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Rostfar slumped over the table in the moothall and put her head in her hands. Marken had made tea, but hers remained untouched. Laethen and Hrall sat watching, waiting. Expecting a story. But this was the first story Rostfar had ever encountered that she didn’t know how to tell.
“Things were supposed to change,” she whispered to the tabletop. “I thought we’d have a new world for Ket to wake up to, one where she could grow up without fear. That’s what Urdven died for.”
“Change won’t happen overnight,” Nat said from where she sat on Rostfar’s left. Her voice was soft, but that didn’t lessen the bite of her words.
“I know,” Rostfar admitted. “Doesn’t stop it feeling wrong, though, like we’re all one slip away from going back to how things were.”
“We’re not,” Laethen said fiercely. “Are we, Hrall?”
Hrall didn’t reply. He sat in the chair furthest from the door, arms folded, eyes distant.
“Yrl Hrallvir?” Laethen prompted.
Hrall finally turned and looked at Rostfar through unfocused eyes. “You’re saying that Norðunn is – out there, alive, in that forest? That she chose the Wolvenkind?”
“No. Well, I don’t know for certain – it’s so complicated. There’s a whole history we . . . Oh, I don’t know where to start.”
“Start with the wolves,” Marken suggested. “If you want us all to understand them like you do.”
Rostfar took a deep breath, and told it. She told Hrall and Laethen about how Estene had made her remain in Deothwicc after laying eyes on the Speaking Tree. About how she had slowly adjusted to life in Deothwicc and the ways of the Wolvenkind. The words became easier the longer she talked. She recounted every strange vision and brush with the wyrdness; the way the forest seemed to come alive for her, welcome her, in a way nothing ever had before. She talked about Yrsa and Grae and Estene and the rest of the pack, and all they had been through. Then Rostfar told them what she knew about the hrafmaer and Ylla’s decision to cleave away their history. She left out the truth about Ýgren and Aethren’s lineage, but explained the rest in as much detail as she could.
When Rostfar finished, she saw that everyone’s drinks were untouched. They were all staring at her, eyes misty, wrapped up in the story she had spun. Rostfar took a self-conscious sip of her cold tea.
“You’ll need to talk to Aethren when they’re up to it,” she said, desperate to break the odd stillness. “There’s things only they can tell you.”
Laethen blinked as if woken from sleep. Hrall rubbed his forehead. Nat discreetly dabbed her eyes with the corner of her cloak.
“I don’t like it,” Hrall said. “I didn’t like what Ethy and Faren were doing but I don’t like all this about us being fine with magic and wolves, either. It isn’t fine. None of this is.”
Rostfar was hurt. She should have expected it, and yet Hrall’s words cut deeper than the frightened eyes of the crowd. “I’ll leave then,” she said.
Hrall stood and walked around the table. He remained motionless before her for a few moments, twisting his fingers together – and then incredibly, unbelievably, he knelt. His hands were raised towards her, somewhere between supplication and a warding-off gesture. “Nobody but you ever gave me real hope for our future, Rostfar. I’ve watched this town stagnate over the years and part of me has always known it’s our fear and hatred of magic that holds us back, but that doesn’t mean I know how to let those fears go. Can you forgive an old man his weaknesses?”
“Oh, Hrall . . .” Rostfar reached down and took his hands where they trembled in the air above her knees. They were wrinkled and calloused, cool beneath her touch; the same hands that had patiently shown her how to hold a spear and build a trap. “I can’t,” she whispered – because she couldn’t do anything but whisper. These were some of the hardest words she had ever said. “I have to demand more – I’ve come too far and lost too much for me to demand anything else. But I believe in you. I always have.”
Hrall’s head remained bowed over her knees for a long time. When at last he looked up, there were tears streaming down his wrinkled cheeks. Rostfar helped him back to his feet and into the chair beside her.
“Thank you.” He had to choke the words out. “We need time, Rostfar. Marken and Kristan are trusted – indispensable, I mean. Their return won’t be so hard. But you and those closest to you – if I thought that you’d be welcomed back—”
“Hrall, stop,” Rostfar said gently. “Just – promise me this won’t all’ve been for nothing, okay?”
“I promise,” Hrall croaked.
“There’s one of the wolves, Grae, who might help,” Nat said. “He’d be like an . . . ambassador, of sorts. It will be slow, and difficult, and I expect there’d be resistance – but he wishes to learn, and hopes you will too.”
Laethen frowned – thoughtfully, though. Not in disagreement. “We can make that work, I think. There’s much for me, Hrall and Marken to discuss.” She leaned back in her chair and tapped her fingers on the table. “Hrall, Marken, Natta – would you wait outside? I’d like to talk to Rost alone for a moment.”
Marken seemed reluctant, but Rostfar nodded for him to go. As soon as the door closed behind the others, Laethen relaxed. She had always dealt with scrutiny and leadership far better than Rostfar, but she’d confessed more than once that she didn’t enjoy it. Rostfar couldn’t blame her.
Laethen rubbed her temples with one hand. Her other hand lay protectively, idly, on the soft bump of her belly. “I want to ask you something. About Magna.”
"Is he okay?" Rostfar asked, alarmed.
"Well, he—" Laethen’s voice caught. Was that panic in her shaking breaths, or upset? Rostfar offered a comforting hand regardless, and Laethen took it gladly. "He's always been a little different. Bright, but sort of too bright, if that makes sense? He's got a knack for knowing things he shouldn't, and claims he just heard it somewhere when we ask. Me 'n Vinni tried not to think about it, but now . . . He remembers his time asleep, when he was sick. None of the others do. And he says – says that it was your Ket who woke them. That she called and brought them back, and he followed her into the currents. He says he saw all kinds of strange and wonderful things ‘up there’, wherever that is.”
"What're you saying?"
"I think he's got – that he's like—" Laethen made an unsteady gesture towards Rostfar.
"That he's wyrdsaer?” Rostfar suggested. When Laethen looked blank, she added, “Touched by the wyrdness?"
Laethen nodded and buried her face in her hands. Looking at her, apparently struck by grief at this revelation, Rostfar couldn't help but feel a flush of irritation. She withdrew her hand.
"He's still your son, Laethen. You needn't act like this’s something to be scared of."
Laethen looked up from her hands. "What? No, you misunderstand me!
I'm scared for him. I'm scared because I don't want him to be lonely, Rost-Skelda. It must've been so lonely for you and Ket both, and I keep thinking how hard it was for you. Ket's nightmares, everything that's happened to you – I don't want him to feel alone in this." She drew in a deep breath, then asked a question that left Rostfar reeling: "Will you teach him?"
"Um," Rostfar said. She took a drink of her cold tea again as something to do, then grimaced as the tealeaves hit the back of her throat. "Teach him?"
"There's got to be things he has to learn. How to make sense of it, how to – well, use it, I suppose. I don't know how any of it works." Laethen gave an embarrassed shrug. "That's rather the point. I could bring him out to Eahalr now and then, and you and Ket can do . . . whatever it means to be what you said – wyrdsaer – with him."
Rostfar couldn't believe her ears. "You're serious, aren't you?"
"Yes," Laethen said, simple but bold. "It's the best way I can think of to make sure he doesn't feel wrong."
Rostfar found herself blinking back tears. "Thank you.”
"Thank you?" Laethen just stared at her. “What’re you thanking me for?”
“For wanting better for him. I can’t even begin to tell you how much that means.”
Laethen smiled. “I haven’t much enjoyed this stint as Dannaskeld, but I’m thinking I’ll put myself in for Dannhren, if Nat-Hrenna won’t. Our children need a better world.”
“So do we.”
“Indeed we do,” Laethen agreed. “And I’m ready to help you make it.”
