Iron Wolf E-Book

Siri Pettersen

• Herausgeber: Arctis US
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: Vardari
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 723

Beschreibung

Juva hates blood readers. Praised for their Sight, they are nothing but swindlers, preying on people's fears, for power and profit. Born by blood readers herself, she knows only too well, and she has vowed never to become one of them. But when her family is threatened by vardari, the eerie lasting ones, who never age, Juva is entangled in a desperate hunt for the blood readers' legacy: a dark secret that once changed the world, and may do so again. In order to survive, she has to confront the childhood memory she fought to forget: That time she saw the devil. Iron Wolf is a spellbinding fantasy mystery on a norse foundation, about blood, desire and addiction. It's the first book in the trilogy VARDARI, an independent series set in the universe of the award-winning fantasy phenomenon THE RAVEN RINGS

Leseprobe

Siri Pettersen

Vardari – Part 1

Iron Wolf

Translated by Tara Chace

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

This translation has been published with the financial support of NORLA, Norwegian Literature Abroad

W1-Media, Inc.

Imprint Arctis

Stamford, CT, USA

Copyright © 2023 by W1-Media Inc. for this edition

Text copyright © 2020 by Siri Pettersen by Agreement with Grand Agency

Jernulven first published in Norway by Gyldendal, 2020

First English-language edition published by W1-Media Inc./Arctis, 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,

electronoic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without

the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

The Library of Congress Control Number is available.

English translation copyright © by Tara Chace, 2023

Cover design copyright © Siri Pettersen

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

ISBN978-1-64690-615-4

www.arctis-books.com

To the wolves I run with.

And to you. You who are afraid. You who are held captive by inconceivable worries, by a merciless dread that can overtake you all of a sudden, when you least expect it. You who are fighting a war against your own body, fearing the sound of your own heartbeat. This is your book.

PROLOGUE

Nafraím opened the jar and sniffed the fish roe. The eggs were fresh, but there weren’t very many of them. He emptied them onto the linen tablecloth, which soaked up the remainder of the salt water.

He rolled one of the reddish pearls between his fingers and squeezed it slightly. The consistency was perfect, that gelatinous membrane you only got from harving roe, but it was hardly bigger than a barleycorn. This would require concentration and a steady hand.

He cracked his knuckles and pulled the lamp closer. The flame flickered, an irritation he would have to live with until he got the gaslights working. Three explosions in one month were reason enough to cast doubt on the entire experiment. Luckily, he had unlimited time to figure it out.

He rotated the magnifying glass, pulling it over the desk. The copper mountings squeaked. He adjusted the screws and tightened the frame around the lens. A makeshift instrument, he would be the first to admit, but this project had tremendous potential. And would also have to wait. First things first.

His fingers became a pale, grooved landscape under the magnifying lens. He picked up one fish egg and punctured the membrane. Then he squeezed gently. A drop of oil grew around the hole. It trembled, came free, and dripped onto the tablecloth below. The trick was not to squeeze too hard, because then the egg would tear. There was a delicate balance. He pressed until the membrane was flat between his fingers, then took a deep breath before the hard part.

He pulled the stopper out of the flask of blood and stuck the tip of the hypodermic needle down into it. It looked like an instrument of torture. An oblong glass ampoule, secured in a macabre silver casing. He had never felt comfortable with syringes, even though he had been handling them for as long as he could fill them with one hand.

Steady now.

Carefully, he brought the tip of the needle to the surface of the fish egg. They fused together. The needle sank in, and he pushed until the blood trickled out. It was always a captivating sight. To begin with, the membrane seemed closed, reluctant. But then it sucked in the needle before swelling up like a bellows to become a hungry, bloodshot berry.

His hand started trembling, triggered by ancient pain, and he twisted his arm slightly, enough to regain control. He set the blood egg back in the jar and picked up a fresh fish egg. There was a knock at the door.

“I’m busy, Ofre,” Nafraím answered without taking his eyes off his work.

“Sir, he insists.” Ofre’s voice came through the oak door, muted.

“Everyone insists. Unless it’s the Queen, I don’t want to see anyone.”

It was quiet for a bit, but he knew Ofre was still standing there.

“Sir, he says you will want to talk to him.”

Nafraím poked a hole in the fish egg and said, “Then ask him to come back tomorrow.”

“Sir, he says . . .”

The pause made Nafraím look up, inadvertently curious to hear what would come next.

“He says he’s a monk, from Surtfjell Temple, and that he has a sign from . . . the devil?”

Nafraím pushed the magnifying lens aside and sat up in his chair. He realized how dark the workroom was. The light from the lamp didn’t reach the top of the heavy bookshelves, and the shadows made the room strangely unfamiliar, filled with alarming silhouettes. The models and instruments, maps and drawings. The workbench with its copper piping and flasks, like some mechanical monster. There was a time when this light would have been insufficient to work by. His vision would have failed him, but that was a long time ago. Far too long ago.

Ofre cleared his throat outside the door.

“I’ll ask him to come back tomorrow, sir.”

“No, no . . . Come in, Ofre.”

Ofre opened the door and took a modest step in. Nafraím wrapped up the linen cloth with the fish roe and put it in the desk drawer. He wiped his fingers on his handkerchief and put on his gloves.

“Sir?”

“Yes, send him down, Ofre.”

The old estate master’s eyes surveyed the shelves with their anatomical specimens in alcohol.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to come up, sir?”

“Ofre, I’m too old to concern myself with other people’s sensitivities. Send him down.”

Ofre nodded and, bracing his knees, made his way back up the spiral staircase. A few minutes later, he came down again, no longer alone.

“Brother Laurus from Surtfjell Temple, sir,” he announced, showing the man in. Then he closed the door, changed his mind, and popped back in. “Tea, sir?”

Nafraím shook his head, and Ofre disappeared again.

The monk remained, standing in front of the door. Nafraím hadn’t seen him before, an attractive man, somewhere around thirty, with a gullible appearance. His rain-soaked cloak was rimmed with mud, and his shoes showed uneven wear. He clutched a bundle to his chest and directed his eyes downward.

Nafraím realized that the monk had never seen a warow before. He felt a twinge of guilt. He should have visited the temple more often, strengthened the ties to those who had followed him for generations. But the years passed so quickly. He waved the monk closer.

“Laurus? We haven’t met before,” he said, unsure whether that was an apology. “But I might have met your predecessor?”

“No . . .” The man looked up and met Nafraím’s gaze. This seemed to make Laurus nervous, so he hurried to add, “But you met my predecessor’s predecessor.”

“Ah . . .”

The monk took a couple of steps toward the desk, but his feet seemed to grow heavier as he walked. His eyes roamed over the instruments and stopped on a heart stored in yellowed alcohol.

“Wolf,” Nafraím explained, unsure whether that helped the matter. The monk nodded energetically, as if he had never thought otherwise, while he gaped at the instruments in front of him. He reached out toward the shiny switches on the gas burner.

“Don’t touch!” Nafraím leapt out of his chair.

The man pulled in his hand, backing away.

Nafraím calmed himself and repeated the words: “Don’t touch. Don’t touch . . . anything. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Laurus set the bundle on the desk and untied the straps. He unfolded the cloth, revealing another cloth underneath. He opened the second cloth and revealed a glass bowl, half-filled with dirt. A tiny, green shoot stuck up from the dirt.

“From where?” Nafraím asked, even though he knew the answer.

“Svartna, sir. In the middle of Vargrák.”

Nafraím peeked at his pocket watch. “It’s late, Brother Laurus. You must be hungry and tired. I suggest that you stay until tomorrow. Go upstairs and ask Ofre to make up a room for you, as well as some supper.”

“That’s very generous of you, sir,” Laurus said, looking down. “Bless you.” Then he disappeared up the stairs with poorly concealed relief.

Nafraím lowered himself into his chair. He stared at the green shoot and knew for certain that he was looking at his own death.

He had always imagined that the end of everything would come like a beast of prey, an enormous rage, ancient, with teeth and claws. It seemed unreasonable for it to announce its arrival through this delicate, new life.

Two leaves splayed out like a thin book; a book that would tell tales of the monstrous things he had done, sins he would have to answer for—and sins he had many, over six hundred years’ worth. But few were worse than the ones he would be forced to commit now.

THE NEWBIE

The newbie was the worst kind, a city schlub who thought he was a wolf hunter after his first night in Svartna. He had an awkward, forced chumminess about him, and he talked nonstop. Juva was on the verge of stuffing snow in her ears just to block him out.

Instead, Juva stood and started rolling up the sleeping furs. Let the rest of them sit there nodding indulgently while the newbie clowned around, wasting valuable daylight. She had woken up at the crack of dawn for this? She’d lit the campfire so the rest of them could wake up to food and warmth. They had eventually crawled out of their snow caves, a group of seven this time.

It was usually six. Six was better.

The newbie had been the last one up. Even so, he had planted his butt by the fire without pitching in, and he was still sitting there yammering away, his mouth full of food. He should be packing up his stuff, getting ready—as ready as he could get, anyway, with that equipment.

Juva hauled the pelts over and put them in the sleigh, sneaking peeks at him. His leather boots were new and wide open around the calf, more suitable for shuffling around in the streets of Náklav. He had gotten soaked yesterday and would again today, too. His crossbow sat planted bow-down in the snow, as if he couldn’t tell the front from the back. If he ever got around to shooting it, there would be ice in the arrow groove. The arrows stuck up out of a quiver on his hip, and they clinked against each other as he moved. The only wolf they would get close to would be a deaf one.

Juva glanced at the others and discovered that Broddmar was studying her as he scraped up the last spoonful of fermented groats in his bowl. She turned her back to him and buckled on her straps. The pack had belonged to Father, so it had always been a little too big for her, but the leather was worn soft and had stopped chafing ages ago. She had also made some good improvements: a strap across her chest, which lessened the weight of the crossbow on her back; a large bag on her hip belt; and a sheath for her skinning knife. She tightened the buckle that held the arrows firmly to her thigh. They sat in a row, with their poisoned brown steel tips safely hidden. They had to be easy to draw but sit securely enough to tolerate a fall. For the newbie’s sake, she hoped he wasn’t using poisoned arrows; he would probably kill himself the minute he stumbled.

She heard Broddmar’s footsteps behind her in the snow.

“Hey, Juva . . .”

“No, I’m not taking him.”

Broddmar didn’t respond right away. Unlike the newbie, he usually thought before he spoke, but then, he was old enough to be her grandfather, so presumably being strong and silent came with age. That was why Broddmar made the decisions. And now he had decided that they would bring along this runt who, at best, would waste their hunt and, at worst, risk their lives.

“Fine,” Broddmar said eventually. “When we split up, he’ll come with me.”

Juva tightened the strap around one of the sleeping hides until it looked strangled, like a furry hourglass.

Broddmar cleared his throat behind her back. “I don’t think those hides are planning to run off anywhere.”

She turned around and tilted her head discreetly toward the newbie, who was bragging to the others about his crossbow.

“You’re the one who always said the team is no stronger than its weakest link!” Juva objected. “Look at him! He’s never hunted before. He’s a kid!”

Broddmar’s cheeks became a little more sunken, evidence that he was hiding a smile.

“You’re nineteen,” Broddmar pointed out. “He’s at least ten years older than you.”

She narrowed her eyes, and he hurried to add, “Listen . . . He’s seeing a good friend of Muggen’s sister, so Muggen couldn’t tell him no. It’s just this one time, Juva.”

That last admission soothed her irritation. He knew he’d made a mistake. He smiled encouragingly, with a broad gap where Father had once knocked out his front teeth. He only had his molars left in his upper jaw, which made her name sound like Jufa whenever he was stressed. It was charming, and he used it for all it was worth.

“He’s going to screw up,” she muttered.

Broddmar’s shaggy wool mitten patted her on the shoulder before he turned around to go. She grabbed his sleeve.

“You owe me, Broddmar. The next time you dress in red, I want to go with you.”

Broddmar glanced over at the others, but no one could hear them over the newbie’s nonstop talking.

“No, Juva, you won’t be coming. Let it die now. Lagalune would have my hide if I let you come, and I’m not idiot enough to run afoul of your mother.”

As if she cared.

Juva let him go. There was a limit to how much teasing Broddmar would permit. She trusted him, in spite of the newbie. If Broddmar felt safe with him, so should she. But worry wriggled like worms in her belly. It wasn’t because the fool was inexperienced. She had been that way herself a few years ago. It was more than that. He was nervous, restless. He was careless where he stuck the crossbow, as if it wasn’t actually important, as if he wasn’t actually out here to get leather or wolf teeth at all.

She wished she had never learned to read people. It wasn’t something anyone could forget. Whether she wanted to or not, she picked things up just from how people moved, the words they used. It made her feel like a thief, robbing them of the chance to show her who they were on their own. She already knew more about the newbie than he knew about himself. She just hoped she was wrong.

The others had begun to stir. Hanuk kicked snow over the fire, which sizzled until it died. Lok squatted, lacing on his snowshoes. His rust-red hair reached down to the ground in that position. He nodded to the boots that belonged to the newbie, who still hadn’t stood up yet.

“You’re not afraid of going home with frostbite, eh?”

Juva was relieved that someone had finally said something. Lok sometimes had a big mouth, but he meant well, brimming with emotions as he was. He cried for no reason and missed his kids after half a day. And even with four mouths to feed, his shoes were still better than the newbie’s.

“What, these?” the newbie asked, pulling in his feet and looking down. “These cost a premium price, I can assure you. They’re from Kastor in Sakseveita, the best shoemaker in Náklav! He has a waiting list, but I—”

“I don’t doubt it,” Lok cut him short. “But we have extra shoes and mittens for anyone who needs them.”

“Yes, that won’t be me, you know. I’ve got the best that money can buy.” The newbie nudged Lok’s shoulder with his fist, as if they shared a secret. “Plus, I’ve got fate on my side. I went to the blood reader not three days ago. She has a waitlist as well.”

Juva held her breath.

That’s all we need.

“And she said you couldn’t freeze to death?” Lok asked.

“Basically. She said I had barely started my life.”

Juva rolled her eyes. How gullible could you be? The wording was a dodge, and she had heard it a thousand times. All the blood reader had said was that he was young. His having a long time left to live was his own conclusion.

Hanuk burst out into a magpie-like laugh. “Doesn’t sound like a guarantee that you’ll get old,” he pointed out.

The newbie leapt to his feet, clearly shaken that anyone would knock the fortune he’d put stock in. He started bumbling his way through the fable about how the blood readers had gotten their powers from the devil himself in wolf’s clothing. As if everybody in Slokna hadn’t taken in the fairy tale about “The Sisters and the Wolf” with their mother’s milk.

“That’s bullshit,” Muggen said. “Right, Juva?”

Juva clenched her teeth. Broddmar jabbed Muggen in the side with his elbow and he jumped. Muggen glanced up at Juva, ashamed at his slip of the tongue. Typical. He was as dim as a rock but as imposing as a mountain.

The newbie caught that and came over to her, eagerly. “Why is he asking you? You know blood readers?”

“You could at least tie something around those,” Juva said, pointing to his boots. “So you don’t get snow down inside them. We’re not going to turn back because your toes get cold.”

“Do you? Are you related to blood readers?” Apparently he wouldn’t let himself be distracted from the question.

“If I say yes, will you tie some leather around your shoes?”

She turned her back to him, but he slipped around in front of her and leaned against the sleigh. “You’re too pretty to be so touchy.”

“If a blood reader told you to dive off the side of Ulebru, would you do it?” She gave the sleigh a jerk, and his elbow slipped off the edge. He didn’t say anything, and it dawned on her that he was actually thinking about it.

Juva had had more than enough. She strode rapidly toward the woods, and the others hurried after her.

“Who is she?”

She could still hear the newbie behind her.

“Juva,” Broddmar replied.

“But who is she? What’s her family name?”

“Hunter. She’s Juva Hunter.”

“That’s not a blood reader name, is it?” His question ended in a grunt. He was stumped.

Juva continued into the charred trees that gave Svartna its name. They looked like rivers of ink against the white snow; it was easy to get lost here. There were no colors or life, and nothing new could grow. Enormous spruce trees spread their branches above her. Even their needles were black, some hard like rocks, others delicate like dust.

A punishment from the gods, they said in the village in general about everything that took place in Náklav—sinful city people, sinful money—and in a way, they were right. Coins had long since overtaken the gods’ place in the capitol.

Juva studied the snow for tracks as she walked. The winter’s darkness had just begun to ease, but light was still scant. The upside was that almost every footprint belonged to wolves. Few animals strayed into the dead, nutrient-poor woods in Slokna. Wolves were the exception. They could put enormous distances behind them, and easily crossed the narrowest swath of the deadwoods in one day.

She stopped, listening, certain that she had sensed something, but the only sound she heard was the creaking of snowshoes and the runners of the sleigh Broddmar pulled behind him.

There it was again, the disturbance in her chest, as if someone was breathing on her heart.

“What is she doing?” the newbie asked.

He was hushed into silence.

Juva kept walking, slower and more carefully. The tracks appeared right in front of her—those of a young wolf, alone. She raised her hand and made the signal to those behind her.

“What is it? What does that mean?”

“She says there’s a stray wolf.”

“How can she know—”

“She can sense them. Now shut up.”

If he says one more word, I’ll smother him in the snow.

Juva unlaced her snowshoes and tossed them in the sleigh. The others followed suit and prepared. She lifted the crossbow off her back, put her foot in its stirrup, and pulled toward her until the string clicked into place. Then she followed the tracks to the edge of a steep slope and signaled that they should split up.

There was a hollow between the trees ahead of her. The snow billowed down the slope in big drifts, like waves in a white sea. She slowly crept to the south, confident that Lok and Nolan were behind her. Broddmar had taken the others to the north.

She got down on all fours and crawled along the slope. The wolf had stopped by a snow-laden boulder down in the hollow, as if knowing it would be harder to spot against the gray stone. It pricked up its ears and its yellow eyes wandered along the tree line along Broddmar’s side of the hollow. Juva wriggled her way forward. If they didn’t manage to surround it, they wouldn’t stand a chance.

A little click broke the silence, a crossbow being spanned.

Damn it, the newbie!

The wolf broke into a run—in the wrong direction.

“Muggen!” Juva screamed as she slid down the slope on her back.

Muggen with his longbow was the only one who could hit the wolf at that distance. She didn’t even see the arrow coming before it sank into the wolf, throwing it onto its side. Its paws continued running even as it lay there, in sheer denial.

The newbie cheered and came running down the slope. He tripped, sailed some distance on the snow, then scrambled back onto his feet and approached the quarry.

“Wait!” Juva reached out her arm reflexively, even though she was much too far away to stop him.

The newbie didn’t see or hear her, blinded by his eagerness for the kill. He knelt in front of the dying animal.

Anguish welled up in Juva. “You’re going to get bitten!”

But the newbie didn’t listen. If she shot another arrow at the wolf, she risked hitting that imbecile instead.

Juva tossed her crossbow aside and took off running toward him. She had to wrestle her feet up out of the snow with every step. The newbie grabbed hold of the arrow sticking out of the wolf’s fur.

Juva yelled as she ran: “Move!”

The wolf’s upper body jumped. It snapped its jaws and sank its teeth into the newbie’s calf. She heard a crunch. He fell over backward in the snow, screaming and kicking. Then Juva was there. She grabbed hold of his hood to pull him away. He waved one arm and clung to her lower leg with the other. She lost her footing and fell onto her back in the blowing snow. She stared up into the wolf’s frothing mouth. Steamy breath and canines. Sharp, white knives.

Juva stared at those teeth. Remembered them. She had spent a lifetime forgetting.

The wolf snarled, a primal sound that paralyzed her body. She knew she needed to act, but she couldn’t move. This was her fault. She had made this happen. Her own words about the newbie raced through her head.

He’s going to screw it up.

You’re going to get bitten.

The wolf’s mouth came at her. She heard several shouts, and suddenly, her arms woke up. She pulled a bolt from her thigh belt and drove it up into the wolf’s abdomen with both fists. For an instant, everything stood still. The wolf trembled. Her gray mittens soaked up the blood. They became saturated with red.

It’s going to drip!

She tossed her head. The drops rained onto her cheek, and she rubbed her face feverishly against her arm so as not to get blood in her mouth. The motion weakened her arms, and the wolf collapsed on her, hot and heavy. Its nose was wet against her neck, its breath coming in short jerks. The animal’s heart beat with hers, a race for life. Slower and slower. Until it was only hers left.

She heard the sleigh, its runners cutting through the snow with tremendous speed. Muggen’s face appeared, powerful and wide-eyed. He heaved the wolf off her and pulled her to her feet with his club-sized fists. Juva felt her tears coming. Then the fear hit her, way too late now that it was over. She gasped for breath and thought she was sobbing until she realized the sound was coming from someone else. The newbie.

Broddmar tried to pull up the bloody leg of the newbie’s pants, but the young man wailed and dragged himself further from Broddmar, leaving an ankle-wide trail of blood in the snow.

“We need to turn back,” Broddmar said.

Juva stared at the newbie. She had heard the crunch of bone when he was bitten. Why didn’t he want anyone to look at the wound? Suddenly, she realized why he didn’t have proper shoes.

That damned idiot! May he rot!

She lunged forward and sat down astride his thigh, ignoring his protests while she held him down and yanked up his pants leg. His hose were torn, gaping around a curved gash that was bleeding heavily. Something gleamed in the wound, glass shards from a little flask he had strapped above his ankle, hidden within the wide boots.

A storm of rage awoke in Juva. She ripped off the strap and held the flask up in front of the newbie’s face, grabbing hold of his jaw and forcing him to look. He raised his arms to protect himself.

“It’s to spike my coffee!” he squealed. “Rye whiskey! Get off me, you crazy bitch!”

Juva threw the strap aside and stomped her foot down on his chest.

“What in Gaula were you thinking?!” she yelled. “You think you’re going to live forever, don’t you, if you drink enough of it? Or are you just in it for the high? Just where are you on the idiocy scale?”

“You were right, Juva,” Broddmar said, pulling her away. “Now let it go.”

“No!” she screamed, fear and rage shaking her body. “Leave him here! He could have gotten us killed! He’s a damned blood dealer!”

For a second, she feared that the others wouldn’t believe her, wouldn’t see him the way she did. Maybe they didn’t catch his fretfulness and fake friendliness, how he had pulled in his feet when they asked about his boots, as if he had instinctively wanted to hide them. Regular people were lucky. They grew up in families where you didn’t learn to look for things like that.

But the flask left no doubt. The others gathered around the newbie. Polite, diplomatic Nolan had a rare stitch of scorn at the corner of his mouth. Hanuk, that ray of sunshine from the icy wastes of Aure, didn’t have a single laugh line at the moment. Redhaired Lok was in tears, of course. But the one who was taking it hardest was Muggen—huge, naïve Muggen. He hung his head and his underbite looked worse than usual beneath the hood of the moth-eaten cape that had given him his nickname. He stared at the newbie with disappointment—not only disappointment, but guilt for being the one who had brought him along.

Broddmar squatted down beside the newbie, who had begun to sweat despite lying in the snow.

“You could have cost us our license with this depravity. That is not what we do here. The blood is for the stones, and only for the stones. Do you hear? Be glad that flask was empty, otherwise I would have let the Ring Guard handle you.”

The newbie gulped.

Juva could not calm down. Fear fluttered in her chest, and she felt shaky.

Hoggthorn. I need hoggthorn.

Her hand found her belt bag, but she hesitated. Didn’t want the others to see her fighting her panic. Hanuk came over to her and pulled off his hood. His black hair lay plastered on either side of his face, like the wings of a dead crow. He was carrying her crossbow.

“This wound up under the runners,” he said, hooking it into place on her back carrier. Hanuk was always the one to pull the team back up when they were down, and it helped to see that his dimples had returned. “That was close, Juva! But everyone’s alive and, thanks to your quick thinking, we have a wolf to field dress. Go change your mittens.”

That simple command made her feel steady on her feet, which was no doubt his intent. She pulled off the bloody mittens and tossed them aside. They would never again be wearable. She cleaned off her hands in the snow, digging her fingers in deep in case she had gotten any blood under her nails. They were chewed down, but still . . . She found an extra pair of mittens in the sleigh and pulled them on, grateful for the warmth. She grabbed some rope as well and started tethering the wolf’s hind legs together while the others debated how they would get the newbie up onto the sleigh.

Her body calmed down as she worked. Broddmar came and helped her pull the carcass up the slope to the nearest tree. She rapped on one of the charred branches. It seemed sturdy enough, not the porous type that was used as fuel. You could never be sure about corpsewood.

Juva threw the rope over a branch, and then Broddmar pulled the wolf up by its feet until it dangled above the ground. None of them said anything. They had done this so many times before that words were unnecessary.

Broddmar pulled a bloodskin out of his backpack and gave it to Juva, a safe weight in her hands. It was heavier than a normal waterskin, since it was bigger, with a double bag to prevent leakage and a stopper secured with steel rings and locking clips. The black skin was even embossed with the Náklav city seal on one side and the Ring Guard seal on the other. No one would ever have gone to so much trouble for water.

Juva opened the stopper and steeled herself against the smell of rotten red clover. It was a disgusting mixture, but without it the blood would coagulate. She held the skin steady against the wolf’s neck, found the most promising artery, and pounded in the knife-sharp spout with her fist.

The bloodskin slowly swelled between her hands. They filled three skins before the animal bled out, and in the meantime, the others got the newbie up the slope. Broddmar carried the bloodskins over and placed them in the drawer in the side of the sleigh. The newbie didn’t even notice what was being loaded on beneath him. He had more than enough to pay attention to with Muggen picking pieces of broken glass out of his leg. Juva hoped it hurt like crazy, enough that he gave up hunting for the rest of his life.

She lowered the wolf’s carcass and drew her skinning knife from her belt. Then the gloominess set in, the grief at watching a life ebb away, and at the same time knowing that this was what it took to feel safe.

She stuffed her hand into a chainmail glove. She had to be careful not to cut herself because the hide was delicate and time was short. She clutched the little knife shaft in her fist and let the metal slice its way under the skin. When she was done, she broke the teeth out of the wolf’s jaw. The sound didn’t bother her anymore, not like it had the first time. She wiped the teeth off, wrapped them in a cloth, and put them in her bag. Broddmar came back and doused the pink cadaver in oil. Then he set it on fire.

Flames in Svartna weren’t like flames in the city. Out here, flames always seemed so strong, the only thing with any color as far as you could see, deep orange and alive against the black, dead forest. The flames ate their way around the carcass, carrying the smell and the life up into the trees. Juva’s pulse finally stopped pounding in her ears.

She had burned it, burned the wolf.

Broddmar had once said that she was the most reluctant hunter he had ever met, and he thought that had to do with her father’s death. But it had to do with a thousand things. Father. Mother. Blood reading. Nightmares. Heartbeats.

She didn’t kill wolves for the money, and certainly not for the joy of hunting. She killed because she had to. Because the world would rip apart at the seams if she stopped.

TASTE OF BLOOD

A sharp pain in his jaw tore Rugen from his dreams. Had he been beaten up, robbed while he was sleeping it off? He felt for his coin pouch. It was still there, if nearly empty.

He grudgingly opened his eyes. People were sleeping on the bench in front of him, men and women. Intertwined like a litter of puppies. Strangers he had a vague sense of having been best friends with a short while ago. Now the thought made him ill.

He tried to raise his hand, but it wouldn’t move. What the hell, was he paralyzed now? He peered down at the hairy arm resting on his stomach and realized that it wasn’t his. It belonged to the man snoring beside him. Rugen groaned and tried to focus. How out of it had he been?

He wriggled. The stranger flopped onto his back without waking up, revealing a coin pouch on his belt. That could hold a nice sum of money . . . No, he felt too lousy. Besides, he remembered having liked the guy. A failed beer brewer from Grimse, who spoke Norran poorly, and had come straight here from the ship. No one who came to Náklav by sea was rich.

A new jolt of pain. It radiated from his jaws all the way up into his skull. What the wolf slit was this? This was the last time he would drink liquor at the same time. He needed to get up and walk it off.

Rugen forced himself up, rubbing his lower back. The bench cushions were so meager they might as well have skipped them. The candles on the table had melted together into a shapeless sludge, the wicks drowned. A simple tavern, fair enough, but was it too much to ask that they swap out the candles?

The air was stifling. He glanced over at the window before he realized it was fake. The tavern was in a basement, so the wall was decorated with mullions and painted to look like glass. If he wanted air, he needed to go outside.

He grabbed his jacket from under the sleeping Grimselander, threw it on, and listened at the door. The noise level suggested that the evening had reached its peak. He heard bellowing, toasting, and the unmistakable scraping of chairs and tables that suddenly found themselves in the way of drunk people.

Rugen pulled his hood over his head, opened the door, and snuck out, his back hunched in case he owed anything. He was met by an acrid fog of tobacco smoke and men swaying as if they were on a ship’s deck. He sensed that he was doing the same thing. What was he doing here? He, who worked for the richest, drank with the noblest, and screwed the wives of the most powerful—one of them from behind with her shoes on, who, afterward, had given him her pearl-trimmed pillowcase to remember her by. He’d sold it that same day.

He grinned at the memory and the jab came again, an intense pain that made him touch his jaw. A couple of guys looked at him. This was not the time to throw up. He had to go up to the stone ring, to the civilized part of the city.

Rugen made his way up the stairs into the dark alley, which was narrow even for Náklav. He knew merchants so rotund they would’ve gotten stuck. The alley opened out into the Sailway, a street that had a unique ability to channel the cold in from the sea. Ice sparkled between the cobblestones. It was extremely cold, always cold. And dark. He hid his fingers inside his jacket sleeves and cursed the stone gates. If it hadn’t been for them, people wouldn’t fucking live here. But the gods must have a rotten sense of humor, because as it was, hundreds of thousands lived in Náklav. The world’s busiest city, even though it was so far north that a man could freeze his dick off before he had shaken off the drops.

He yawned to stretch the stiffness in his jaw. He spat and tasted blood.

The cold crept into his chest. This was no normal hangover. It wasn’t like any he had ever experienced before, anyway. He needed to see what was going on, find a mirror. The tavern he had come from would never have something like that. He needed to make his way into the city, to the parlors. He rubbed his jaw with his thumb. It felt tender, but the pain wasn’t constant. The worst of it was the fear of another jolt.

He crossed Ulebru Bridge without being swept away by the gusts off the sea, and turned left into Nattlyslokket, a street that ran under a vaulted ceiling with lamps lit with corpsewood. He had never liked the effect. Corpsewood burned without flames, with a nasty glow that made him feel like he was seeing ghosts.

He stopped in front of a leaded shop window that jutted out from the wall. He leaned forward, toward the wobbly reflection of his own face. A skeleton stared back at him. He gave a start—but it was just a drawing on a card. There were several of them hanging in the window, he saw. The sort of fate cards that blood readers used.

He’d had his way with one of them last year. Or was it the previous year? A blood reader, not a skeleton. A delightfully spirited girl who used to ride his chest like a mare in the night. He had borrowed money from her drawer and steered clear since. Truth was, it still bothered him a little. Was that why he was having pains? Had she put a curse on him or something? Rugen swallowed and stared at the death card. Was this an omen?

Cursed nonsense!

The shop sign squeaked in its wrought iron fastener above him, swaying in a gust of wind. He hurried along, up to Kaupatorget, where the frost-covered statue of a dead city councilman guarded the surrounding buildings. Candles burned behind colored glass windows in several jettied projections that jutted out over the street as far as the law allowed and a bit beyond.

He heard amateurish harp music coming from Florian’s Parlors and followed the sound through a colonnade until he spotted the parlor. The sort of place that always had a man posted just outside. High society believed he was there to open the doors for them. Everyone else knew he was there to screen who was allowed to enter in the first place.

Rugen hesitated. He had worked there a few years earlier, but he would be the first to admit that he was not at his best right now. And he didn’t have anyone inside who could vouch for him anymore. But his jaw throbbed with pain. He had to see what the hell was going on.

He pulled his hand through his hair, tried to make himself look as if he belonged, and then walked right up without giving the guard a glance. The mistake most losers made was to smile and be pleasant. They might as well wear a sign on their chests saying they had never been there before. The real admission ticket was an aura of arrogance.

The door was opened for him, and he proceeded into the lobby. The contrast with the tavern he had woken up in left a bitter taste in his mouth. These walls were divided into golden panels, decorated with paintings of fish that existed only in the imagination. Lavish glass doors opened into the parlor. He could make out the vaulted ceiling inside, covered with sea green glass in wrought iron frames that made it look like the whole building had sunk into the sea. He couldn’t even imagine the cost.

The people sitting inside were the type who never needed to wonder whether they belonged. They acted important in their embroidered vests, stiff winter dresses, pins, and hair ornaments he could swear were made of dead beetles. Glasses clinked, and their jewelry glittered in the glow of thousands of burning candles.

This was where he ought to be. He knew better than any of them how life was meant to be lived. Prosperity was completely wasted on such shitty, boring people.

The guy he had woken up with had putrefied for weeks aboard a ship from Grimse. No one in here would survive two days on a ship—but, then, they didn’t need to. They paid the fee for the stone gates in Nákla Henge without blinking; they never needed to waste their hours or days traveling from one end of the world to the other. Rich people’s time was sacred. Maybe that’s why they came here, too, secretly hoping for more time?

Rugen tasted blood. He slipped into the bathroom.

They had upgraded it since he had last been there. Copper pipes ran along the ceiling, down the shimmering blue walls, and right into a silver sink. No pump, but taps for hot and cold. Damn, if only he had a fraction of this money.

A mirror was mounted on the wall over the washbasin. Rugen saw himself framed in silver and had to concede that it was sheer luck that he had made it in. He looked like he hadn’t slept in several days. His brown curls, which he was pretty sure were his key to the ladies, clung to his sweaty scalp. It must have been the transition from the frozen street to the warm parlor.

Rugen leaned toward the mirror and opened his mouth, not knowing what he was looking for. He ran his tongue over his teeth. What a moron he was. Nothing was wrong, he was just hungover.

This verdict was shattered by a new jolt of pain. It came as a pulse and would not relent.

Fucking Gaula, to the depths of Drukna!

He punched the wall with his fist, but the pain did not abate. He spat blood into the sink. Red rain in a silver bowl. A realization took shape and left him shaky, nauseated. He cocked his head to the side and opened his mouth again. Wiggled a tooth with his fingers. Was it a little loose? By holy Jól’s slit, it was loose! Panic flooded through his body and stole his breath away. His throat tightened so he couldn’t make a sound.

Why, why was this happening? Had he taken too much? No, he had never overdone it. At any rate, not enough to . . .

His train of thought was interrupted by a deep booming in the distance. The Dead Man’s Horn. The sound spread like freezing cold through his chest, relentless, devastating, a grim warning of just how real his problem could become.

Rugen rested his forehead against the mirror, staring down at his knuckles, which whitened on the rim of the sink. He was dreaming. This was a nightmare. He hadn’t left the basement tavern yet. This wasn’t happening. He smashed his fist into the mirror and heard it break.

The harp music from the parlor seemed distorted, an auditory mirage. Sitting beside the sink was an open egg made of mother of pearl, with three little perfume bottles inside. Perfume! How completely absurd! The most useless trinket he could imagine right now.

The room began to sway. He braced his hands on the broken mirror to keep his balance. He pulled a shard out, long and sharp like a knife. He pressed the shard to his wrist, hesitated, trembling.

Cut! Do it!

But he knew he didn’t have a chance of succeeding. The world might look different tomorrow. Maybe he had gotten some bad stuff and started imagining things. A bad trip, that was all. He let go of the shard. It tinkled as it hit the basin and dragged red spit toward the bottom.

He needed help.

But this wasn’t something he could go to his new friends with, and he didn’t have many old friends left. The list was far too short. He heard himself laugh. His breath fogged up the mirror, and he was relieved to no longer see himself in the shards.

The only useful name he had on his list was possibly more frightening than his problem, so what the fuck should he do?

Pull it together! Everyone has a toothache at some point.

He took a deep breath. He would wait and hope it was something else, that’s what he would do. A toothache was nothing to go berserk over. There were far more substantial things to fear.

And from out at Knokle, the Dead Man’s Horn resounded in affirmation.

NÁKLAV

By the time they finally reached the coast, where Náklav reared up from the sea, Juva could have collapsed and slept right there in the snow. Even at this time of the day, the lights glittered in the blue darkness. Hundreds of thousands of them, crammed together on the large island. Two islands, actually, but the smaller one nestled in against the larger, as if the two had once been a single entity. No matter what, they were overpopulated, both of them. Náklav was so bursting at its seams that you could hardly see where the buildings ended and the cliffs began. Locals joked with visitors that the outermost buildings sometimes toppled right off.

The hunting group had been pushing themselves to the bone for half the night to get the newbie back before his wound caused trouble. He’d consumed a quarter barrel of rye and was snoring in the sleigh, which Broddmar and Muggen pulled between them. The wolf hide was rolled up on the back of Juva’s pack because the newbie had complained about its stench.

Juva knew how he felt. Every time the wind grabbed hold of the hide, it smelled like bloody game, and she felt like she was still lying trapped under the wolf’s hairy body. It made her heart flutter in her chest. She had managed without hoggthorn for a few weeks now, but this hunt had asked too much of her, awakening the fear that always slumbered within her.

She stifled it by thinking of the flames as they walked through Naar. The village ended at the foot of the bridge that crossed to Náklav. They prepared to say their farewells before they reached the bridge gate, since Lok lived there. Hanuk, too, but he was going to handle the sleigh, so he had to come across with them and unload the newbie.

Naarport was more of a fortified tower than a gate, massive and black, with snow on the windward side. Broddmar showed the hunting card to the gate guard, who disappeared inside and came out again with his boss, a completely humorless representative of the Ring Guard, who rubbed his eyes like he had been roused from sleep. He was pulling the handcart, as he usually did.

Broddmar opened the drawer in the side of the sleigh and loaded the three black bloodskins onto the cart. The grumpy man signed a piece of paper as he inspected the hunting party with a self-important expression. Juva was overtired and mostly wanted to tell him to knock off pretending like he had any control. Sure, he would lock the blood in a chest, and then it would be transported right to Nákla Henge without any stops along the way. But all the same, some of it would go astray, and that would cost lives.

But she kept her mouth shut. Not only because she’d be an idiot to provoke the men dressed in black with the ring seal on their chests, but also because the piece of paper he held in his hand was what they needed in order to get paid.

Broddmar took it and stuck it in his pocket.

“We have a new guy here who had an accident.” Broddmar nodded at the sleigh. “Bitten in the leg.”

“Who bit him?!” The watch commander stared at Broddmar.

“No, no, not a person. Bitten by a wolf. A hunting accident, that’s all.”

“All right.” The watch commander rolled his eyes. “Unload him here and we’ll send him to the infirmary in Kviskre by carriage.”

He barked an order to the other guards and threatened Broddmar that he would pull them for the carriage trip next time before disappearing into the tower with the handcart. Juva retrieved her crossbow from the sleigh and roused the newbie. The gate guard came over to lift him out, and the newbie stared dopily up at them. Juva resisted the temptation to tell him they had informed on him for attempting to steal blood.

The idiot had ruined their season, as if the period between the far-too-black dark time and the spring equinox wasn’t short enough already. Broddmar needed to serve in the Ring Guard, and Lok was expecting his fifth child. Would they even manage to squeeze in any more trips?

She might get by on what little money she had, but there wasn’t going to be a new crossbow.

Hanuk took over the sleigh, nodded goodnight, and headed back into his village.

“So it’s just the four of you going across?” one guard asked. “Then we need to see your mouths.”

It’s happened again . . .

Muggen opened his mouth without asking any questions. This wasn’t the first time they’d had to show their teeth. Juva opened wide while the guard stared into her mouth. He seemed embarrassed, so he didn’t do an especially thorough job. Presumably because they were there so often they were considered familiar. She glanced over at Broddmar, who muttered something quietly to the other guard. She pricked up her ears but didn’t catch any of it.

Nolan blinded the guard with a smile, which was checked posthaste. He always got off easy, proper as he was. He was well-groomed and spoke in a polished way, but he knew the most obscene jokes and he usually asked the most obnoxious questions.

Once they were finally permitted to make their way across the bridge, having to move felt cruel. Juva’s feet shook from being forced to walk again. The sea thundered against the massive bridge pilings. If they’d managed to remain standing, she could, too. The bridge was called Sixth, and the dumbest thing visitors could do was to ask the guards what had happened to the first five. That joke was so tired that anyone asking risked being refused entrance.

The icy wind off the fjord bit into Juva’s cheeks but eased up as soon as they made it through the city gate and into the endless fortress of buildings that was Náklav. Juva asked a gate guard if he had a runner available, and he confessed that he had taken pity on two who were waiting inside the tower. He pounded on the door and a young lad she recognized came out, looking sleepy.

“Runner, miss?”

“Could you go to Ester Spinne at Myntslaget 7? You’ve been there before. Tell her that Juva is back, two days too soon. We ran into problems and only got one animal.”

“Yes, miss! Ester at Myntslaget 7. Juva had problems two days too soon, is back with just one animal.”

Juva was too tired to correct him. “Ester will pay you,” she said.

The boy was just about to run when it occurred to Juva to ask him to wait until the morning bell rang.

Muggen said goodbye and turned right onto Rautan, while Nolan headed up toward Muunsvei. Juva and Broddmar walked along Villfarsveien together. Neither of them said anything. Juva could tell he was thinking from the way he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, but he wouldn’t answer her if she asked. Either about the tooth check or what had happened.

They walked in silence past the soft lights through Taakedraget, until they reached Hidehall. She was used to being greeted by the frivolity of the ale house as she approached, but it was quiet now. When she was little, the whole hall had been just for hunters. A massive stone building, on the very edge of the cliffs, where they prepared and sold their goods. There weren’t very many hunters now, but there were more people. So half the hall had been converted into a tavern. There was more money in beer now than in hides. But the name had stuck and the tavern was still called Hidehall.

Broddmar wished her a brief goodnight and disappeared into the building next door. Juva let herself into Hidehall the back way. The common room was empty but not cold, thanks to the fireplace wall in between the room and the kitchens. There were glowing embers behind the fire screen, a dim light that barely reached the antlered skulls decorating the log railing that ran along the gallery above.

All she wanted to do was sleep, but she needed to salt the hide so it wouldn’t sour. She walked into the salt room, her feet heavy. She scraped some overlooked remnants off the wolf hide, salted it, and folded it in half twice in one of the salt casks, which she shoved onto one of the available shelves on the wall. She ought to put the teeth she had in her bag in alcohol, but that would have to wait for tomorrow.

Juva dragged herself up the stairs to the gallery and let herself into her bedroom, which was more like a tunnel. A passage over the alley to the building next door, but that exit had been blocked off eons ago. She had just enough space for her bed bench at the far end, and on the coldest nights she had to leave the door to the common room ajar. But it was cheap, and anything was better than home.

She took off her backpack and crossbow. Dropped her jacket right onto the floor. Pulled off her shoes. They were stuck as if by suction to her swollen feet. She wasn’t up to anything more than that. Even brewing hoggthorn tea felt like an insurmountable task. Juva flopped onto her bed and fell immediately into a deep sleep.

PORTENT

Juva spread her things across the scarred wooden table in front of the fireplace in the common room. She placed everything in neat rows so she could see what needed to be done. The sleigh runners had done a number on her crossbow, and it needed attention. Her chain mail glove had a hint of rust at the thumb. The leather around Father’s hip flask needed conditioning. His embossed name was almost unreadable under the grime and grease spots.

Little things. Hardly enough to keep her mind busy for an hour.

She emptied out everything that was in the backpack so she could clean it as well. What else? She had swapped out the candles in the chandelier, which was a term slightly too generous for the clump of antlers under the roof beams. She had preserved the candle wax so the tavern could repour them. The wolf teeth had been placed in alcohol. She had scrubbed her bloody clothes until her fingers were numb. Everything was rinsed and hung up to dry. The only thing left to wash was herself, but that would have to wait until afterward.

Her body was stiff, the hunt sabotaged. The newbie had kept going on and on about blood readers, and Juva had ended up on her back underneath a snarling wild animal. But even so, she had made it through the morning without any hoggthorn. That should feel like a victory, but all she felt was anxious, as if all the things she didn’t have answers for were making her heart more fragile.

Juva sat down at the table, took a sip of tea, and tried to find some peace in the things that remained unchanged. She was sitting in the same hall—surely even the same chair!—that Father had once used. He had looked at the same vaulted wooden ceiling and the same stone walls. The same antlers along the railing up on the second floor, which cast trembling shadows in the glow from the fireplace. He had surely also thought that the shadows looked like claws. He had salted hides in the same dented casks and made soup in the same copper pots. Even his coworkers were the same, Broddmar and Muggen, anyway.

The silence was broken by a creaking door.

“Juva? Where’s my girl?” Ester’s voice squealed from the porch.

For a second Juva feared bad news, but then she realized that Ester was there because of the runner she herself had sent. Still, when Ester called her my girl, that meant trouble.

The old woman came waltzing in as if she owned the place, which was fine since she actually did. She stopped in front of the opening to the kitchen. Shook her head at what she saw inside, presumably water bloody from washing the clothes and hunting boots drying over the hearth.

“Men!” she said brusquely. “They live like the animals they hunt.”

Juva didn’t bother to clarify that most of the mess was hers, lest Ester decide to give her accommodations to someone else. The rent she demanded was laughably low for Náklav, and Juva had nowhere else to go.

“So,” Ester leaned on her cane and sank heavily onto the chair beside Juva. “What kind of problems? Are you all right?”

“Oh . . . yeah, we just had to turn back. Nothing serious.”

Ester looked at her with sharp, gray eyes and raised her eyebrows. “Mmm. I see that. You have blood in your hair.”

Juva brought her hand to her long, blond tangles that, sure enough, were caked with blood.

“I haven’t had time to bathe.”

She hadn’t had time to dress properly, either. Only the long stockings and a stretched-out sweater, since she still needed to get into the tub. She pulled her feet up under her and tugged down the sweater sleeves to protect her hands as she held the hot mug.