“I know my father, and you aren’t him,” she replied without missing a beat.
“Ulla?” he asked her, sounding very confused.
“No, that’s me.” I raised my hand weakly, and I couldn’t even force a smile. “That’s me.”
“Oh.” He narrowed his eyes at me, then glanced back over at Dagny. “You’re Ulla Tulin?” I nodded. “Sorry about that.” He shook his head, then smiled and walked over to me. “She looked more like me. It doesn’t matter.”
He waved it off, but he wasn’t wrong. Both he and Dagny had black hair, compared to my dirty blond; darker olive skin compared to my pale tan; and dark eyes where mine were amber.
“This isn’t exactly how I pictured this would go.” He sounded kind of rattled, but his mouth seemed fixed in a permanent smirk.
“I can’t say it’s picturesque for me either,” I muttered.
“My name is Indu Mattison, and I believe that I am the father of … of you. Ulla.”
“Um.” My mouth felt dry, and I swallowed hard to see if that would help. “Okay.”
“Should we go somewhere to talk?” he suggested. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions, that we have a lot to discuss. There’s a nice tea shop down the road.”
“I can go with you, if you want,” Pan offered.
“Sure. Okay,” I said, not because I wanted to go, but because I didn’t know how to say no. And even if I didn’t want it to be the truth, if it was I needed to face it head-on. And Pan’s presence would help.
We walked a short way down the road, Pan and Indu amiably carrying on mundane chatter about gädda fish, which I was grateful for because it kept the silence from closing in. Thankfully, Tella’s Te’Butik was only a few doors down from Öhaus on the Trylle side of the island, and it was a cozy little tea shop/café.
We sat at a little table by the door, me and Pan on one side and Indu across from us. Folk music with too much flute and twangy lyre was playing softly on the stereo, and the whole place smelled like stale potpourri.
Indu ordered us a small pot of white tea for the table, and a small tray of finger sandwiches he called “sweet jam breads.” The way the waitress talked to him, I gathered that he was a regular, and I couldn’t believe how enmeshed the Älvolk had become on Isarna, despite how little anyone really knew about them.
“Violetta Indudottir,” he said, beaming down at me. “That was what your name was to have been.”
“Violetta Indudottir,” I repeated, and it felt strange on my tongue. Not like a sting, but not like a butterfly. Something sharp and sweet, something that made tears form in my eyes, but I blinked them back. “Why after you? Why not my mother?”
“They don’t use surnames in her tribe.”
“What tribe is she?” I asked.
“She’s—” He started to reply, but the waitress returned with a ceramic teapot, delicately painted with blue vines, and a small platter of dark rye-bread triangles layered with a cloudberry jam.
Once the waitress had gone, he finished, “Well, she’s álfar.”
“What? No.” I shook my head, but he poured the tea into our cups, unfazed. “If you’re Älvolk, my mother is Omte.”
“Why? How are those two things connected?” he asked, incredulous.
“I did a blood test. Elof told me that I’m Omte.” I motioned toward myself, my mismatched eyes. “And, I mean, look at me. I’m Omte.”
“It’s all understandable, and try the tea while it’s still warm,” he directed between bites of his jam sandwiches. Pan did as he was told, sipping the tea and making an audible mmm afterward.
“The Älvolk are powerful, and not many of the other tribes make for suitable mates,” Indu explained. “I didn’t know my mother, but it was likely she was Omte or had some Omte blood in her. I mean, she must have, since you do!”
“So I’m … I’m half-álfar.” I leaned back in my chair, digesting what he’d said. “That’s the part that Elof couldn’t figure out. What was my mom like?”
“She was a beautiful, amazing woman. Truly something special, and so loving. She adored you, even before you were born. She’s the one who picked out your name.” His smile was nearly wistful when he said, “Violetta.”
“Then why did you…” I furrowed my brow, trying to understand. “If she loved me, and you did, then why was I abandoned in Iskyla?”
“Iskyla? That’s where you ended up?” He scowled and shook his head. “I never checked. I thought she wouldn’t go that far with a newborn.”
“My mother ran off with me? Is that what you’re saying?” I asked.
“Your mother? No,” he insisted emphatically. “No, she would never have given you up. It was that overzealous guard Orra. She kidnapped you when you were only days old.”
“You’re talking about Orra Fågel? She kidnapped me?”
Indu looked at me in confusion, then he waved his hand. “This will be easier if I go back to the beginning. I’m an Älvolk, the same as my father, Mattis Elrikson, and his father, Elrik Ulfson, before him.
“As an Älvolk, I was raised to guard and protect Áibmoráigi and all the secrets within,” he summarized. “We were once solitary, but over the last century we have begun to interact with the modern tribes.”
“The modern tribes?” I snorted, thinking of their reluctance to use technology or advance past our ancient traditions.
“That is what we call you. The arrangement has been mostly beneficial, but there have been some setbacks.” He frowned, his eyes downcast as he spoke.
I wondered if he was thinking of some of the horror stories that Pan had read about back when we’d been in Fulaträsk. The ones with blodseider magick and sacrifice.
I wondered if they were just stories, or if they were true.
“One of the setbacks happened around twenty years ago,” Indu said. “The Omte had a young King, and, like many unfortunate young men, he’d become obsessed with childish tales of treasure. He’d originally pursued legends of his namesake, the Nordic god Thor, but when those proved to be untrue, he’d latched onto the Älvolk and the First City.
“Then he came here, trampling over the countryside, causing trouble everywhere he went.” The distaste was dripping from his words. “This ‘King,’ if you could even call him that, he was an elk in a flower garden. Such a destructive force.
“Of course, he couldn’t travel alone, royalty never does,” Indu said with a derisive laugh. “Orra Fågel was a guard, or relative of some kind? Cousin, perhaps? I can’t say anymore. But they grew enraged that your mother and I wouldn’t help them find Áibmoráigi or cross the Lost Bridge. As revenge against us, Orra kidnapped you and hid you away.”
“That doesn’t explain how you met my mother,” I pointed out.
“No, I suppose that was the story of how I met your kidnapper,” he admitted, and this time his smirk seemed like it was on purpose. “Your mother was an álfar, a hidden tribe from across the Lost Bridge. She never allowed me to cross, the way we can’t allow just anyone to visit Áibmoráigi.”
“But she came over?” I asked.
“Yes, the álfar are able to cross on occasion,” Indu explained. “We never know ahead of time, and I doubt we know every time. But sometimes they will visit us. All of our mothers are from other tribes, and some Älvolk, their mothers are álfar, and they like to keep in touch with them.”
“All mothers are from other tribes?” I asked. “Are there no female Älvolk?”
“All Älvolk are male, but the thrimavolk are our daughters,” he said.
I sneered. “So there’s males and daughters? That’s it?”
He narrowed his eyes slightly, and when he answered, the words were slow and deliberate. “There may be other designations outside of us, but in Áibmoráigi, the sons are Älvolk and the daughters are thrimavolk.”
“Right.” I gave up on pressing, because I doubted I’d get anything from him. But I couldn’t really be surprised that an ancient cult that maybe dabbled in blodseider magick also had really regressive ideas about gender.
“What are the thrimavolk?” Pan asked, getting the conversation back on track.
So far, he’d mostly been sitting there quietly, sipping tea, munching on food, and lending me moral support with his presence. He wasn’t saying much, but I didn’t need him to. Knowing that he was here with me and I didn’t have to face Indu on my own made me feel a lot more capable and strong.
“They’re a form of guard,” he said, still speaking in that careful way, and then he looked at me. “My daughter, your half-sister Noomi, she is a thrimavolk. She can explain it to you better when we go to Áibmoráigi and you meet her.”
My heart double-jumped, and I heard Pan choking on his tea beside me. “We’re going to Áibmoráigi?”
“Yes,” he said matter-of-factly. “You’re my daughter. I want to show you who you are.”