I leaned on the edge of the boat, watching as she polished the object with the edge of her sleeve. Then she lifted it to her mouth and blew. A low, loud sound emitted from the end of the bone’s curled tip. It was so resonant that it made the water around us vibrate.
“It’s a hunting horn. We carry them when we go looking for game. The sound travels, so the rest of the hunting party can find the person who blows it. Some countries use them for war as well, but in my clan…” She bit her lip, as if the memory stung her as sharply as a jellyfish. “Well, we didn’t want the enemy to know we were there. We hunted in silence.”
Ragna handed the horn to me, and I pressed the end to my lips as she had done. The horn shook in my hand as I blew, blasting out a sound that echoed off the ice-capped mountains.
“How did they take you?” I asked hesitantly, dropping the horn back into the bottom of the boat. “You’re a fighter. If your clan could hunt in silence together… well, it sounds like you were trained.”
She shrugged; her expression was distant and cold. “Even warriors have to sleep. We weren’t at war. Things had been peaceful for years, and our sentries were lazy. They attacked us when we were in our beds. There was chaos everywhere. Everyone was too busy trying to defend their own houses, their own families… we couldn’t organize.”
“And you? How did they take you?”
“They came to my house first, and one of them snuck in through the side window. But they got it wrong and they went to my brother’s room, instead of where my sisters and I slept.” She shook her head, and her hair fell across her face. “I heard him scream. I thought it was a night terror, so I grabbed a candle instead of a sword.”
We both fell silent, just listening to the waves as they lapped against the boat’s hull. I couldn’t ask her if she’d seen her brother die.
Clearing her throat, Ragna retrieved the heavy metal bangle from my treasure collection. “You’re not going to understand this.”
“Why?” I demanded, rocking her boat until she nearly slipped overboard. “I understood about the horn.”
“Because you won’t even know what a horse is.”
“We have horses,” I said defensively. I didn’t like feeling ignorant, and it wasn’t as though she knew anything about the sea. “Sometimes the hunting parties catch them if they go a little farther south.”
Tossing her head back, she cackled with laughter. “No. Land horses look nothing like sea horses. They’re beasts the height of polar bears but a lot narrower. We ride them.”
I wrinkled my nose at her. They rode on animals? Weren’t they afraid the horses would turn and eat them? Polar bears were vicious, as we’d seen only the day before. They didn’t respond to kindness. Many of my whale friends bore scars from their claws. “You ride… creatures of that size?”
“Horses are harmless. They just eat plants.” She covered her mouth to suppress the laughter. “This is a shoe for them.”
“A shoe?”
She held up her foot and pointed to the leather garment enclosing it. “Like this, it protects their feet.”
“How do they wear it?”
“We nail them on.” She pointed to the small holes around the edge of the bangle. “See these holes? They had nails in them once.”
I drew back. “That’s barbaric. You nail something into a living creature?”
No wonder these land horses served them. They were terrified into submission! I could only imagine the pain the creatures must endure while the shoes were fitted, never mind the agony of walking afterward. Under such conditions, maybe even polar bears could be ridden.
Shaking her head, Ragna sighed. “They have hard shell around their feet… like… a turtle. They don’t feel the nails.”
My skepticism must have showed on my face because she splashed another handful of water at me. “Don’t ask questions if you won’t like the answers.”
“How do I know I won’t like the answers until I ask the questions?”
The sun peered from behind a thick cloud, and Ragna’s grin spread all the way to her ears. Sighing as the warm sun hit my scales, I rested my weight on the edge of the boat. Out here, out in the open water joking with her, I felt totally free. I didn’t want to think about when this day would end and I’d have to swim home.
Ragna watched me as I sunned myself; her eyes were acutely focused on my face. I tried to not flush at the feral light in her eyes.
“You should give me a kiss,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows. “When the bards tell mermaid stories, it’s always supposed to lucky for sailors to kiss them.”
“Oh, really?” I asked, trying to sound calm, though my voice came out like a squeak. My vision made a tunnel, and the only thing I could focus on was the brilliant red of her lips. Did she mean a proper kiss? Or a peck on the forehead like Mama gave me? Havamal and I had kissed a couple of times, concealed inside one of our sunken wrecks. And once, just once, I’d shared a moment with a mermaid named Fryen before Vigdis turned her against me, too. Mermaids were encouraged to kiss and make love to each other—the king condoned anything that made us more receptive to touch.
Somehow I didn’t think kissing a human would be anything like that. The thought made my breathing shallow. “And why is that?”
“Mermaids are said to be the most beautiful creatures in Midgard.” She shrugged. “But maybe the sailors who find them were just lucky to begin with.”
“Are said?” I raised my own eyebrow in an attempt at disdain.
“Are.” Ragna said. She leaned toward me, and my heart beat faster. It was just going to be a quick kiss, why was I getting so worked up? “And I’m going to need a lot of luck.”
She brushed her silken lips across mine. The bitter smell of the sea clung to her now, mixed with the earthen sweetness that was her own. The sensation of her warmth shot down my back. She moved to pull away, but I wrapped my hands around her and crushed her lips to mine. The taste of her was like an elixir of salt and courage and freedom. I couldn’t get enough. Some animal part of my brain insisted that I needed more.
Her fingers began working their way into my hair, threading between the layers, massaging my scalp. Her tongue teased my mouth open and slipped inside. I couldn’t help the moan that escaped. She pushed against me with exactly the right amount of pressure; her lips were a thousand times softer and more agile than Havamal’s had been. We kissed and kissed until I couldn’t breathe, until my lips stung.
I pushed myself higher up the side of the craft. I wanted to crawl inside with her, to wrap my body around her and feel her downy skin beneath my fingers. Only the potential indignity of needing her to roll me from the boat kept my tail in the water.
I didn’t know what the kiss meant. I knew she was leaving to find whatever destiny awaited her in a place I couldn’t go. I wasn’t sure if this was the kind of kiss she’d had in mind. In the moment, it didn’t matter. The pure pleasure was enough. We were just two beings, adrift in the open ocean. Our hair whipped wildly around us, a billowing sail of blue and white.