A few of the other guards tittered. A handful looked ashamed and wouldn’t meet my eye. One pinched Havamal’s cheek.
I wanted to scream.
The king rested his hand on his belly and paused to look the shadow mage up and down in an obvious challenge. The old woman crossed her arms over her bony chest. Then he burst into a roar of laughter and clapped Havamal hard on the back. Speaking to the captain, he said, “You’re right, Heiden. It’s high time this one found the girl he’s been searching for. He’s certainly good-looking enough.”
Havamal stole a glance at me. The hope in his eyes burned even brighter than his cheeks. It scalded my heart. Hastily, I turned away and studied the ice table. A shallow crack ran the length of its surface, and I traced it with a finger in a vain attempt to seem as if I weren’t paying any attention to him. If he believed I’d give up everything—my freedom—to choose him, he couldn’t know me at all. But that hope in his eyes… everything in me ached.
The king and his procession filed from the hall, most of the men joking with Havamal. I could feel his eyes on me as he swam away, but I refused to look at him. Even after his betrayal, I didn’t relish causing him pain.
As soon as the mermen had gone, Aegir’s mage stumbled toward me on her strange land-legs. She settled herself on a stool and took my hand in hers. Warmth flooded through my scales, as if she held the sun between her fingers. “You’re not here to find a mate.”
“Of course I am…” I stammered, but she pressed her finger to my lips.
“I can always tell the girls who are just here to prove something. But wanting what you want isn’t anything to be ashamed of, and what you desire is none of my business. I’m not here to pass judgment, only to give information.” She squeezed my hand comfortingly.
“But our future is determined by that information! We’re judged on it for the rest of our lives!” I exclaimed. How could the mage believe she wasn’t responsible for passing judgment? Mermaids in the glacier lived with the result of her pronouncements every day. We could take The Grading next year, should we fail, but the stigma of a low follicle count clung to us like a scale infection, lingering for a lifetime. Worse still, none of us knew what to expect from the ceremony itself.
“I give this information at the request of your king and community. Members of my order have always assisted when it comes to matters of the womb—for all the creatures who dwell in Aegir’s realm.” She sighed, cupping my chin with her free hand. “But it’s not me who decides to give your fertility so much value.”
I pulled away from her as hot tears threatened to spill down my cheeks. Biting my lip, I managed to hold them in check. I didn’t want anyone to come in, feel the warm water around me, and think I was a coward. I’d come here to prove myself, but now I felt even more powerless in the face of our merclan’s expectations.
Some part of me had always wished I could blame the gods for the way we did things and our laws. Our kingdom had struggled to hatch live children ever since the clans migrated to the harsher winter world from the southern world. We’d lost a war, and the price of our defeat had been exile. Life in the ice chilled our wombs and made eggs difficult to incubate after they were laid. In my clutch, Mama had laid a dozen eggs, and I was the only one to hatch.
A group of mermaids swam into the hall. Their giggles echoed down the hallway after them. It shouldn’t have bothered me, but I felt a pang of jealousy seeing them all arrive together, so obviously friends. Vigdis swam at the head of their little column like a general leading her troops into battle. Most of the other girls had dressed for the occasion. Their long hair contained mother-of-pearl fragments, rare shells, and finely woven nets. Many wore iridescent cloaks of stretched jellyfish skin that blinked blue, then pink, in the pale light of the glacier’s interior. Seeing them like that, together and in all their finery, I felt small and even more exposed.
When Vigdis saw me sitting with the mage, her eyebrows rose almost to her hairline. She rushed to sit on the mage’s other side, exclaiming, “Ersel! I didn’t expect to see you here… early?” Then she schooled her voice into that patronizing sympathy. “Wanted to get it over with before the rest of us arrived? I understand.”
I clenched my jaw and glared at her.
Aegir’s mage was unfazed. She patted Vigdis on the hand. “There, there, dear. You’ll get your chance too. Ersel has simply volunteered to go first.” She turned to me with a twinkle in her eyes. My heart leapt into my mouth. First? No… “I have a feeling she’s going to get excellent results.”
One of Vigdis’s cohort, Rayne, snorted. “Not likely. She practically hides from the sun.”
I wanted to punch Rayne in her smug face, but the mage’s stated confidence comforted me and made the situation a little easier to tolerate.
“What is your birth season, child?” The mage asked, brushing my hair back off my shoulders. I heard the collective gasp as the human pendant was exposed. But as before, her fingers left a trail of warmth and quieted my fear.
“Haustr,” I replied. I was a child of the deep autumn; a child of death and grayness and so, maybe, as cold to the core as everyone imagined.
The mage’s smile widened, revealing rows of sharpened teeth that overlapped like a shark’s. “Uncommon in a mermaid, to be sure. But haustr is Loki’s season, so she may surprise us all. The trickster is known to have a game or two up their sleeve.”
I never thought of myself as a child of Loki. Haustr was Baldr’s season as well, and I preferred to think of myself as a child of the god of love and joy rather than of deception. Still, it couldn’t hurt to murmur an extra prayer to Loki now. I cast my eyes toward their bust on the ceiling and silently mouthed the words to one of the incantations I’d known since childhood. Staring up at the imposing ice statue, I could have sworn Loki’s glassy lips curled into a smile.
“Ready?” the mage asked. I looked back at her and jumped in shock. Her appearance had totally changed. She was glowing brighter than any jellyfish cloak. Pure sunlight seemed to emanate from her very pores; the wrinkles that had lined her eyes had smoothed away. The barnacles were gone, replaced by the smoothest beluga-white flesh. The other girls in the hall gasped. She smiled. “Climb up onto the table and lie back. Let’s see what we’re working with.”
I did as she instructed while the other girls gathered round. With their eyes on me, I felt like a prized catch, about to be butchered and divided up for a grand dinner or the Nacht feast. Considering how many mermen would be waiting with the king for the results, ready to catch a prize of their own, maybe I was right to feel that way. If my grading went well, they’d all see me as something to hunt.