None of them wanted to eat. Larch, being a good soldier, forced down cheese and old biscuits with a swig of cider, and bullied Poppy kindly until she did the same. Jelica shook her head.
“After,” she said.
They sat at the back of the cottage and waited for the sun to go down, then went inside and waited more, until the stars had wheeled almost halfway through their nightly course.
Jelica kept the shutters open so that the bright northern starlight could shine through. There was a moon, too. A beautiful night. Poppy sat and shook with cold and nerves, until Larch came over to her and crouched next to her chair.
“You’re planning something,” she said, half-accusingly. Jelica looked at her, eyes picking up the light like a cat’s.
“There might be a sure way to bring him,” Poppy said reluctantly. “Dangerous, though.”
Jelica laughed shortly. “Dangerous anyroad. What way?”
“My grammer once used the blank stone as the new flint.”
A sound came out of Jelica as though she’d been punched in the belly, a big “whouf” of noise.
“She must have been mad!”
“They couldn’t find a new flint for the third night,” Poppy apologized.
“What third night?” Larch asked.
She knew so little—were they right to take her to this calling? But the ritual demanded that there should always be three women, at least.
“Three nights, at Spring Equinox,” she explained to Larch, “the women of the old blood go to the black rock altars and strike new fire, with an unused flint, and… call Him.”
“And He comes?”
“Always,” Jelica confirmed, a note in her voice of remembered pleasure. “Always. And never any harm.”
“But there must be a new flint each night, or He doesn’t come, and that’s… bad luck.” How to explain it to one of Acton’s blood, that deep, bone-deep bond; the three nights of mounting desire and yearning, the heated blood, the liquid touch… She had a new image of love, now she’d met Larch, but even so she shook with the memory of His touch. To not finish, to not have the third night—there were stories about women who’d simply pined away if they’d been prevented from worshipping; or killed themselves, unable ever to satisfy their desire; or killed others.
“Bad luck,” Larch repeated. “But we don’t have three nights.”
“It’s not Equinox,” Poppy said.
“Then why should He come?”
“Might not,” Jelica said. “But it’s worth trying.” There was a note in her voice that worried Poppy. Desperation.
The altar was so small that Poppy almost missed it in the dark; without the faint susurration of the gods’ voices in her head, she would have stumbled past it. They fled away as Jelica approached and the stonecaster turned as if to watch them fly, her face, even in the moonlight, clearly troubled.
“They’ll come back,” Poppy reassured her. Jelica shrugged and nodded, but Larch looked at her strangely, and she felt the point just below her breastbone grow suddenly heavy. She knew that look; it was the one that said, “Strange. Freak.” Seeing it on Larch’s face hurt a great deal.
Larch took a step toward her and stared into her eyes, her own guarded.
“What do you see?”
“I hear the gods,” Poppy whispered. “Softly, like whispering. My mam can take them inside herself so they speak with her mouth, but I can’t.”
The corner of Larch’s mouth quirked up. “Glad to know that.” Her shoulders lost their tension. “Do we do the chanting now?”
Poppy smiled at her. Perhaps Larch would be one of those amazing ones, like her own father, who could just accept the gods without feeling tainted. “Aye,” she said. “Tinder and prayer and flint. One to prime, one to hold, one to strike, three to call.”
Obeying the instructions they had given her, Larch carefully put a nest of birch fungus tinder on the low surface of the altar. It was only a fragment of rock, barely larger than her foot. But it was a place of worship, none the less, and enough for their needs.
Poppy put her striking stone down by the tinder, and Jelica, last and oldest, placed the new flint next to it. The blank stone, which meant that anything could happen.
Poppy squeezed Larch’s hand.
“We are daughters of Fire,” they said together, the three voices blending oddly: Jelica’s strong and dark, Poppy high and certain, Larch’s almost a whisper. “Daughters of Mim the Firestealer, Mim the Firelover, Mim the Fire’s love. The fire must never die.”
They crouched next to the altar. Larch made a cup of her hands around the tinder, Poppy took up the striking stone, and Jelica raised the flint and brought it down smoothly in one motion. Sparks flew.
“Take our breath to speed your growth,” Poppy said quietly as Larch blew. She had watched as they’d tried this at the fort, over and over, striking sparks only to watch them die out. But no one, under Arvid’s angry eye, had called Him properly.
“The fire will never die,” Jelica said, so clearly that Poppy jumped as if she’d shouted. “Come on, my lord, you know me! Haven’t I served you well?” Her voice dropped to a whisper, a plea, yearning so deep in it that Poppy felt her whole body ache in response. “Kept myself just for you, didn’t I?” Jelica whispered, her breath taking one of the sparks and fanning it. It glowed in the darkness. “Don’t let the fire die!” Jelica begged. Poppy wanted to look away. It wasn’t right, to hear this from a stranger—from anyone. It was like spying on a marriage bed.
But the spark caught.
Quickly, they added more tinder, and then more, as the flames licked more strongly, more cleanly. They stood up.
And He came. The fire flared out impossible heat, far too much for the amount of fuel they had given it.
Every other time, on the higher altars, He had towered above her; now He was closer, barely taller than a man. It was curiously disturbing, as though He had come within her reach in a new way.
Larch took a step backward, and Poppy stood still, but Jelica moved close, her face turned up as though to the summer sun.
“Why did you abandon us?” she demanded.
There was His face, as it had been in the wedding fire which had consumed Osfrid. Terrible, wonderful; she felt herself melt through with a mixture of desire and fear, confusing and exhilarating. Larch clutched her hand, but she couldn’t look away from Him.
Fire gazed down at Jelica as though she and Larch weren’t there.
“Angelica,” He said, His voice as full of love as any bridegroom’s. “I had reason.”
“Ice is coming!”
“You are strong, here in the north,” He said, laughing. “You will triumph, if your princess does. But I have business elsewhere!”
The flames began to die away. “No!” Jelica howled, throwing out her hands as if to clasp Him.
He paused, and smiled, a long slow smile full of desire and—yes, surely it was affection. Surely. Poppy could hear Larch’s breathing, ragged, beside her, and only that stopped her walking forward. “Then come to me,” He said. He opened His arms.
“No, Jelica!” Poppy cried out.
But Jelica surged forward and took His hands. He swept her into an embrace, into a column of flame, just like Osfrid, just like Osfrid. Larch screamed. Poppy felt the heat of desire consummated sweep through her, like on the third night of the Equinox; as Fire surged and climbed and then disappeared, all in an instant, she felt Jelica’s joy.
There wasn’t even ash left behind. It had happened so quickly, not even a smell remained. He had not hurt her, but He had taken her completely, as if she had never existed.