By afternoon, the sky is the color of slate and spitting icy drops onto our sprawling settlement, contempt from the heavens. I sit wrapped in a coarse blanket by the fire in the large shelter for unpaired warriors, shaking with weakness, knowing I deserve every wet reminder of defeat that reaches me through the leaky thatch. I’m alone in here—most of the young warriors who shared this shelter with me traveled in the first wave. We were eager to prove ourselves, and we fought for our spots in the boats. Now most of the people I came up with, the ones I was tussling and laughing with only two days ago, are sleeping forever at the bottom of the Torden.
Thyra has been in the council shelter for hours, explaining our catastrophic defeat to our remaining warriors, the few hundred mostly older or weaker ones who stayed behind to guard the andeners, led by a gray-bearded but thick-bodied warrior named Edvin. I begged to be by Thyra’s side as she took her place on the chieftain’s chair, stumbling after her on faltering legs as soon as our makeshift raft reached shore. Instead she put her arm around me and led me here.
She left me stunned and ashamed that I did not have the strength to follow.
Outside, the andeners are wailing, their quiet toughness shattered. Their warriors are not coming home. Their widows cannot cut themselves and bleed one last time over their lost loves. They cannot bury their mates with their swords on their chests, ready to meet eternity. This is worse than death, worse than loss—it is nothingness. Utter defeat. And there is more than grief in their cries—I can hear their fear. With thousands camped on these shores, stretched from Ulvi Point to Sikka Harbor, the southernmost tip of our territory and the launching point for our ships, we have been unassailable, a marauding people who sleep safe, unafraid of the nomad tribes that make their shelters as near to the lakeshore as they dare.
Now, though . . . as winter descends, and as news of our devastation spreads, we will become the hunted.
I raise my head as Sander and Aksel, Edvin’s only son and another of the second-wave warriors, trudge into the shelter. Sander has a wineskin in his hands, and he holds it out when he sees me huddled by the fire.
I shake my head, and he frowns. “Have you eaten?”
“Not hungry. And we should save what we can.” I stare at the fire to avoid their gazes, and the flames dance for me, twining together like the fingers of lovers.
“There’s plenty,” says Aksel, shaking raindrops from his mane of tangled brown hair. He doesn’t remind us that the surplus is because half our number are dead, but I have no doubt they’re thinking it, same as I am.
“We’ll need it when the snow comes.”
“Doesn’t mean you should starve yourself today. If you expect to help keep watch, you can’t be faint and weak.” Sander’s voice is sharp as his ax blade. “Unless weakness is your new preferred state.”
Icy anger flashes across my skin, so cold I imagine I can see my own breath as I exhale. I almost say Wasn’t it yours, just a few hours ago? But I don’t have the energy or strength to fight him right now, so instead I mutter, “When have I ever shirked my duty?”
Aksel plops down next to me and nudges my blanket-covered arm with his bare, wiry shoulder. One kill mark decorates his upper arm, and bruises bloom like nightflowers around his left eye. He fought like a crazed animal to gain a spot in the first wave, but now I wonder if he’s glad he and his father both lost. He gives me a sideways smile and offers a hunk of bread. “Put that in your stomach. We need you out there.”
I take it, meeting Sander’s dark eyes before looking away again. He sits down on the other side of the fire. “Thyra’s still in the council shelter,” he says, running a hand through his shorn black hair. “She won’t be able to keep us whole.”
I sit up straight, the hard bread clenched in my fist. “Don’t underestimate her.”
Aksel shifts uncomfortably next to me. “My father says she’ll face a challenge soon.”
I give him a peeved look. “Your father should hold his tongue. That kind of talk spits on the memory of Lars—and it could tear us apart.”
“Or unite us.” Sander leans forward suddenly, staring at me through the dancing flames.
The flames between us rise with a burst of cold wind from outside. “Behind her, I hope you mean. You’ve seen her fight, Sander. You know how clever she is.”
“Oh, we all know that,” he mutters. “Have you ever wondered if she’s too clever?”
Jaspar, Nisse’s son, used to say that all the time. “Stop it. She is a force to respect. Her father certainly did, and that should be good enough for you.”
Sander looks into the fire. “What if she doesn’t lead us down the path he would have chosen?”
I glance at Aksel, who is studying his boots. “Thyra is our new chieftain,” I say. “It’s her path to choose now.”