She ripped off the corner of her tunic with her teeth, then tried to use the piece to bind the wound on her leg. Watching her wrap the bleeding scratch snapped me out of my daze. I slid toward her on my stomach. She wiped snot on her sleeve and shivered in the arctic air. Sweat froze along her hairline.
I took the strip of cloth. Then I laid my arm across the open wound. Ragna watched me warily, but she didn’t pull away. We’d saved each other and now shared the blood debt: a promise and a bond as old as Asgard itself. Nobody had ever risked their life for me. I wouldn’t forget it. I focused all my energy on the scales that ran up my bicep. They heated at my command, growing as hot as the sun for a fraction of a second.
Ragna threw her head back and screamed. Steam rose from her leg, but the injury closed. Biting back tears, she ran her bloody fingers over the new pink scar.
She leaned against my shoulder and we rested together. Our breath formed clouds in the frozen air; our heartbeats slowed until they beat as one steady drum.
At the fortress later that day, I headed straight for the food stores. Every part of my body felt shriveled and desperate for sustenance. My scales had burned through a good portion of my fat reserves. I’d need a few days of eating well to build them up again. The position of the sun indicated noon, but I couldn’t face the dining hall. Other than Mama and Havamal, I hadn’t spoken to anyone in the glacier since the grading ceremony.
I smiled at the two guards as I made my way into the coral comb store, but one of them stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Don’t lead him on, lass,” he growled as his deep cobalt eyes drilled into me. “He’s smitten with you. Won’t even look at the other girls. You have someone else in mind?”
I wrenched my arm away and cradled it against my chest. I didn’t have to ask whom he was talking about. “That’s between me and Havamal. It’s none of your business.”
The other guard snorted. “Like hell it isn’t. He’s been totally useless. Just moping around his cave. Everyone can tell how upset and distracted he is. Besides, with fertility being what it is… it’s the whole clan’s business now.”
I pressed my lips together. Though we were no longer close, I hated the idea of Havamal in so much pain. “Havamal and I have talked about it. It’s our decision. Excuse me.” I pushed past them into the catacomb.
At our vault, I seized an eel tail and devoured it. I’d never experienced hunger this intense. Then I pulled a crab-dusted shark fin from one of the shelves, leaned back against the frozen wall, and gnawed as my eyes rolled in pleasure. What did I need a mate for, when there was food like this? The question made me giggle despite the guards’ comments about Havamal. If everyone knew he was waiting for me, I might have less time before the king got involved.
Thinking about King Calder made me eat and eat until my stomach churned. The methodical chewing kept me breathing as I imagined the king passing me on to one of his favorites, turning over my freedom as casually as he bestowed gifts of pearls. The food was a lifeline, so I chewed even as my jaw ached. Could that happen? Surely it went against all of our laws and the word of the gods. But if six girls had failed… I bit into a crab leg and sucked the meat from its spindled claw.
A trail of heat drifting from the next catacomb caught my attention. I swam to look, hoping nothing had fallen and injured whomever was inside. Our caverns were often precariously stacked and the shelves themselves were easily broken. When I peered into the storage compartment, I saw Vigdis pressed against the wall. She held a bowl filled with carefully arranged and cut pieces of salmon, drowned in a stew of mashed oysters and scallops. Her normally cherubic face was drawn and thin. She stared into the food without moving and bit on a lock of her hair to stifle the sound of her crying. Unsure of what to say, I hovered with my hands on my hips.
When she looked up at me, Vigdis’s face twisted in rage and anguish. “Did you come here to gloat? Are you making fun of me?” she screamed. “Get out! Get away from me.”
“I didn’t…” I stammered. “I just heard you… Look, I don’t want any of it.”
“Oh. I’m so happy you don’t want to be lucky. I’m happy you don’t want what we all do—that makes it all so much better!” Her voice dropped to a hiss and she threw the bowl at my head.
I dodged and the bowl clipped the edge of the doorframe. “Stop—”
“Get out!” Her voice had a raw, wild edge to it, like the screeches made by hungry seabirds as they dove for their competitors’ eyes.
Seven
I swam beside the little boat’s hull while Ragna rowed. She’d stripped down to a lighter animal-skin tunic and left most of her thick furs behind on the ice shelf. The garment was tight against her slender form, and I could see the muscles in her back and arms flex every time the oar plunged through the water. Ragna’s skin was supple; it stretched and quivered in a way my less flexible scales couldn’t. The polar bear’s hide, scrubbed clean in the ocean water and as white as fresh snow, rested across her knees. I drifted on my on back and watched her in utter fascination.
“I need to test it,” she said, cheeks flushed with exercise. She winked at me. “If it starts to sink, I’m depending on you to save me.”
I chuckled, thumping my tail against the hull of the boat. “It feels pretty wobbly to me. I think you should rethink this whole boat-building thing. You’re obviously terrible at it. Don’t make it a career. Scary warrior maiden suits you better.”
“My village was renowned for its craftsmanship.”
“That doesn’t say anything about you personally.”
She grinned, then pretended to scowl and reached over the side of the boat to splash a handful of water at me.
“Do you realize how pointless it is to splash a mermaid?” I laughed, kicking water back at her with my tail. “I’m already wet. I live in the water.”
Ragna ducked to avoid the spray and stuck her tongue out. Since she’d warmed herself on my scales the day before, her wariness seemed to have melted away. Thinking about it, I realized that a lot of my own reservations were gone as well.
“I’m not sure you could drag me. I’m heavier than I look, you know.”
“I think I’ve proven my swimming strength well enough,” I said.
She nudged me with the edge of her oar. “I can’t believe how fast you are. I’m out of breath, and you’re just floating along like an otter.”
I rolled my eyes and stretched my arms out above my head, floating like the dead and letting the waves take me.
With a tired sigh, she dropped the oars into the bottom of the boat. The little craft bobbed in the water beside me. Then, from beneath her feet, she picked up the bone with silver plating that I’d left behind the previous day. “You should be nicer to me if you want to learn what this does.”