by Emma Hamm
The next handhold wasn’t too far from her reach. She dug her boots into the side of the ice, slipping for a moment before she could swing herself up and grab onto the wooden spike. This one wiggled in her hand, but it was enough that she could continue to hold. Perhaps it would hold her weight, perhaps it wouldn’t.
That was part of the fun.
A grin spread across her face as she scaled the mountain. Her arms burned, her legs ached, her back began to strain. Her body might hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt. She hadn’t used her muscles like this in so long she’d feared she might forget how. This was what she wanted to do.
Sigrid didn’t like feeling trapped. She didn’t want to be in the forest providing for others when there were adventures to be had. Wasn’t that why she had run from the responsibilities of matriarch? She was a young woman, by the gods! She should be able to explore, to enjoy herself, to find out what she wanted out of life without the weight of a hundred people’s lives on her shoulders.
Nearly at the top of the ice mountain, a handhold snapped in half. Crying out, her body rotated until she was facing away from the mountain, holding on by one hand and praying her fingers weren’t so tired that they couldn’t hold her weight.
She gasped, fear racing through her body and making her palm slick with sweat. But that fear quickly bled away when her eyes feasted on the sight before her.
The valley of the ancients laid out like a painting before her. Everything covered in a fine layer of snow except the very center where there were still green things growing. They’d hollowed out a home for themselves, not just in the mountain but within a crater that allowed them to grow food and everything else that kept them alive.
She could see the tiny dots of people moving through their daily lives. No one knew she was climbing the mountain other than the single Beastkin man who had work to do. He might be finished with the deer by now, but he wouldn’t be able to run and tell the others braves what she’d done. Not yet.
For now, she was the only person in the world.
The wind ruffled her hair, cold and biting but still welcome in this moment when she felt a little more than lost. Why had she come here? So far away from her family and friends. She was nothing more than a single speck on the horizon.
Turning back to the ice mountain, she hauled herself up and over the lip of ice. Rolling a few times, she finally laid on her back and stared up at the clouds in the sky. There might be a storm tonight by the looks of it. And she could remain up here, screaming with rage back at the sky which seemed to understand her mood.
Aslaug had said remaining here would help her find who she was. That she would understand her purpose if she remained with the ancients who knew what the Beastkin were first created for.
But they didn’t feel like all-knowing people. They lived in harmony, together with themselves and the land. They were a perfect people, certainly, but that didn’t explain where she’d come from or what her purpose was.
All she’d done was help them. And Sigrid liked helping people. It made her feel as though she was giving them back something for hosting her when they hadn’t expected another mouth to feed in this never-ending winter.
They’d given her clothing, the same she wore now. Furs that covered her from head to toe. Some of them sheep, the ones closer to more sensitive skin were clearly rabbit. She didn’t know who had given up their clothing for her to wear, or if they had more to share with themselves and their families.
She appreciated it all. Gods, she did. The ancient civilization here was more kind than any other she’d ever met. They wanted to keep giving and have her give in return.
It felt like a utopia. But nothing was perfect, especially in this time.
Every corner she turned was as if she were waiting for something to go wrong. Like someone was going to suddenly turn on her, shifting into a bear or lion and attacking her just for disturbing their peace.
Of course, it hadn’t happened yet. Likely wouldn’t. Aslaug and her people knew how to be generous with their hosting.
And yet, she still didn’t know why she was here. What she was learning, or why she was spending so much time with them when her own people needed her back at home.
A cloud drifted past in the shape of a bird. Her heart clenched hard. She missed her sisters, and Camilla most of all. What would her sister say if she were here?
Probably that Sigrid wasn’t listening. She was going through the motions of being a good guest, but she wasn’t trying to learn what the ancients were teaching her.
Taking advantage of the situation was one thing, but actually taking the time to listen? Sigrid had never been very good at that. She was a woman of action. She made snap decisions, remained silent so she could hear what other people were saying. But had she ever actually let it soak in? Hallmar always said there was meaning underneath the words people said. Actions were stronger, that she could draw judgements based off of what people did, not what they said they wanted to do.
She was thinking herself in circles now. How was she supposed to stay here and learn when her own brain wouldn’t shut up?
A shadow crossed above her face, far too close for comfort. Flinching, Sigrid blinked up at the wooden mask that stared blankly back at her.
“Eivor?” she asked.
“I said we’d meet again, didn’t I?”
When the strange medicine woman stepped back, Sigrid rolled onto her hands and knees, pushing herself to standing. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask the same of you.”
“I wanted to see what the brave trails really were. Aslaug said I have no need to train how to fight when I have a dragon in me.” Sigrid brushed snow off her furs. “I disagree.”
“As do I. But one doesn’t question matriarch when she’s teaching a lesson.” Eivor danced back, her feet barely leaving impressions on the snow. “So. What is the lesson?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Sounds like Aslaug. She doesn’t particularly like having to tell someone what they need to know. It’s better for them to learn it the hard way. Lessons like that stick.” Eivor tapped her mask with a finger. “Sometimes the mind needs to be punished for bad thinking.”
“Is that how she trained you?”
“No one trained me. Medicine women aren’t allowed to be touched, remember? We have to find our own way in the world. That’s where the magic comes from after all.”
What a lonely existence this woman had. Sigrid felt a small surge of pity for the creature who danced back and forth from foot to foot. She’d been alone her entire life, so it seemed. Except for circumstances like this when she was meant to bring someone back to the matriarch.
No wonder Eivor was a strange creature. She’d made her way in the world with no one to guide her, no one to hold her at night.
Sigrid didn’t know what to say.
It seemed, neither did Eivor until she jerked her arm up, then lifted the rat’s head from her waist. “What is it, Grim? No. No I don’t want to ask her that. You can ask her yourself if that’s what you want, but there’s no reason… Fine.” Eivor cleared her throat, and the mask turned back to Sigrid’s gaze. “He’d like to know if your soul is still intact.”
“I don’t see why it wouldn’t be.”
“Well you—” Eivor hesitated then gesture between them. “You touched me, you see. The soul is bound to be a little uncomfortable after that. It hasn’t affected you? A pulling sensation, perhaps, in your naval?”
“No.”
“Now, strange dreams at night or wandering about the plains as soon as you drift off?”
“Not at all.” Sigrid smiled. “Really, I’m fine.”
“Strange.” She lifted the skull to her ear again. “Yes, well I suppose we could, considering.”
She was talking to the rat again. Sigrid had her concerns that the “soul” inside that skull wasn’t real at all. It made far more sense that this was a woman who had suffered greatly, and whose
mind reached out for whatever companionship she could find. Unfortunately, that seemed to be housed in the skulls of dead animals jangling at her waist.
Eivor turned around and began to walk away, talking to the beast inside the skull. “Yes, Grim. I know we’re not supposed to show anyone but she isn’t really anyone, now is she? I agree. It’s important that she sees it. Maybe this will explain more than the matriarch is doing. After all, it is part of our history.”
“Our history?” Sigrid called out. “What are you talking about?”
“Come with me, dragoness. There’s something I want to show you.”
“What? Eivor, slow down!”
The Medicine woman sped up. Sigrid was forced to race after her, chasing her through the snow and running across the barren wasteland at the top of the mountain. The flat shelf was made of snow and ice. No footprints marred the pure white. It was as if she had died. Perhaps she had. Maybe she’d fallen off the ice and couldn’t remember at all that she had slipped from the cliff and fell to her demise.
Sigrid ran until her thighs burned, eyes locked on the small figure in the distance. And then, as if she’d never existed at all, the medicine woman disappeared.
Slowing, Sigrid tried to catch her breath and spun in a slow circle. “Eivor?”
The woman was well and truly gone. How did she do that? She’d done the same thing in the cave system, disappearing into the landscape.
Magic?
No, that wasn’t possible. Sigrid was a logical woman. She knew there was no such thing as magic, other than people turning to beasts at will and dragons coming back to life after so many centuries of…
She shook her head. “Stop thinking that,” she muttered. “There’s no such thing as magic. Eivor is not capable of something like that. Get your head on straight, Sigrid, and find her.”
There, on the horizon, a small slice in the ice shelf created a crevice. The medicine woman must have slipped down the hole, or perhaps leapt directly into it, seemingly disappearing from the horizon.
A smile split Sigrid’s face. “You’re crafty. I’ll give you that, medicine woman. Whoever taught you how to hide did a damned good job.”
She eyed the crevice, wondering if she could even fit down it. Her square shoulders didn’t make it all that easy, but she’d managed in the cave system well enough. The memory flickered to life, fear seeping into her pores. She didn’t want to be crushed between two halves of a mountain, but she also didn’t want to remain up here.
Eivor had said there was something here. Something that Sigrid should see, because it was her history. There was so much she wanted to learn and so much that was being withheld from her.
Taking a deep breath, she hovered one foot over the open space, eyed it one last time, and then leapt into the shadows between the ice.
The cold wall behind her pressed against her back, guiding her into what she quickly realized was some kind of tunnel, or perhaps mine shaft created to transport people. Sigrid crossed her arms over her chest and held her breath.
The last thing she needed was to break an arm, because she flailed them in an attempt for balance. Space around her grew progressively smaller and tighter. The front wall of the ice pressed against her chest, freezing her lungs and stealing her breath.
She’d be okay, she told herself. Other people must have come this way before. The ice hadn’t shifted, otherwise she was going to hit Eivor rather soon, and they’d both be stuck here.
Not particularly a comforting thought. Of all the people she’d thought to die with, she hadn’t imagined it would be a crazed medicine woman with a rat she talked to on regular occasions. A dead rat, she reminded herself. Or whatever Grim was. She honestly wasn’t certain that Eivor thought Grim was a human. Maybe it was just something else she’d stolen the soul of.
The ice behind her shifted, curving slightly until her movements slowed. Gently, she slid to a stop at the end of the tunnel. Wiggling, she pulled herself out of the ice and into a cavern where heat blasted from the ground.
The ground was warm here. She set her feet on the mossy ground, staring around in awe.
Giant blue flowers grew up in bell shapes. Their petals opened as she passed, as if the sound of her footsteps were all they were waiting for. Green, toothed flowers opened as well. The interior of their petals pink as a blush.
Water bubbled up from the ground, creating meandering paths that looked almost like stone. The water was charcoal in color. Steam rose from the snaking rivers. Large trees grew in the distance, their leaves like the fan of a peacock’s feathers. Brightly colored, so vivid they shouldn’t have been able to exist in a frozen wasteland.
Standing stones dotted between the streams of steaming water. Perhaps that’s why the rivers led there. Each stone was carved through the center, one circle and a line straight through the center to the ground.
Standing, Sigrid stooped and pulled off her boots. She left them at the mouth of the tunnel, stepped into the hot water, and waded into the stream.
Eivor was nowhere to be found.
Did it matter? Sigrid realized she didn’t really want to see the medicine woman when the trickling music of waterfalls filled her ears. Eddies swirled around her ankles up to her shins. Moss grew on all the stones, lush and emerald in color. An archway of stone, ancient and crumbling, curved above her head.
What was this place? Some kind of ceremonial tomb? Or perhaps a home of a long forgotten race.
She stepped hesitantly, trying not to tread on watery plants that kicked away from her movements and tumbled down the stream back toward the original hot spring which had given such life to this place.
Letting the furs around her shoulders fall to her elbows, she saw ahead of her a ring of standing stones. Similar to the one where she had first seen Aslaug, it too had an altar in the center of it.
She stepped out of the stream and up the stairs where water poured down the steps. Eivor stood in the center, staring down at what looked like tiles carefully placed in the pattern of gold flowers on the stone steps.
Water bubbled out of the center of the altar. Bubbling and sending more steam in the air as it was released.
“What is this place?” she asked, her voice suddenly quiet and deadened in the strange air.
“An old, forgotten place. We used to come here often.” Eivor pointed up at one of the stone pillars. It had the semblance of a carving left. Had they been snakes? She couldn’t quite tell, although the one next to it was scaled as well, with the hint of a…wing.
Sigrid sucked in a deep breath. “Dragons?”
“The home of so many people like you. They all hid here when the world was falling apart after they’d created it.”
“Created it?” Sigrid shook her head. “Aslaug told me a few of the things that had happened. It was a group of Beastkin.”
“And it was the dragons who carved the land into two pieces. They were the ones who dug out Wildewyn, fist by fist, creating a mountaintop for Bymere to remain on for all time. They were the ones who destroyed the world just to ensure that they were safe.” Eivor reached out and touched a hand to the stone. “They were capable of more things than the Beastkin give them credit for.”
“How do you know this?”
“When I was little, I used to come here to rest. There was another Beastkin who lived here. A dragon, like you. She was very old, and very tired. Locked in her beast form, she couldn’t really talk much other than a few grumbles. Before she died, she turned back into a woman and told me all she knew because she had seen it happen before.”
Sigrid swallowed. “Seen what happen?”
“A war between Beastkin. A war between men and Beastkin. It’s nothing new. Time doesn’t heal itself, and people don’t learn from past mistakes. It’s easier to forget the things we did wrong.” Eivor turned to her then, pointing to the water bubbling out of the altar. “The dragons didn’t want to fight. They knew they were too powerful and that the war would end in their favor no matter who the
y fought for.
“They discovered choosing that side was too hard. They had to decide between their people, those who loved them and had given them life, and those who were their chosen families. The humans, the other Beastkin who wanted to live with the humans. It’s not fair to make a person a god.”
The words rang far too true. The Bymerian Beastkin wanted to call her a god. They said she was the most powerful thing to ever exist in their lifetime, and that because of that, she was more than just a woman. More than just Sigrid.
“I don’t want to be a god,” she whispered.
“That’s what Aslaug wants. It’s what your ancestor was. All the dragons become gods in their lifetime. They’re so much more than a person. They’re the last of their kind. Saying you don’t want to become a god is like… saying you don’t want to breathe anymore.”
Was that the solution? Had Eivor brought her all this way to explain there was only one path out of this journey?
Sigrid didn’t want to see everything end. This had been a struggle to even get here. But if the fight wasn’t worth the end goal then… why would she remain? If all she was going to do was see her people fall steadily into ruin and distrust…
Eivor must have seen the way her thoughts had turned, because the medicine woman let out a sound of sadness. “No. No, little dragoness, you misunderstand me.”
“Do I? This has happened before. Every step of my journey has been walked by another person, perhaps many. Those who have seen the writings on the wall of how the Beastkin will steadily decline into nothing. That’s why the ancients are here. Do you think Aslaug doesn’t see what I do? Do you think she isn't understanding that she’s chosen to lead her people into oblivion?”
The wooden mask tilted to the side. “I see that Aslaug assumes we will all die off someday. That she won’t fight for a world where Beastkin can grow and prosper.”
“And why is that?”
“She believes the same as you. That Beastkin were not made to be controlled. That they will eventually destroy themselves and she is comfortable allowing them to live out their lives here. Where at least the few generations left will be accepted by their own people.”