He could also not admit to her that, as his aunt suspected, he’d kept aware of her location over the last two years. He had. He’d told himself he did it because he did not trust Svein Ragnarson to treat her well enough. To hold to the bargain as promised. No matter the strange turn of events or that she had returned at all.
Glancing around the chamber now, Soren turned his attention back to the puzzle left behind by Einar. He took the parchment out and placed it on the stone floor, adjusting it so that the points on it matched the positions of the places around the tower.
Eynhallow and Rousay lay across the water to the east and north, with Wyre and Egilsay to the south and east. His grandfather had visited those islands and more while working for the bishop and he’d marked many standing stones and circles on his map. Some places that Soren did not recognize were also outlined. Several circles joined and the overlapping area spanned the beach on the western coast. A dozen or so squares covered the stretch of land between the lakes Harray and Stenness. Concentric circles outlined and covered the tidal isle of Birsay where the bishops of Orkney had previously lived.
Soren had traveled all over this island and knew nothing existed in those places now, save the ruins on the Brough of Birsay. That isle had been inhabited by many peoples in its history, from the ancient Picts to the pagan Vikings and the Christian Norse. But it lay empty now, so this drawing made no sense. If the weather held and the work on his farm was done, he would travel there to see for certain.
His arm stung and he lifted it closer to examine the skin there. Tugging his sleeve up and out of the way, he revealed the ever-growing patch of skin inside his forearm. The mark, a bolt of lightning, grew more defined and deeper, pulsing and moving as though real.
He’d seen this somewhere before. This exact shape and size. The same image was right before him—in Einar’s other drawing. Soren opened that carefully, kneeling down and spreading it out on the floor next to the map.
There it was. A lightning bolt that matched the one that was now visible on his arm. Comparing it to the sketched one, the resemblance was uncanny, as though the same person had created both of the images. As remarkable as that was, it was as nothing when Soren followed the line connecting some of the symbols to others and found the lightning bolt paired with the image of waves.
Waves like the ones he’d seen when Ran stared at the sea. The color outlining the black image was the same as the one he’d seen around Ran—the same turquoise hue that was the color of the sea surrounding Orkney.
He fell back then, landing hard on the floor and skittering across until the wall at his back stopped him. She’d grabbed her arm as he had when he saw her in the marketplace. The same spot. The same arm. Did she have a mark as he did?
Soren pushed his hair back and took in a breath, trying to sort through the pieces of what he knew. There were connections hinted at in the drawings and the map, but he resisted thinking on them. To accept them would mean believing in some outrageous things. Things his grandfather had suggested that were simply too fanciful or ridiculous. Or mad. Or heretical.
He shuddered at that. If declared heretic, his lands and life and soul would be forfeit. That was the fate his bargain would have prevented from happening to his grandfather and now he stepped close to that fate.
Glancing at the drawings, Soren knew he was already too far into this matter to turn away. The mark of lightning on his arm burned then, taunting and teasing him. Alone, away from prying eyes, he could try what his grandfather had suggested the night he died. Though it seemed real to him that night, mayhap a simple test now, in daylight, would reveal his foolishness and send him on a path away from this one?
He stood and climbed the final set of steps that led to the roof of the tower. The winds buffeted him, tearing and pulling at his cloak and hair as he walked to the edge. His name echoed around him in the winds. Or mayhap the winds swirling around him sounded like voices?
Soren. Stormblood. Son of the wind.
Son of the storm. Command the lightning. Command us!
Soren turned around and around, seeking the source of the words. They came from above and around him, in the winds and in the clouds that gathered there. White and gray, the nebulous mists pulled at him. He could feel that they wanted him to speak to them. Forming and dissolving, almost playfully, over and over, surrounding and hiding the tower on which he stood.
Command us!The voices rang out as one, echoing within the fog they’d formed. And then a myriad of whispers grew around him, louder and louder, until he could hear nothing else. Soren turned round and round, searching for the source, for he simply could not believe what he was hearing. There had to be a source of it all.
And found none. No one was nearby. No person spoke at all.
The sounds were in the winds and clouds. Hell, the soundswerethe winds and clouds. As he tried to discern what was truly happening, his grandfather’s words came to mind.
Do not ignore my words, Soren. You have the blood of the gods in your veins. You have a place destined in the coming war.
Soren felt the truth in his blood as heat rushed through his body and his hands began to shake. Sparks arced from his fingers and he held them out away from his sides. The fiery flashes became stronger and brighter as a fire flaming to life when lit. The mist answered with a shower of sparks around him.
His whole body burned now and the flashes of light became something else—stronger, fierce, dangerous. Soren aimed his hands at the wall of the tower and concentrated his focus there. A bolt coalesced from all the smaller flashes and shot across the distance to the wall, exploding against the stones.
The wall crumbled beneath the onslaught of power. His power?
Son of the storm!
He called the lightning! Soren Stormblood!
The voices grew louder and more excited and his blood reacted. Soren felt the power there, growing and pulsing. He listened to the words and believed. Soren thought about the storms, the gales off the North Sea, and the winds began to swirl and dive between the tower and the strait separating the two islands. A thick, black bank of clouds built there and rain pelted the land and sea.
His hand itched then, tingling and shaking once more, and he knew the lightning readied to strike. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed it at the storm. The bolt shot through the clouds, expanding and multiplying until dozens of them shot through the air into the water. The surface exploded into waves of water, spreading out in all directions in an instant.
Soren stood, watching in shock as the very real possibility that he could control the clouds and winds and lightning sank in. He laughed aloud, for it was truly a mad idea and yet . . . He pushed with his hand and the storm clouds were shoved over onto Rousay, away from the mainland. And there they remained as he watched them test the limit he’d placed on them.
He could command the storm?
Hecouldcommand the storm!
