I’m still trying to figure out if she pushed me away because she doesn’t feel the way I do, or if she simply wishes she didn’t. I think about it way too much, in fact. Especially because it’s pointless.
We can’t be together. We’re both warriors now, but we are not the same status. I was a raid prize three times over, passed from one victor to another. I have no idea where I came from, only the memory of flames and blood. My history is so violent that some say it explains the red mark on my right calf, shaped like a burst of flame. I don’t deny it. I usually add that it also explains how I survived—I am made of fire and blood myself, and it is why I fight so well. I have scrapped and killed for my place in this tribe, because without one, I have nothing. I am nothing.
Thyra, on the other hand . . . she is the daughter of a great chieftain, bred for war. She needs an andener as a mate, one who will keep her blades sharp, her fire stoked, her stomach full, her wounds bound, her bed warm.
One of us would have to lay down her weapons so the other could fight. It is forbidden and foolish to do otherwise—no warrior can survive without an andener to support him or her, and both of us must choose one soon to establish our own households now that we’ve reached our seventeenth year. Sander already did—a raid prize like me, taken from deep in the north. He was still able to win the heart of Thyra’s sister, Hilma. He hasn’t been the same since she died near the end of the winter season, taking their unborn son with her.
As for me, I’ve fought too hard for my status to give it up, but the thought of Thyra’s skin against mine, of taking care of her and having her take care of me, makes it tempting. My heart skips as I glance over my shoulder yet again to find her looking at me, as if she felt the stroke of my thoughts.
“Three more skiffs ahead!” shouts the lookout. “Coming this way!”
“Are you certain?” Chieftain Lars calls. “Coming toward us?”
“Moving quickly!”
Still rowing, I turn as far around as the motion of the oar will allow. The water is piercing blue beneath the clear sky and bright autumn sun, and it’s possible to make out a few specks on the horizon. I even think I can see the distant shadow of land several miles behind it.
“Closer now,” calls the lookout. “Definitely approaching fast.”
“Odd,” says Einar. “They’re coming against the wind.”
“Maybe it’s their navy,” Dorte suggests, drawing a laugh from the rest of us. I check to see if Thyra’s joining in, if for once she’ll shed her seriousness and just enjoy herself.
She flinches and wipes her face, then looks up at the sky.
“Did a bird get you?” I grin at her, hoping to ease the tension between us.
Her brow is furrowed as she turns toward me. “Raindrop.”
The oarsman in front of me tilts his head to the cloudless expanse above us. “Not sure how you came to that.”
I tense as I feel a drop on my cheek, and another on my arm. A shadow passes over the boat, like a hand closing around the sun.
“What is that?” the lookout says, his voice cracking with alarm.
“All oars rest!” shouts Lars. I turn around and face forward as he peers at the sky.
We halt our rowing, our ship still cutting through the waves, blown by a sudden, fierce gust of wind that fills our sail nearly to bursting. Behind and around us, I hear captains in other boats calling for their oarsmen to lift their oars from the water and wait. In the space of a few minutes, the sky has changed color, from blue to purple to a faint green, and now clouds are bursting from nothing, swirling with the wind around a dark center. “What’s happening?” I whisper.
“Freak storm,” mutters a warrior behind me. “Bad luck.”
“Skiffs still approaching fast,” our lookout shouts.
I squint ahead to see the three silhouettes much closer than they were before—impossibly, they seem to have covered at least a mile in the last few minutes. The prow of the lead boat is grandly decorated, a column of copper that shimmers as lightning flashes within the clouds above. I don’t understand—is this their navy? Just three tiny skiffs? And—
A deafening crash makes me yelp as rain lashes at my face. Thyra grabs her father’s arm to stay upright. Our boat roils with a sudden wave, followed by another.
I blink rain out of my eyes—the foreign skiffs are even closer now, and I gape at the one in front. The copper column isn’t a prow decoration, I realize. It’s a woman, skin white as winter, hair as red as my own. Her dress billows in shimmery folds behind her as she raises her arms.
It’s the last thing I see before the lightning stabs down from the sky like a Krigere blade, slicing the world apart.
CHAPTER TWO