The Rot

by Siri Pettersen

  What pain would he inflict on her first? How long would he torment her before he let her die?

  A long time. She would suffer as long as he had. A thousand years. Damayanti’s death would span a thousand years. And in those thousand years, she would die a thousand deaths.

  He tasted blood. His canines had sunk into his lip. He stared at the raven cadaver, fighting the urge to destroy it. To destroy her.

  He could hear her breathing. It was panicked, shaky.

  She knew. They both knew.

  Her fear and his rage intertwined. He readied himself to scream, to make her scream. One howl and she’d be torn apart.

  But something stopped him. He considered what she was. Everything she’d been for him, done for him. He couldn’t bring himself to say her name.

  He just sat there, with her, for a long time. They couldn’t see each other, and not a word passed between them, but she might as well have been sitting right next to him.

  He heard her swallow. Afraid she’d ruin the perfect silence, he got up and closed the raven’s beak.

  HE CAME

  Naiell tossed and turned in his sleep. Hirka smoothed his hair back from his forehead. The black tangles spilled down his back and onto the sofa. He was the only one who could sleep. Stefan had gone out to see if he could find a shop that was still open. To buy cigarettes, and some half-rotten fruit for Naiell.

  It felt like an eternity had passed since she’d had a break from both of them. Time to herself, somewhere safe. But what did she know about how safe it was here? Maybe it just felt that way because she’d been here before. In the apartment in Stockholm. On Riddargatan, where Stefan claimed to have lived.

  He didn’t dare stop at hotels, so they’d driven all day and all night, sleeping for a few hours in a parking lot before continuing on their way. But they couldn’t keep driving forever. They’d needed somewhere safe, so they’d come back. This time the people who lived there had been home. The woman and Stefan had argued for a long time while Naiell slept in the car and Hirka waited in the hall. They argued like lovers. There was something about the way they spoke to each other. A bitterness. He’d called her Karma. Given her money in the end. Hirka had only glimpsed her as she’d hurried off down the stairs. Beautiful, but angry. Holding a big leather bag in one hand and her daughter’s hand in the other.

  Hirka leaned against the window. The constant thumping of music came from the street below. People stood in clusters in the dark under a flashing sign. Some of them were drinking. Two were kissing. None of them were steady on their feet.

  Hirka sat down again and looked at Naiell. His body looked like it had been carved from stone. Hard. Strong. Pale. Like some sort of strange idol. With back muscles she’d never seen in any ymling. Or any human. Only a couple of days ago he’d had a huge gash in his shoulder. But now there was nothing. Not so much as a scar.

  He was a creature built for a life she couldn’t imagine. From a world she’d never seen and hoped she never would. Even though she knew she had the same blood. He was Graal’s brother. They were family.

  Now there was a disturbing thought.

  How much did she have in common with him? If she drew her knife right now and sliced into her arm, would it heal before a drop of blood hit the floor?

  No. She knew it wouldn’t. She’d hurt herself loads of times. Spilled her fair share of blood. True, the wounds had healed quickly, but there was a difference between quickly and … this. No wonder Eirik and Rime had said they were difficult to kill.

  Rime … Rime and Sylja. Lindri. Svarteld.

  Her heart sank into her stomach, where it lay simmering. Burning anger. Hatred.

  She’d done all she could to keep Rime safe, and now he was anything but. Who would help him now? Sylja? Hah! She’d like to see him take Sylja out in the forests to fight the deadborn! He’d soon realize what little use she was then. Did he think Sylja would be able to patch him up when death was near? Could Sylja help him channel the Might, so he could keep himself alive? Blackest Blindból, of course she couldn’t! Sylja wasn’t a child of Odin. Or deadborn. All Sylja could do was dance. Roll her eyes. Smile.

  Give him a good life.

  Poisonous thoughts. She knew she ought to ignore them, to look at things differently, but knowing that only made it worse. Another burden to bear. Self-loathing on top of pain and grief.

  Nothing was as she’d believed anymore. Not even the blind. No one in Ym knew anything about them. They couldn’t begin to understand them. She watched Naiell as he slept. He wasn’t a monster. He was a friend. And she was one of them. The blind hadn’t killed Lindri, or thrown her in the pits in Eisvaldr. They had. Ymlings. Ym’s kin. Ordinary people.

  People mean danger.

  An echo from Father, who slumbered in Slokna. Father had known the truth of it. He’d always known. Crones’ talk and superstition were the least of her worries. Ordinary people were the real danger.

  The loneliness was overwhelming. Everyone she met was either a murderer or doomed to die. But at least now she knew why. Now she knew what the war was about. Blood that could prolong life. Blood of the blind. For just a drop of that blood, people would lick the ground. And because she had the same blood, she was doomed to live a life on the run. Caught between life and death. Between worlds. There was nowhere for her to go. Nowhere she belonged anymore.

  But she did have Graal’s phone number in her pocket.

  Naiell smacked his lips. His mouth dropped open. His canines were like white knives in the dark. According to Stefan, he hadn’t been shot. He’d been knocked out by a weapon made of something electric. The same thing that made lights turn on. Phones ring. TVs lie. Everything worked because of this unseen energy. A bit like the Might.

  Naiell grabbed her arm. Stared up at her. Confused. She could see it in his eyes. At first it had been like staring into a cup of milk. Impossible to see any emotion. But she could now. She’d started to understand his expressions. Very little could actually be read in people’s eyes. It was the small movements around the eyes that gave everything away. The eyelids, the eyebrows …

  “We’re back in Stockholm,” she said. “You’ve had a bit of a shock, but you’re okay now.”

  He growled, remembering what had happened. “Where’s Stefan?”

  “He’s out.”

  He sat up on the sofa. “We’re alone?”

  She felt her eyes brim with tears. She didn’t know why. Alone was just such a horrible word. She didn’t want to cry. She wanted to hate. But her heart wouldn’t obey. He reached out and lifted her chin, surveying her.

  “You trust me.”

  “Why are you asking me that?”

  “I’m not asking, I’m telling. We never shed tears in front of our enemies.”

  Without stopping to think, she wiped away her tears. She immediately felt anxious.

  His hand slid down her throat. “He’s useless. The human. We’ve been with him for weeks and it’s still just the three of us.”

  “How many of us do you think there should be?”

  “We need an army, Sulni! Not a halfwit with no knowledge of warfare.” He tightened his grip on her shoulder. She could feel his claws through her tunic.

  “That’s not how it works here, Naiell! We need Stefan. We can’t just go out and … build armies. Or start wars. They have police here. Things are … I don’t know. Everything’s connected. It’s complicated.”

  “It was complicated in Ym too, but I still managed a fair bit in one day.” He smiled. “And that was on my own.” He let go of her and sank back onto the sofa again, closing his eyes. She wished she could make at least some sense of his energy levels. They seemed to go up and down depending on what he ate. He didn’t think anything here could be called food. Maybe there were just some things that didn’t agree with him.

  The front door flew open and Stefan came in with a full shopping bag and a newspaper. He was sweating.

  “Wait till you see this,” he said.

&
nbsp; Stefan tossed the newspaper on the table and started to flip through it. Hirka emptied the groceries out onto the kitchen counter. There were lots of things that Naiell didn’t like. But he’d definitely sunk his claws into bananas and cheese before. She went into the living room with them and put them down on the table in front of him. He’d fallen asleep again.

  “By all means, dig in …” Stefan mumbled when she returned.

  “He’s going to need to eat when he wakes up.”

  “Where the hell did it go?” Stefan kept flipping through the same pages. “I picked it up in York and forgot about it. Christ, I had no idea … Here!”

  He pointed at some writing in the paper. “The Southampton Ninja! He chopped a cop’s leg off. Seriously, chopped it right off! With a sword!”

  “I’d have thought you’d seen worse,” Hirka said.

  “Now listen, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, girl, but there are very few people running around here wearing leather armor and brandishing swords, let me tell you. How many times have I seen that? Let me think … approximately … zero!”

  “Are you being sarcastic?”

  “Congratulations.” Stefan found his phone. “Wait, there’s more. They think they’ve got him. At the very least they think they’ve got him surrounded. Look.” He held the phone up for her.

  She looked at the photo. It was blurry, and the cracked glass didn’t help. That was her fault. She’d dropped his phone when Allegra had called.

  All she could see was a fair-haired figure, surrounded by what looked like police. Cars and people. She knew where Stefan was going with this, but he was wrong. Still, her heart started pounding.

  “Hirka, he spoke a language nobody understood, and he refused to show ID.”

  “ID?”

  “Identification! Passport. Driver’s license. Sound familiar? Christ, I’ve seen far too much in these last few weeks to think this is a coincidence. This is one of you! They’ve sent someone after you, haven’t they? Let’s hope it’s the cavalry.” He laughed. It sounded a bit manic.

  Hirka didn’t know what cavalry was, but it didn’t matter. “It’s not someone from Ym,” she said.

  “How can you know that? You weren’t there!”

  “First of all, he has no …” She searched for the word. She always forgot words when she got upset. “He has no tail.”

  Stefan stared at her. “Say what?”

  It dawned on her that Stefan had never seen anyone with a tail. Or heard about anyone with a tail, for that matter. He was a child of Odin. A human, brought up among humans. Hirka felt dizzy. She sat down at the kitchen table and rested her head in her hands. There were so many things she should have explained. So many things, big and small. She didn’t know where to start.

  “Wait,” Stefan said. “The park was full of people, this has to be online somewhere …” He pulled his computer out of his bag. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him like this. He was always agitated, but this was different. He mumbled to himself as he poked the machine and stared at the screen. The light made his skin look blue. He turned the screen toward her.

  “Friend of yours?” He grinned and leaned back in his chair.

  Hirka stared at the moving picture. People running through a park. Cars screeching. Skidding onto the grass. A man. In the center of the picture. Long white hair. A sword in each hand. Leather straps across his chest.

  It had to be. He was tailless, but it had to be him. Without a shadow of a doubt. He walked out of the picture and it stopped moving.

  “Rime!” Hirka launched herself at the screen.

  Stefan snatched it away from her. “It’s a video, girl. Relax.”

  “RIME!”

  She grabbed the computer and shook the screen, but the picture was dead. “What have they done with him?!”

  Stefan jumped to his feet and pulled her away from the table. “Hey! Calm down, girl! You heard what I said. They’ll get him soon. It’s okay.”

  Okay? What was okay? None of this was okay. Rime was here! And they had him. The police … Graal. He was here, and they’d chopped off his tail.

  She tore herself out of Stefan’s grasp and reached for the screen. He forced her up against the wall. Pinned her arm against her chest and held her there. “A video. Get it? He’s not here, he’s in England.”

  Hirka wanted to fight her way free, but she didn’t have the strength. She was powerless. What had they done with Rime? Why was he here? Didn’t he know that he couldn’t be here? It was dangerous. She couldn’t think of a worse place to be.

  “We have to get him, Stefan! Now! We have to go now.”

  Stefan held her tight. He didn’t have to say anything. His hesitation spoke volumes. She screamed into his ear. “What are we waiting for!”

  He gave her a shake. “Listen, Hirka. He’s not going anywhere. We’ve been driving for days, and we’re mixed up in a lot of shit over there. It can wait.”

  “No, it can’t!”

  She felt trapped. Penned in. Stefan’s arm over her chest. His face right up to hers. He was a stranger. They were never going to understand each other.

  She wanted to explain. Had to explain. Rime didn’t understand this world. You couldn’t just go around chopping people’s feet off. Not that you could in Ym, but it definitely wasn’t an option here! They’d kill him. Or lock him up and leave him to rot.

  This is Graal’s handiwork.

  Stefan suddenly let go of her. Naiell was standing in the doorway. Broad-shouldered and ready to fight. He was taller and stronger than Stefan. His black hair splayed across his bare shoulders like wings. She’d never seen him look more like Kuro. The raven. Her raven.

  “Tell him that we have to get Rime,” she said in ymish. “We have to!” Naiell’s white eyes slid between her and Stefan. Then he gave a shrug and walked over to the fridge. As if nothing out of the ordinary were going on.

  “You wanted your own army!” she screamed at him. “Get Rime and you won’t need one!”

  She fought to hold back the sobs building in her throat. Then she remembered.

  Don’t let them see how desperate you are. No one will help you then.

  Her own words. She had to rein herself in. Breathe. There was no use fighting. Or begging. That wouldn’t save Rime.

  He’s here. Rime’s here.

  She slumped down onto the kitchen floor and sat with her head resting against the wall. Stefan crouched down in front of her. He took her hands in his and rubbed them, as if she were cold. “He’s not going anywhere, Hirka. They’ve got him surrounded in the national park. They’re going to find him.”

  She nodded. They’d find him, and they’d die.

  “Dammit, girl, we’ve barely slept in days. None of us are seeing clearly right now. We’ll talk about it in the morning.” His words were laughable. A confused man’s attempt to sound like a grown-up. She nodded again. Wiped her nose on the sleeve of her tunic.

  He’s here.

  She steadied her breathing, clinging to the glimmer of hope amid the black thoughts.

  He came.

  BLANK PAGES

  She waited until the others were asleep. It didn’t take long. None of them had had a decent night’s sleep in forever. She got up and climbed down from the two-story bed. Pulled on her trousers and her old tunic. Dragged her fingers through her hair. A near impossible task. It would just have to stay tangled. She had no time to lose.

  She sat down among the stuffed animals and emptied her bag out onto the floor. She needed to repack it and set aside anything that wasn’t necessary. A spare jumper. The half cup she’d been lugging around since leaving the church. She needed to make sure there was room for her waterskin. And the book, which was on the table in the living room—where Naiell was sleeping. That would pose the biggest problem.

  That and the fact that she had no idea where she was or where she was going. In York, she had drawn maps of the neighborhood. She didn’t have a map of Stockholm.

  Hirka finished repa
cking and shouldered her bag. Then she opened the bedroom door as quietly as she could. It was dark in the living room, apart from the flashing of the sign outside. There was a buzzing every time it flickered out.

  She tiptoed past the bookcase dividing the room. Naiell was up in the loft again, lying with one arm over his face. But she couldn’t let herself be lulled into a false sense of security. He had good hearing. Better than hers. Her woolly socks muffled her footsteps as she walked. The book was on the table right in front of her. The incredibly important book that had all three of them stumped. What did it matter if Graal got his hands on it? It didn’t. Not one bit. But Rime mattered. It was the easiest exchange in the world.

  Hirka picked up the book. Naiell rolled onto his side. She stiffened, but he slumbered on. She padded into the kitchen, found the plastic bag from Stefan’s trip to the store, and put the book inside. The plastic kept the weather out somehow. She tucked it into her bag, between her clothes.

  Now came the hard part.

  She found her way to the room where Stefan was sleeping and rested her hand on the door handle. Listened. All was quiet. She pushed the handle down, carefully. It squeaked. She managed to crack the door open. Stefan was in bed with his back to her, still wearing his white, short-sleeved shirt. Not unlike the one she wore to bed. Somehow that made her feel even worse, like she was betraying him. But he wouldn’t understand.

  His phone was on the table by the bed. She reached for it, not daring to get any closer. Her fingertips made contact with the smooth surface. She pulled it toward her. Then dropped it.

  Hirka quickly swooped down and caught it before it hit the floor. She stayed like that for a few moments, her heart in her mouth. She couldn’t afford to make such stupid mistakes, not when Rime’s life was at stake. She needed to get it together.

  She got up again and backed out of the room. She didn’t dare close the door behind her.

  Her raincoat was hanging on a hook in the hall, next to a dark red coat with fur trim. Where did they get fur in a world without animals? She pulled the coat over her head and put on her yellow boots, shoving her knife down the side of one. Then she carefully opened the door, stepped out, and headed for the stairs, which circled down past the other floors. Soon enough, she was outside.