Chapter 31
Thirty-One
“Fetch Ivar!” King Arik bellowed, the entire room filling with the robust depth of his voice.
I’d run to him, breathless and dizzy—interrupting whatever meeting he’d been in the midst of. My father. The order. Poor Rowan—his face so swollen it made my stomach turn. None of these things could wait.
“My friend has been taken as soter… I… the kepen was attacked. By Norsern. My father…” I was crouched in one of the king’s smaller halls, struggling to catch my breath in front of his visitors, struggling to make sense of the onrush of so much, only slightly distracted by Fell’s concerned face, reddened because he’d run with me to the palace.
He was reaching out for me… his eyes endless, his fingers weaving into my own.
“Who must I fight?” he said, a half-smile on his face. He’d been excluded from so much of my previous conversation since it was in Islish.
“Gentlewoman, I cannot help you if I cannot understand, and I cannot understand until you’ve calmed enough to speak complete thoughts.
Think of the child. Here, on your knees.
Yes. Like that. Think of a sleeping baby, let the steadiness of the earth beneath the sea rise in through your limbs, hold the idea—”
“My father is dead,” I said. “A man from my country told me.”
“Oh,” King Arik knelt before me. “Your brother will be Grainkeeper now.”
“Yes.”
The king frowned. “I have many questions. But first, I would like your heart to slow. Can you do that? Think of it beating gently, think of the baby’s heart beating gently. Ivar! Took you long enough!” Ivar had burst through the door. “Here, come. She has been disturbed.”
“What has happened?” Ivar knelt as well and rested a hand on my neck, feeling my pulse.
“My father is dead,” I said again, pulling away from Ivar’s hands. The words didn’t feel real.
“Was he a good father?” Fell said. He was crouched beside me, shuffling closer. A beautiful, perfect question.
I nodded, my delayed tears finally coating my eyes in a blurry sheen.
“Then I am sad with you.” And he was. I could see it in his face, feel it in his body, in the wind between us. He opened his arms, and I wanted nothing more than to crawl into his grip, but I had to contend with everything else first.
“It was the Norsern,” I said. “They attacked—”
“Does grief change things?” Arik asked this question to Ivar as if he hadn’t heard me at all. “You said all seemed robust and well. No reason to suspect ill health—”
Ivar shrugged. “Grief changes all things… it will help form the child… but—” he turned to me.
“It is part of living, so there is no need to feel guilt over it. The only thing… we will be forceful about eating, yes? Even if we do not feel the need for it? This is most important. We can have people remind you—”
“You’re not listening!” I drew Arik’s eyes. “It was Norsern raiders who did it. They attacked my home. They—”
“Which ship?” King Arik said. He was listening—almost too well now—his eyes clear and steady. I sensed he was attempting to soothe me by following my lead in the conversation.
“Owl… something, with painted faces.”
“Owl’s Ghost? Yes, I know them. They have raided near the Arched Cliffs, you say?”
“Yes. You are the king, you must… you must—”
“I will speak to Hirner, their captain; I will ask him about the raid. He is a captain, though. I can only order him while he is landed. At sea, he is king, and his country is his ship. This is how it works. But my friendship is a good thing to have… he will cooperate with me. How strange—”
“What?” I said.
“Just… I will ask Jorn, but if things had been different, if Fell had gone this season, he may still have encountered you. The Tornado had gone with them…”
“Something terrible has happened,” I said.
“Perhaps,” said the king. “But I know Owl’s Ghost. They are true Norsern. They would not strike an enemy that was not fighting back. Any who could not fight would have been spared. I will speak to them. Will you chew some hawthorn? To give your heart some strength? For the baby’s heart.”
I wanted to scream at him. “Not everything is about the baby!” But Fell’s face stopped me. His gaze begged me. Let me help. Let me do something.
“Chewing on berries cannot repair this,” I said.
“I know, Gentlewoman. I will speak with the captain, find out what happened. It is I who grants directions to the captains each season before the raids; captains who appease me are given favourable directions. This is, arguably, one of the most important roles of a Norsern king as it determines the spread of wealth in the land and keeps raiders from all travelling to the same places, beginning blood feuds. The Owl’s Ghost was given way to the west-west-south-west.”
And then I envisioned my father’s body without any life in it, and I wished I were drowning.
I had to be alone to cry, or apart from everyone except Fell.
I fled to my chamber, which I hadn’t been using so much now that I was no longer keeping my relations with Fell a secret. It was his room we went to more often.
Fell came with me, of course. He pressed his forehead to mine and brushed my cheeks with his hands. How gentle he was. How quiet. Witnessing and offering his hands as I sobbed.
We were interrupted by Ivar wanting to listen to my stomach with his horn, by Hrund wanting to offer me broth—this one with rosemary, that one with chamomile.
By the king himself, whispering softly to me.
It seemed the story I’d heard from Rowan was similar to that Kaker Hirner had told the king.
Hatred for raiders boiled through my blood—ironic now, yes.
Ache.
The certainty of not seeing my father again, of not hearing his voice.
I had been his favourite. I could admit this only after his death.
Of the six of us, I had been the one he winked at when he did something he shouldn’t have.
I was the one he gave extra sweets to. He gave me music, and I had left him and become something he likely would have abhorred ten times over.
Finally, with salt-burned cheeks kissed a hundred times each by Fell, I forced myself up. Rowan couldn’t be left all to himself; as weakened as I was by sadness, I knew I shouldn’t abandon him. He was sworn to my brother after all; I owed Dayne what protection I could offer the apprentice.
“I will visit the soter—see he is well,” I said to Fell. “I will walk and try to… in my country, there is a word for this, but here… I will let the tightness come from my limbs, you understand?”
He nodded. “I can come.”
Had he slept at all as I cried? No. Had he done anything other than devote his attention to me? I wanted to cry all over again.
I shook my head. “You are too sweet. I will not have my thoughts as I would have them alone, understand?”
That smile. I kissed him and regretted parting instantly.
Still, I needed a clear mind. I couldn’t simply tell Arik my brother was coming—a fleet—was what Rowan had said.
My hips ached from the stretching happening within them as I marched into Aalt with one hand on the hardness forming in my womb, my mind rushing faster as I walked faster.
My feet had the idea before my thoughts did. I passed the outdoor hearth where we’d shared drinks during the eclipse. I recalled the Islish trader and his ship route—one ship before another back to the Isle. Or something like that. Geryn.
A message.
I would craft a message for Dayne. He would know it was from me because he knew my handwriting.
I would tell him not to come. That I was alive, that I’d found…
whatever it was I’d found that was so ineffable it has taken me as many words as I’ve given you to begin to explain it.
There was no need for a fight. King Arik would stop allowing raiders to go westward directions. I was sure of it.
I veered deeper into Aalt. I needed parchment and wasn’t about to return to the palace to get it—I wanted no chance of Arik seeing me write; I wanted no questions, no early responses.
Arik was reactive. I knew this about him intimately, and though I considered him a friend, I also knew he couldn’t simply ignore the possibility of an incoming fleet.