The Stone of Sorrow

by Brooke Carter

  “An elf named Falleg gave it to me,” I say. “After I helped her escape from Katla.”

  Einar stares at me. He’s impressed too.

  “This is elven gold,” says Píla. “And it will pay for whatever you wish.”

  “Good,” says Einar. “Because I have quite a list.”

  After Einar fills him in, Píla bids us to wait while he gathers the items.

  After a time the elf returns with some small bundles for each of us. He then puts a larger one in front of me. Atop that bundle he places a pair of leather boots so fine and new that I want to cry.

  Einar crouches next to me as I stare at them. “I know you’re fond of your boots,” he says. “But they’re hurting your feet. Let me carry the old ones for you. That way you don’t have to throw them away.”

  I nod, overcome by this kindness. I peel off my sister’s boots, wincing at the pain, and hand them to Einar, who packs them away with care. The new boots fit me as if they were made to measure, and they are so soft that if my feet could sigh with relief, they would.

  I slip into a back storeroom and put on the rest of the clothing Píla brought for me. He’s provided me with fresh leggings, in a thicker weave and much warmer than my others, and, instead of an impractical dress, a tunic the color of an evening sky. It’s so warm and easy to move in that it feels like it was made just for me. A new cap hides my hair and warms my head. I start to put on the dark gray cloak he’s given me and then decide not to.

  “Ah,” says Píla when I come out of the storeroom. “Better. But the cloak—do you not like it?”

  “I do,” I say. “And I am so grateful. But I already have a good cloak.”

  Píla glances at the heavy, dirty cloak that sits in a pile with my other worn garb. He is too polite to say anything.

  “Not that one,” I say, opening my pack. I pull out my runecaster cloak, the one Sýr made for me. Black as the ocean at night, soft as an embrace, and lined with the most gorgeous blue I’ve ever seen.

  I unfurl it and drape it around myself and then take my vegvisir clasp from the old cloak and fasten it at the neck. I feel like I’m wearing an embrace from Sýr. I know I shouldn’t wear the cloak until I am an anointed runecaster, but if I don’t start behaving as one, how can I become one?

  I look down at myself, at all the runes Sýr stitched onto my cloak. They glow before becoming invisible again.

  Einar gasps. “What is that?” he asks, reaching out to touch the edge of my cloak.

  “It is Runa,” says Oski, answering for me. “The runecaster.”

  Einar stands and looks at me as if seeing me for the first time.

  I tend to shy away when people stare at me, but not this time. Perhaps it’s the elegant new elf-fashioned clothes, or the flush of Sýr’s love I feel from donning the cloak she made specifically for me, but I find myself meeting his gaze. Our eyes lock, and I will mine to stay steady.

  Píla speaks at last. “This cloak is better.”

  “Do you like it?” I ask Einar, hoping the shyness in my voice isn’t too obvious.

  He nods. “Yes, it’s…it’s…you,” he says finally. “It seems right.”

  I smile at him. “It is right.”

  Píla steps forward and embraces Einar, the two of them touching heads together for a moment.

  “Thank you for your help,” Einar says.

  “Take this,” says Píla, pressing something into his palm. “If you are captured. It will reunite you with your mother in the afterlife.”

  Einar lets out a deep breath, as if he’s been holding it in for a long time. “I won’t let the witch steal another elf body.”

  I watch as Einar places a tiny jar into his vest pocket. His eyes flick over to me, and this time I look away. The moment is too intimate, and as much as the jar strikes fear into me for Einar’s sake, it is not my concern how he wishes to die. Leaving this realm by his own hand seems a far sight better than existing as a tool for Katla’s evil.

  Katla. Even her name in my mind causes me to rage inside. I am coming for you, witch, I think.

  “Ow!” I exclaim, lurching into a nearby table. For the first time in days, the spot where Katla stabbed me is burning. I have to grab a chair to pull myself back up, and both Einar and Oski are at my side at once.

  “Runecaster,” says Oski, “what is it?”

  I rub my chest, but I’m gasping for breath. The pain is so bad that I cannot answer. I’m growing dizzy, and it feels like someone is squeezing my neck. I don’t want to perish in this elven tavern. Sýr will never know what became of me.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Sýr,” I say, my voice strangled from pain.

  Píla pushes Einar aside and opens my cloak, yanking down the front of my new tunic.

  “Hey,” says Einar.

  “Hush,” Píla admonishes, holding up a hand. I try to focus on him, on his handsome face and elegant features, but he seems to be floating away from me as if he’s underwater.

  “Here,” he says, touching my chest. He brushes my skin with his fingertip in the place where Katla’s yellow dagger pierced me, but the pain is the same as if he stabbed me too.

  I scream, and any sense of privacy or indifference we had enjoyed in the tavern to this point is now gone. All the patrons and workers stop to stare at us, at the freakish mortal with the red-rimmed eyes, the bad stink, and the wild hair poking out from under her hat. At the odd, bald, wingless Valkyrie staring down everyone in the place. At the gorgeous half elf who is now scooping me into his arms.

  I have no strength left to be annoyed by this move, no ability to fight or protest. I feel like I am disappearing—and fast.

  “Quickly!” a voice calls out.

  Píla spins around, and behind him I can see an elf staring at us. I recognize her. It is Falleg, the elf from the crossroads. I fear for a moment that she is Katla, returned to finish me, but she walks forward and presses her hand against my cheek. I want to cry at how smooth and cool and gentle it is, like Sýr’s when she tended to me when I was ill.

  “Follow me. I have something in my dwelling that can help me get it out of her,” she says to Einar, making for the door.

  “Wait. Get what out of her?” Einar asks.

  “The witch has wounded her,” says Píla. “If anyone can help, Falleg can.”

  Oski looks at us in irritation. “Then we must hurry.”

  “My home is this way,” Falleg calls.

  Einar, holding me to him, rushes out of the warm tavern and into the cold night, following Falleg, with Oski and Píla behind us.

  The black air around me is a blur of twinkling lights and odd smells. I’m carried through another doorway into a small room. This must be Falleg’s home. I can’t see well, but I still feel Einar holding me close as he sits down in a chair, his warm body behind me.

  I am losing my hold on this realm, and I struggle to focus on my friends. Their voices come to me, in and out of the darkness, like torchlights marking the path back to them.

  Falleg’s face appears, and I think she’s holding a large ram’s horn. But why?

  “I don’t have much time,” she says. “It must come out now.”

  “What is it?” Oski sounds panicked. I didn’t know they could get so upset.

  I sink further back into Einar. Further into a sleep I didn’t know I wanted so much. Yes, rest. I want to rest. I want to sleep. Forever.

  “Help,” I hear Einar say. “She’s fading. I don’t want to lose—”

  I feel the tip of something cold pierce the skin on my chest, and I shiver away from it.

  Runa. Sýr’s voice cuts through the darkness, and the light of the world comes rushing back to me.

  “Sýr!” I scream, lurching forward so fast that I break through Einar’s hold on me. He clutches me back to him again so that I don’t fall face-first onto the floor. The room is bright now, and my heart beats so hard I’m sure everyone can hear it.

  “Do you hear that?” I shout. “My heart!” It’s deaf
ening.

  Oski, Falleg, and Píla stare at me, their faces awash with concern. Einar keeps his arms around me and his face pressed into my hair.

  I look around, frantic, trying to make sense of where I am. It’s a little kitchen, and it’s filled with odd objects and tools.

  “What did you give her?” Píla asks Falleg.

  “A little kick,” says Falleg. “Now for the hard part.” She places the ram’s horn over the sore spot on my chest. At first I think she’s going to use it to listen to my heart, because it is beating with such erratic thumps, but instead she places her mouth on the pointed end of the horn and begins to inhale.

  “What are you doing?” Oski asks, horrified.

  Falleg pauses and then spits out a vile yellow fluid that sizzles on the stone floor.

  “The witch has impaled her,” says Falleg. “I must remove it. Or she will turn.”

  “T-t-t-turn?” I ask, my teeth chattering. I’m so cold.

  Falleg sucks on the horn again and spits out more yellow gunk. “Into the witch’s slave.”

  There is silence while everyone takes this in, the only sound being Falleg’s rhythmic inhaling and spitting. She removes the yellow stuff bit by bit.

  “Is it poison?” asks Einar, his voice shaking. “Can I give her something? I might be able to—”

  “No,” says Falleg. “Not poison. Venom. The most potent venom I’ve encountered. No antidote.” She spits again, and now she seems to grow very tired.

  “Venom,” says Oski. “Yes, of course. The witch is not what she seems.”

  “Nothing is what it seems,” says Falleg, stumbling back from me. “Not anymore. Not for me, not for you, and not for her.”

  Falleg takes one last great breath inward, and when she does she stretches her arms out toward me.

  “Runa,” she groans, falling backward. “Fight.”

  Píla catches her, his movements so quick I hardly perceive them.

  “Falleg,” I cry, pushing against Einar’s arms. I want to get to her, but I’m still weak and cold.

  Píla holds her close and caresses her face, speaking in a whispered language I don’t understand.

  “What can we do?” asks Oski, their voice grave.

  Píla shakes his head. “It is futile. She is already gone.” He looks down at the limp body of his friend, his face a mixture of devastation and love. “She took it into herself.”

  “But why?” Oski asks. “Why would she?”

  Einar whispers, “Because she knew it was Runa’s one hope, that no one else would have a chance of withstanding the venom.”

  “She wanted you to survive,” Píla says. He continues gently stroking Falleg’s skin.

  I know what he says is true, and I wish I could take it back into me.

  “Runa,” Einar says, trying to calm me. “Shh, it will be okay.”

  “No,” I sob. “When I met her, Katla had possessed her. I set her free. Now she is dead because of me. She should never have met me.”

  “No, Runa,” says Píla. “She would still be in Katla’s clutches if it weren’t for you.”

  “No. No, she didn’t deserve to die.” I can’t take this. I push away from Einar. I’m a little stronger now, and he lets me go.

  I stand on wobbling legs and turn to face him. Then I look at Oski. “You’ll both be killed if you stay with me. I’m cursed. I’m a freak.”

  Einar stares at the floor where Falleg lies, and I am horrified to realize that this radiant dead elf reminds him of his mother. It’s too much, and I turn to walk away.

  “You will be better off without me,” I say.

  “No,” Oski says, “Don’t move one more step.” Their voice is cold and hard, unlike anything I’ve heard from them before. I turn toward them, and they rise above me in all their menacing height and physical power.

  “You made an oath to me. A blood oath. You will continue on with me at your side. You will help me find Wyrd. Together we will find the great library and a way to defeat this witch once and for all. You will fulfill your destiny.”

  I am shaking with fear, with cold, and from exhaustion. I don’t know how much more I can endure.

  “I don’t know if I can,” I say, my voice small.

  “Maybe you can’t,” says Einar, gathering his pack and mine. “But we’re going to try. Together.”

  He walks over to me and refastens the clasp on my cloak. “Put your hood up,” he says. “The night is cold.”

  I allow my friends to guide me back out into the forest of the mortal realm. As we leave, I look back at Píla, still holding Falleg. He watches us leave with a kind resignation. He blows me a kiss, and I feel it travel on the wind and land against my cheek with the softness of silk.

  “Thank you,” I whisper to them both, as much with my heart as with my voice.

  I know they hear me.

  When we emerge, night has turned to day. After a while we stop to rest and eat, though I do not feel like consuming anything.

  Einar gathers moss, roots, and herbs and cooks them into a stew, and Oski runs their sword through a weasel and roasts it over the fire. It’s heartening to have meat again after such a long time, and Einar watches me until I have chewed every last bit of my portion. Every bite imbues me with strength, and I feel my old self returning. Einar prepares tea for me and offers a salve to rub on my chest. I notice he is most content when he is caring for someone and looking after them in this way.

  We must leave the relative protection of the trees now and pass back across the barrens, retracing our steps toward the rocky badlands. Then we will have to pass the steep rocks that jut from the earth and will have to bypass the glacial fields to find the great geyser.

  We set off walking, me struggling to keep up, and by afternoon we are at the edge of a volcanic field dotted with scalding jets of steam and lava. Somewhere out there is the geyser. And Wyrd.

  “It is no wonder she was banished here,” says Oski, their anger apparent in their voice. “This place is like the realm of Hel.”

  “Which way?” Einar asks, and it takes me a moment to realize he is asking me.

  “Oh,” I say, glancing at my vegvisir. It isn’t moving. I pull out my runes and cast them onto the black earth, among the lava stones and strange green flowers growing between.

  “Show us the way to Wyrd,” I say. My runes spark, and an image of a bindrune appears in the air before me. It’s a new vegvisir, this one made from burning light, and it rotates beyond my reach. I try to touch it, but it moves farther away, as if wanting me to follow it. I have never seen such a thing before. Sýr has never spoken of this.

  “Runecaster,” Oski says. “What are you doing?”

  “Do you see it?” I ask them, and they look around, everywhere but at the vegvisir.

  I gather my runes and walk forward in the direction of the burning vegvisir. “This way. Follow me.”

  We walk on as the sky grows darker and the blood-colored moon hangs ever higher in the sky. We don’t have many days before it eclipses and the competition at moonwater commences.

  We spot a small hot spring along our path that is so enticing we all agree to take a moment to soothe our aching muscles. I’m reluctant to break our momentum yet again, and it’s a little odd that Oski doesn’t want to press on, but the steaming water is too inviting.

  I’m not fond of the idea of Einar seeing me without my clothes on, given how skinny this journey is making me, but I can’t wait to slip into the warm waters. I peel off my gear and hurry to join Oski, who is already reclining in the pool. I try not to look at them, for they seem sensitive about the scars across their back and the strange lumps on their shoulder blades where their wings used to be.

  Einar, for his part, does not stare at me. Nakedness is not something he should ever be ashamed of, for his form as it slips from the spring’s edge and into the water is very impressive. I don’t let my gaze linger, but I see enough to be sure of that.

  We mean to have a quick warm-up, clean o
ff some of the grime, and bolster ourselves with the healing minerals, but the water is so calming, so inviting…

  Runa. I hear a whisper. Wake. Sýr’s voice? I look to the sky to see if I can find her face in the stars, but I notice that night has given way to day again, and the moon is even higher now. I stare at my fingers. The flesh is wrinkled and pale. How long have we been in the hot spring?

  “Oski! Einar!” I say, but neither of them answers. They both float in contentment, oblivious to me.

  “No,” I say, looking around. “This spring is enchanted!”

  I turn to see if I can reach my runes, but they’re too far away, and every time I try to crawl from the spring, I grow so weary that I’m sucked back in. My spear. If I can just grab the tip of my spear, I can get free. I reach for it, and I’m so close. The tip of my longest finger makes contact with the cracked brown stone on the blunt end, and I inch it closer to me. Once I’ve got it in hand, I use it to hook my rune pouch and pull it toward me. I need to hurry before we’re bones and hanging flesh.

  I shout to my runes, “Help us! Give me strength!”

  They glow and begin to chatter, and I keep hold of the pouch as I feel a surge of power rush through me. Please work, I think as I drive the edge of my spear into the surrounding rocks. I pull with everything I have until I gain enough edge to pull myself free of the spring.

  “Einar!” I shout, but he does not appear to hear me.

  I place my runes around my neck and hold my spear out to him to grab onto. “Wake!” I shout, and I feel my runes clatter.

  Both Oski and Einar blink as if waking from a long sleep. They look around in confusion and stare at me. I must be a sight. Naked, withered from the hot water, with wild hair and glowing runes and my spear pointed at them both.

  “Hurry,” I urge.

  Einar grasps my spear and I haul with all my strength until he is able to find purchase. He pulls himself up next to me, dripping and steaming in the cold night. Together we pull Oski from the water, and when they emerge, some of the skin on their back sloughs off, including one lone black feather.

  They watch it fall to the ground, wet and matted, and then pick it up with so much sadness that I have to look away.