by H. M. Long
I wiped snow from my face and watched the distant, swirling storm-head that was Ogam and the mother who had tried to murder him at birth, the supposed goddess who hadn’t had the strength to save her people, but still believed she could face down Lathian of old. My hand fell to my belt, where the Eangi collar I’d salvaged from the abandoned village was still fastened, warped and glistening in the sunlight.
The tips of my fingers rested on its frigid bronze as the storm raced over the peaks of the mountains to the north, leaving us in sparkling sunlight and disconsolate ice flows. And the more distant it became, the deeper my conviction ran.
I wanted to worship Eang, as my people always had. I wanted her to stand between Styga and me on a mountainside – my blazing Goddess of War, and me, her trusted, valued servant. I wanted to stand in the Hall of Smoke, shoulder to shoulder with a hundred Eangi, as we chanted and sung, united in heart and will and mind. I wanted to rest each night in the security of a goddess’s bravery, watchfulness and vengeance.
But I could have none of those things. The Eangi were dead. Eang could not protect us from the threat we now faced, and I had to do what was right for my people, and myself.
I offered Omaskat a humorless, brittle smile. My fingers drifted away from the collar. “Does your offer still stand? The security of the High Halls and the Eangen people, under your god’s rule?”
Omaskat nodded, chin still tilted slightly to one side in vigilance.
“Then I agree,” I said. I took my hatchet and slit my left palm wide, then held out the hand to him, open and flat so that blood ran down my fingers and trickled onto the ice. Blood that was magic and hinted with the barest breath of sleeping amber ichor, if I looked at it just so. Blood that was sacrifice. Blood, as the gods always demanded.
“Stop Lathian, protect my people, and save our High Halls,” I said. I was still so cold that I barely felt the wound, but the weight of the gesture pulled at my bones – down, down through the ice and earth and the fabric of the world. “And I will serve your god.”
Omaskat came forward and took my hand, watching blood pool from the livid division of flesh. Then he curled my fingers in on themselves. Blood spilled, dripping down onto the ice between us.
“Not that,” he said quietly. “Not ever again. Thvynder does not need your blood, Hessa. That belongs to you.”
My jaw flexed, overwhelmed by a dozen darting, incoherent emotions. “Then what must I do?”
Omaskat nodded back towards the shore. “Return to the shores of the White Lake, as everyone expects you to. Fight, if need be – anything to keep Styga, Lathian and Eang from realizing that your loyalties have changed. And when the moment comes, and you and I face one another in the lake, buy me time to complete the ritual.”
My chin dropped in slow ascent. “And Vistic?”
“He will return safely to his mother’s arms. I promise you.”
A second smile touched my lips, still small, but with a hint of genuine hope. No matter what happened now, how the gods clashed or the world shifted, I could cling to the thought of Sixnit and Vistic, together and safe.
My eyes dragged past Omaskat to the peninsula where they and Svala waited for me, and my happiness waned. “Will you take him, then? The baby?”
“Me, no. But Gadr is nearby, on his way to the White Lake with a force of Algatt. I’ll send him for the child on his way,” Omaskat said. When my eyes widened, he added, “Svala and Sixnit will not be harmed, I promise. But I think it is best if your High Priestess and I do not properly meet and it will give you… a little time together, before what comes next. I’ll find Gadr at the lake and take child from there. You’ll have an hour together, at most.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat. It hurt – Ogam’s boot had left its mark – but the pain was secondary. An hour. An hour with my friend, my mentor and the child before we were torn apart again. Unwelcome tears burned in my eyes, and I forcefully squinted them away. They were irrelevant, now.
“Then I need to go.” I stepped away from him, clearing my throat. “We’ll meet again at the White Lake.”
Omaskat stooped to take the whimpering Ayo into his arms, then, straightening, he gave me a nod of farewell. The dog rested her head on his shoulder and let out a weary, whuffling sigh.
“At the White Lake.”
FORTY
I hurried back to the peninsula, where a fire winked among the wind-ruffled trees. Svala waited for me on a rock, leaning instead of sitting, and as I separated from the night she wavered upright.
“Where’s that man?” she asked, clasping her arms over her chest. The breeze off the lake was cool, but she shivered against a deeper cold.
I slowed, still ankle-deep in the water. In the chaos of snow and supernatural forces, Svala, like Eang, hadn’t properly seen or sensed Omaskat. She still didn’t realize who he was.
“We were separated,” I said simply. My gaze flicked through the forest, searching for any sign of Gadr. Omaskat had said we’d only have an hour, and I could feel the minutes creeping by.
“Who was he?” Svala asked, still on the topic of Omaskat. Her eyes dropped to the Eangi collar at my belt, but she did not rebuke me for carrying it. If anything, her gaze softened. “You called him a god.”
“I don’t really know.” My bruised throat felt tighter than it should as I spoke the lie, my eyes still on the forest. “You know how the gods are.”
The other woman nodded. Her eyes left the collar and followed my gaze over her shoulder. “What is it, child?”
I shook my head and stepped up out of the water with a slosh and a tottering step. “Only my nerves.”
“I understand.” Svala reached out her hand, the network of fine scars across her fingers and palms milky in the twilight. “Come.”
I clambered up the rocky shoreline to her outstretched hand. I took it apprehensively, as if she would sense my betrayal through my skin. But all she did was help me up and pull me to a halt.
We looked at each other, older woman to younger, high priestess to priestess, mentor to acolyte. Then she pulled me into her chest. I froze, every muscle springing taut at the long-forgotten feeling of familiar arms around me, of affection flowing from another human being, let alone from Svala.
“I’m sorry.” She rasped the words into my ear. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
Albor. She meant Albor. My resistance crumpled and I sagged into her arms, body trembling in tearless, exhausted grief. Svala held me, letting me hide from the last two months’ trials in her firm, if quaking arms, the maternal swell of her breasts, and the scent of sweat, sage and ice.
“Where were you?” I finally managed to ask, forcing myself to pull away. The longer her touch remained, the more my newfound convictions pained me. And the more I feared the approach of Gadr.
“Come to the fire,” Svala said, nodding towards the light. “And we can talk.”
A few moments later, warm light illuminated the faces of my companions and the shadow of Cadic, off in the trees. I sat close to Sixnit, Vistic sleeping at her breast and her head leant against a tree, red-rimmed eyes closed. She had smiled in greeting, clasped my hand and kissed my cheek, but had yet to speak.
Svala settled in across the fire. I divided my attention between her and the trees, my breath shallow. When would Gadr arrive? How long did the three of us have, here in the quiet night? How long before I had to leave them again and set off alone?
“I left Albor, right after you left for your climb,” Svala began with the air of a long-held confession. “I did not know what to do about you, or Omaskat. So I went to pray, deep into the forest. But Eang… was silent.”
So I was not the only one whose prayers had gone unheard that day. It was hollow comfort now.
Svala continued, “Then I saw Algatt in the woods. They harried me for days, until I managed to kill them. But by then I was hopelessly lost, far up in Rioki territory. So I drank yifr and visited the Hall, looking for answers.”
“You fou
nd me,” I added.
“Yes, eventually. And soon after that, Ogam found me in turn.” Svala evaluated Sixnit, whose eyes were still closed. “That’s the last thing I remember.”
We both fell quiet and the fire snapped, sending a few sparks whirling up towards the trees above.
“Eang was dead,” I said finally. I wasn’t sure why I said it – we had so little time before Gadr arrived. But I needed to see Svala’s reaction, needed to understand how deep her loyalty to Eang still ran. And how much the High Priestess might be holding back. “That’s why she was silent. She died, and she killed an Eangi to pull herself back to life.”
I felt, more than saw, Sixnit’s eyes snap open. Svala, however, simply paused, lips thinned into a line. “You should not say such things, Hessa.”
“I met the gods who killed her.”
“But Eang is alive,” Sixnit protested. “We saw her!”
“Indeed,” Svala affirmed, her voice dropping to a deadly pitch. Her eyes narrowed and I privately mourned the warmth of the embrace we’d shared on the shoreline. “Who told you such a thing? Who ‘killed’ her?”
I looked at the High Priestess as I replied, my own voice hardening. Svala had to know we were Vestiges – if not she, who would? How dare she deny it?
“I know what we are,” I said, willing my spine straight. “I went to the High Halls too, remember. I met two Gods of the Old World, standing over the corpses of Oulden and Riok and Dur – all murdered. They told me they’d killed Eang before, and that once I was dead, she might finally stay down.”
Svala’s suspicion flickered. “Oulden… Riok and Dur are dead?”
“I’ll explain everything,” I said, her shock making me bold. “But first, did you know? What we are?”
“Yes, I knew. Or rather…” Svala drew a fortifying breath. “I’ve long suspected. It is why, I believe, Ogam took me – to own the last hope of Eang. He couldn’t kill me or any other Eangi outright, not without Frir telling Eang. Then his betrayal would be known.”
“Then why didn’t he put Hessa in the ice too?” Sixnit asked.
I brushed wind-blown hair from my forehead. “Because I will kill Omaskat, and Ogam wants him dead as much as Eang does. They all do. The Old Gods and the New. It’s the only reason I’m alive.”
My words seemed to refocus everyone.
“And you’ll fulfill that destiny.” Svala leaned forward to add wood to the flames. She looked to Sixnit and Vistic, “While you and I and the child wait for Hessa in Iskir.”
The ease and simplicity of Svala’s trust in me struck like a knife in the gut. She suspected nothing.
The High Priestess continued, “We’ll rest here for another hour, then go our separate ways. We need to get the child as far away as possible and you need to finish your task.”
I realized I was digging my fingers into my thighs. I pried them loose and nodded, the diligent Eangi to her High Priestess.
“But for now, we rest,” Svala said, her eyes softening in some recollection of her earlier embrace. “And I want you, the both of you, to tell me your stories.”
So we did. I went first, confessing all that had befallen me since I heard the war horns from Mount Thyr. I told them of Ashaklon and Styga, of Oulden and the Arpa, and Gadr’s allegiance with the god beneath the lake. But much of my tale was too raw, too dangerous to divulge. So I concealed it behind genuine emotion and passed the tale on to Sixnit.
Six shifted, preparing to give her half of the tale, and passed me Vistic. Despite weeks in the ice, he was bigger and heavier than I remembered. My body was tired and my arms complained under his weight, but as I took him my discomfort faded.
His eyes remained closed, tiny features at peace and lips slightly parted. He looked so very Eangen, from the black curls on his head to Sixnit’s nose, and the angular cut of his sleeping eyes recalled his father.
As Sixnit began to speak, I leant down and took in his sweet infant scent. Whatever else Vistic was, he was the child of a murdered Eangi brother, a baby that I had pledged my protection to and whose mother I loved. And in that moment, all over again, I vowed to never, ever let harm befall him.
Sixnit said, “Ogam came for me in the Algatt camp, after Vistic… vanished. He promised to help me find the baby, so I went with him.”
“Why would he take you with him?” Svala voiced the same thought in my own mind. Now that I understood Ogam, his kindness to Sixnit made little sense.
“Because I’m Vistic’s mother.” Sixnit’s smile was sorrowful. “Maybe he assumed there was something special about me, that I had some value. Maybe he thought I should be with my son, since he’s still so small.”
I recalled Ogam’s own story – abandoned as a newborn on a wind-swept mountain. Was it sentimentality, then, that had led him to keep Vistic with Sixnit?
“He told me Vistic wasn’t human,” my friend added. “I was frightened, so I didn’t ask many questions.”
“What did he say Vistic was?” I wanted to know.
Sixnit shrugged. Tightness gathered around her eyes and I saw one hand twitch towards her stomach. “His.”
I stared at her hand, an odd suspicion trickling into the back of my thoughts, but I did not broach it yet. “What? How?”
Irritation crossed the other woman’s face. “Some nonsense about visiting me in the dark of the night.”
“If Ogam had entered the Hall of Smoke, I would have known,” Svala interjected.
“Well I’m no Eangi,” Sixnit replied, her voice cooling. She stared at the baby, adoration and fear conflicting in her expression. “And I did not care what he said, or how untrue it was. I was desperate to find Vistic. When we finally did, when we confronted Gadr… Ogam sounded so cruel, and Gadr was so protective. Something wasn’t right. After Gadr fled and I had Vistic in my arms again, I saw his eyes had changed.”
At mention of Gadr, my eyes scanned the shadows under the trees again.
Sixnit pried her hand away from her stomach and inched closer to the fire. “But… I felt safe with Ogam. I even lay with him, near the end. I did what I had to do.”
That made me pause, recalling Ogam’s offers of immortal offspring. “You—”
“Yes,” Sixnit said, a little more coldly than before, and she did not meet either of our gazes. “I did. More than once. I’ve a baby at my breast, Hessa; it’s not as though I thought he’d get a child on me. It took Vist and I over a year to become pregnant with Vistic, and you and Eidr never… you know how these things can be.”
Eidr’s name, and the thought of the family we’d never had, silenced me. That was a side of my loss, a well within my chasm of grief, that I could not risk traversing. Not now. I locked it away and lowered my gaze to the heart of the fire, focusing on its flickers and sparks.
“Ogam has sired a thousand children,” Svala corrected. “I do not think his get would care if you were ten years barren.”
Sixnit’s face turned to scarlet and her eyes to flint. “I did what I had to do,” she repeated. “But then I woke one night to him smothering Vistic. I went mad. But Ogam couldn’t kill him, so he took us to the ice.”
“Was that before or after I came?” Svala wondered, the rest of her thoughts on Sixnit’s dalliance with the immortal Son of Winter locked behind her dark eyes.
Sixnit’s expression was grim in equal measure. “Before. He formed the island around us and the horse and said he would wake me at the ‘proper time’.”
Svala glanced off towards the beast in question. “Why the horse?”
“For me.” Sixnit shook her head and drew her knees up, concealing her stomach again, and I suddenly knew the reason why.
I met Svala’s eyes and an understanding passed between us. Abruptly, the High Priestess shifted her aching body upright and put out her hand. I saw anger in her expression, frustration and a great, crushing burden. “Give me your waterskin, Hessa.”
I handed it over and the priestess moved off, leaving Sixnit and me in silence. The fir
e hissed, wind rustled the trees and waves lapped the shoreline in tentative slaps and burbles.
“You are pregnant with Ogam’s child,” I murmured. It wasn’t a question.
“I think so. But I’m alive,” she said. “And I don’t care what you or Svala think of me. I did what I had to do. My husband is dead, but I am still alive to raise our son. And this new child, whoever they may be. They’re mine, not Ogam’s. Mine. Will you abandon me for that?”
“No!” I faltered. Her gaze stabbed into mine, hostile and cold and full of pain. I reached to take her hand, clutching it as firmly as she’d allow, and repeated myself, putting all my hope and honesty into a simple, “No. I’ll help you.”
Sixnit’s eyes filled with tears. Frustrated with herself, she raked them away and reached for Vistic again, her movements taut with love and determination.
I relinquished him. My arms felt suddenly cold as he left and reality swelled in, close and inescapable. Soon, so soon, Gadr would come for that child, Sixnit’s grief would break anew, and I would have to leave her again. I would forge off into the night alone, as always.
Vistic awoke in his mother’s arms, opening his eyes to reveal their new blue and gold hues. I leant forward to look down at his small face, my shoulder brushing Sixnit’s. She nearly flinched away, but then leant into me, warm and familiar. And so we sat there, two women considering the face of the unnatural child we’d bound ourselves to, while yet another, nearly as unnatural infant resided in Sixnit’s womb.
“If you survive,” Sixnit added quietly, and it took me a moment to realize she was amending my vow. “Don’t go after Omaskat, Hessa. Stay with me. Help me get Vistic as far away as we can.”
My eyes dropped to the infant. He didn’t move, his attention lingering on his mother’s face with an uncanny degree of focus.
“Svala will protect you,” I consoled her, and myself.
“I don’t know Svala.”
I looked at the other woman askance. Sixnit knew Svala, of course. We all lived in the same Hall. But simple acquaintance or shared living space was not what she meant.