But she could still — trust herself. Trust her own instincts. Her own choices. Her own path.
Because — shehadmade some right choices, in all this. Hadn’t she? She’d been brave. She’d accepted Gaelfr’s help. She’d come here to Kalfr. She’d sought to recognize her failures, and overcome her own anger and jealousy and fear. She’d offered Kalfr her apologies, and sought to make amends. She’d done her best to support her new kin, to uphold Kalfr’s vision of a new future for his clan, for their son.
And she’d kept Svein safe. Even if it hadn’t been perfect, she’d done her best for Svein, all that time.
But — Svein. Raye’s head snapped up, her heartbeat tripping, because damn it, Svein. He was sure to be upset about Kalfr and Gaelfr leaving like this, and she should have been with him. She should have been comforting him. Reminding him he was still cared for, still safe.
She wiped her face again, and straightened her dress around her, swiped for the lamp, and lurched for the door. But as her wavering hand reached for the latch, she noticed — something. Something small and white, tucked into the crack beside the latch, barely enough to be visible.
Raye snatched it out, and turned it over, frowning. It was a folded piece of paper, with nothing written on the outside — but when she flipped it open, she found… writing. Svein’s writing.
Dear Mama, he’d written, in his careful blocky letters.Papas went to the bad lady. But she is really bad. You aren’t safe. I’m going to help, and save us. I love you. Svein.
Raye’s heartbeat seized, and then began thundering against her ribs. No. No. This had to be some kind of game, something pretend, Svein playing with his friends… right? But even so, she rushed forward and burst out the door, her eyes wildly sweeping up and down the corridor. “Svein!” she called, fighting to keep the panic out of her voice. “Svein, where are you? I need you!”
There was only an empty, ringing silence in reply, and Raye’s heartbeat kicked faster as she dashed across the corridor into Svein’s room. It was empty, with his fur pulled up neatly over the bed, and Raye spun around again, and ran back to Kalfr’s room, which he’d barely used these past days, apart from storing his clothes. It was empty, too, and just as neat as Svein’s, apart from a few clothes strewn on the floor, and Raye sprinted back out into the corridor. “Svein!” she hollered, as loudly as she could. “Where are you? This isn’t a game, it’s very important!”
But there was still only more heavy, oppressive silence, and after another ragged breath, Raye whirled and raced down the hall. Glancing in every room as she passed, but there was still nothing, no one, not in the orcs’ sleeping-den, or their muster-room, or in any of the empty rooms, either. And finally she spun and sprinted back the other way, up the stairs, and out into the main floor. It was almost empty too, except for — Grum. Standing with his scarred back toward her, scrubbing what must have been the breakfast dishes.
“Grum!” Raye gasped, between breaths. “Have you seen Svein?”
Grum instantly turned toward her, his bushy brows furrowing. “No, not since his fathers left, earlier this morn,” he replied, in his usual gravelly voice. “He was here then, and said farewell to them both. Did he not go to you, after this?”
Damn it, damn it, Raye’s heart now a constant battering thrum, beating its rising fear through her ears. “No, I haven’t seen him,” she replied, high-pitched. “But he left me a strange note, and could he — could he be playing? With his friends?”
Grum’s brows furrowed deeper, and he shook his head. “Aulis has taken their younglings back to their home, for the next few days,” he replied. “They agreed upon this last eve, ach?”
Right, fuck, Raye did half-remember something about that, and why hadn’t she paid better attention, goddess damn it. “Or maybe Svein’s gone to the garden?” she asked, desperate now, already angling toward the front door. “With Eyolf and Iyolf?”
Grum lurched over after her, still gripping the pan he’d been washing. “Eyolf and Iyolf are out on scouting duty, watching over the grounds with Skirvir and Fengr,” he told her. “They would not allow Svein with them, at a time such as this. And Kalfr made Svein promise to stay inside with you, before they left, and last I saw…”
His narrow eyes angled toward the staircase where Raye had just come up from below, his nostrils flaring — and in a surprisingly swift movement, he ducked out the front door ahead of her, drew back his pan, and clanged it against thebyrgi’s solid stone. Making a harsh ringing sound that grated painfully through the air, and before it had even faded, he drew back and struck again, and again.
“Fengr,” he told her, clipped, as his eyes scanned ahead through the trees. “He will feel it, and come. Now, read me this note your son left.”
The note. Right. Raye had still been gripping it in her sweaty hand, and she yanked it up, fought to keep it steady while she read. But her voice badly wavered too, especially when she got to the last part, the worst part. “Y-you aren’t safe,” she read, choked. “I’m g-going to help, and save us. I love you, Svein.”
Grum’s mouth had gone tighter and grimmer as she’d read, his head shaking, his eyes still rapidly scanning the trees. And when someone jogged into view — Fengr, with Skirvir limping close behind him — Grum furiously waved the pan toward them. “Come, brothers,” he called, ringing and urgent. “At once!”
Raye’s heartbeat spiked faster, and she forced her body to stay still, to keep from racing back downstairs again, hollering for Svein, searching every room. But the orcs would be able to smell, maybe they would be able to tell if Svein had escaped, if he was hiding, something —
“What is it?” Fengr demanded, once he’d reeled up before them. “What is amiss?”
“Svein,” Grum replied flatly. “You must find where he has gone. He last went downstairs.”
Fengr nodded, shoving past them through the door, and Raye staggered along after him, her heart still screaming through her ears. It had to be a game, a mistake, they would find him close by, it would be fine…
But as she followed Fengr down the stairs, watching blankly as he jogged up ahead, trailing both his outstretched hands down the walls, the fear kept rising, sick and jagged in her throat. Svein had to be here somewhere, he had to be…
“No need to fret, woman,” came Skirvir’s flat voice from behind her. “Our dancer’s freakish magic will seek him, just as well as a scent.”
Fengr made an obscene gesture back toward Skirvir without looking, as he hesitated at Kalfr’s bedroom door. Frowning in at the clothes on the floor, and then striding toward them, plucking up a discarded tunic. “Why would he have taken Kalfr’s clothes?” he asked. “And then gone” — he strode toward the door again — “this way?”
He was pointing further down the tunnel, toward the new exit. The one that came out into the creek, to hide the scent. The one that headed furthest east, toward… toward…
“No,” Raye whispered, though her voice cracked, and the certainty broke through her chest. “He’s leading them…home.”
62
