Chapter Fourteen Amund
Another long day of classes. After Reading the Runes, I had a Philosophy and Ethics seminar, followed by Old Norse IV. Now I’ll finish the day with Safety and Surveillance Protocols… or rather, patrol. By the time I reach Father’s office, I’m thoroughly exhausted.
Of course I’m the last to arrive.
To my surprise, Father makes no comment other than “Close the door behind you.”
Once I do, I join the group.
Father leans over the map of Skallagrim with his arms spread on each side, as if the whole school belongs to him. “Have we made any headway on the stolen pelt?” he asks, looking up at me. I suspect he isn’t just talking about the pelt but Edith as well.
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
Father looks around the room. “Anyone else?”
No one says a word, not even Val.
We all tense, awaiting a reprimand.
Instead, Father clears his throat. “Well then, let’s figure out assignments. Better you each take a different campus tonight. Can’t have you getting too used to one route.”
Val takes the berserkir section, while Michael reluctantly takes the witch one.
“I’ll do the seer campus,” Dorian volunteers, probably trying to prove how brave he is.
“Amund will,” Father interjects, surprising all of us. “Helga is going to perform a cleansing ritual on the seer school tonight, and she wants our help with the bonfire. Dorian, you take the hunter section instead.”
Dorian casts me a scathing look and storms out.
Val bumps my shoulder. “Everything okay?”
“Fine,” I grumble, hoping Father isn’t listening.
“ ’Kay then,” Val says, but she doesn’t sound convinced. “We should talk later, Amund.”
With that, she follows Michael outside, leaving me alone with Father.
Once the door closes, I turn to him. “Really, a cleansing ritual? If there’s a killer out there, they could all be in danger. We should at least be able to tell the other patrollers—”
“You heard Helga. It’s not up to us.” Father sighs heavily. “I need you on the seer campus tonight. We’re burning the body.”
By the time we reach the morgue, Helga is already outside.
The torch she holds illuminates her face in the dark, abandoned campus.
Once, the seer school was all Skallagrim was, before the campus grew and expanded.
Shadows move over Helga’s wrinkled face, making her look even more unsettling as she says, “About time.”
Father rubs his chin roughly. “What did you do about the berserkr?”
“I spoke with her” is all Helga says.
Father and I exchange a loaded glance.
“Bring Emilía’s body here while I finish preparations for the pyre.” She crouches over and slices open her palm, dark blood welling in her cupped hand. Then she sets to work on a stave.
“Let’s get this over with,” Father says.
My stomach twists as we head back into the morgue.
Various tools are spread across a table and hang on the wall.
They look like gruesome weapons, not scientific instruments.
I’m reminded of how we cut open the berserkir to repurpose their parts after a hunt.
The awful sight flashes through my mind, but I push it down.
If the dead are cremated, then what purpose would these have, anyway?
“Come on,” Father says, heading into the room where Emilía’s body is.
As I turn the corner, I hold my breath. Father’s cloak is gone, replaced by a white sheet. Despite how still the body beneath is, I keep expecting the sheet to stir.
“Was someone else here?” I ask him.
A muscle in his jaw ticks. “Helga probably wanted to examine the body herself.”
I shiver, unable to shake the sensation the corpse could sit up at any moment.
“What are you waiting for?” Father asks. “Help me.”
“All right,” I say, pushing my unease away as I reach for her ankles.
Her skin is as cold as stone, her limbs stiff. My stomach twists, but I force myself to hold her. Together, we heft Emilía off the table. Now that her body has gone rigid, she’s more difficult to carry.
We don’t put her down until we reach the pyre.
“Be quick about it,” Helga says, growing impatient. “The sooner we get this unpleasant business over with, the better.”
You try carrying her, I think to myself.
Father and I finish laying the body down and step back. I avoid looking at Emilía as Helga completes the stave and bright fire sears my eyes, making the shadowed campus appear even darker around us.
The flame catches quickly. Thick smoke makes my eyes prick. As the fire climbs over Emilía, I prepare myself for the sickening smell of burning flesh and the stench of singed hair, but as she begins to burn, a rich floral scent overpowers the more unpleasant ones.
Helga begins to speak, her voice quiet yet strong in the stillness. “Mj?k erum tregt tungu at hr?ra mee loptvétt ljóepundara.”
She recites the Old Norse poem with a mournful melody.
Her voice trembles and rises as her breath plumes in the cold night air.
Some words she draws out, while others are shorter, sharper.
Helga draws a harsh breath, filling her lungs between each stanza, and painstakingly sing-speaks the ancient skaldic poem.
At last, I recognize it: the Sonatorrek.
Loss of Sons.
We studied the poem in class a few years ago.
Egill Skallagrímsson wrote it after the death of his two sons, giving life to grief.
Nils always loved the Sonatorrek. He enjoyed all of Egill’s poems. Nils used to say he’d make a better skald than anything else.
I never appreciated skaldic poetry—until now.
Hearing it spoken aloud by Helga, feeling the weight of each word, the beauty and the sorrow.
Skaldic poems are meant to be experienced.
“Tví at aett mín á enda stendr, hraebarnir sem hlynir marka.”
I steal a glance at Father. His gaze is fixed somewhere beyond the pyre, his brow creased deeply. Normally nothing seems to faze him, but now even he appears troubled. It makes me feel a little less guilty for the knot in my own chest. The lump in my throat.
“Nú erum torvelt,” Helga continues as smoke billows into the darkness.
I stare into the flickering flames, entranced by her words. Emilía’s skin blisters and bubbles. And then… she slowly sits up.
No, her spirit peels away from her body, hovering in the heat of the flames for a moment. In the blink of an eye, she shoots toward me, her mouth open in a scream as she grasps at me.
I stumble backward, stunned.
Hands grab my shoulders.
Not a ghost’s this time. Father’s.
He pulls me around to face him. “What is it? What did you see?”
“Nothing,” I grunt. Now that I look again, there is no spirit in sight. I’m haunted by my own guilt. “Just exhausted, that’s all.”
Slowly, he releases me. “I see.”
Somehow, I’ve seemed to disappoint him again. Clenching my jaw, I turn away and focus on the fire. I can feel the heat on my skin along with my shame. Whatever is going on with me, I need to get it under control. And quickly.
Father grows increasingly agitated the longer we remain, his gaze darting around the abandoned campus.
I follow his attention, but there’s nothing there.
At least nothing that I can see. Yet for some reason, Father looks…
uneasy now. What did he witness here during the Tragedy? What hasn’t he shared with me?
Once Helga finishes the poem, she steps back and stands on my other side. “Hopefully this will be the last time I do this,” she mutters.
“It will be,” I tell her. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Helga’s dark gaze meets mine, the bright flames dancing in her eyes. “You had better.”
Sleep never comes. Every time I close my eyes, I see Emilía screaming as she shot toward me, her hands outstretched and desperate. Even now, as I slump in my chair in Heightened Senses, with every blink I see her.
Rubbing my forehead, I force my eyes open.
I cannot doze off.
“Of course she’s already here,” Val says, taking the seat beside me.
Tala is the only one sitting on the opposite side of the classroom. Most berserkir show up late, unlike us. Hunters are always early.
“I know,” I say flatly. “She was here when I arrived.”
“Funny, isn’t it?” Val says, leaning back in her chair. “She’s always early, but her boyfriend never shows up on time. I guess what they say is true. Opposites attract and all.”
Even though Tala has heightened hearing too—better than ours—she ignores Val and starts flipping through her notes.
Once again, Val has failed to get a rise out of her. Which only seems to irritate Val more. Over the past couple of years, this has become their routine. Val huffs, pulling out her own notebook. “Though I guess if that were really true, then she’d be dating a hunter, wouldn’t she?”
Tala glares in our direction. “I can hear you, you know.”
“Oh, I know,” Val says sweetly, smiling at her.
After a moment, she leans closer to me, whispering in my ear. “As if She Wolf would ever be caught dead with a hunter.”
Tala squirms in her seat. “I’m human, too, you know.”
The door bursts open before they can keep fighting. Or flirting?
I shake my head. I can never tell with them.
Berserkir swarm in, all noise and chaos.
Sure enough, Tala’s boyfriend shows up last. Isaac takes the seat next to Tala, leaning over and kissing her cheek. “Hey, babe.”
Val tries to hide it, but I catch her watching them out of the corner of her eye. She drums her fingers on the table.
Just when I think everyone’s here, Edith arrives. She takes the only empty seat in the room. Thankfully, this time it’s beside Tala and not me.
Edith leans over to Tala, but she’s looking at me. “Do we really have to take a class with them?”
“Unfortunately,” Tala says with a frown. “They have heightened senses like we do.”
“Too bad ours are better,” Val mutters.
Tala twitches. “You know that’s not true.”
Maeve clears her throat. She looks over the classroom, frowning at the clear division between us.
Hunters on the right, berserkir on the left.
“Why don’t we do something different today?
Instead of working with your usual partners, why don’t you pair up with someone on the opposite side of the classroom?
You can use your heightened hearing to actually listen to each other. ”
Tala stiffens. “You want us to practice with hunters?”
“That’s right,” Maeve says. “Ask each other questions and get to know each other better. I think you’ll be surprised to learn that heightened senses aren’t the only thing you have in common.”
When no one moves, Maeve gives an exasperated sigh. “Either pick your partners now, or I’ll start assigning them.”
If Helga isn’t going to interrogate Edith, then I will myself, and Maeve has given me the perfect in. I approach Edith’s desk and stand there, unsure what to do.
She scowls up at me. “Do you have to loom over me like that?”
“Yes, partner.”
Tala looks between us with a frown.
Val strides over, dagger in hand, and uses the tip of her knife to tilt Tala’s chin up until she’s looking at her. “Looks like you’re with me, ma chère.”
“I thought I told you not to call me that,” Tala mutters.
Val grins. “So you prefer She Wolf?”
A low growl escapes Tala’s lips.
“Okay, well, I’ll leave you two to it,” Isaac says, raising his hands and backing away slowly.
Edith seems… unbothered. She’s even colder and crueler than I realized if she can sit here and act like everything is normal. I’ve been racked by guilt, and I’m not even the one who killed Emilía.
“Turn your chairs to face each other and ask your partner some questions,” Maeve says. “Listen to what they say, but also what they don’t. Pay attention to their body language, facial expressions, and even their heart rate.”
My chair scrapes on the floor as I turn toward Edith. Our knees bump once we’re facing each other. Just the briefest brush sends an electric current through me. I look away, glancing over at Val and Tala. They glare at each other, their pulses quickening.
Val leans forward, reaching for Tala, only to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “Careful, She Wolf.”
Blushing, Tala reaches up and smooths out her hair.
Now her heart is really pounding.
Edith clears her throat. “Are you going to ask me a question or not?”
I turn my attention back to her. There’s only one question I want to ask Edith: Why did you kill Emilía? Because of Helga, I can’t ask her that outright. We’re the only ones here who know Emilía is dead.
“Why did you lie about being a witch?” I ask instead.
Edith hesitates. I can hear her heart hammering.
“You just assumed I was.”
“You’re lying now.” I lean forward. “Do you know how I can tell? Your heartbeat.”
If I hadn’t been so distracted by her smile, maybe I would have realized Edith was lying earlier too. It’s the third time she has. First, about being a witch. Second, about not killing Emilía. And now, lying about not lying. I can’t trust a word that comes out of her pretty mouth.
She shifts uncomfortably in her chair. “What do you expect? You hunt berserkir.”
“Only ones who hurt people,” I say meaningfully.
Our eyes lock.
Neither one of us wants to look away first. Her gray eyes are like storm clouds, threatening violence. Already, I can feel myself being drawn in. No wonder my brother is so taken by her.
Edith is even more dangerous than I realized.