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Rostfar woke up on a bed of furs with a stone roof over her head. It was all a dream, said a horrified little voice in the back of her head; it never happened, and now you have to go back to pretending.
But no, that couldn’t be right. Dreams didn’t cause pain like this. Her throat felt full of shingle and a drum beat incessantly beneath her skull. She turned her head slowly, a hair’s-breadth at a time, and squinted through bleary eyes at the rest of the room.
Mati was slumped in a hard chair with his head nodding on his chest.
“Mati,” Rostfar choked his name, and panic flooded out of her. She tried to sit up, to escape, and suddenly Mati’s arms were around her waist. “I can’t be here – not in Erdansten. I can’t go back—”
“Rost, listen – Rostfar.” Mati moved his hands to her shoulders. “We’re not in Erdansten.”
Rostfar’s back hit the wall. A stone wall. Not built of mortared-together slabs or bricks, but smooth and unbroken granite. Her eyes travelled up to the ceiling that domed above them, seamless and perfect save for the small smoke-hole in its centre.
“Where are we?” Rostfar asked, even though she thought she knew the answer.
“Eahalr,” Mati said. He rested one hand on the back of her neck and rubbed firm, gentle circles with his fingers. “We’ve been here a week or so now. You – you were gone for quite a while, Rost. Gave us a real scare.”
Rostfar pressed her face into his upper arm. A hard knot of fear sat on her chest, making it difficult to breathe. She didn’t want to be here in this drowned and dreary waste; she wanted to be in Deothwicc, warm in her den with Mati and Isha and Arketh as the forest thrived around them.
But Deothwicc had burned. And now that home was lost to her, too.
“How’s Isha?” Rostfar whispered without lifting her head.
“He’s healing. His ankle’s on the mend, and the burns on his hands weren’t so bad as Marken feared.”
“And everyone else?”
“Alive, Rost. We all made it out safe.” Mati gave her a brief squeeze. “Aethren’s been ill with an infection, but Marken, Nat and Krist are all doing as well as they could be. The hrafmaer seem okay, too, but it’s hard to tell with them. The others from Erdansten had cuts and nips, but the wolves weren’t trying to hurt them.”
Rostfar swallowed, almost too scared to ask her next question. “. . . the wolves?”
“They’re . . . alright.” She felt Mati cringe. “Well, not alright. They can’t be, I suppose. Yrsa was burned and Marken doesn’t know if her fur’s going to grow back. They don’t know where this one called Estene is for some reason, but they don’t seem as worried by that as I thought they would be—”
“She went away to have her pups. Only pack-mother and other pupping wolves know where the Pupping Dens are.”
“Oh. Well, Myr did that wyrd-thing and – spoke? I don’t know, do you speak with it? – Found out she’s fine, anyway. Grae burned his paws carrying you out, and Faren cut one of Myr’s eyes up quite badly. . .” Mati’s voice trailed off into sheepish silence, as if embarrassed by the grim information he was sharing. “Atta died. The rest are alive – hurt and grieving, but alive.”
The fear in Rostfar’s chest shifted slightly, giving her more room to breathe.
“What are you thinking?” he asked her.
“That I’m disappointed. That sounds awful, I know. But—” her voice broke. “Is this it? Have we just come back to where all this started?” Rostfar pulled away from Mati so she could hug her knees to her chest.
“We’re a long way from how things were, Rost,” Mati said gently. “What you did – Thrigg said it was you – it broke most people’s hunger to fight. It was like a nightmare, but it was real. I – I almost didn’t know who I was, and when it was over, I couldn’t even stand. The ones who didn’t fall were either insensate or scared shitless, and then there was this rain like – like—”
“Like tears?” Rostfar suggested.
“Yes,” Mati agreed after a ponderous silence. He peered down at her quizzically. “It tasted salty. Was that you?”
“Norðunn.”
“Oh.” Mati nodded, but still looked perplexed. It made Rostfar smile despite the mournful ache inside her. He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts and continued to fill in what Rostfar had missed. She listened in rapt silence as he explained how the fight had broken out again when Atta had run straight at the humans; how Ornhild had found Hrall tied up in Faren’s tent, then freed him so they could call for a retreat. Hrall, Ornhild, Nat, Marken, Myr and Thrigg had spent almost a full day seated out in the middle of the battlefield, deep in discussion. At last, Thrigg had suggested she open Deyjaholm so the humans could travel safely home and continue discussions there. Hrall had reluctantly agreed.
“Hrall – um, suggested – that we’d not be too welcome in Erdansten,” Mati finished. “He didn’t mean anything personal by it, I don’t think, but after everything . . .”
“They’re still scared,” Rostfar said. Mati bowed his head in grim agreement. “So, what? We’re exiled here now?”
“No, no! Hrall said he wants you to speak at a trialmoot. They want to get your side of the story, Rost. They want to listen.” Mati actually sounded hopeful, as if everything hadn’t gone entirely to ash. “Ornhild brought us lots of supplies so we’d be comfortable as possible, and she says the children’ve woken up. Marken’s been back ‘n forth and says they’re doing really well.”
Rostfar sank deep into the fur-covered pillow. She should have been pleased, but she was only numb. “What about Arketh?”
“She’s on her way to us,” Mati said, and Rostfar could hear the grin in his voice. “Flannað and Thrigg left three days ago to get her from Ylla. They’ll be back soon.”
“Oh.” Rostfar pressed both hands over her mouth. She could feel the shape of her smile beneath her fingers, but her joy was slow to come. It rose slowly, swelling inside her chest until it finally dislodged the weight there, and clear air rushed into her lungs. “Oh.” She rocked herself, knees hugged to her chest, eyes squeezed tightly shut.
For a while there was nothing save for the darkness behind her lids, and then Rostfar felt another body slotting into place at her side. Isha. He ran his fingers through her hair and kissed her temple.
“Ket’s coming home,” Rostfar crooned, finally looking up.
“Ket’s coming home,” Isha agreed, and the three of them began to laugh.
⁂
Yrsa found Grae sitting at the bridge that led to Rostfar’s stone den. Rostfar had woken the day before, but that didn’t seem to matter to Grae: he kept his vigil as he had while she slept, seated with his head high and eyes fixed on some distant place. He blinked and looked sharply at her as she stepped onto the sunken den.
“Grae—” Yrsa began, at the same time as he said, “Yrsa.”
They stopped. Eyed one another. The only sound came from the low hum of insects as they chirruped out their morning song.
Yrsa looked away first. It wasn’t that she couldn’t talk to Grae anymore, it was just . . . odd. Grae was still her littermate, but he felt unreachable now in a way that had nothing to do with him being unwolf. He had changed so much, but she didn’t know if she could say the same for herself.
“I might go and stay with the humans,” Grae said. “In Erdansten.”
Yrsa looked up at him disbelief. “You might what?”
“Well, not inside the town – not completely. Natta needs to speak with the council about it more, but Kristan says I could den just outside where the walls are crumbling.”
“But you – but I don’t – why?”
Grae lowered his head. “I need somewhere new. Not here.”
What about me? Yrsa wanted to ask – but that was the whole problem. She’d spent so long worrying about other people, she wasn’t sure what she wanted or needed for herself. Did she want Grae to stay, or did she just want things to go back to normal? Did she even want things to be normal again?
If the world changed, where would she fit inside it?
“Yrsa, please talk to me.” Grae’s voice was so small. So tentative.
“I don’t know what to say,” Yrsa admitted, and met Grae’s eyes. For all his uncertainty, he looked lighter. Like he’d shed most of the weight he’d been carrying since Nessen’s death. “I – I want you to stay.”
“I know,” Grae said. “But that’s part of why I can’t. You don’t need me, Yrsa.”
“Yes, I do!”
“No.” Grae padded closer and touched his nose to Yrsa’s neck. She swayed into him and inhaled his scent, almost surprised to realise it hadn’t changed. “I’ve got to learn how to live with my anger, and I think – maybe you need to learn how to live for yourself. We’re still littermates, Yrsa, and I’m not saying we can never see one another. I just think we need our own paths, too.”
Yrsa whined and nuzzled in beneath Grae’s head. He was right. By the Speaking Tree, he was right – and that made it hurt worse.
“Living with the humans matters to you,” Yrsa said. “Just like being unwolf matters?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m glad,” Yrsa told him, surprised by how much she meant it. She pulled back so she could meet his eyes. “I don’t understand – and I don’t need to understand to be happy for you. But I’d like to. Is that okay?”
“We have time to talk about it, Yrsa,” Grae said fondly. His tail and his pricked ears told her he was happy, even if the wyrdness around him was still clouded.
Yrsa tilted her head in a mixture of curiosity and surprise. “Listen to you, talking about future and possibilities. Who are you and what have you done with Grae?”
“There are possibilities to talk about now,” Grae said, and scuffed her playfully in the face.
Content in his company for the first time in weeks, Yrsa paced a few steps away and sent a soft pulse of Follow through the wyrdness. Grae didn’t follow. Of course. Yrsa flinched in embarrassment, but he hadn’t even noticed. He stood where she had left him, a perplexed expression in his ears and cocked head.
“I’ve found some bees building a hive in the carcass of a caribou,” Yrsa explained. “Do you want to go and watch them together?”
Grae perked up. “Race you?”
“Obviously,” Yrsa said, and took off at full speed.
