by Julia Ember
Leaving my satchel at the edge of the water, I scrambled toward the hull on my belly. Jagged ridges of ice nicked my fins, but I pulled myself forward anyway. There was a gap between the rim of the boat and the surface of the ice. I flattened myself on my stomach and peered in. Eyes tightly shut, Ragna was huddled amongst her belongings. Her clothes and furs were soaked through, and her skin looked gray with frost. Even in sleep, she shivered. Her slender form looked more fragile than ever. How long had she been this cold?
Grunting with effort, I lifted the hull and slipped under. Even half-dead with cold, Ragna moved faster than I could blink. Freezing metal pressed against the back of my neck. She studied me in the dimness before lowering her knife with a shuddering breath. “Sorry. I just reacted…”
With a shiver, I wondered when she had learned to sleep with a knife beneath her head. Swallowing hard, I nodded, folding my tail inside the little ship before lowering it over us. “Why are you under here?”
Ragna blew into her pale hands so her hot breath formed mist. “The rain. I kept building most of the night, just so I wouldn’t freeze.” She made a sound like the whimper of an animal being strangled. “But I can’t get warm, and every time I doze off, I’m afraid I won’t wake up.”
I bit my lip. If I heated my scales, she could warm herself against the plates. But drawing body heat to the surface burned our fat reserves quickly, so quickly that someone might notice the change in my appearance when I returned home. She shivered and coughed into her closed fist. The cough was deep and wet, and her body shook so violently I imagined I could hear her ribs rattling. If I stayed under the boat, I could get caught. With the result of my grading, the king would relish any chance to arrest me. But if I didn’t warm her, she might die.
I closed my eyes before flexing the micro-tendons that ran along the underside of my scales. The action hurt. My body wasn’t used to performing this process, and the muscles protested as I strained. I shifted so that I was sitting entirely on her furs. Without a barrier, I worried that I might melt a hole in the ice beneath us.
Each turquoise scale along my tail warmed as if the sun had struck it. My heart beat faster; my breathing came in abrupt gasps as if I were swimming as fast as I could. “Here, press yourself against me.”
Ragna’s eyebrows shot up. “What?” she asked warily.
“Against my scales. It’ll warm you,” I said, gritting my teeth against the muscle fatigue that threatened to overwhelm me. I would need to eat—soon.
She shifted so that her weight rested against my side and then drew back with a yelp. “You’re burning…”
I nodded. “We draw heat from the sun. Our scales act as plates to bring it in and store it. We can also push heat out, but it tires us.”
Ragna pressed herself against me. Her body felt amphibian: cold and moist, slick with melting ice. But there was something nice about it, too, like the way her frosted cheek felt when she rested it against my shoulder and the way her hair fanned across my back. I couldn’t remember when I’d held someone like this. She smelled of earthy things and taunted my curious nose with a fragrance that was at once delicate and gamy. What did I feel like to her? What did the sea smell like to a creature of land? Did she resent my cold breath?
A flush warmed my face, and I studied my hands. Now that the scales were heated, I relaxed my muscles. My body slumped in boneless exhaustion. When I looked at Ragna, she had fallen asleep. Smiling to myself, I pulled the furs around us to make a cocoon of heat. Under the covers, her fingers found mine in sleep. That was nice too, even if a curious electric tingling crawled up my arms at her touch. I wondered if that was part of the magic of her tattoos. Her body gave off its own warmth that flooded the space between us.
Alone together, snuggling with a girl who had held a knife to my throat only moments ago and had tried to spear me when we first met, I felt, strangely, safer and more at ease than I had in weeks. I closed my eyes and allowed my thoughts to drift.
A growl jolted me from my sleep. Beside me, Ragna stirred and groggily raised an eyebrow. Then something shook the boat’s hull. I peered under the tiny crack between the ice and the roof of our makeshift shelter. Silver claws and white fur glimmered in the bright daylight. A long, white snout sniffed along the ice.
My heart stopped beating. I was too far from the water. On land, I was slow and defenseless, especially now that I’d drained so much energy to heat my scales. As fragile and skinny as they looked, at least Ragna’s human legs could run on the land. If the polar bear flipped the boat, I would be an easy, blubbery meal for him: slow and totally unable to flee. Polar bears did not respect the merfolk. They lived most of their lives outside our domain, and they didn’t fear repercussions from us. The ice bears were known to scoop playing children from the sea’s surface and devour them without a second thought. They were strong enough to drag an adult beluga from the sea. We all knew better than to get too close.
Ragna’s eyes narrowed. Her muscles tensed. Then she fished for something below her feet. She grabbed a sword in one hand and her dagger in the other. Before I could stop her, she flipped the boat over with all her strength and caught the surprised bear across the jaw with the wooden hull.
As I lay writhing like a breached whale on the slippery ice, Ragna ran at the ice bear. She used the ice to her advantage, sliding toward the hulking white beast at speed. She moved like a streak of blonde lightning, flashing through the daylight like Thor with her weapon held high. I had never seen anyone move that way: swift and fearless. Ragna was terrifying. Despite the size and weight of the bear that stalked toward her, dripping blood from its injured mouth, she faced it. Where had she learned to fight like that? She had said her father gave up the idea of finding a mate for her as soon as he realized she could fight. How many of her kidnappers had she wounded before they managed to take her?
The bear circled her, paying no attention to me as I crawled on my belly toward the water. I didn’t want to leave her to spar alone, but, out of the water, what could I do? The bear would finish me with one bite from its powerful jaws. If Ragna had to worry about me, it would only slow her down.
Ragna pivoted, and the beast lunged for her. The bear’s jaws snapped on air, and she danced around him as the sword gleamed in the sunlight. The bear changed again, roaring with frustration. Polar bears hunted seals, belugas… prey that were as helpless and slow on land as I was. The creature wasn’t used to Ragna’s speed. He stumbled. With a cry, she jumped at him and plunged her sword just under the bear’s injured jaw. When she wrenched the blade out, fresh, steaming blood gushed onto the ice.
Ragna tossed her sword aside. I grimaced as she wiped the bear’s splattered blood from her face with the edge of a tattered sleeve. Then she stumbled toward me. Her legs were clumsy now that the danger of the fight was over and her battle-fever had ebbed.
Tearing her cloak from her shoulders, she spread it out across the ice and then collapsed onto it. Her nimble fingers pushed her ripped trousers down her hips and thighs. I stared, unable either to move to help or to look away. Those ethereal blue-ink tattoos ran down her legs and across the small of her back. Between the lines of ink, Ragna’s flesh looked as soft and delicately pink as a new pearl. Her legs were long and lean, but hard muscle ran the along the backs of her calves.
She ripped off the corner of her tunic with her teeth, then tried to use the piece to bind the wound on her leg. Watching her wrap the bleeding scratch snapped me out of my daze. I slid toward her on my stomach. She wiped snot on her sleeve and shivered in the arctic air. Sweat froze along her hairline.
I took the strip of cloth. Then I laid my arm across the open wound. Ragna watched me warily, but she didn’t pull away. We’d saved each other and now shared the blood debt: a promise and a bond as old as Asgard itself. Nobody had ever risked their life for me. I wouldn’t forget it. I focused all my energy on the scales that ran up my bicep. They heated at m
y command, growing as hot as the sun for a fraction of a second.
Ragna threw her head back and screamed. Steam rose from her leg, but the injury closed. Biting back tears, she ran her bloody fingers over the new pink scar.
She leaned against my shoulder and we rested together. Our breath formed clouds in the frozen air; our heartbeats slowed until they beat as one steady drum.
At the fortress later that day, I headed straight for the food stores. Every part of my body felt shriveled and desperate for sustenance. My scales had burned through a good portion of my fat reserves. I’d need a few days of eating well to build them up again. The position of the sun indicated noon, but I couldn’t face the dining hall. Other than Mama and Havamal, I hadn’t spoken to anyone in the glacier since the grading ceremony.
I smiled at the two guards as I made my way into the coral comb store, but one of them stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Don’t lead him on, lass,” he growled as his deep cobalt eyes drilled into me. “He’s smitten with you. Won’t even look at the other girls. You have someone else in mind?”
I wrenched my arm away and cradled it against my chest. I didn’t have to ask whom he was talking about. “That’s between me and Havamal. It’s none of your business.”
The other guard snorted. “Like hell it isn’t. He’s been totally useless. Just moping around his cave. Everyone can tell how upset and distracted he is. Besides, with fertility being what it is… it’s the whole clan’s business now.”
I pressed my lips together. Though we were no longer close, I hated the idea of Havamal in so much pain. “Havamal and I have talked about it. It’s our decision. Excuse me.” I pushed past them into the catacomb.
At our vault, I seized an eel tail and devoured it. I’d never experienced hunger this intense. Then I pulled a crab-dusted shark fin from one of the shelves, leaned back against the frozen wall, and gnawed as my eyes rolled in pleasure. What did I need a mate for, when there was food like this? The question made me giggle despite the guards’ comments about Havamal. If everyone knew he was waiting for me, I might have less time before the king got involved.
Thinking about King Calder made me eat and eat until my stomach churned. The methodical chewing kept me breathing as I imagined the king passing me on to one of his favorites, turning over my freedom as casually as he bestowed gifts of pearls. The food was a lifeline, so I chewed even as my jaw ached. Could that happen? Surely it went against all of our laws and the word of the gods. But if six girls had failed… I bit into a crab leg and sucked the meat from its spindled claw.
A trail of heat drifting from the next catacomb caught my attention. I swam to look, hoping nothing had fallen and injured whomever was inside. Our caverns were often precariously stacked and the shelves themselves were easily broken. When I peered into the storage compartment, I saw Vigdis pressed against the wall. She held a bowl filled with carefully arranged and cut pieces of salmon, drowned in a stew of mashed oysters and scallops. Her normally cherubic face was drawn and thin. She stared into the food without moving and bit on a lock of her hair to stifle the sound of her crying. Unsure of what to say, I hovered with my hands on my hips.
When she looked up at me, Vigdis’s face twisted in rage and anguish. “Did you come here to gloat? Are you making fun of me?” she screamed. “Get out! Get away from me.”
“I didn’t…” I stammered. “I just heard you… Look, I don’t want any of it.”
“Oh. I’m so happy you don’t want to be lucky. I’m happy you don’t want what we all do—that makes it all so much better!” Her voice dropped to a hiss and she threw the bowl at my head.
I dodged and the bowl clipped the edge of the doorframe. “Stop—”
“Get out!” Her voice had a raw, wild edge to it, like the screeches made by hungry seabirds as they dove for their competitors’ eyes.
Seven
I swam beside the little boat’s hull while Ragna rowed. She’d stripped down to a lighter animal-skin tunic and left most of her thick furs behind on the ice shelf. The garment was tight against her slender form, and I could see the muscles in her back and arms flex every time the oar plunged through the water. Ragna’s skin was supple; it stretched and quivered in a way my less flexible scales couldn’t. The polar bear’s hide, scrubbed clean in the ocean water and as white as fresh snow, rested across her knees. I drifted on my on back and watched her in utter fascination.
“I need to test it,” she said, cheeks flushed with exercise. She winked at me. “If it starts to sink, I’m depending on you to save me.”
I chuckled, thumping my tail against the hull of the boat. “It feels pretty wobbly to me. I think you should rethink this whole boat-building thing. You’re obviously terrible at it. Don’t make it a career. Scary warrior maiden suits you better.”
“My village was renowned for its craftsmanship.”
“That doesn’t say anything about you personally.”
She grinned, then pretended to scowl and reached over the side of the boat to splash a handful of water at me.
“Do you realize how pointless it is to splash a mermaid?” I laughed, kicking water back at her with my tail. “I’m already wet. I live in the water.”
Ragna ducked to avoid the spray and stuck her tongue out. Since she’d warmed herself on my scales the day before, her wariness seemed to have melted away. Thinking about it, I realized that a lot of my own reservations were gone as well.
“I’m not sure you could drag me. I’m heavier than I look, you know.”
“I think I’ve proven my swimming strength well enough,” I said.
She nudged me with the edge of her oar. “I can’t believe how fast you are. I’m out of breath, and you’re just floating along like an otter.”
I rolled my eyes and stretched my arms out above my head, floating like the dead and letting the waves take me.
With a tired sigh, she dropped the oars into the bottom of the boat. The little craft bobbed in the water beside me. Then, from beneath her feet, she picked up the bone with silver plating that I’d left behind the previous day. “You should be nicer to me if you want to learn what this does.”
I leaned on the edge of the boat, watching as she polished the object with the edge of her sleeve. Then she lifted it to her mouth and blew. A low, loud sound emitted from the end of the bone’s curled tip. It was so resonant that it made the water around us vibrate.
“It’s a hunting horn. We carry them when we go looking for game. The sound travels, so the rest of the hunting party can find the person who blows it. Some countries use them for war as well, but in my clan…” She bit her lip, as if the memory stung her as sharply as a jellyfish. “Well, we didn’t want the enemy to know we were there. We hunted in silence.”
Ragna handed the horn to me, and I pressed the end to my lips as she had done. The horn shook in my hand as I blew, blasting out a sound that echoed off the ice-capped mountains.
“How did they take you?” I asked hesitantly, dropping the horn back into the bottom of the boat. “You’re a fighter. If your clan could hunt in silence together… well, it sounds like you were trained.”
She shrugged; her expression was distant and cold. “Even warriors have to sleep. We weren’t at war. Things had been peaceful for years, and our sentries were lazy. They attacked us when we were in our beds. There was chaos everywhere. Everyone was too busy trying to defend their own houses, their own families… we couldn’t organize.”
“And you? How did they take you?”
“They came to my house first, and one of them snuck in through the side window. But they got it wrong and they went to my brother’s room, instead of where my sisters and I slept.” She shook her head, and her hair fell across her face. “I heard him scream. I thought it was a night terror, so I grabbed a candle instead of a sword.”
We both fell silent, just listening to the waves as they lapped
against the boat’s hull. I couldn’t ask her if she’d seen her brother die.
Clearing her throat, Ragna retrieved the heavy metal bangle from my treasure collection. “You’re not going to understand this.”
“Why?” I demanded, rocking her boat until she nearly slipped overboard. “I understood about the horn.”
“Because you won’t even know what a horse is.”
“We have horses,” I said defensively. I didn’t like feeling ignorant, and it wasn’t as though she knew anything about the sea. “Sometimes the hunting parties catch them if they go a little farther south.”
Tossing her head back, she cackled with laughter. “No. Land horses look nothing like sea horses. They’re beasts the height of polar bears but a lot narrower. We ride them.”
I wrinkled my nose at her. They rode on animals? Weren’t they afraid the horses would turn and eat them? Polar bears were vicious, as we’d seen only the day before. They didn’t respond to kindness. Many of my whale friends bore scars from their claws. “You ride… creatures of that size?”
“Horses are harmless. They just eat plants.” She covered her mouth to suppress the laughter. “This is a shoe for them.”
“A shoe?”
She held up her foot and pointed to the leather garment enclosing it. “Like this, it protects their feet.”
“How do they wear it?”
“We nail them on.” She pointed to the small holes around the edge of the bangle. “See these holes? They had nails in them once.”
I drew back. “That’s barbaric. You nail something into a living creature?”
No wonder these land horses served them. They were terrified into submission! I could only imagine the pain the creatures must endure while the shoes were fitted, never mind the agony of walking afterward. Under such conditions, maybe even polar bears could be ridden.
Shaking her head, Ragna sighed. “They have hard shell around their feet… like… a turtle. They don’t feel the nails.”