He set the cakes on his table and sighed.He offered his hand to me in the way Islish grainkeepers offered their hands to one another when first meeting.I set my broth and oat water down and grasped his elbow, our forearms aligning.
He said, “I amHehemdi.”
I frowned, unfamiliar with the word.
“It is from my first language.I have a Norsern name while I live here because people cannot say my name easily.”
It took me a quarter of an hour and many attempts, but I was finally able to pronounce Jorn’s real name.Heh-hem-dee.The middle was said in the back of the throat, almost like a cough.
We ate the cakes together, and I finished half of my collected drinks before returning to the chamber Fell and I shared.
He was awake and dressing despite the hour.“I was just coming to look for you,” he said.“You took so very long.”
His words, his stance, his gaze… everything about him warmed me.I set my drinks down on the small table beside the bed and slid my arms around his middle, breathing in the smell of him.
“Let us never part for too long,” I said.And then his lips were on mine, and the faint chill I’d gained from walking around in the palace with so many braziers out was dulled by the warmth of his hands.
Thirty
As punishment for sharing my secret, I ignored Dania for ten days.She grew bored of that quickly and placed herself right in front of my face with raised brows and a high-horse expression and refused to move from my gaze.Wherever I went, there she was, staring at me, making it impossible for me to avoid seeing her.
“I know you’re Norsen now.I could hit you.”
The hall around us was full of lounging Norsern, six of whom were casting for me at King Arik’s request.Dania’s boys were near—Layf screeching with glee as Hald blew on blades of grass to make the most irritating, shrill whistle.
My child will be quieter, I kept thinking.So much quieter.
But in the end, I didn’t choose to forgive Dania.She didn’t force me to either.The tide of her life shifted, and I got to see a side of her she took great care to keep hidden.
The door to the hall crashed open, and the tattooed Norsen who’d arrived said, “Dania?Fell?”
I frowned, confused as to why their names would be said together.
Fell—who was scraping the back of Speartooth’s neck with a skin comb (an incredibly difficult thing to explain if you don’t understand the Norsern sense of magic)—leaned forward to show he was listening to the newcomer.
“The Tornadois on the horizon.”
Dania’s back straightened so fast she didn’t look at all like herself.
In a single heartbeat, she was standing.“Layf, come.Hald!”
“I have him,” Fell said, scooping the four-year-old up.
Hald said, “The Tornado?”and the pair of them—Dania and Fell, each carrying a child—ran out of the hall.No goodbyes.Not even a look.
Reedman knocked on the table next to me.He’d been a little cold since news of my state travelled through the palace, but he did me a great service that day despite his bruised heart.He said, “Go with her.She might need a friend.”And by the seriousness of his tone—so rare for the Norsern—I knew Dania was at risk of harm.
I chased after her, and thankfully, I could make out their forms at the end of the next corridor, so I knew which way they turned.They raced through the hall with the skeletons of prized fish hanging from the ceiling like a still-swimming fleet.Through the room where extra carpets were stored all rolled up because people were fond of gifting carpets to King Arik, and he had more of them than he had floor.Through a cluster of Norsern crouched on the ground playing some sort of wager game with shiny stones and tarnished copper coins.And then out the side of the palace I had gone on the the eclipse.The side that faced the trading docks and the bustle of Aalt.
Smoke spirals wove from every third or fourth greying-wood building.Goats made their noises.The chatter of hundreds of people rolled into a single sound.The smell of all those people and fires mixed with the smell of the sea: seaweed and seagull skat and salt.
I ran my hardest, which was something I wasn’t accustomed to.Indeed, it made me feel like I had to burp acid (another wonderful part of beingvaneurigk).But I feared losing sight of them because I doubted I’d be able to find them again.Friendship was a new thing to me and, as angry as I’d been at Dania only moments ago, I wanted to do it right.I made social errors all the time in the North.Let this not be one of the times I get it wrong, I thought as I ran, the docks creaking beneath me, shifting a little to one side or the other.
As it turned out, Dania didn’t need a friend that day.
Forty or so rowers were clamouring down the sides ofThe Tornado.Some were too impatient to wait for access to the crowded docks and they marched to shore via the sea, taking the exaggerated steps that come from the weight of water, their trousers black from the dampness.
Dania found the one she was looking for, or perhaps he found her.
