders tensed and he played with the fringes of his cloak. He looked from me to Dagnur as though he didn’t know who to side with. Any spine the law-keeper had had melted in Dagnur’s presence. My lip curled, I felt a curse rising in my chest.

“You—”

“She has the right to mourn, my lord,” Ingvar said and looked up, his eyes shining bright in defiance. “The law allows a grieving family three days away from their responsibilities.”

“Fine,” Dagnur replied. He examined the gold in the dancing torchlight. We were forgotten, lost to the shining precious metals. “Then you can have your three days. We can start rebuilding the farmhouse. Mata, take this to be melted down into something we can spend.”

Dagnur held out the gold for Mata to take and my body moved before I realised what I was doing. My hands shot out to snatch the gold away. Dagnur turned at my primal growl and as his eyes went wide, he squealed and stumbled back.

Something caught the back of my shirt and brought me up short. I spun around, swinging a fist blindly. My hand crunched into Njal’s cheap metal faceplate and he toppled back with a yell.

Mata slammed into me and we slid about on the floor. I writhed and threw punch after punch into whatever part of her I could find. In return, Mata kneed me in the ribs and got her arm locked around my throat. Before I could throw her off, Njal leapt on me and they pinned me on the floor.

Three more guards rushed over from behind the throne and pointed their spears at me. I stopped fighting and the hall fell silent except for the crack and snap of the fire and the hiss of the torches.

Dagnur shuffled over and pushed his way through the ring of guards to stand over me.

“I will forgive this outburst, Edda.” Dagnur’s eyes shone daggers at me. “You are in mourning so I will not have you arrested. I have fulfilled my obligations to you. The raiders were killed and the rest of the community was saved. Your farm was an unfortunate price to pay for it, but thankfully,” he raised the gold lump, “we have the means to rebuild.”

I strained against Mata then stopped as a spear tip pressed against my side.

“You can’t just take my property, Dagnur.”

Dagnur rolled his eyes. “I’m not stealing it, Edda. My farm, the one you were responsible for, was damaged outside of the raiding season and you owe me for its repairs. Once we have paid for that, and for whatever damage you’ve done to my huskalar, then you can have what remains.”

He hefted the nugget and examined it, as though weighing it with his eyes. A sly grin wormed onto his face.

“At this time of year labour will be expensive, and materials don’t come cheap.”

“You fucking—”

A fist slammed into my stomach.

“Calm the fuck down,” Njal said and kicked me for good measure.

“Get her out of here.”

Dagnur signalled something to a servant and then wandered out of the hall. Mata and Njal dragged me outside and threw me out onto the ground.

I rolled over to take my weight off my sore ribs. At least I had given them a crushed faceplate and a limp.

 

*

 

I couldn’t face the journey home. When I tried to walk the road back to the farm my nostrils filled with the scent of charcoal. Instead, I found a quiet place out of sight of the hungry sea and slumped down against a tree. I tried to keep my thoughts away from all the things I lost, but could not help but run my fingers over Bjolfur’s shield. Already it was smeared with a layer of grime and mud.

“I’m glad I found you before you went home.”

I glanced up and watched God-Speaker Sif take a seat next to me.

“What home have I got to go back to?”

I ran tentative fingers across my ribs to check if they were broken. Sif took my hand and wrapped it in both of her own. She looked at me and I saw something flicker in her gaze, something deep and unknowable as the tide. I shuddered and pulled my hand away.

“Did you do it?” she asked.

It took a moment for me to realise what she meant. At first I thought it was an accusation, a mad theory that I had burned down my own farm, then I remembered the smooth pebble she had pressed into my hand. The lost runestone.

“No.”

Bjolfur’s soul was anchored to the ocean floor until the end of the world. His only relief from wandering the black depths, through the wreckage of a thousand ships, would come when the Winds finally managed to break free of their prison and Bjolfur would be conscripted to fight for them in the prophesied final god-war.

Sounds of people seeped into the world like sunlight breaking through the morning, but none of it broke the silence between us. It was as though my grief and failure had locked me out of the world.

“Where’s the runestone? We can go and do it now.”

“I don’t know. I lost it when the Wind-hunters kicked me off the cliff.”

Sif’s eyes widened and a lock of blonde hair fell over her face.

“They kicked you off a cliff?” she said.

I nodded. “I went to throw the runestone and they were there. They overpowered me.”

“Thank the gods you’re safe.” She squeezed my hand. “I’ll make you another runestone and we’ll do the ritual together, okay?”

Sif smiled and the runes tattooed across her cheekbones stretched and lifted. I couldn’t read the gods’ words in those black, twisted lines but the compassion in Sif’s eyes was clear.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m staying with Fjola. Do you know where she is?”

“I’ve visited a few times when the children have been ill.” Sif nodded, then her mouth quirked into another smile. “And a couple of times when Ulfur’s sworn to me he’s dying of some ailment, but I tell you, every time it’s just been a hangover.”

I chuckled at the image of the big man lying in bed because he couldn’t handle his ale.

We sat together for a time and let the sounds of the world wash over us.

“I’m sorry, Edda, for what happened.”

I shrugged. I didn’t trust myself to speak without my tongue giving in to grief or rage.

“Bjolfur was a good man and a brave warrior. If anyone deserved to throw their shield onto the pyre at the end of the raiding season, it was him.”

“What...” I trailed off as black feathers clogged my throat. “What will happen...”

“First, we pray over the runestone then cast it into the sea. It will draw Bjolfur’s soul and the Sea Giants to it, no matter where the tide takes it. Once the Sea Giants meet Bjolfur, they’ll offer him sanctuary in their deep palaces. He’ll be safe there. He won’t be forced to fight when the end of the world comes. He’ll never go hungry and never feel pain. He’ll be an honoured guest and asked to tell tales from his life.”

Sif’s voice was gentle. Her words spoken softly to ease their weight. Bjolfur was dead but hearing about his final journey—one that he had to take without me—felt like pouring saltwater over an open wound.

“If he comes to the runestone once we cast it... will we be able to see him? Can I say goodbye?”

“No.”

I glanced at Sif. Her face scrunched into a pained expression, and for a moment she wouldn’t look at me.

“I’m sorry, Edda. Only powerful, highly skilled god-speakers and rune-weavers can speak with the dead. Even then, all the rituals I know are for ghosts tethered to the earth, not lost to the sea. I’m sorry.”

I took a deep breath and nodded. The pain in my ribs ebbed away, lost against the well of loss within my soul. A cold tear rolled down my cheek like thaw from a frozen stream.

“It’s fine. Thank you.”

I pushed myself up and started to walk away.

Sif clambered up behind me and put her hand on my shoulder.

“Wait, Edda, let me pray for you.”

I swallowed down a barbed response. The gods had abandoned me, they let the ocean’s deep jaws take my husband, and their laws gave my gold to a greedy stain of a man. Prayers would do nothing, but it might help Sif feel better.

I nodded.

She took my head in her hands and closed her eyes.

“Warrior, Mother, Father. Hear me. Take note of Edda Gretasdottir, who is lost in her grief. Her soul is wounded by love’s cruel loss and I beg you to ease her suffering. She needs you, Mother, to be comforted. She needs you, Warrior, to give her strength. And she needs you, Father, to see clearly the path before her.”

My jaws bunched at her words. I did not need the gods’ pity. It was my convictions that pulled me on. I survived because I fought, not because the gods defended me. I was strong enough alone. But Sif spoke with compassion so I held my tongue.

The runes tattooed across her cheeks flickered and the familiar, dull heat of magic pressed in from her fingertips.

I remembered the last time Sif’s magic had touched me. My knife had slipped whilst I butchered a deer and I nearly sliced the meat from my forearm. By the time Sif arrived, I was dizzy from blood loss, but she saved me. Her magic soaked into me with the warmth of summer and my flesh leaned together like flowers towards the sun. Then there was only a scar.

This time was different.

Instead of leaking into me like sunlight, it poured against me then ebbed away. I felt some measure of comfort as the power flowed over me and then it was gone and all I was left with was my cold grief.

Sif frowned at me. She let her hands slowly fall to her sides. Her gaze flickered between my eyes, and with it came a silent question.

“I’ll be fine,” I said and turned to go. “I’ll see you later.”

The weight of Sif’s gaze dug in between my shoulder blades.

“Take care of yourself, Edda, we don’t want to lose you too.”

I raised a hand without turning and walked away.

 

*

 

It took Dagnur’s people a couple of days to start clearing the wreckage of my home.

They surged over it like waves sweeping up driftwood. I sat on a rise overlooking everyone, picking at my scars, and watched Ingvar try to direct the salvagers, but they were largely ignoring him. The sound of axes, saws, and falling branches came from the forest as others collected the materials for the new house.

Ingvar shouted something, waving his arms wildly. When no one responded he took a deep breath, like he was preparing to charge a shield wall, and tried to pick up an enormous piece of burnt timber. His face contorted with effort, but it didn’t move. He strained again. His feet slid about in the ashes and he went nowhere. I rolled my eyes and went over to help him.

“You were never going to be able to move this on your own,” I said.

“That’s the reason I asked Hildr and Sten to give me some assistance.” He wiped his ash and sweat covered face on the back of his sleeve. “Will you help me?”

“Sure.”

I planted my feet wide and lodged my shoulder against the thick wood. Looking down I saw it extended further into the wreckage than I realised and it was bigger and heavier than I first thought.

“Okay,” Ingvar said. “On three.”

He counted down. I pushed. There was a little resistance. Then, the dust sloughed off like water from a rising shipwreck. The wood growled as we dragged it out of the house then gave a wumph as we let it fall. I slapped the ash from my hands and clothes and turned to compare the timber to the rest of the burnt pieces. Ingvar hadn’t moved.

“Why didn’t you help?”

“I tried. You moved it before I could.”

I shrugged and made my way back over the slope. I sat down with my back to the house, to keep the image of my razed life out of sight. Ingvar came to sit next to me and I went back to picking my scars.

“Edda, how long were you underwater for that night?”

The question hit me like a sucker punch. Suddenly I was falling again, the churning hungry waves devoured me, and my lungs were heavy with saltwater.

I took a few deep breaths to steady myself, to prove there was air to breathe.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think I passed out when I hit the water. All I remember is waking up on the beach in the morning. I must have floated over to the cove where I woke up.”

Ingvar looked at me like he was searching for something deep in my eyes.

“I think you died out there, Edda,” he whispered.

My mind sank again to the sea floor where Bjolfur’s soul wandered under the weight of the waves and how badly I had wanted to join him. If only I had drowned.

“I didn’t die. I’m still here.”

Ingvar shook his head. “Do you know how Windborn are created?”

“Of course, everyone knows the stories.”

He raised his eyebrows.

The implications hit me like a tidal wave: the Windborn were resurrected by the Winds and given strength and powers beyond their mortal limitations.

“You think I died and the Winds brought me back? Just because I picked up a piece of burnt wood?”

Ingvar had the grace to blush. He gestured over to the timbers that had been removed from the house.

“It’s not just that you moved a piece of wood, Edda. Look at it. It’s the biggest piece. It’s taken at least two people to move all of the others. There’s no way one person could move that on their own, but you did like it was nothing.”

“Oh come on.” I shook my head. The lengths men go to protect their egos. “Just because you couldn’t lift it on your own.”

“It’s not just that,” he said, gently, and put one hand on my arm. “Back in the hall, during your scuffle with Mata and Njal, your eyes lit up. There was a light in them dancing like the Winds.”

“That was just the torchlight reflecting off their armour.” I shook his hand off. “I’m not Windborn.”

Even as I said it I remembered the little details from the last few days. The marrow-deep cold the first night I stayed with Fjola. The hoar frost that collected on my arms overnight. And now I had moved an entire roof beam on my own.

I turned my hands over to examine my scars. Instead of shadows of old wounds they seemed to shine in the sunlight. I looked closer and realised that they were icing over like streams in winter.

“Sif said she noticed something too,” Ingvar went on. “She couldn’t tell what it was, but she said that something went wrong with her magic. She’s not seen that before. I think it all points to you being Windborn.”

He glanced at me apologetically, as though this revelation could somehow make my life worse. I looked away from Ingvar and cast my eye over the demolition of my old home and shook my head. I sighed and lay back on the hill.

“So what if I am Windborn? It doesn’t change anything.”

Ingvar frowned and chewed his lip.

“It might. There are a lot of laws involving Windborn. I was sent here as the law-keeper for a small farming community. My studies focused on property ownership, farming practices, and inheritance laws. I have a basic knowledge of raiding, but Windborn are another matter entirely. I know that it’s illegal for them to do whatever they want, but beyond that, I’m not sure what the restrictions on Windborn are. Whatever they might be, I think you know that Dagnur won’t let you go back to farming.”

I wanted to ask him why, to make him say it, but I knew.

Even with the gold that he had stolen, Dagnur would find some way to put me in his debt whether he charged me for the cost of materials or to replace the dead livestock. If he found out that I was Windborn then I would become another prize to be paraded in front of his peers. He wouldn’t waste me herding chickens. I would become a tool to him, nothing more.

I rubbed at my eyes. It seemed that every day my plans cracked and crumbled away. Exhaustion soaked into my bones.

“Then we won’t tell him,” I said. “Dagnur won’t keep me here if he doesn’t know. Once the farm’s rebuilt I’ll take whatever’s left and leave.”

Ingvar shifted, uneasy at the idea of keeping something from Dagnur. Ingvar had sworn to advise and help the village chief, but he also knew how exploitative Dagnur was.

“The winter Althing will be held soon,” he said. “I will be travelling there next week. There will be law-keepers from the halls of the High King. They know the laws regarding Windborn. I will come to you first when I return, and then we can decide what to do.”

“We’ll decide. You and me, not Dagnur?”

Ingvar cast his eyes down, then shook his head. “Not Dagnur. I’m here to help everyone, Edda. If Dagnur asks a direct question about you being Windborn then I will have to tell him, but I don’t have to volunteer the information.”

Trust a law-keeper to leap through a loophole so quickly.

I watched the clouds overhead. If I stayed then I may as well help rebuild the house, but my newfound strength would raise questions that Dagnur would want to know the answers to. I steered my thoughts to the Althing. I had heard that local law-keepers’ decisions could be overturned at the Althing. If I could appeal to the High King’s law-keepers then I could pry my hoard out of Dagnur’s hands. I grinned at the prospect and sat up.

“I’m coming with you to the Althing.”

“What?” Ingvar twisted to look at me. “Why?”

“You think I’m going to stay here and let Dagnur boss me around?”

“If Dagnur’s going to allow you to come with me, then he’ll need a good reason.”

“Dagnur can go fuck himself if he thinks I’m asking permission. If you need to give him an excuse, tell him that I can’t bear to see my home being torn down.”

“Okay,” Ingvar sighed. “I’ll tell him, but he’s not going to be happy about it.”

“I don’t care.”

We watched the landscape for a little while. The noise of construction started up behind us; someone yelled, and something crashed to the ground.

Once this hilltop had been full of the smells and sounds of a farmstead. Bjolfur had always said that home smelt like chicken shit and fire smoke. He had been joking, but not wrong. Now that those smells were gone, the hilltop didn’t feel like home. It felt empty, barren.

Perhaps once my appeal at the Althing was granted I could start somewhere new, but how long would it be until it felt like home?

“Wait,” I said, frowning as I realised something. “Doesn’t the Althing start in the third week of winter?”

“It does.”

“Shouldn’t you be preparing to leave now, then? You’ll never get there in time if you leave next week.”

“We’re going along the river,” he said. He sighed the slow deflating breath of the constantly exasperated. “Dagnur wants to show off his longship.”

“Show it off?” A bitter laugh boiled out of me. “He’s never seen another raiding vessel, has he? That thing was half the size of the longships we saw over the summer.”

“I know,” he said and shook his head. “Dagnur insists that any ship is a good ship. He won’t be talked out of it.”

I shook my head. Dagnur’s desperate desire to elevate himself only served to make him sound like a child screeching for attention. Next to the longships of the kings and chieftains who would attend the Althing, Dagnur’s ship would look like a rowboat.

My mind turned to the journey, to being stuck on the small vessel and the constant peak and trough of the keel. The thought of water beneath me again sent my head spinning. My stomach twisted as I remembered the sound of the waves slapping against the belly of the longship, the water clawing at us as we carved through it.

Ingvar was talking, something about arbitration, recompense and blood-debts but the words were lost under the hiss of the waves in my ears.

My breathing became rapid, shallow. I felt light-headed.

“Edda? Edda.”

The sharp concern in Ingvar’s voice dragged me out of my mental whirlpool and his firm hand on my shoulder anchored me to the present.

“Edda, are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine. I just need a moment.”

A few more deep breaths and the world balanced again.

“I’m not going to the Althing on that boat. There are too many bad memories on board.”

Ingvar leaned back, taking his hand from my shoulder. He opened his mouth, to protest maybe, but closed it as our eyes met. Whatever he saw there would not be argued with.

“Of course,” he said. “Then you will have to stay here. It is too late for us to travel over land. It will take too long for the wagons to navigate the mountain roads.”

“No,” I said. “I’m not staying here and I’m not taking the boat.”

Ingvar frowned at me then offered me a soft smile. “I don’t know what else you can do, Edda.”

“I’ll take the roads and meet you there.”

“It’s too late, Edda,” he said softly. “To make it in time you will need to leave today. Or tomorrow at the latest. It will still take too long.”

“Then I need to pack.”

I slapped Ingvar on the shoulder then used him to push myself upwards. I brushed the ash from my clothes and walked away from the hill where my house once stood.