Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
As the days passed, I clung to Fell, and he clung to me, and we were almost always together.
Fell would have moments of, as he called it, “sinking,” where he’d want to go somewhere to be still and quiet.
Rowan was struggling with everything, and though we visited him often, much of his pain couldn’t be eased by anything other than time.
There were nights when I would have terrible dreams and wake and spend the darkest hours of evening fretting over whether Dayne would understand my letter, whether Grainkeeper Loric would trust my brother and leave the north be.
I tried arguing with King Arik two or three times, chastising him for not telling me about Fell’s past, for not telling me that raiders had set sail in the direction of my home.
He refused to argue with me, given my pregnancy, but spoke so compassionately about Fell’s suffering that I couldn’t remain angry with him for long.
Despite these difficulties, there was also sweetness I can recall with vivid clarity.
Dania’s boys listening to my stomach and whispering whenever they were near me because the baby might be sleeping, and they didn’t want to wake him.
Swimming for the first time in the sea with Fell’s arms around me, the cold cutting into me, but also cleaning me.
The way the waves urged us to shore, the way our kisses tasted like salt and wind.
Dania’s constant teasing that I was Norsern now, so I ought to mark my skin to prove it.
“It can be somewhere secret, beneath the breast, on your ribs… the marks give you power—you are soon to be a mother. You’ll want all the power you can get.
” And Fell’s taunting smile that said he liked the idea but wouldn’t press me on it.
Then came the late afternoon—a little more than two moons after I’d sent my letter—when deep, heart-filled music was thrumming, and the braziers were roaring, and drink was reddening everyone’s faces, that Ivar walked past me in the hall and stopped.
He took several steps back and turned with performative exaggeration.
“She can cast now; can you feel it?”
“I have always felt it,” is what Fell said.
I rolled my eyes. “No one is allowed to talk about me or what I can do or what I cannot do for the rest of the evening.” I felt swollen from my neck to my toes and was tired of people commenting on how changed my appearance was.
“You can feel it?” King Arik said. He’d been all the way across the hall whispering with Jorn, but his attention had caught on our conversation instantly, and his voice travelled like none I have since encountered. I knew by his look we would be experimenting before the day was done.
But if I hadn’t known, Fell still would have. “Look now, Ivar. See what you have done? You have given him crazy eyes.”
Arik’s eyes were indeed aflame.
“Uhh… it does not work if she does not believe it,” Ivar said. “So maybe—”
The king couldn’t be disemboldened so easily. He slapped his thigh. “Perhaps this is what has changed! You may have sensed she now believes enough—”
“I do not,” I said. But I felt the corners of my mouth lifting because there was something adorable in King Arik’s eagerness, especially when Fell was near. Fell was finding him charming, so I was too. “But I will attempt it—once—if you promise to stop looking at me like that.”
“Ha!” King Arik clapped. “To the wrestling hall! Come Jorn! Hallbjern, pick someone to roll with.”
An entire party of courtiers—many drunk, a few singing loudly, one singing particularly poorly—made their merry way to the wrestling hall where King Arik sat next to me as raiders hurriedly lit more braziers.
“Now, Gentlewoman, every person casts differently. It has to do with feeling—with how power exists within you—it could be a rush, a whisper, a flicker… You must concentrate. Remember feeling powerful and then transfer that feeling to whoever Hallbjern is fighting. Lend them your strength. Imagine it moving from you to them, however you imagine it would move.”
He then stared at me as Hallbjern smothered a guard everyone called Bluey because of his finger, which was more blackish-purple than blue. Apparently, he’d fallen asleep with a string tied tight around it, and it had died but not fallen off.
I performed an owl face, but secretly, I loved the way Fell was watching me: there was expectation in his gaze, stirred with amusement.
He believed I had something to show. His expression, coupled with my time at court, had made me a slightly better sport when it came to Norsern superstition.
Slightly. When did I last feel powerful?
Hallbjern decimated four of Arik’s raiders as I wondered whether strength and power were the same things, whether playing music was powerful—as that was the first thing that had come to mind.
Whether power would have legs if casting were real, and if power were a thing that actually moved between people, or if it would swim…
Would it leap as fire leapt between logs?
Of course, my mind wandered. How would Rowan fare when he learned of my condition?
Would he feel more abandoned and alone? He might be angrier at the Norsern than he already was…
it would be impossible for me to hide the change in my form for too much longer… I could see it myself…
“Fell!” Arik boomed. “To the floor.”
“There is a beautiful woman leaning on my shoulder. I cannot move without disturbing her.” Fell said, grinning.
He was speaking about me. I was the woman leaning on him.
“To. The. Floor.”
“She is vaneruigk. Look how comfortable she is. Moving her would be a crime.”
I made a playful, innocent face in agreement.
King Arik’s volume grew. “Look what you have taught her! She is manipulating me with your expression! She is learning to cast. You will do her far more good letting Hallbjern rattle your skull than you would do sitting next to her.”
Fell sighed and rolled away from me. The parts of me that had been touching him grew colder instantly.
“Now, Gentlewoman. You like Fell, yes?”
I was careful to maintain my owl face, again playfully. “I am reasonably fond of him.”
Many laughed at this. The depth of my affection for Fell was something that came up in drunken conversation, the depth of my affection for anyone, truly.
People assumed that if my face didn’t show it, it mustn’t be in my heart.
They teased me for being cold and uncaring, and while that would have hurt in other circumstances, Fell was always looking at me knowingly.
It didn’t matter what other people thought.
He knew the truth. He knew it even better than I did.
And Dania was always teasing people back on my behalf, saying something like, “Yes, that is just what I like about her.”
“Gentlewoman, Fell is about to be hurt a great deal if you do not help him. He has not been training. He has been lost in strawberries for many moons now. Entirely unfocused. All that time, Hallbjern has been practising killing. Lend Fell your strength.”
“Exactly the introduction a person hopes for when they step onto the wrestling floor,” Fell said, removing his tunic and earning a few more laughs.
Fell wasn’t as incapable as Arik had made him out to be—indeed, he managed to carry the fight on longer than most before him had.
I was utterly enchanted by the sight until he started properly losing, and then I felt nothing but weakness, flinching and wincing each time it looked like one of his limbs was going to be caught in a careful trap set by Hallbjern, each time he seemed uncomfortable.
“Gentlewoman, aid him.”
“I…” I shook my head. “This is not—”
“Try. He is in pain. Is power wet or dry in your mind?”
“Uhh—”
“Is it firm or flexible?”
Hallbjern flipped the pair of them, and I knew by the franticness of Fell’s movements that a loss was imminent.
“Fell! Use your true strength! You are not trying!” King Arik shouted, leaning forward.
“I am!” Fell shouted back with a grin as Halbjern pressed his reddened face into the matted floor.
King Arik muttered under his breath, on the verge of a proper rage, which was something I was learning to sense from him. There were degrees to his fury.
“Surely he is trying,” I said. “Look how red his face is. Look at the vein in his neck.” How I loved that vein.
“No. Hallbjern tries harder. He cares more about sparring. He wants to win every match with his entire heart. This is why he is the best. You have not seen Fell on a raid. When the fight means life or death, he is twice as skilled as you see him here. But he practises with no true energy…”
“You have raided together?”
The crowd sucked in air in unison—a telltale sign that the fight was nearing its end. I wasn’t accustomed to watching wrestling, so I often couldn’t sense the shifts as early as others could.
“Gah!” Arik stood. “You both are lazy! How am I supposed to manage a kingdom with a lazy gentlewoman and a raider who cannot even try a little while wrestling? A king needs strong friends!” King Arik stormed out of the hall.
At first, it seemed Jorn would go after him, but then Hallbjern released Fell, and Fell said, “I will cheer him.”
It was quiet for several moments after he left. Hallbjern was red in the face and breathing heavily, glistening with sweat.
Ivar said, “Did you feel a change—when she was casting?”
Hallbjern looked at me, somewhat apologetically, before shaking his head. “Everyone felt like uncooked bread in my arms.”