“Sklavinian,” Rune said. He knew the name too well.
“Bergen gave you this?” Rune peered up at Swann. “All the more reason why you should heed Bergen’s request and go play in the valley.” Rune grinned and Swann sighed, taking back her egg with an eye roll that became a head roll. Carefully, she returned it to its silk and latched the lid like a treasured secret.
“You’re older,” Swann said. “I was hoping you would override Bergen’s instructions.”
Rune smiled. “Older by moments.”
“Enough to be heir.”
“Perhaps,” Rune said. “Besides, no one really tells Bergen what to do. Not even Father.”
“Before the sun is high?” she asked, looking up from her box.
Rune nodded.
“Promise,” Swann said, “and you’ll bring Bergen too.”
“I do and I will,” Rune said.
“Hala,” Swann announced and slid off the bed. As she ran from the room, she sang:
“Sing and skip o’er Faerie mounds,
O’er the hill and through the dalr,
Where the mystical spriggans play,
O’er the hill and far away.”
Forced to pull his body from bed, Rune stumbled into his garderobe and began to ready himself for the day.
A gift from the queen, who ruled the lands below the White Sea.
Austramonath was no excuse to skip lessons today, but Bergen’s return from Râ-Kedet was. If he hurried, there was time enough to hunt a bear and slip a little something into Bergen’s bed.
CHAPTER 3
At the end of a barren road, a dilapidated stable stood as private as one could hope. Moss and turf more than an arm’s length in height buried the sagging roof. The sound of the city had long since vanished. Here, beside a fisher’s daughter, Bergen lay, his broad shoulders made wide from hours spent wielding a sword. Thoughts of a pair of deep black eyes, an intoxicating laugh, and the glow of copper skin had followed him all the way back to Gunir from Râ-Kedet.
A pain pulled at his chest and he shifted his head to the maid asleep beside him. Her back glistened white beneath a ray of sunlight. Strands of yellow hair flowed down her bare shoulders to spill over onto the furs.
For a moment, he imagined her hair black, and he shook his head to forget.
Her Nordic skin had never seen the unforgiving sun of Râ-Kedet. Had she lived in the desert lands, she almost would have the same glow as Zab—
Bergen pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t lay there much longer. Another time and he would have thought of little else. Another time, and he wouldn’t have permitted the maid rest. Today, he was a fool for trying.
Taking great care to not disturb Helga, or Hilda, Bergen shifted himself from beneath the blankets and pulled on his trousers. His black, shoulder length hair fell forward, blocking the girl from view. For that, he was grateful.
Coming here, trying to forget—
For two years, he had done little else.
Bergen took up his tunic and pulled it over his head.
“Hey, Bergen.”
The girl groaned.
Taking up his bag, Bergen turned for the door before his brother could—
“Bergen!”
Bergen stumbled out of the stables, dropped his bag at his feet, and gazed at Rune, who stood as tall as he.
“Ssssssh!” Bergen hissed, buckling his belt. His menacing silver-blue eyes, so like his brother’s, caught the sun’s light, making him appear more threatening than usual.
Rune grinned. “Not back half a day and already you lure one of your mistresses-in-waiting to your shack.”
Rune slapped his hand down on his brother’s back, hugged him briefly, and released him.
Bergen abandoned his feigned irritation for a wide grin and returned a slap to Rune’s shoulder.
“She was there on the docks when my ship came in,” Bergen said. “Now, dear brother, what would move you to disturb my lovemaking?”
Rune rested his backside against the little that remained of a weathered fence. “Another maiden has beckoned us to call,” Rune said.
A twinge of relief pricked Bergen’s chest, welcoming any delay from returning home where solitude waited to torment him.
“Swann,” Bergen said, doing his best to appear annoyed. He looked back to the stables. Without word or protest, he took up his bag and slung it over his shoulder.
“What about—?” Rune nodded at the stables as he pushed himself up from the fence.
Bergen glanced back at the doorway then shrugged. “She’ll forgive me,” he said and joined Rune down the dirt path toward the stone bridge that would carry them from Gunir into the forest to the valley.
“What news?” Rune asked, once the stables were well out of sight.
Bergen stared off to the end of the road that twisted behind a grove of birch trees as he sank back into memories of the last five years. How to begin, he mused.
Words would barely begin to describe the beauty of Râ-Kedet with her white sands turned gold in the sun. The alabaster palaces surrounded by the sea of sand-brick buildings, bristling with bustling markets that thrived on the trade ships coming in to port on the White Sea. Statues carved from limestone and ebony alabaster and great white pillars adorned every hall. Papyrus and palm gardens burst with life along the shores of the city and within the gardens of the Serapeum.
Everything was there, anything could be found in those markets, from Sliders and pet desert spiders to Eastern silks and fine curved blades from the Mountains of Khwopring. The ports overflowed with the latest innovations and astounding theories from the Deserts.
‘The city of gold,’ Bergen had often called it. “Hm,” he grunted.
Rune creased his brow and shifted a suspicious eye to Bergen. “Gone five winters and all you have to show for it is a grunt.”
“Not much to say,” Bergen said, batting at a low hanging branch still dripping wet with cool, morning dew. “Glad to be out of the desert heat.”
Bergen felt Rune scrutinize his cold demeanor before changing the subject as if deciding on a different approach.
“How was the Academia?” Rune asked, stepping over a root in his path.
“Burned,” Bergen said. “Three years ago.”
Rune tripped over his own feet.
“Burned three years ago and you’re only getting home now?” Rune asked. “What kept you?”
Bergen thought for a while before answering. “Obligations.”
Bergen felt the hesitation as a knot formed in his throat. So much for keeping his secrets.
“Obligations,” Rune said. His tone confirmed he doubted Bergen’s half-truths. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with a ‘queen from the lands below the White Sea,’ would it?”
Bergen stopped dead on the trail. His lips tightened with the snarl he suppressed. At once, his thoughts drifted to a pair of black eyes and skin as gold as the sun. He was unaware that he had clenched his fists.
Zabbai.
A bird chirped, breaking the silence.
“Where did you get the egg, Bergen?” Rune asked.
The corner of Bergen’s mouth curled and he resumed walking. “Didn’t Swann tell you?” he asked with a hint of humor that told Rune he was in for a runaround that would delay the topic as long as a fortnight if he let it.
Rune shrugged. “No matter. I’m sure Mother would love to hear that you could have been back nearly three winters ago if a certain lady hadn’t detained you.”
“You’re a whelp.”
Rune grinned. “I am.”
Bergen inhaled the cold, sharp air of the Nordic winds that blew in off Lake Wanern. He released a long, quiet breath. “The Academia wasn’t just an academia. It was a shrine. There were days it felt like it damn near made up the entire city of Râ-Kedet. It had its own community that answered to its own laws. There were streets filled with dorms, gardens, markets, lecture halls, theaters, a museum—”
Rune arched his b
row. “Museum?”
“The Muse’s Hall. It was the wing dedicated to the study of metric speech.”
“Music,” Rune said.
Bergen nodded. “Among other areas of interest. And a library, the largest this side of the Silk Roads.”
They followed their path toward the stone bridge that carried them over the river Klarelfr.
“The library is what kept me,” Bergen said.
Rune didn’t answer.
“Since its construction, the Academia has grown as the center of education in Râ-Kedet,” Bergen continued. “With the Muses and the extended teachings of Pl—”
“You’re losing your audience, dear brother,” Rune interjected. “I already skipped my lessons for the day.”
“The scholars collected everything that came into port,” Bergen said. “And everything that came into port was added to their growing Serapeum. Anything that could be used for study was taken. Every artifact was confiscated and housed in the museum, every written word taken and copied in the library. When my ship pulled into port five years ago, so were my manuscripts.”
Rune gave Bergen a solemn look.
“They took everything,” Bergen said. “Even letters. They gave us coin for our troubles, and the writings were eventually returned to us, but…” He shook his head. “…they would only return the copies the scriveners made. They kept the originals to be added to their library.”
“Your notes even?” Rune asked.
“Gone,” Bergen said, unable to meet Rune’s eyes. “All of them.”
“Naturally, you wanted them back.”
“Well, yeah,” Bergen scoffed. “So, I did what I do.”
“You caused a commotion,” Rune said.
“—which drew the attention of the woman who ran the place.” Bergen beamed.
“You didn’t,” Rune said with a feigned look of surprise.
“You’re mocking me.”
“I’m sorry,” Rune said as Bergen watched a pair of male sparrows land in the road, locked at the beaks. Wings flailed, throwing up a small puff of dirt, and by the time they were airborne again, their mood had subsided.
“So what happened?” Rune asked.
Bergen shrugged. “I found the school, enrolled, and traced my manuscripts back to the library where I got a job as a scrivener.”
“And the woman who ran the place?”
Bergen pretended to be interested in the trees ahead while he collected the courage to speak. “Turned out to be the queen of Râ-Kedet.” The knot in his throat returned.
“And the egg?”
Bergen shrugged. “Didn’t get to lay her.” His jaw tightened.
“The egg, Bergen,” Rune said.
“As common in Râ-Kedet as the Sliders for sale at market.”
“Bergen.”
Bergen sighed.
“The woman, who took my manuscripts—”
“—the queen—”
“—had found the egg on a Sklavinian ship.” Bergen shoved a branch out of his way.
“How did you get the egg?”
Bergen knew that flux in Rune’s tone and was suddenly aware of how much he had missed it. Rune wasn’t going to buy any story he manufactured, but he was going to try.
“She gave it to me.”
“Just like that?” Implausibility dripped from his tone.
“Right after the hunting and drinking,” Bergen said, smiling through his lie.
Rune raised a doubtful brow at Bergen.
“The Queen of Râ-Kedet went hunting and drinking,” Rune said, “with you.”
Bergen nodded. At least that part of it was true.
“She did,” he said, still grinning.
Rune threw Bergen a look that told him he knew better, but Bergen held his gaze on the path ahead.
“Sklavinian artifacts are notorious for curses,” Rune said.
An old memory surfaced and Bergen failed to suppress a grin.
“I’ve had my share of experiences with the Sklavinian,” Bergen said. “And the artifacts release the curse only on those who steal from them. Besides…” Bergen waved his hand. “I’ve carried that thing now for three years and nothing’s happened to me.”
“How did you get the egg, Bergen?”
Bergen took a long moment, recalling the breeze that blew in from the sea that night. The desert moonlight had filled Zabbai’s chambers. Her cheeks glowed with a red that poured down her bronze neck, flushed from too much wine. Her eyes, like black pools, pulled him in too easily, even for him. Her lips…There wasn’t a day he didn’t regret not kissing those lips.
Bergen fisted his hand and did his best to ignore the tightness in his chest. If he had known then that his two years with Zabbai were at an end—
“She gave it to me in exchange for a promise.”
“Before or after you bedded her?” Rune asked.
Bergen flashed Rune a somber look, drawing Rune’s eye. “I didn’t bed her. Not this one.” Bergen returned his attention to the road. “No one did.”
Rune took an extra-long step over a bare root.
“Râ-Kedet has always…attracted…a lot of attention ever since trade was established centuries ago,” Bergen continued. “War is always on the horizon there with the rising Western threat that the Gutar brought with them across Danu’s River.”
“The Gutar?” Rune asked. “They were there?”
Bergen nodded. A shadow had fallen over his face.
“They destroyed the Great Temple not three winters before my arrival.”
Rune stopped and grabbed Bergen’s arm, nearly pulling him to the ground. His face had fallen white. “The Great Temple?”
Bergen nodded. “Destroyed.”
There was a pause while Bergen waited for Rune to find his feet again.
“Tension on the trade routes was high,” Bergen said once they started again down the road. “Still is. Two years after my arrival, the Empire in the South invaded Râ-Kedet. It ransacked the city and set the Academia on fire. We managed to put out the flames, but the library was beyond repair.”
The sudden stench of camel flooded back to Bergen, bringing back every detail of that night. His stomach felt like it would fall out of him as he recalled the brush of Zabbai’s breast on his arm when he hoisted his Lady—not my Lady, never my Lady—onto her camel. The high moon seemed to have filled her black eyes. She was still flushed red from the wine and tipsy when they started out across the endless dunes to the Ufratu River. It was there on the banks of the Ufratu that they departed. There, that she gave him the egg, and there he gave his promise.
It was there that he left her for dead.
Fire nipped the tip of Bergen’s nose as he tightened his jaw and swallowed the bitter bite in the back of his throat. There was too much he wasn’t saying, too much he couldn’t say.
“When it was over, I gathered up the last of the surviving scriveners and we moved what was left to the new library,” Bergen forced out the end of his story.
“And your manuscripts?” Rune asked.
“Lost in the fire,” Bergen said.
There was a moment of silence as if grieving the loss of his works.
“What happened to your queen?” Rune asked.
A disquieted look blanketed Bergen’s face. “The last time I saw her, the emperor had her walk the streets of the Imperial City.”
Wearing nothing but chains of gold, Bergen couldn’t bring himself to say and instead fell silent as he recalled the shimmering gold in the desert sun and her dark, bronze skin. Her hair had fallen down her back like black rain that barely covered her rounded backside.
She held her head high even then, he recalled.
“And so you stayed,” Rune finished for Bergen, pulling him out of the withdrawn daze he had drifted into.
Bergen nodded. “To care for what little was left.”
There was another prolonged silence as they made their way deeper into the wood.
“What aren’t you telling
me, Brother?” Rune asked.
Indifference blanketed Bergen’s eyes, but Rune didn’t seem to notice.
“There was another fire.”
Rune kicked his own foot and stumbled, then regained his balanced.
“It’s why I came home,” Bergen said coldly. “The emperor got to it. There’s nothing left.”
A breeze swept their path, giving Bergen a chance to breathe in the fresh Nordic winds he had spent five years missing.
“I got to see the Lighthouse of Râ-Kedet,” Bergen said.
“How was it?”
Bergen shrugged. “Big.”
Rune dropped his shoulders. “Oh, is that all?”
“Almost as big as the pyramid I saw in the Black Land across the River.”
Rune made a sound that combined a loathsome grunt and an impressed scoff.
Bergen fell silent again.
“What does it look like?” Rune asked.
Bergen scratched the unshaven, black bristles on his face.
“Wet.”
“Not the river,” Rune said. “The lighthouse.”
Bergen shrugged as if it was every day he saw a behemoth rise from the sea. “A tower extends from a white octagon that stands on a square base. There’s a room at the top where they use a kind of metal plate to catch the sun. At night, they light a fire.”
“Your description exceeds your skills,” Rune drummed sarcastically.
“Four statues adorn the octagon,” Bergen said, “and Odinn stands at the top, welcoming the ships to port.”
“Your words move me,” Rune said as they entered the edge of the valley.
A cold, empty smirk pulled at Bergen’s mouth. “Also saw the Statue of the High Mountain and the Mausoleum at Halikarnas.”
“I hate you.”
“You missed me.”
* * *
In the valley, Swann made her way up a lively little brook, stepping lightly upon the stones poking out from beneath the water. With her precious egg clutched in one hand and a bundle of pussywillows bunched in the other, Swann swayed as she balanced barefoot on each moss-covered stone. As she hopped from stone to stone, she sang her sweet song, skipping to the next stone on the downbeat of each new phrase:
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