It was her mother who answered. Strange, to see her looking just the same after all that had happened. Just another hair or two turned gray, and for a moment Thorn felt like a child again, clamping a brave face over her anger and her fear.
“Mother …” She tried to tame the tangled side of her head, plucking at the gold and silver rings bound up in her matted hair. A fool’s effort, as she couldn’t have combed that thicket with an ax. She wondered what her mother’s tongue would stab at first: the madness of her hair or the ugliness of her scars or the raggedness of her clothes, or the—
“Hild!” Her face lit up with joy and she caught Thorn in her arms and held her so tight she made her gasp. Then she jerked her out to arm’s length and looked her up and down, beaming, then clutched her tight again. “I’m sorry, Thorn—”
“You can call me Hild. If you like.” Thorn snorted out a laugh. “It’s good to hear you say it.”
“You never used to like it.”
“There’s a lot changed this past year.”
“Here too. War with the Vanstermen, and the king ill, and Grandmother Wexen keeping ships from the harbor … but there’ll be time for that later.”
“Aye.” Thorn slowly pushed the door shut and leaned back against it. It was only then she realized how tired she was. So tired she nearly slid down onto her arse right there in the hall.
“You were expected back weeks ago. I was starting to worry. Well, I started worrying the day you left—”
“We got caught in the ice.”
“I should’ve known it would take more than half the world to keep my daughter away. You’ve grown. Gods, how you’ve grown!”
“You’re not going to say anything about my hair?”
Her mother reached out, and tidied a loose worm of it behind Thorn’s ear, touched her scarred cheek gently with her fingertips. “All I care about is that you’re alive. I’ve heard some wild stories about— Father Peace, what’s that?” Her mother caught Thorn’s wrist and lifted it, the light from the elf-bangle falling across her face, eyes glittering with golden reflections as she stared down.
“That …” muttered Thorn, “is a long story.”
GREETINGS
Brand said he’d help them unload.
Maybe because that was the good thing to do. Maybe because he couldn’t bear to leave the crew quite yet. Maybe because he was scared to see Rin. Scared she’d come to harm while he was gone. Scared she might blame him for it.
So he said as long as he didn’t have to lift the ship he’d help them unload it, and told himself it was the good thing to do. There aren’t many good things don’t have a splinter of selfishness in them somewhere, after all.
And when the unloading was done and half the crew already wandered their own ways he hugged Fror, and Dosduvoi, and Rulf, and they laughed over things Odda had said on the way down the Divine. Laughed as Mother Sun sank toward the hills behind Thorlby, shadows gathering in the carvings that swirled over the whole mast from its root to its top.
“You did one hell of a job on that mast, Koll,” said Brand, staring up at it.
“It’s the tale of our voyage.” Koll had changed a deal since they set out, twitchy-quick as ever but deeper in the voice, stronger in the face, surer in the hands as he slid them gently over the carved trees, and rivers, and ships, and figures all wonderfully woven into one another. “Thorlby’s here at the base, the Divine and Denied flow up this side and down the other, the First of Cities at the mast-head. Here we cross the Shattered Sea. There Brand lifts the ship. There we meet Blue Jenner.”
“Clever boy, isn’t he?” said Safrit, hugging him tight. “Just as well you didn’t fall off the bloody yard and smash your brains out.”
“Would’ve been a loss,” murmured Brand, gazing up at the mast in more wonder than ever.
Koll pointed out more figures. “Skifr sends Death across the plain. Prince Varoslaf chains the Denied. Thorn fights seven men. Father Yarvi seals his deal with the empress, and …” He leaned close, made a few more cuts to a kneeling figure at the bottom with his worn-down knife and blew the chippings away. “Here’s me, now, finishing it off.” And he stepped back, grinning. “Done.”
“It’s master’s work,” said Father Yarvi, running his shrivelled hand over the carvings. “I’ve a mind to have it mounted in the yard of the citadel, so every Gettlander can see the high deeds done on their behalf, and the high deed of carving it not least among them.”
The smiles faded then and left them dewy-eyed, because they all saw the voyage was over, and their little family breaking up. Those whose paths had twined so tight together into one great journey would each be following their own road now, scattered like leaves on a gale to who knew what distant ports, and it was in the hands of the fickle gods whether those paths would ever cross again.