Seven Endless Forests - April Genevieve Tucholke Page 0,13

life stretching out before me in an endless flow of lazy, quiet days.

My father had left on a beautiful day in spring, and each year my mother mourned his return to the sea during this season. She didn’t suffer from a broken heart—she suffered from fury, fury that he’d left and that he’d broken his promise. She would wander the steading, searching for ways to relieve her rage.

My features resembled my father’s. I have my mother’s physical strength and height, but I have my father’s straight nose, high cheekbones, and pointed Elver ears.

I have his soft heart as well.

Aslaug pulled me aside one day and told me to take a walk into the hills so that my mother could find some peace, for seeing my face every day fueled her anger.

Morgunn wasn’t asked to leave. Unlike me, she didn’t take after Father, with his serene, amiable gentleness. She was Vorse.

I spent the next weeks wandering like a stray dog until I turned half wild with it. I went farther away from home and stayed away longer than I’d ever done in the past. I walked and walked and walked.

That spring day, the sky was blue, with wispy, feathery clouds, and the birds seemed to sing louder than usual. I followed our steading’s stream to a nearby waterfall—I would often sit beside it and let the cold mist settle on my cheeks.

As I drew closer, I caught sight of something behind the cascading water, a glint of sun off something smooth.

He stepped out of the falls, naked from the waist up, tossing his wet head like a wild red stag.

Our shepherd was something of a legend among the women of Trow. They often whispered that Viggo was as shy as a deer and as handsome as a god. Aslaug had hired him a few months before to replace the old shepherd, Magda, who had decided to spend her last good years wandering Vorseland, as long as her ancient legs would allow.

I had yet to meet Viggo. He kept to his hut and his sheep, rarely coming to the Hall and appearing in the village only when he needed food and supplies. He was young for a shepherd, not much older than me, but I’d known younger—one of the Tathers’ shepherds was a wiry girl of twelve, with wild red hair and a feisty temperament that matched any sharp-tongued village elder’s.

I took one step toward him and then another. He shook his long hair again, and droplets hit my face.

“Viggo,” I said, and then flinched when he opened his eyes.

He paused for a long moment and then whispered, “Torvi.”

So he knew who I was.

His thick hair bled thin streams of water down his bare sides. He had a wide forehead and piercing eyes under a deep brow. Classic Vorse. There was a pink scar on his left cheek, two inches long, and another of the same length down his right forearm.

“I’m not used to visitors,” Viggo said finally, “but I can offer you some Vite or nettle tea.”

I nodded. “Yes, to both.”

He lifted a calloused hand and rubbed a palm up and down his cheek. “Come,” he said.

Viggo took me to his stone cottage. It was hidden in a small grove of pine and juniper trees, hard to see unless you were really looking for it. I could feel his eyes on me as I walked in front, and I was suddenly aware of the way my thighs moved against my long tunic, and how my black curls swung between my shoulders.

The shepherd made me nettle tea over an open-hearth fire. His hut was small but clean, with a thick sod roof. I sat on a simple bench, my knees almost touching the flames. We sipped and didn’t talk, but it was a soft and comfortable silence.

I emptied my cup but didn’t leave. Viggo began to whittle a piece of brierroot into one of the fat, short-stemmed pipes Vorse shepherds smoke. He occasionally glanced at me but remained silent. He seemed at ease, despite what he’d said earlier about being little used to other people.

Viggo retrieved a small jug from a shelf in the corner, and we started sipping Vite. He passed the vessel to me, his fingers grazing mine, and I passed it back.

It grew dark. Morgunn would wonder where I was, but I couldn’t seem to make myself care.

“A god,” I said.

“What?” Viggo asked softly.

“The women in Trow say you look like a Vorse god, one of the strong, quiet