Odin's Child E-Book

Siri Pettersen

• Herausgeber: Arctis US
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: The Raven Rings
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 889

Beschreibung

"Blood magic, blackmail, and battle rock a rich world of fading magic to its core in this internationally bestselling Norwegian epic fantasy." - Publishers Weekly reviews Odin's Child I loved (Odin's Child) deeply from the first to the last word, and was instantly and thoroughly immersed. -- Laini Taylor, bestselling author of Daughter of Smoke and Bone. ...The story examines and upends everything its characters believe in, including their world, their history, their faith, and themselves, while intertwining elements of politics and Norse mythology with a side of forbidden romance. Kirkus Reviews The intrigue, scope, and depth of His Dark Materials, set in an immersive Nordic world as fierce and unforgettable as its characters. Rosaria Munda, author Fireborne/Flamefall - Aurelian Cycle The world building is stupendous. MidWest Book Review Imagine lacking something that everyone else has. Something that proves you belong to this world. Something so vital, that without it, you are nothing. A plague. A myth. A human." Fifteen winters old, Hirka learns that she is an Odin's child – a tailless rot from another world. Despised. Dreaded. And hunted. She no longer knows who she is, and someone wants to kill her to keep it a secret. But there are worse things than humans, and Hirka is not the only creature to have broken through the gates… Odin's Child is unique fantasy with Norse roots. An epic clash of xenophobia, blind faith and the right or will to lead. The first in a trilogy, Odin's Child is a thrilling modern fantasy epic.

Leseprobe

Siri Pettersen

The Raven Rings

Odin’s Child

Translated by Siân Mackie and Paul Russell Garrett

To Mom, for life.

To Dad, for death.

To Kim, for everything in between.

And to you. The one who was always reading books no one had heard of. The weirdo at the back of the classroom. The one who grew up in a dark basement, your fate determined by a roll of the dice. The one who still dresses up. The one who never really fit in, and who often felt like you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This book is for you.

PROLOGUE

Thorrald barged inside but couldn’t get the door to shut behind him. The driving snow was forcing its way in faster than he was able to kick it away. He clasped the bundle in his arms and charged at the door like a bull. In the end, he managed to draw the bolt. Home. Safe now.

He looked through the peephatch. No one could see in from outside. Especially not in weather like this. Still. He put the bundle down on the table and closed the shutter.

You can bar the doors and windows all you like. Nothing can stop Kolkagga.

Crones’ talk! What would Kolkagga want with him? He’d done nothing wrong! Though the moment the thought struck him, his entire life flashed before his eyes. The drugs he sold outside the guildhall. Opa to people who smoked themselves to death.

He shook his head. If the black shadows came for him, it wouldn’t be because he sold harmless herbs out of a cabin at the ends of the earth. If they came for him, it would be because of her.

Thorrald stared at the bundle on the table. A malformed creature. It wasn’t crying. Maybe it was already dead. That would make everything simpler. He shuddered. The bearskin around his shoulders was so thick that he almost filled the room where he stood, but it was no help against the cold from within. He fumbled with the lacing. His fingers, frozen to the bone, refused to obey. He blew on the embers in the hearth. Turned his hands over the heat. The frost melted from the fur and sputtered in the fire.

That cursed Olve had been waving his sword in a drunken stupor. What had he been looking for? Was it this abomination? What else could it be? It didn’t matter anyway. Olve hadn’t seen the child. It was safe.

Safe?! Are you out of your mind? You have your own life to live!

Not a life worth singing about, sure enough, but that didn’t mean it was fit for a child. At least not a child like this. He had to act fast.

Thorrald drew his knife and stared down at the creature. She was asleep. His fist was bigger than her face. He raised the blade. The child opened her eyes. They were green. Fearless. Thorrald howled and slammed the knife into the table next to her. “Blindcraft! That’s what you are! Deadborn!”

He grabbed his ale tankard and downed the tepid dregs. Then he unwrapped the child from the blanket as if she were a present. She lay there waving her fists.

Old crones’ tales forced their way into his mind. Cock and bull stories he knew he should ignore. All the same … He pressed his thumb against the blade of the knife until a drop of blood trickled out. He let it drip down into the child’s mouth. Nothing. He cursed his own stupidity. What had he expected? Fangs?

The blind don’t exist!

Thorrald rested his arms on the table and snarled, “What in Slokna are you, then? You’re not a ghost. And you’re not one of the blind. Are you just deformed?” He flipped her onto her stomach and ran a finger down her spine, stopping at the base where her tail should have been. Seer knows he wasn’t one to listen to crones’ talk, but the child was living proof. She was not a child of Ym.

Rot. That’s what you are.

He stared at his fists, as though they ought to have rotted already. “I can’t have you here. Nobody would want you!” He picked her up and held her out in front of him. She was only a few days old. She had soft downy hair on her head that shone the color of copper in the light of the fire.

“I should kill you. That’s what I should do. Save my own skin.” But he knew he wouldn’t be able to. He’d known that the moment he dug her out of the snow by the stone circle. “You’ll never thank me for this, girl. It’ll mean a miserable life on the road for you. And you’d find better company than me under the tables at the tavern.”

The girl smiled. A toothless grin. He put her down again. He knew what he had to do. It felt worse than killing her, but he had no choice. He couldn’t be seen with a tailless girl. He stared at the splash of ale that was left in the tankard. Then he pulled down the case of dreamwort from the shelf. Strong enough to kill such a tiny bundle. He had to be careful. Thorrald sprinkled a pinch of the powder into the tankard and swirled it until it stopped foaming.

“Do you realize how much this costs, girl?” He dipped a cloth into the tankard and held it to her mouth. She accepted it like a mother’s teat. Then he waited till her eyes started to droop shut. He pulled the knife out of the table. It left a pale gash in the timber.

Thorrald dug the tip of the blade into the child’s back. She let out a scream. He curled his hand over her mouth. Her sobs cut into him as surely as he was cutting into her skin. Blood ran onto the blanket, and he was relieved that she could bleed. But what had he expected? Was he being hysterical?

Thorrald didn’t stop carving until the child had a hollow at the base of her spine, with furrows that looked like they’d been left by claws. “If anyone asks, a wolf got your tail. Do you hear me? A wolf!”

Her eyes shut. She’d stopped crying sooner than he’d expected. Suddenly he was afraid he had given her too much dreamwort. He held his ear to her chest. Checked she was breathing properly. Not that he knew what properly was for such a creature.

Cursed child. You’re going to be the death of me.

Thorrald left her lying on the table. He wrapped the fur tighter around himself and went back out into the storm. Like a frightened old woman, seeing shadows between the frozen spruce trees where there were none. Nobody was there. No Kolkagga. No sudden death waiting for him around the corner. Not yet.

The only thing he could see was Ulvheim. For the very last time. He pulled the shovel out of the snow and started to clear a path to the wagon.

RIME RETURNS

The half-rotten spruce lay across the Alldjup like a bridge. Its bark had cracked into great sheets, its trunk growing increasingly bare as the years passed. It was about twenty paces over to the other side. A shortcut for brave squirrels. No place for people.

Hirka steeled herself and took another step out. The trunk groaned beneath her. She doubted it had ever had to contend with this much weight before, and the suspicious stench of decay didn’t do much to allay her fears. She found herself thinking kind thoughts about the tree, as if that would prevent it from snapping in two and sending her tumbling into the gaping wound in the landscape, from breaking her on the rocks in the Stryfe, which babbled indifferently below.

I am not afraid.

She looked up. Vetle was sitting farther along the trunk, whimpering like a dog. He was fifteen winters old, the same age as Hirka, but although his body continued to grow, his mind remained that of a child’s. Vetle trusted people too much, even though he was afraid of everything else. So how in Slokna’s name had the other boys coaxed him out here?

Miserable worms! May the blind take them all!

The boys responsible were sitting safely at the edge of the forest. Hirka could feel their eyes boring into her back, desperate to see her fall. She didn’t intend to give them that pleasure. But she did plan to have bruised knuckles once she’d gotten them both out of this mess. Kolgrim wouldn’t be able to eat anything but soup until autumn. She clenched her fists. Her hands were clammy.

Vetle had started to rock dangerously between sobs. Hirka took a couple of determined steps toward him. A knot in the trunk splintered under her foot and she started. Her arms started to windmill as if of their own volition, helping her regain her balance before she’d even quite realized she’d lost it. Her heart was in her mouth. Her knees shook.

“Feeling a bit wobbly, tailless?”

Predictably, Kolgrim’s shout was followed by a chorus of guffaws. The echo bounced between the rock walls of the Alldjup. Tailless! Tailless! Tailless!

Hirka drew herself up to her full height. She wouldn’t let them get to her. Not now.

Vetle was terrified. He sat bawling in a clump of spindly branches that had long since shed their needles. He had buried his face in his arm, as if not seeing the danger would make it go away. He clutched a small wooden horse in his fist.

“Vetle, it’s me, Hirka. Can you look at me?”

He stopped crying and peered over his elbow. A smile spread across his ruddy face, and Hirka realized her mistake. Vetle jumped to his feet and charged toward her with his arms flung wide.

“Vetle! Wait!”

But it was too late. He threw himself at her and she lost her footing. She twisted around as she fell and threw her arms around the trunk. Vetle landed heavily on her back, knocking the air out of her lungs.

The wooden horse dug into her cheek. The tree gave a series of ominous cracks.

Crows alighted from the treetops, shrieking as they disappeared into the forest. Scattered shouts revealed that Kolgrim and his cronies were making a run for it. Everything and everyone fled the scene as if Slokna already had them in its grasp.

“You’re a coward, Kolgrim!” Hirka shouted as she clung to the tree. “A dead coward!” she added, hoping for the opportunity to make good on her threat.

The trunk started to sag and Hirka’s stomach dropped. The top had broken away and the branches were scraping down the rock wall on the far side. The angle was becoming increasingly precarious.

So, what’s it gonna be? Live or die?

“Run, Vetle! Now!”

As if by some miracle, Vetle recognized the urgency in her voice and scrambled forward. His knee sank mercilessly between her shoulder blades, but he managed to clamber over her and bound up the trunk.

Hirka clung on. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the inevitable plunge. She heard roots being torn from the earth, snapping like bowstrings. Moss and stones rained down on her.

Then, quite suddenly, everything was still.

She opened her eyes. Only one at first, to check whether there was any point opening the other. The roots had held. She was hanging against the rock face. She heard Vetle cry out from above.

“Jomar!”

The wooden horse sailed past her into the gorge. It ended its days with a hollow splash in the Stryfe. But Vetle was safe. He had made it up over the edge. Thank the Seer, Hirka thought in a rare moment of faith.

Carefully, she looked up. The roots hung like a gaping troll’s mouth not far above her. They were impassable. Blood oozed from the palm of her hand down her forearm. She needed to act quickly—before the pain caught up with her.

She pulled out her pocketknife, plunged it into the tree, and pulled herself up until she reached the roots. Dry earth trickled over her face. She shook her head and tried to blink it away. She huffed out a laugh.

At least things can’t get any worse.

She wrapped her thighs around the trunk and sheathed her knife. Then she reached up and fumbled at the roots. She needed to find a handhold. Something she could use to pull herself up and over.

Then a strong hand gripped hers.

“One point to me if I pull you up?”

Hirka almost let go. Was she dreaming? That voice … she knew that voice! Or had she hit her head?

One point to me? It couldn’t be anyone else.

Rime’s back!

True, she hadn’t heard his voice for three summers, and it was deeper than she remembered, but it was definitely him. No doubt about it. Hirka hesitated before answering. Maybe she was imagining things. It would be just like her, if what people said were true. But people said a lot of things about her.

What in Slokna was he doing here?

Rime’s hand was warm and firm around hers. To her disgust, she realized that she’d already transferred a lot of her weight to him.

“Well?” a cool voice prompted from the edge.

“I don’t need help!” she said.

“So you still think you can fly? Or do you have some other strategy for getting past these?”

She heard him kick the roots just before more earth dropped down into her face. She turned away and spat. He thought he’d won, the spoiled rat. Here she was, risking her life to save Vetle, only for him to come swaggering in to win points in a desperate situation. It was inconceivably childish. What a nerve! But he remembered …

Hirka bit her lower lip to conceal a smile, even though no one could see her face. Her shoulders were screaming. She hated to admit it, but there was no way she was getting up without help.

“I’d have been fine if you hadn’t distracted me. You can have half a point.”

He laughed. A deep, husky laugh that triggered an avalanche of memories from a time when everything was simpler. A lump formed unbidden in her throat.

“You always try to change the rules. One whole point or nothing,” Rime said.

“Fine.” She had to force the words out. “One point to you if you pull me up.”

The sentence was barely out of her mouth before she was torn away from the tree trunk. For a moment, she dangled helplessly over the edge of the gorge, and then she was lifted to safety. Rime let go of her and she took a few shaky steps to make sure her legs still worked. It went better than expected.

Vetle was slumped like a sack of potatoes on the ground, plucking absently at a tear in his sleeve. Rime stood before her as if he’d never left.

“Where does it hurt?” he asked.

He was the same as ever. Always seeking out the weak spots. Like a predator asserting its superior strength, its ability to endure what others couldn’t.

“I’m fine,” she said, hiding her hand behind her back. It probably looked like carrion.

Rime helped Vetle to his feet. The boy sniffed, his tail hanging limply. Hirka watched from the corner of her eye as Rime’s hands explored Vetle’s neck and joints, checking for injuries.

His hair was longer than she remembered, but no less blindingly white. It came down to his shoulder blades and was tied with strips of leather. Shorter hairs had come loose to frame his face, which was narrower than before. Markedly so. But there was something else … something she couldn’t put her finger on. Something about the way he moved now.

And he was armed.

Her eyes fell to two swords in black scabbards. They were narrow and attached to a wide belt around his waist. He was dressed like a warrior, in a light shirt with slits on both sides and a high collar. Wide leather straps crossed his chest. He glowed like a snow cat against the dark backdrop of the forest.

Hirka looked away. Rime was an idiot. Why come here dressed like that? The money those clothes cost probably could have fed half of Elveroa for a whole winter.

When he turned to look at her, she noticed the embroidery on the left-hand side of his chest. The Raven. Its famous wings spread wide. The mark of the Council. The mark of the Seer.

Panic gripped her, cutting deep like claws.

The Seer … the Rite!

Her blood turned cold as she realized why he’d returned.

No! It’s too early! It’s still summer!

His pale gray eyes met hers. She lifted her chin and held his gaze. She refused to let him see her panic. He cocked his head and appraised her with amused curiosity, as if she were an animal he hadn’t seen before.

“Didn’t you used to have red hair?” he asked.

Hirka raised a hand to her hair, dislodging a fair amount of sand. She tried to brush it away, but her fingers just got caught in the tangle of red. Rime’s eyes sparkled like ice. She remembered that teasing look of his all too well. It was out of place with the uniform he wore, but it only lasted a moment before he looked away. He had remembered who he was.

Rime meant danger. She could feel it in every nerve in her body. She’d thought she recognized him, but this wasn’t the boy she remembered. Not her childhood rival. Not her friend. He was the son of a powerful family. He was Rime An-Elderin. He was bound to the Council by blood.

It just hadn’t mattered before.

“I won’t be here long. I’m going to Mannfalla with Ilume,” he said, as if reminding her of the distance between them.

Hirka crossed her arms. “Normal people call their grandmothers Grandmother. I would, if I had one.” It wasn’t the best gibe, but she couldn’t think of anything else. Her brain had turned to mush.

“Not if she were Ilume.”

Hirka looked down.

Rime took two steps closer. His clothes smelled of sage oil. Behind him, Vetle craned his neck to peer down into the abyss that had swallowed his wooden horse.

“They’ve still got a lot to do before the Rite. It’s your year too, isn’t it?” Rime asked.

Hirka nodded lamely. Time had caught up with her. She felt a stab of nausea. The others in Elveroa who were turning fifteen this year had been counting the days. Making clothes for the occasion. Commissioning tail rings made of gold and silver. Planning the journey everyone had to make at least once in their life. Hirka was no exception. The difference was that she’d have given everything she owned to avoid it.

Rime reached for her hip. She jumped back, fumbling for her knife, but it wasn’t there anymore. It flashed in Rime’s hand. Hirka swallowed and backed away from it. For a moment she thought he’d seen through her and planned to kill her then and there, just to save the Council the trouble. Instead, he walked over to the tree roots.

“I’ll take Vetle home,” he said, cutting the few roots that were still holding on. The tree crashed down into the Alldjup. All that remained was the scar in the earth and a cloud of dust that glittered in the spray from the Stryfe. The Alldjup seemed much wider now that the two rock faces were exposed on both sides.

“Get your father to look at your hand,” Rime said.

She snorted. “I’ve been patching people up since I was seven!”

He came closer. She fought the urge to back away. He was almost a head taller than she was. Leather creaked as he leaned toward her and pressed her knife back into its scabbard.

“Jomar,” she heard Vetle whimper. She understood how he felt. He could get a new toy, but it wouldn’t even matter if it were made of pure gold. Jomar was gone.

Hirka turned and started walking. She felt as if she were walking away from something important, but she didn’t look back.

THE RED WAGON

Hirka started running as soon as she was sure Rime could no longer see her. She left the woods behind her and followed the ridge to the sea, where she would have less chance of running into people. By the time she caught the smell of seaweed on the wind, she could see the cabin. It was situated high up, pressed against the cliff as though it had been driven from the village and crawled there to lick its wounds.

The Hovel, people called it. The Council guardsmen had caught up with an outlaw there years ago and set fire to the place. But the cabin wouldn’t burn. It still stood there, staring obstinately out to sea, its eastern end charred black. One of Glimmeråsen’s tenant farmers had once ventured up to make off with the shutters, but then, scared witless, he had dropped them on his feet and broken two toes. And that had been that. No one had been there since.

That is until Hirka and Father had made it their home. Father didn’t listen to old crones’ tales. All the same, Hirka felt uneasy whenever she saw the cabin. She certainly wasn’t scared, and she felt at home there, but she always got a feeling something bad was going to happen when it came into view. Something she had to hurry to prevent.

The path crunched under her feet. It was covered with the scree that the cliffs shook off every time there was a storm.

Rime was back. Rime An-Elderin.

The name should have been light on her tongue, but it felt like a rock. Like the scales that Seik used—everyone knew his weights were too heavy, but never when the guardsmen came to inspect them. The merchant had two sets, it was said.

The same went for Rime. He had two names. He had left Elveroa with the short, light version she had called him since she was nine, and now he had returned with the long, heavy version. The one that had taken him back to the family home within the Seer’s white walls in Mannfalla, a world away from here.

Sylja of Glimmeråsen could go on about Mannfalla’s streets of gold until the cows came home, but after having lived the better part of her life in a red wagon along roadsides, Hirka was content simply to have somewhere she could call home. Somewhere she could say she came from. What more could you ask for?

She stopped in front of the door to the cabin. The basket! She’d forgotten the basket. The plants she’d spent all day gathering. She’d left them at the Alldjup. Hirka cursed to herself. She couldn’t leave them there. Tomorrow was Midsummer. The woods would be trampled by superstitious villagers going out to pick herbs that would help them dream of suitors, herbs she could have sold at market had she not been so forgetful.

Hirka turned to head back, but then she heard a sound. Sporadic scraping against the walls from somewhere inside. Then it went quiet. She froze on the doorstep.

They were here. The Council had come to take her away.

Pull yourself together! You are of no importance to the Council.

Hirka opened the door. The room was empty. Emptier than normal. There was vengethorn hanging from the roof, but all the dried herbs were gone. Two of the walls were lined with boxes, jars, and pots of all sorts and sizes, but the bottom shelves were empty. Just the faint outlines of books remained, etched in a thin layer of soot from the hearth. One of the chests, which also served as a bench, was open. It was packed haphazardly, as though Father had just swept everything off the shelves and into the chest. Tea, elderberries, redroot, salves, and tonics. Amulets and Seer trinkets—the things they sold every single day. An unease grew inside her.

Hirka picked up a familiar grooved wooden box and turned it in her hand. Aged draggan tea from Himlifall, where the Might was strong. If a cup of that didn’t make you feel better, you probably already had one foot in Slokna.

The scraping sound returned. Hirka returned the wooden box to the shelf where it belonged and went outside. She followed the sound around the corner of the house on the seaward side and was careful only to step where there was grass, so no one could hear her footsteps. She looked around the corner, and her unease turned into such heavy certainty that it sunk to her feet.

Father was sitting in his wheeled chair, scraping red paint off the old wagon using a rusty spade she’d never seen before. He must have borrowed it. The only shiny bit was the freshly sharpened edge. It screeched angrily against the wood as Father pushed it upward. The wagon shed sun-bleached flakes, which settled around his feet like autumn leaves.

The back of Father’s shirt was dark with sweat, and the veins in his arms were bulging. Father was strong, and because he always cut the sleeves off his shirts, his muscles were there for everyone to see. Hirka could remember a time when he wore his sleeves like everyone else, but that was many years ago.

“Going somewhere?” she asked, realizing she’d folded her arms across her chest in an effort to look tougher.

Father stopped and flashed her a guilty look. But he quickly recovered. He was a man of Ulvheim, after all. He thrust the spade at the ground. It fell over in the low grass. Not even Father could make a spade stand on rocky ground. He rubbed his close-shaven head with his hand, making a rasping sound.

“The raven has come,” he said.

Hirka knew it. She’d known it the moment she saw Rime. The raven had come. Eisvaldr had set the days for the Rite.

How much time do I have?

Father bent over and picked up the spade. He continued scraping off the paint.

“So, have you made any progress?” he asked.

Hirka clenched her jaw. Of course she hadn’t. And that was the reason they had to leave. “Are you going somewhere?” she asked again.

Father grabbed the wheels and swung the chair around so that he was facing her. He lifted himself up until he was practically hanging over the chair, with his arms supporting his entire weight.

Hirka took a step back. It wasn’t fair. She knew what he wanted from her, it just wasn’t in her power to give it to him. And why should she? There were a lot of other things she could do! Should she be judged on the one thing she couldn’t do?

“So I can’t bind. So what? It must have happened before. Surely I’m not the only one?”

Her question was left hanging in the air unanswered. He knew she couldn’t bind. He’d always known that. Why should it matter today?

The Rite. Everything was about the damned Rite.

The cold numbness returned. Her heart beat quicker.

“It must have happened before!” she repeated. “I can’t possibly be the only one in the entire world? In all eleven kingdoms?”

Father looked at her. His deep-set eyes were as shattered as his legs. So that was it, was it? She was broken. Unable to bind the Might. Cheated out of something that everyone else had. Mightless. And tailless.

Kolgrim’s shout echoed in her head.

Tailless …

Hirka turned and stormed away from the cabin, ignoring Father’s shouts. At the end of the mountain ledge, she climbed up the tallest of the three birches, as high as she could before the branches grew too weak. She sat facing the trunk and wrapped her arms around it. Her hand stung. It was bleeding again. She’d forgotten about that.

Rime is back.

Suddenly Hirka was embarrassed. She was a hopeless child. Climbing a tree wouldn’t solve anything. That wasn’t the sort of thing grown-ups did. Normal people. She was the reason that they weren’t normal, that they had lived on the road, that they never mixed with people, other than to help them when they got sick. It was her fault, because she wasn’t what she was supposed to be.

Hirka hugged the tree even tighter.

She had saved Vetle. Surely that had to count for something?

No, Vetle had managed on his own. Unlike her. She’d needed Rime’s help. But she’d dared to try! She dared to do many things. She’d swum in the Stryfe early in Helfmana, before all the ice had melted. She’d dived off the rocks at Svartskaret while everyone else stood gaping. Hirka wasn’t afraid of anything. So why was she afraid of the Rite?

Because Father is.

Father was afraid. So afraid that he wanted to leave Elveroa. Get out the old wagon and live on the road. Sell miracle cures to anyone they happened upon. Make soup from the same bones, day in, day out. A life that was impossible now that he could no longer walk, but he wanted to do it all the same. Run away. Why? What was the worst the Council could do to a girl who couldn’t bind?

She didn’t want to think about it. She started to count the leaves on the birch tree. When she reached six hundred and fifty-two leaves, she thought she heard Father shouting. She didn’t reply. He didn’t shout again.

THE RAVENER

Rime kept an eye on Vetle as they walked the path to the ravenry. The boy was dramatizing random fragments of what had happened at the Alldjup without stopping to come up for air. Now and then he became so excited that he choked on his words and had to start again. Every time he tripped over a tree root, Rime had to grab hold of him and steer him back onto the path.

The heath was deep green and bathed in sunlight. The bountiful summer had made the birds drowsy and subdued. This wasn’t a day for impossible conversations. But that was precisely what awaited him. Rime found himself starting to walk slower.

It was liberating to walk like this, together with someone who never pretended to be anyone but himself. Vetle was Vetle, regardless of who he was talking to. He didn’t have any hidden agenda. Greed would never have any place in his eyes. He made Rime forget who he was, which was a rare pleasure.

People in Elveroa more or less treated Vetle as if he were a farm cat. He could come and go as he pleased. Charmed housewives gave him honey bread and ruffled his golden curls. But no one expected him to sit still like all the others while the augur delivered the message at the Seer’s hall. The boy was beautiful, a blessing from the Seer that often spared him from people’s fears and superstitions, the doubt that came with everything out of the ordinary. Time wasn’t the same for Vetle as it was for others. He was only ever concerned by what was happening in the moment. In the here and now. Understandably enough, Hirka was today’s focus.

The girl hadn’t lost any of her mettle in the last three years, Rime had to give her that. She still acted before thinking. Vetle extolled her as a goddess from Brinnlanda. Rime reflexively pressed his hands together in the sign of the Seer. In Mannfalla, the old gods and goddesses had long since departed this life.

Rime and Vetle crossed a mossy field in the shadow of huge oak trees. Vetle took off toward the house, which blended in with the forest on the other side of the plain. It looked like a small tower of vertical logs propped up against the huge trees. But these trees also served another purpose. They were supporting pillars in a latticework of branches extending halfway around the plain.

At first glance, there was nothing unusual about them, particularly now in late summer, when the foliage was dense and green. But then you heard the chattering of the ravens and realized you were looking at a large, circular enclosure.

The ravenry.

There were several ravenries back in Eisvaldr, and the Council never sent letters by other means. Ramoja alone was responsible for the most important correspondence to and from Elveroa. Normal letters were sent by cart here, like in Mannfalla, but when they needed to be sent overnight, and in secret, nothing could beat the ravens. They were dark messengers. The Council’s wings. Sacred bearers of news and of orders concerning matters of life and death. Much of Mannfalla’s unrivaled power was the result of its network of ravens that never rested.

Rime could hear the ravens whispering about a stranger approaching. He was being watched. He was being weighed up. When he was recognized as a son of the Seer, the ravens settled down.

Rime stopped. The silence smacked of anticipation. Of hunger. Of a beggar’s greed. Dark shadows shifted impatiently between the branches. He started walking again and the cawing resumed, now more aggrieved.

A throaty voice joined the fray.

“They said a friend was coming, but I’m still not sure I believe my eyes.”

Ramoja emerged from the ravenry. Her hips swayed from side to side as only hips from Bokesj could. Jet-black hair had been gathered into a thick ponytail from which tight braids sprouted like a crow’s tail. He could tell she had lost weight despite her billowing trousers. They were secured around her ankles by strings of gleaming beads that rattled as she walked. Just like the ones the dancers in Mannfalla wore. After years in Elveroa, Ramoja still clung to her status as an outsider.

Vetle ran toward her. “Mama! We fell into the Alldjup!” he told her proudly.

Ramoja calmly set down a blood-splattered iron bucket on the moss and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. She held him at arm’s length as she looked him over to check he was still intact. She turned to Rime again. He searched for signs of worry in her eyes, but there were none.

They were a remarkable sight, the ravener and her son—him almost fully grown, as fair as she was dark. The boy started to explain, and Rime interjected to ward off the horror story he’d heard several times on the way over. He told Ramoja what had happened. She took the news in stride. She didn’t scold the boy. Vetle had always been allowed to go where he wanted, despite the obvious dangers.

“No one fell. That’s the main thing,” Rime said, even though Ramoja didn’t look like she needed reassuring.

“All of us fall sooner or later,” she replied.

She picked up the bucket again and came toward him with her free hand raised, as if to pat him on the cheek. But she didn’t. Her hand dropped to her side again. Ramoja had been like a mother to him for as long as he could remember. Now she saw something in him she didn’t want to touch. The same thing that had made Hirka turn and leave. It was as if they knew. As if everything he’d seen and done in the last three years was written on his face. In his eyes.

Ramoja adjusted her grip on the bucket, the handle creaking. There was a smell of raw meat. “I haven’t seen you since …”

“Since the Rite.” Rime fought down a pang of regret.

She looked at him. Dark eyes in a dark face. They flickered between warm and cold, brimming with things she wanted to say, but all that came out was a low confirmation. “Since the Rite.”

Ramoja shook off old memories and ushered both Rime and Vetle into the house. She set the bucket down on the floor and hung a pot of water over the smoldering hearth. Rime looked around. It was just as cramped as he remembered. A curtain fashioned from fishnet created another small space at the back of the room, where sunlight streamed in through a hatch that allowed the ravens to come and go. There was a ladder up to the second floor, where Rime knew vast quantities of paper were stacked in small pigeonholes, sorted by size and weight. Down on the first floor, the closest corner was full of shelves dedicated to an abundance of small sleeves made of various materials: leather, wood, and ivory. Some of them were strewn across a narrow desk made of green glass. A raven was in the process of sorting them with its beak—one by one—onto the correct shelf. Its talons clacked against the glass as it shuffled to and fro.

The bird turned to Rime as he sat down at the table by the window. It had sensed him before seeing him. It flapped its wings, hopping over to Rime’s table and coming toward him. It stopped by his arm, which was resting on the table, and cocked its head. It was a large raven with a narrow face. Its feathers shone purple and blue in the light. Soft, downy black feathers surrounded the base of its beak. Rime could see small scratches in it from a lifetime of use. It blinked.

Rime wanted to give the raven what it was after, but he couldn’t use the Might here. As if realizing it was out of luck, it started tugging at Rime’s sleeve with its beak.

“Arnaka!”

Ramoja scooped up the creature in both hands as if it were a common chicken and threw it up toward the hatch in the ceiling. It flew away with only a few indignant caws.

“She’s not usually any trouble.” Ramoja handed him a bowl of tea and sat across from him. Then she went on. “It hardly came as a surprise.”

It took Rime a moment to realize she was still talking about the Rite. About the confirmation that the Might was strong in him. As it had been in his mother. As it still was in Ilume. As it was in all twelve Council families who had been interpreting the word of the Seer for generations.

Ramoja kept her eyes fixed on him. She reminded him a lot of his grandmother in that respect. But these eyes were the polar opposite of Ilume’s. These listened. These were a mother’s eyes.

Ramoja had left a prestigious position as ravener in Mannfalla to accompany Rime’s grandmother to Elveroa in service of the Council. And Rime knew why. It was difficult to look at Ramoja without thinking about it, even though he wasn’t supposed to know about it. But even before he was ten winters old, the pile of things he wasn’t supposed to know had been taller than the bell tower in Mannfalla.

Rime drank. The heat washed through his mouth.

“There’s more of her in your lines every time I see you,” Ramoja said.

“We’re all getting older,” he replied, unable to think of anything else to say. He didn’t know what his mother looked like, having no point of reference other than the woven image of her hanging in the winter garden at home in Eisvaldr. A woman with narrow hands reaching up toward the pine cones in a knotty old tree that still stood in the garden that bore her name. Rime hadn’t been more than six when his parents had lost their lives to the snow.

“Older? You’re eighteen,” Ramoja laughed and crossed her legs, making the golden beads on her hems rattle.

Her expression suddenly turned grave again. Rime steeled himself for what he knew had to be coming.

“What are you doing, Rime?”

“What do you mean?” He was buying time. He knew exactly what she meant.

“They say you’re training to be a guardsman. A protector.”

Rime nodded and looked for somewhere he could rest his gaze. Two rabbit carcasses lay on a worktop by the hearth. Probably for the ravens—they often ate better than people. Vetle wandered aimlessly behind the fishnet as if searching for something without knowing quite what.

Ramoja caught Rime’s eye again. “Have you spoken to her since you got back?”

“She’s in Ravnhov until this evening. I’ll talk to her then.”

She shook her head. “Rime An-Elderin, Ilume’s only grandchild, born and raised in Eisvaldr—and you refuse your seat on the Council?”

“I’m not refusing anything.” He knew it sounded hollow. It was impossible to explain such a decision as anything other than refusal. But the truth was worse.

“Is this really what you want?” The doubt in Ramoja’s voice wasn’t unjustified. She leaned forward with her hands on the table. Her bracelets jingled.

“I just want to serve,” he heard himself tell her.

Ramoja leaned back again. “Well, it’s hard to deny the need for protectors.”

It was true, but her support made Rime cringe inside. He longed to tell her the truth. To stop hiding behind all the masks. To Ramoja, he was a weak son of a strong family. To his grandmother, he was a traitor. Only the Council knew the true path he had chosen. He couldn’t share it with anyone else.

“Did you know that augurs in Mannfalla are already protesting?” she asked.

“The Seer’s eyes are always protesting. It’ll pass. They’ll have forgotten all about it by next month.”

“Forgotten?” Ramoja scoffed. “The first time there won’t be an An-Elderin on the Council since the Twelve? Rime An-Elderin, the child spared by the Seer? The boy they were naming Seer’s halls after, even before he was born?”

Her words made the corners of his mouth twitch. He fought a primitive urge to bare his teeth. It was more difficult than usual. Perhaps because it would soon be over. He would no longer be required to perpetuate his own legend. All that remained was the confrontation with Ilume.

Ramoja was still searching for the answer in his eyes. He let her look. She would never find it.

“Have you sworn the Oath, Rime?”

He nodded and watched pain ripple across her features. So she had also thought he would change his mind.

“You think I’m betraying my mother’s memory,” he said.

“No, no!”

Ramoja’s eyes widened and her veil of composure slipped for a moment. Few other than him would have noticed. He had grown up with untruths and learned to see through them. She was telling the truth.

“You have to follow your own heart, Rime. Not the dead’s. No one can take that from you, not even …”

“No. Not even her.” He smiled. That was always everyone’s first thought. What would Ilume say? How would the matriarch of the An-Elderin family take the news of her grandson choosing the path of a warrior, not the obvious path to one of the twelve chairs that ruled the world, and which always had?

Ramoja shook her head. Not even she could imagine what awaited Rime.

“I’d always hoped—thought …”

The final word came fast, to cover up the slip, but it was too late. Ramoja had hoped he would follow in Ilume’s footsteps. Rime was surprised. He would never have believed that she, of all people, would cling to tradition. She had plenty of reasons not to. It made her loyalty to Ilume and the Council all the more touching.

Ramoja got up, and then Rime heard one of the ravens come in through the hatch behind the curtain. She pulled the fishnet to one side and ushered Vetle out. The raven perched on her hand without being commanded to. It knew the drill. She untied a sleeve attached to the inside of its leg.

Rime noticed that the mark of the Council had been burned into the ivory sleeve. He had grown up under that mark. The mark of the Seer. The black raven everyone had thought he would also bear on his forehead.

Ramoja took the letter out of the sleeve and checked the seal, making sure it was intact. The letter was for Ilume’s eyes only. She put it back in the sleeve and put it in her pocket.

“There was a raven yesterday as well. About the Rite. I hear it’s early this year?” She looked at him as if he might be able to explain.

“Yes,” he said simply. There was no point talking about Council business as if he knew nothing about it. At least he was no longer destined to become one of them.

“People will think the rumors are true,” Ramoja said. “But you know how tongues start wagging in the run-up to the Rite. There’s always at least one sighting at this time of year.” She chuckled, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes, which were fixed on Rime as if seeking a reaction to what she was saying. Just like everyone else, she assumed he knew more than most about what the Council was up to. To be fair, he generally did.

“The Council should be glad people have such vivid imaginations,” he said. “What would the point of the Rite be if it weren’t for the blind?”

Ramoja gave him a crooked smile.

“It’s Vetle’s year too, isn’t it?” Rime looked at the boy, who had settled on the bench with his head against the wall. His eyes opened when he heard his name, but then closed again straightaway.

Ramoja gathered the empty bowls and turned away. “Yes,” she replied.

Rime got up too. He knew Ramoja rarely traveled to Mannfalla, only when she had no other choice. She was so averse to it that she was staying in Elveroa even though Ilume was moving back to the capital. It seemed his visit was over, but that didn’t stop him from laying a hand on her shoulder. He was unlikely to ever see her again. He might glimpse her in the crowd during the Rite if he was able to be there, but he had come to say goodbye. She just couldn’t know that.

Ramoja turned to face him again with an apologetic smile. “I haven’t got used to the idea of being here without you.”

Rime smiled. “I haven’t been here in three years.”

But he knew what she meant. Ramoja was part of the An-Elderin family. Ramoja had lost her best friend when his mother died. Rime knew she had never entirely gotten over it. There was nothing he could say to make her feel better.

“We should never have come here in the first place,” he said. “It was a fool’s errand.” He was surprised by his own honesty. Perhaps it was because they were going their separate ways. Perhaps it was the freedom of knowing he would never follow in his grandmother’s footsteps. He wasn’t sure. But he pressed on. “The Council stationed Ilume here for years because it’s the closest they can get to Ravnhov. That’s no secret. But how many Seer’s halls have they managed to open in Ravnhov?”

Ramoja gave him a guarded smile. They both knew the answer to that. None. Ravnhov was strong. An old chiefdom and the thorn in the Council’s side. Ravnhov was the only place in the world Mannfalla would never convert, even though the cities were only a few days’ journey from each other. But between them lay Blindból, the dark heart of Ym, the impenetrable mountains everyone feared and took pains to avoid. So while other kingdoms had bowed to the will of the Council, one after the other, Ravnhov had retained its independence. They had paid their debts and were getting stronger every day.

“We’re leaving a couple days before the others,” Ramoja said. “Nora’s going to watch the ravens while I’m gone. She’s ready for the responsibility.”

Rime nodded. To think the blacksmith’s daughter was old enough to apprentice in a ravenry. He remembered her as being a terrified child who refused to join in with any of their antics. Antics like climbing the western face of Vargtind …

Rime could remember sitting at the summit, convinced he was the only person who would manage to scale the vertical mountainside. That was until Hirka had heaved herself over the edge, her knees scraped to ribbons. She had plopped herself down a short distance from him, nonchalantly, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. She had tried not to smile, but he could see she wanted to. The girl had been like nectar. The only child in Elveroa who never yielded to him or used his title. She was like Vetle, in a way—always exactly herself. It didn’t matter who Rime was. She used to challenge him and tell him to go to Slokna—an outburst that would have cost her dearly had anyone overheard. Rime had seen people killed for a lot less.

But it didn’t matter now. He was no longer a pawn in the Council’s game. He had found his place. He was already dead.

ODIN’S CHILD

Hirka sat in the birch tree with her cheek resting against the bark. Her body felt like a sack of firewood. She stayed there as the sun went down and the colors faded. The turfed roofs of Elveroa merged into the surrounding landscape. Hirka had lived in many places, but never for as long as she had lived here.

The village lay at the bottom of a valley that opened to the sea. One of the old gods had tried to crush the first travelers with an enormous thumb, but they were northern folk, and they had refused to be broken. They had settled in the resulting depression in the landscape, exposed to the sea but protected by blue cliffs and lush forests that stretched as far as the eye could see, east toward Gardfjella. Some distance off, the Alldjup ended as a fissure in the cliff face. The Stryfe thundered tirelessly onward, flowing down into the valley and wending its way to the sea. Farms sprawled across the hillside up to the cliffs, surrounded by fields. They were concentrated on the far side of the valley, where there was sun all day.

Magnificently situated on that hillside was Glimmeråsen, Sylja’s farm. It was bigger than any other farm in the area. The family at Glimmeråsen had spent an inconceivable amount of coin preparing Sylja for the Rite. It was all the girl could talk about. Dresses, jewelry, gold tail rings, perfume. A new carriage with shiny blue varnish—it even had doors! Nothing would be left to chance when Glimmeråsen’s only daughter was coming of age and receiving the Seer’s protection against the blind.

Hirka felt her chest tighten. Looking forward to the Rite had to be a wonderful feeling—imagine it was her? Imagine she was like Sylja, like all the others, with butterflies in her stomach. Dreaming of visiting Mannfalla, of seeing Eisvaldr—the home of the Seer—said to be a city in its own right, and the legendary Rite Hall, the music and the dancers and the Council and …

Rime.

Why had he even come back? Ilume An-Elderin was a madra, a family matriarch on the Council, one of the twelve. She was fully capable of traveling on her own—that was all she ever did. Surrounded by guardsmen on all sides, as if anyone would have dared to attack. And even if an entire pack of highwaymen were to make the mistake of doing that, Hirka would still put her money on Ilume.

Rime hadn’t needed to come. He hadn’t needed to strut around bearing the mark of the Council on his chest, as if she didn’t already know that he belonged to a different world than hers. As if she didn’t know his name.

Rime appeared in her mind’s eye. Dressed as a warrior. Probably one last hurrah before he had to don the tunic for good. Everyone who was selected during the Rite and schooled in Eisvaldr wore the tunic of the learned, until they had chosen their place—or their place had chosen them, as it were. Until they had sworn the Oath. The Council schools produced the world’s most learned people in every art, from warriors to chroniclers. But what many people dreamed of was becoming an augur: one of the Seer’s eyes. One learned in His word. All who sat on the Council had been augurs, and Rime was Ilume An-Elderin’s only grandchild. Destined for a seat on the Council. A seat many would be prepared to kill for.

Hirka had never understood why, and never would. No song of Mannfalla or Eisvaldr made the thought of traveling there more enticing. Sylja could keep her daydreams of being chosen for the schools to herself. Fraternizing with Council folk? Drinking wine from crystal? Hirka snorted. She would gladly have sacrificed everything to get out of the wretched Rite.

I’m not afraid.

What was the worst that could happen? Maybe nothing would happen. Maybe she would never even make it as far as the Rite. Not even enter Mannfalla. Maybe they’d see her for what she was as soon as she reached the city gates, and bar her from entering. Or maybe the entire city would be able to tell that she couldn’t bind, and then they’d stone her. People mean danger, Father always said. Maybe they’d have her dragged through the city streets by horses until she was unrecognizable. Imprisoned. Tortured, or put on display for all to see. Or burned alive!

Hirka heard a creak below her and gave a start. She caught a glimpse of Father through the foliage. She had been so caught up in her nightmare that she hadn’t heard him approach. The creaking of wheels had intermingled with imagined sounds of swords clanging amid a screaming throng of people. She pretended not to see him. If she made eye contact, he would win, and they would end up on the road again. The trick was not to look. She could wait. Up here she was nothing but a leaf in the wind.

The powerful blow of an axe broke the silence.

The tree trunk shook against her body, and she nearly fell. She clung on and stared down in disbelief. Father raised the axe to strike once more. Was this really happening? He took another swing, and the tree shook again. His upper body strength was unbelievable. He could pick up Hirka and Sylja at the same time as though they were kindling. Three able-bodied men couldn’t measure up to him. After just four swings, she heard the trunk give way. Just like in the Alldjup. It was a bad day to be a tree.

Hirka leaped up on the branch and prepared to jump. She swayed with the tree for a brief moment before it crashed to the ground. She flung herself to the side for all she was worth and hit the grass at a roll. The tree with over ten thousand leaves struck the ground behind her. Hirka swiftly rose to her feet and spat out a blade of grass.

Father watched her. He didn’t look happy. But not furious either. More as though he was wondering if he would ever figure her out.

Hirka crossed her arms and looked away. “I was about to head back anyway.”

“Come,” Father replied. He rested the axe on his lap and started to wheel toward the cabin. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

He struggled to get the wheeled chair inside. Hirka didn’t help him. She’d learned it was best not to. The wheels got caught on a swollen board in the doorway that didn’t normally cause him any problems, but on this occasion his movements were too sudden. He was tugging too hard on the wheels. Was too tense.

With one final push, he made it inside, and Hirka followed him. The cabin seemed smaller than normal. The air was thick and smoky from the smoldering hearth. It took some getting used to when you had spent the whole day outside.

Hirka sat down and by force of habit started to sweep dried leaves and remains of ground herbs off the table. She caught the sweet smell of opa, but said nothing. At least he had removed any visible traces of it. The Council’s healers guild imposed strict rules for handling and trading the plant. Father had always sold it under the table, and Hirka had always passively indicated her opposition. But opa was far from the only risky plant they dealt in. That was another reason they’d spent so much time on the move. A traveling peddler and his daughter.

And now he wants to leave again.

Father rolled the chair up to the table and slid a bowl of fish soup toward Hirka. It was lukewarm, but she was so hungry that it tasted like a gift from the Seer. She ate greedily with one hand, while Father cleaned her wounded hand with a cloth. She wasn’t going to tell him that she had run into Rime. Father had made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t to trust men. But he had no problems with Vetle. She could tell him about Vetle if he asked what she had been doing. But he didn’t ask.

“I found you,” he muttered, without looking at her.

“I wasn’t trying to hide, if that’s what you think,” she replied.

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

Father rubbed some salve onto her hand. It stung. He turned away and rolled over to the hearth. He sat there, blocking the fire like a solar eclipse.

“I didn’t have you, I found you. It’s not difficult to grasp, girl.”

His words stung like ants. They warned of danger, even though she didn’t understand them. Or didn’t want to understand. His voice sounded like distant thunder. Stormy words, with nowhere to seek shelter.

“This was years ago. You were a baby. I hadn’t yet left Ulvheim. Did well for myself there. Bought and sold with little risk. The Council’s dominion has always been weaker farther north. They didn’t even have a healers guild. Wise women drew out illness, teeth, and babies without giving the Council a second thought.”

Hirka heard longing in his voice. As though he were talking about a dream world.

“But they had a man in Ulvheim. A binder, it was said, but Olve couldn’t have bound a fly to the ground. Any abilities he might once have had, he’d drunk away by the time I met him. He used opa. I knew he was the Council’s ears in Ulvheim, not that he heard much, and he knew what I got up to. Neither of us had any reason to complain. It was early in Ylirmana, just after the polar night had set in. The days were short. It was bitterly cold. The kind of cold you only get in Ulvheim.”

Father leaned a little closer to the hearth.

“Olve was good and drunk when he arrived. It was late, and I told him to go home. I lied, said I had nothing for him. He used too much as it was. But he just needed a ride. He could barely walk and was waving a bottle around, but he was deadly serious, saying that he had to get to the stone circle in Sigdskau. By order of the Council. The entire trip the snow was drifting down, and he was going on about all the senseless errands the Council sent him out on.”

Father was mimicking the gravelly voice Olve must have had.