She felt dizzy. Blood ran down her arm, collecting in her palm and dripping onto the floor.
Soon. Enough soon.
She tried to get up but fell. Fell among the humans.
Faces hovered over her. Rime. Rime was there. He reached out to her as she fell. Everything seemed so interminably slow. He grabbed hold of her. Turned and called out to someone. Soundlessly.
His white hair whipped in the wind as he shouted. She smiled.
One point to me if you pull me up.
AN ACCOMPLISHED LIAR
“Why here?” Rime asked.
Graal leaned against the wall and looked at him. The Ravenbearer was standing with his hand against the window, staring at the mountaintops. The composure he exhibited was impressive, given the circumstances. The shock had to have been tremendous, encountering a culture he lacked all the prerequisites to understand.
“Few places are more beautiful than the Norwegian mountains. It’s quiet here. I can hear myself play,” Graal replied, nodding in the direction of the piano. “If I’m interrupted, it’s by ravens. Nothing else. You get tired of all the noise. Eventually.”
He was young, Rime An-Elderin. The eleven kingdoms had never had a younger ravenbearer. Graal felt a kinship with him. They were more alike than Rime thought. Graal had also been the youngest. The prodigy. Destined to lead the first to victory. Together with his brother. He hoped Rime had better allies. He wanted a better fate for him than his own.
Graal filled two glasses with wine and handed one to Rime.
“We’re enemies,” Rime said without looking at him.
“Not today.” Graal set his glass down on the piano.
Rime was remarkably stubborn. So full of fire. Full of life. He had the same blood in his veins as the first warriors. The twelve who had sealed Graal’s fate and sent him here. He was a true child of Ym. The question was whether that would make things simpler or more difficult. Graal needed to bend him to his will. Make him do what he couldn’t do himself.
“Enemies don’t want the same thing,” Graal said. “We do. She’s in there recovering her strength. Making new blood after a sacrifice neither you nor I would have made. We both want her to survive. Both you and I want what’s best for her. That makes us allies. Today.”
Rime turned toward him. The leather straps creaked across his chest. A heavenly sound Graal hadn’t heard in centuries. The sound of passion. Conviction. Strength. It was a whisper from a place where survival still depended on how much sweat you were willing to offer.
He felt a stab of shame. He’d been like Rime, once. Balanced between ice and fire. He’d taken what was rightfully his with his own hands. Young and arrogant. Now he moved money around. Meaningless figures, to places with imagined value. Survival was free here. All the same, his hands were dirtier now than they’d ever been before.
It’s just one of those days.
Graal was used to the mood swings, but it wasn’t always easy to know when they were coming. They had a tendency to make things foggy. He had to fight to remember what he really thought. Dig through layers of false information to find his true self. Melancholy was an accomplished liar.
Rime’s face was close. “I’m being civilized because I have no other choice,” he said through clenched teeth. “Not for any other reason. Because you have power over her, and power over me. The day you lose that power will be the day you realize we’re enemies.”
Graal smiled, suppressing a shiver. He’d wondered what kind of power could compel Damayanti to betray him. The answer was standing right in front of him. Hair and eyes as white as snow. Wearing linen and leather, with twin promises of death strapped to his back.
In another life, Graal would have taken him. Kept him for himself. Given him life in return, and never forgotten him. It was unexpectedly painful to know it couldn’t be that way.
He swirled the wine in his glass but didn’t drink. Wine had a tendency to make matters worse.
“Would you feel better if you could kill me, Rime? Would you feel you’d achieved something important if you shed more blood? Is that still how they measure victory in Mannfalla? Is it really that difficult to sit at a table with people you disagree with?”
Rime’s gaze faltered. Graal had struck a nerve. “Disagree? You want to conquer the eleven kingdoms! Crush my people!”
Graal sighed and sat down on the sofa next to the raven cadaver. “What is it you call us, Rime? Blind? Deadborn? Nábyrn? Our people have a name. Umpiri. Blood of the first. In our stories, the world was created by the first raven. By Um. Over the years, Um became Ym. If you doubt my claim, you needn’t look further than what you call your world. Ym is named after us.”
Rime walked around the edge of the room and stopped in front of the painting, just like Hirka had done. “And what of it? I bet there are myths in your world that come from ymlings.”
“Certainly. And there are myths here in the human world that come from us. That’s the problem with humans and ymlings. Your lives are too short. You mix up your stories and have poor memories. Before even a century has passed, their origin is forgotten. I’ve been here for almost a thousand years, and I’ve seen my story twisted into something unrecognizable. I’ve been a wounded king, a holy grail, and a bloodsucking zombie. As if I’d ever drink human blood. What am I, a barbarian?”
“You let them drink yours, so that sounds about right to me.”
Graal took a sip of his wine. It was tart. He hadn’t drunk wine in a long time. He set his glass down on the table, next to the raven cadaver.
“Where I come from, there’s nothing purer than blood. Your kind understood that once as well. But nobody understands it anymore. Maybe she’ll change that. If she lives long enough. And both of us want her to live.”
Graal knew Rime would take the bait. But would he go far enough? Could he make him do what he wanted?
He could hear the Ravenbearer approaching. Part of him enjoyed the danger he represented. An armed Kolkagga, who in his ardent simplicity believed in sacrificing himself to kill him. No matter the consequences. But Rime An-Elderin wasn’t to be underestimated.
“So why are you letting him go with her? It’s madness! You know that as well as I do. He’ll kill her as soon as the opportunity presents itself.”
“Undoubtedly,” Graal replied. “I have to trust they’ll kill him first.”
“Trust? You see what she’s done. If anyone can prevent a bloodbath, it’s her. They’ll let him live if she asks them to. Your trust is misplaced, and she’ll suffer for it.”
“Possibly. After all, Dreyri don’t kill Dreyri. But I suspect they’ll soon dispense with that rule when presented with my brother.”
Rime walked around the sofa and met his gaze. “He’ll live. And work against her. Find ways to destroy her. Every single day!”
“Every single hour.”
“So why?! What’s the point of her taking the enemy of the people with her if she won’t let them punish him? Why are you letting him go with her?”
Graal struggled to suppress a smile. This was almost too easy. “Because she’d never forgive me if I killed him.”
Rime gaped at him. “You care more about what she thinks of you than her safety.” It wasn’t a question. His lip curled in distaste.
Graal got up. “Don’t you?”
“No.”
“Well, you’re welcome to try negotiating with him. He’s locked in the cellar. He’s not going anywhere. He’ll have no choice but to listen to you. But I think he’d prefer death to what awaits him. We don’t kill each other, but we can inflict pain. It’s an art our people have mastered so well that most who die choose that fate.”
Graal could tell that Rime was hesitating, so he gave him a moment to come to the right conclusion. Graal had waited for a thousand years, and he wasn’t going to let his brother leave this world. At least not with his daughter. Blood of his blood.
If Rime didn’t kill Naiell, he would do it himself. There was no doubt abou
t that. It would give him more pleasure than he cared to admit, but killing one’s own brother couldn’t be swept under the rug, and it couldn’t be done without losing Hirka’s trust—something he was willing to do almost anything to keep.
Rime had to be the executioner. It would also weaken the only tie Hirka had to Ym. The bond between her and Rime.
“So let me talk to him,” Rime said.
“Of course,” Graal replied. “Follow me.”
THE PRICE
Rime stared at the cellar door. It was made of solid steel. Smooth as a sword. Its surface was flawless. But someone had to have made it.
Behind this door was the Seer. Naiell. The blindling who had turned on his own people to save Ym. That was what the Book of the Seer said. That was what Rime had been hearing since the day he was born.
Even his own existence was a blessing from the Seer. A birth that could have ended in tragedy. It had almost killed both him and his mother before he’d taken his first breath. But then Ilume had arrived at her daughter’s childbed with a gaggle of healers, announcing that the Seer had decreed the child would live.
That was how he had been born. The child everyone had been waiting for. Rime An-Elderin. Blessed by a god he’d dedicated his life to. Worshipped. Served with blood. Raged against. Until the final end. Until he’d broken in to see the Raven, only to discover that He didn’t exist.
But the Seer had committed a greater sin than not existing. He’d forgotten them all.
Rime put his hand on the door. It was cold against his palm. He let the coldness fill him, affirm what he had to do. Hirka would never understand. Or forgive him. But it was better that she lived as his enemy than didn’t live at all. And was it such a sin to give a man death rather than an eternity of torment?
Don’t start something you can’t finish.
He pressed the button next to the door. Heard the sound of bolts sliding back. A click. Then the door cracked open and Rime went in. The Seer leaped to his feet. He was still naked apart from the trousers belonging to that human. The one who’d put his arm around Hirka.
A light on the wall came on without Rime touching it. The light hit the blindling’s chest. Bare. Strong. Unmarred by its encounter with Hirka’s knife. No wonder fear of the nábyrn ran so deep among ymlings. No wonder one of them had risen to a position of absolute power. As a god.
My god. The Seer I followed.
Naiell gave him a derisive smile. “He sends you to do a job he doesn’t dare do himself?”
“I begged to do it,” Rime replied. “Since I’ve already killed you in Ym.”
“You flatter yourself. I’m alive and well, Rime.”
“So you know who I am?”
“I lived in the raven for a long time, but I still picked up on some things.” Naiell looked down at his claws.
“Lived in the raven? While a whole world followed you? I dedicated my entire life to your words. Your false ideas.”
Naiell laughed. A croaking that bounced off smooth walls. “Says the boy who’s barely seen twenty winters. Forgive me if I don’t cry, mayfly, but your entire life is over in a breath. You haven’t lived long enough to understand that you can’t blame others for your own idolatry. You bent the knee for someone who wasn’t there. Which of us has sinned? You or I?”
Rime realized he was right. Naiell had seized power because he could. People had followed him because they wanted to. As they now followed Rime. Like the forgotten followed Graal.
“I forgive you,” Rime said. “I forgive you for seizing power. But I don’t forgive you for your theft of the Might. For stopping the flow and closing the gateways. I don’t forgive you for all those who gave their lives so you could have absolute power. And I don’t forgive you for what you’re planning to do. To her. The first chance you get, you’ll stab her in the back. To save your own skin.”
Naiell winked, as if they shared a secret. “Not straight away. That’s much too simple for my tastes. She’ll suffer first, you can count on that.”
Rime reached over his shoulder and drew a sword.
Naiell’s upper lip pulled back to bare his canines. “You’re proving how little you know about Umpiri. It doesn’t matter what you do. Or what I do. She’ll suffer regardless.”
Rime lowered his sword. “You’re right.”
Hirka wanted to save lives. Not take them.
So what torment was he to inflict on her? That which would come from being destroyed by Naiell, or that which would come from knowing that Rime had killed him? He was trapped between his own conviction and hers. He’d already lost.
But he’d known that before he’d come down to the cellar, so why was he hesitating? The choice was simple. Did he want her love, or her safety?
Rime looked at the Seer. For him, death was undoubtedly preferable to meeting his own people again. He longed for the easiest way out. The coward’s way out.
Rime turned his back on him.
He heard the Seer come closer. “No one turns their back on me, An-Elderin.”
“You turned your back on all of us,” Rime replied without looking around.
“And I’ll do it again. After Umpiri have burned. After she’s drawn her last breath. I promise you, boy, she’s going to wish she’d never been born. You asked whether I’ve known true pain. None of us have, compared to what she’ll experience. My brother’s cursed progeny is going to lose her virginity to a sword.”
Rime closed his eyes. His choice was made. He was Kolkagga. He didn’t start anything he couldn’t finish.
He felt the Seer approaching. Rime whirled around, his sword an extension of his arm. Weightless. Fluid. Then it met resistance. Slowed as it hit flesh. Then sped up again. He knew the maneuver better than the back of his hand.
Ravnringr. Perfect.
He’d spun all the way around and now stood with his back to what he knew to be a dead Seer. Blood dripped from his sword. He stared at the door.
Hirka …
She was standing in the doorway, wearing only a white shirt. Hair wild and red around wide eyes. Blood had sprayed across her bare legs.
He heard the Seer fall to the floor behind him.
Hirka went pale. Her eyes brimmed with grief. Grief that kept coming until there was nothing but emptiness.
She turned her back on him and ran up the stairs. He didn’t go after her. There was nothing he could say. Nothing he could do. He pulled a rag out of his pocket and dragged it along the blade. Wiped away the Seer’s blood.
He’d made his choice. He knew who he was. What he was willing to do.
Now he was paying the price.
ARMOR
Hirka followed the black stone walls around the room, looking at Graal’s collection. Bowls, cups, and sculptures. Various items in various sizes. The only thing they had in common was that they were all broken. They’d been glued back together, but not so the breaks couldn’t be seen, like most people would have done. These had been repaired with pure gold. As if calling attention to the flaws were the whole point.
An art form, Graal had said, with a name she no longer remembered, from a country she’d never heard of. The point was to demonstrate that something could be more beautiful because it had been broken.
Hirka rested her fingers on the rough surface of a black bowl. Gold spread from the edge like blood vessels. A golden tree. It was certainly beautiful, but the bowl would never be the same again. It was also one of few that it had been possible to repair. For every bowl in this room there were ten thousand that would never be put back together again. That had been broken beyond recognition. Obliterated.
Like the flow of the Might between worlds.
It was about acceptance, Graal had said. About seeing beauty in that which was fleeting. In the traces of what had happened. Graal said a lot of strange things.
She left the bowls and went into the living room. It felt odd to be there alone. Her only company was the raven cadaver by the sofa. Hirka went over to the window. It was getting dar
k. The mountaintops were turning gray, becoming one with the sky. It made her feel dizzy, though that might just have been the blood loss. Images flashed through her mind. The beggar with the chapped hands. The plastic on the church roof flapping in the wind. The blood running between her fingers.
Graal said she’d been seen by a good doctor. A woman he trusted, who had taken samples of her blood to find out why she was able to cure the rot. She had mixed blood that gave her resistance, he’d said. It didn’t feel that way.
She could sense him coming. He stepped into the room.
“Is he gone?” Hirka asked without turning around.
Graal came closer. “He’s gone.”
Hirka leaned against the glass. It reflected them both.
Rime was back in Ym. To prevent the Council from falling apart, and undoubtedly to serve Graal in secret. He didn’t have a choice, now that he had the beak in his throat.
Hirka clenched her teeth. “Good,” she whispered. “And Stefan’s mother? Did you find her?”
“I found her. She can be saved.”
Hirka took a deep breath, relieved. She had to be pleased about what she could fix. Not despair over what was lost.
“And the book?”
Graal put the bag on the floor and pulled out the book. He gave it to her and she hugged it to her chest. The map of the worlds. Power no one could be allowed to have. It remained to be seen whether he would let her take it with her.
He lingered behind her. They looked at each other in the window. No one would have guessed they were father and daughter. The tall, dark-haired blindling with the red-haired girl standing before him.
“Not a day passed when I didn’t think of you,” Graal said. “About whether you were alive. Whether you’d actually grown up somewhere, against all odds. Who you’d become, and how much of our kind there was in you. You were human to look at. Their eyes. Their fingers. No claws. I wondered what would happen when you cut your first teeth. Would they be like ours? And the Might … I thought about what you would be able to do with it. Use it like us, or amplify it, like a human. And most important of all, would you die, like them? Or live, like us?”
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