Fisher Ives tower was my last hope to save Gyda. If it failed …
The four of us sat quietly for a while, and it was an easy and comfortable silence, as if no time had passed since that first night we’d all shared a fire on the road.
“So,” Madoc said. “Shall we smoke, like old times?”
The Bards lit their pipes, and the scent of brickle-leaf filled the air. I watched the smoke lazily float to the ceiling, to the ash tree’s limbs that stretched across the length of the Hall. Ink’s twins lay sleeping at her feet under the table, next to two deerhounds. Melient sat nearby, sharing a cup of mead with the storyteller.
“Will you stay here, Stefan?” I asked softly. “Or will you return to the Drakes?”
He met my gaze, eyes dancing. “I have good news, but it is woven into bad news. Are you ready to hear it?”
I put my hand to my chest, reaching for the hilt of my Butcher blade, though I’d stopped wearing it years ago, on the day I used it to slit Gyda’s throat. “Yes,” I said. “Tell me.”
“On my journey here, I heard tell of a young, dark-haired witch who lives in the black tower in the Brocee Leon—the same tower you just mentioned, Ink. This witch has started casting dark, evil spells, and they are rippling through the forest, blighting trees, causing sickness. Many have tried to stop her, and few have lived.” He paused. “They say she is missing her right hand.”
I put my palm to my chest again and didn’t speak for several long moments.
“That is the bad news,” I said finally. “What is the good news?”
“I plan to travel to the Brocee Leon Forest and stop your sister, Torvi. Will you join me?”
* * *
It was said of me that I ruled my jarldom with a troubled heart. Perhaps it was true. The songs told of my journey from a shepherd’s hut in the Ranger Hills to Esca’s lost jarldom, ending with me seated on his throne, his sword across my knees and my gaze on the horizon, dreaming of the open road.
They called me Torvi of the Sword.
Madoc was half wild with joy at the prospect of leaving. He’d stayed in Avalon to help me build my jarldom, and I loved him for it, but he was a roamer to the blood, to the bone. And he longed to see his home again—he had not been back to Elshland in five long years.
We would first visit the Sea Witches in the Merrows and meet my father’s family. I would stay with them until they’d taught me about the magic that courses through my Sea Witch blood. And when I’d mastered what I could, I would set out to stop my sister from casting spells in a black forest tower.
Ink finally solved the riddle of Ash and Grim and uncovered directions to a ruined tree town in the Myrk Forest that contained a magical door, one that supposedly led to an Elver realm on the other side of Hel. Perhaps we would find this door and visit this other world. The thought stirred my questing heart.
I often thought of the time Viggo said I needed a quest, all those years ago, in the small loft of his shepherd hut. He’d known me well.
Ink would not travel with us. She would stay with her daughters and Melient, and she was content with this, for now. She and Sven du Lac would sit on the throne in my place.
“You will not let the northern jarls take this land or this Hall,” I said.
“No, we will not,” they both replied.
I took each in a tight embrace. “I will be gone for a year, perhaps more. I won’t return until I’ve found a spell that will break Gyda’s curse … and until I’ve dealt with Morgunn, once and for all. I’ll save her if I can.”
Sven nodded. “You have many quests before you. Which is fitting and right for the woman who pulled Esca’s blade.”
Ink put her fist to her heart, then reached out and gripped my forearm, in the way of warriors, in the way of heroes. “You are a living saga, Torvi of the Sword.”
I laughed softly and then kissed her on both cheeks. “Not yet, storyteller. Not yet.”
Stefan, Madoc, and I set out on the road to the Skal Mountains, three of the original five, together again. It was a brisk spring morning, the sky stark blue, the