traced my steps back down the east corridor. I went to my mother’s room and put my right hand on the door. I pressed my left hand to my heart and said a prayer to Stray, the Elsh god of luck and fortune.
Watch over this Hall while we are gone. Watch over my mother’s grave. Watch over Viggo’s grave. Do this and I swear that I will not live meekly, and die meekly, in these Ranger Hills. I will not hide from the world. If adventure comes my way, I will run to greet it. I will grab the world by its leash and make it heel.
Aslaug would have told me not to bargain with the gods, and she would have been right. Yet I couldn’t leave our steading without calling down a blessing. It was the only home I’d ever known.
I opened the fenced-in pasture near the barn and freed the chickens before we left. We kept no pigs, instead buying our pork from the market in Trow. We ate mutton mostly, butchered for us by Viggo. I supposed that gruesome task would fall to Morgunn now. Unlike me, she didn’t mind slaughtering the poor creatures.
Our steading’s large garden would have to be abandoned, but Viggo kept his own small patch of cabbages, leeks, carrots, peas, and herbs. It would be enough.
I took a deep breath. The air smelled of ash.
We followed the nearby stream as it wound north into the hills, past the rowan trees and across the endless blanket of soft spring grass. Morgunn released her hair from its braids as we walked, and the black shone almost blue in the sunlight. I supposed mine did as well. Indigo hair, indigo eyes.
We spoke little, pausing only to count sheep. The woolly beasts seemed to be flourishing, even without Viggo to watch over them. It was comforting to know that something survived and did well after all the death.
I enjoyed watching the sun move over the hills, changing the color from jade to gold to amber and back again, shadow and light moving across the land. A family of grouse ran in front of us, and I smiled.
We ascended the first hill, sweat gathering at our temples. A grove of black pines was at the crest—Viggo and I had spent time there one warm summer afternoon. My stomach fluttered pleasurably at the memory, but the feeling faded quickly, leaving only a deep heartache.
I selected the tallest tree and walked to its base.
Gyda gave me a wary look. “Are you sure you can do this?”
“Every Vorse girl worth her salt can climb trees,” I said.
The druid shrugged. “The trees don’t grow this tall on the Boar Islands. And I don’t appreciate heights.”
“Can’t you just magic your way to the high branches?” Morgunn asked. “Chant a bit of druid gibberish, blink your eyes three times, throw a pebble over a shoulder, and whoosh, you’re up a tree?”
Gyda and I laughed.
The druid brought out my sister’s sardonic side, and I found it delightful.
“Yes, that is just how druid magic works,” Gyda replied. “How clever you are, Morgunn.”
They kept up the banter as I dropped my pack and furs and grabbed the red cloth from my pocket—it had once been a tunic of Aslaug’s, one she wore for feast days.
I scrambled up, ten feet, twenty, thirty, fifty, seventy, gripping the bark with my knees and my feet, my hands clutching branches. I gave a yell of victory when I reached the top. Morgunn and Gyda echoed my yell from the base.
“I’ve conquered the tree,” I shouted.
“What can you see from up there?” Morgunn asked.
I shielded my eyes and looked out, scanning the Cloven Tell Valley. It was a sea of green, pitted with a group of blackened lumps that used to be Trow. The smoke had weakened into thin gray wisps. I saw no one moving among the ash … not a soul.
“Nothing,” I called down. “Nothing but trees and hills and birds.” I didn’t mention Trow.
I tied the cloth to a high branch, tight. The Butcher Bards would see it if we were lucky. If the gods were on our side.
We continued to follow the stream as it wound between hills, the sunlight dancing across the water’s soft curves. It soon joined up with another beck and formed a proper river, loud and fast, a thousand shades of blue pouring over gray stones.
I’d first met Viggo on a day such as this in spring—warm sun, cool breeze, wild green hills, my