Chapter 36
Such a good suggestion from Ari. The cold waters stroke my naked body as I close my eyes.
Enjoying the sensation of weightlessness, I replay yesterday’s scene in my head.
I’m supposed to be dead. One second, I’m inhaling water like a fish.
The next, I’m being dried off by a freeman like some revered southern queen.
Not only do I owe Ari my life. I owe him a good massage.
What a clever crow. That’s probably what he wants in return—a full body massage.
I know the glorious rainbow is above me, but I can’t see it from here. I can only see a smaller one higher up the waterfall. Spinning around in the water, I enjoy the calm flow within the naturally shaped pool.
A dip in the same river that almost stole my breath from me.
What a strange world. Ari was right. My swim has conquered any negative feelings I might have harbored concerning mountain streams. He’s not so bad.
At first, I hesitated. What if I was meant to drown last night, and the river decided to complete its task?
Childish superstition, maybe—or survival instinct.
I made Ari promise not to come for a look at me bathing, of course, though I had stolen a peek at him. He just laughed. Ylvin was gone this morning, along with Elof. Strange, considering it’s our last day. We will walk down the mountain after lunch. Now, I build an appetite with a little swim.
A slave, allowed to swim under the rainbow. Quite the privilege. A runaway slave. It’s clear to me now, I was not meant to flee to the hills. I was not meant to die. But then again, what’s the point? Is everyone in our world a slave? Slave to the Norns? Slave to the carvings of some mad old crones?
What’s the point then?
I breathe out slowly, unmoving. When I move, the water feels colder. Now, only the cool currents from the mountain peak wash over me. It’s like Groa said. I cannot control the water. But I can control my body. I can control if I will move, dive, float, or even drown, apparently.
I dip the back of my head, wetting my hair and squeezing it. It needs another wash, or two, maybe three.
“By Freya,” a familiar voice rings out. “Look at you.”
I straighten up at Ylvin’s words. I should have searched for her.
“Ylvin, forgive me. I didn’t know where you wer—”
“At ease, girl,” she laughs. “You look like a goddess under the rainbow.”
The woman lays down her drying linen before letting her blue robe drop to the ground. She weaves her naked body closer to the river with long elegant steps.
“Mind if I join you?” she asks.
“That’s fine,” I answer as I keep tending my hair.
Ylvin seems to be in a good mood. I’m still struggling to get over the fact that she drugged me without warning.
Such an experience could destroy someone’s mind.
Not being self-aware around others could ruin a girl’s body and honor.
I have heard stories of girls getting too drunk and blacking out around men. Not a good idea.
“Last day,” says Ylvin as she enters. “Are you ready to return?”
The woman doesn’t even flinch as the cool waters envelop her. I’ve always thought I had good control over my body—control over pain, or cold or lust—but even I had taken timid steps into the pool earlier.
“Maybe,” I reply. “Do you think I’m ready?”
“Why so short, Kilda?”
“I just… I just didn’t know you would drug me.”
“Fine, forgive me, my child. I wanted to help you. Seems it worked.”
“What? How?”
“You finally broke your chains. Practically all slaves live their entire lives in servitude, no matter how they are treated.”
“I just—”
“You made a run for it. You decide over yourself. A Volva has to. I respect that.”
“I’m sorry, please don’t tell Sigurd.”
“You really think I am more loyal to Sigurd than you?”
“He’s paying you.”
“Fuck payment. Honestly, I’m surprised you think so low of me.”
“I don’t, I just—”
“You are my sister as a Volva. And as a girl, Kilda, you are my child.”
I laugh as my mood is lifted. What a compliment.
“You’re a little young to be my mother, aren’t you?”
“Thanks for noticing.” She winks. “But really, I enjoy your mind. Your—let’s call it innocence. Your heart. I enjoy who you are behind the mask. A mask you have begun to remove.”
“Only begun?” I ask with a grin.
She splashes water into my face.
“Cocky. Like your mother.”
“But not cocky enough to call myself a Volva.”
“You are on the path.”
I sigh.
“I don’t even think I could enchant a mosquito to drink my blood.”
Ylvin laughs, throwing her head back.
“I know someone you’ve enchanted who wants to drink from your cup.”
“What?” I raise an eyebrow.
“You know what I mean,” says Ylvin with a grin.
“Stop, I don’t think Ari wants—”
“In any case,” says Ylvin louder than me, holding up a hand to interrupt me. “I think you are ready to enchant.”
She dips under the water and pulls up a rock, dropping it in my hand. It’s almost round, with a smooth surface worn down by the river’s flow over years and years.
“Let this be your first,” she says as she wipes water from her face. “It’s fitting.”
“How can I—”
“Stop thinking, start doing. This rock has been in the river longer than we have lived. The same river that almost ended your life.”
“How do you… How do you know?”
“No matter. Focus, girl.” She brushes my question off with a lazy wave of her hand. “Last night, you were cold. The river is cold against your skin now. You know that.”
“I do, but—”
“Stop thinking. Feel the cold, then transfer it to this rock. End of story.”
“That’s just silly. How can I—”
“End of fucking story, Kilda. Stop arguing and do it.”
She flashes her teeth. I’m unsure if it’s a smile or a threat.
Last night, I almost died. The cold swept over me. Thrashed me. Now, I live. I feel wisps of currents, cooling my skin, in a constant battle with my body’s heat.
Inside and outside. I know that. My skin tingles. My hand vibrates. I close my eyes. Darkness. Streaks of light bounce around. Pulsating in and out of a nonexistent space.
The stone grows cold in my hand. It’s happening. The smooth pebble becomes so cold it creates a burning sensation against my palm. A wave washes down my neck.
“It’s working!” I shout with a massive grin.
“Yes!” shouts Ylvin as she throws her hands above her head. Her eyes widen as a wild smile grows on her face. “Keep going!”
“I… I just—” It’s too cold. I instinctively drop the stone, watching it sink to the bottom of the river.
Ylvin laughs, howling like a wolf.
“Well done, girl!”
“I dropped it.”
“Who cares? You can make fifty more.”
“Yes, but I… I did it…”
“You did! Congratulations. Now you can make little objects cold. Fucking useless, but it’s a start, right?”
I nod. I can’t believe it. I can do it. I never thought—
“Welcome, my dear,” says Ylvin before she grabs my cheeks and lands a wet kiss on my forehead. “Welcome to the circle. You are a Volva.”
She’s right. I’m not useless. I can learn, practice, and grow. How did I even do it? I’m not sure. A thought hits me.
“Did you enchant it beforehand?” I ask with a sly smile.
“You really don’t trust me at all, do you?”
“You drugged me!”
“To help you, not to hurt you.”
“Still, you sent me beyond the veil! Without forewarning. Isn’t that dangerous?”
She laughs. That primal, vicious laugh.
“Very dangerous. You would either return as a Volva or a dumber slave.”
She grins. The grin of someone playing with the minds of others, playing with people’s lives. Maybe that’s what Volvas do. Decide for others. My eyes roll of their own volition.
“You! You are unbelievable,” I laugh.
“Yet you believe.”
“I do now.”
“I will share a few lower enchantments you can practice down at the farm,” says Ylvin. “But first…”
Ylvin swims to the riverbank, raising herself from the water. Droplets glitter on her bare skin as she walks to find her drying cloth.
“Come, girl,” she orders me. “I have something for you.”
I stand, my naked body stroked by a warm wind carrying the scent of plants and animals—life. I feel its warmth, yet it makes me shiver. Ylvin waggles her eyebrows as she looks me up and down.
“Not afraid anymore?” she asks, making me giggle.
“It’s just us.”
“That’s right. You’re a lucky girl,” she says, eyes on my shapes.
She tosses me the linen I had brought to dry myself.
Nude in the woods. I would never have believed it.
And yet, now, I understand. There is nothing to fear.
Ylvin’s rants have helped me see. The two of us are meant to be here.
We are in our natural essence. Women in our bodies. Animals in the woods. Wild.
“Here, Kilda,” she says as she steps toward me.
In her hand is a folded bundle of cloth. But it’s not some brown shirt, simple dress, or drying cloth. It’s so much more. It’s a dark blue robe.
“For me?”
“No, for the other Kilda over there. Of course it’s for you.”
I laugh in disbelief.
“You’re not serious?”
“A Volva needs a robe.”
“But what did this cost?”
Blue is by far the most expensive dye, reserved for nobles and lords, or the extremely wealthy. Also the traditional color of a Volva’s robes. It would have taken masters months to create a hue this deep. The robe is worth more than everything my father and I owned when I was a traveler.
“Who cares about the price?” she insists.
“But I am a slave. I own nothing.”
“You are a Volva. You are not a slave. You have been enslaved, big difference.”
“Everyone down in the valley would beg to differ,” I say in a somber tone.
“That is your first task,” says Ylvin as she places the robe in my hands.
“What is?”
She pushes a strand of wet hair from the side of my face, cupping my cheek in her hand. Like a mother would with her child, a rare moment of tenderness from my teacher.
“Convincing Sigurd to release you.”