ALGATT, EANGEN, AND THE NORTHERN TERRITORIES OF THE ARPA EMPIRE

THE FAR NORTH, DUAMEL

One

The knife was smooth and cool to the touch: simple, plain, but terribly sharp. Light glinted off the blade as my mother settled my small fingers around the hilt. When I tried to let go, her callused hand held mine in place.

Do not come out until I call for you, she told me.

The wind picked up around us, heady with pending rain and violence. My gaze flicked past the arc of the shield on my mother’s back, through the swaying trees and rustling undergrowth to the empty trail.

Hessa! a voice roared through the trees.

My mother clamped a hand over my mouth before I could whimper in fear. She hovered, perfectly still between the boughs of pale green needles.

They were looking for my mother. Whoever was out there in the forest was looking for her, and there was no gentleness, no forgiveness in their voice.

Those are the Iskiri, my mother murmured, low and warning. If they catch you, if they realize you’re my daughter, they will kill you. Tell them you’re Algatt, and pretend not to know me, even if I’m hurt. No matter what they do. Do you understand? Yske?

I couldn’t nod with her hand so firmly over my mouth, but I blinked a frantic, fluttering acknowledgment. Slowly, she let me go. I lifted the knife, clutching it with all the strength of my terror, and nodded.

Noting my clumsy grip, she grimaced and touched my cheek with a gentle hand. I will teach you how to use that when we get home. Stay here. Stay silent.

I nodded again and she vanished into the forest.

Quiet settled around me. Nothing moved in the fir grove save the wind tugging the boughs and a few stray needles falling into my hair. Tentatively, I shifted to all fours and stared in the direction my mother had gone, but otherwise I did not move. I would be like a rabbit in the garden, I told myself, holding so still the dogs couldn’t see me.

I heard a scream. It was a shocked sound, full of pain, but it belonged to a man. I bit my bottom lip and screwed my eyes shut.

Running. An outbreak of shouts and a husky, growling war-cry, fringed with bloodlust and ending in a cracking canine yip. My eyes flashed open as footsteps flitted past my fir grove, light and leaping. Their owner howled, then loosed a manic laugh.

I realized I was shaking, and that made the tremors worse. I sat down hard, dropped the knife, and covered my face. I prayed silently, a clumsy imitation of my mother’s prayers—one prayer to Thvynder, god of my people, and another to Aita, the Great Healer, who made all things whole and well. When my prayers ran out I held myself tightly, wishing I was anywhere but here, and at the same time longing to be at my mother’s side. At least if I could see her, I’d know she was alive.

It began to rain, hard and swift and cold. The trees swayed and the sky darkened, leaving me in a bewitching twilight. I squinted against the droplets and bowed my head, my misery and fear reaching a breaking point.

I didn’t make a conscious decision to leave the grove, but my next clear memory was of hovering at its edge, watching a warrior with a blood-streaked face throw my mother against a tree. Her head cracked off a root. She rolled and tried to push up onto her hands and knees, but her whole body shuddered. Her head lolled, eyes blinking, squinting. Fluttering shut. Her axe lay on the forest floor, glistening in the rain, and a long knife toppled from her fumbling hand.

The rain did nothing to wash the blood from her attacker’s face— multiple gashes bled freely, and as he snarled at my mother, I saw his teeth were filed to vicious points.

An Iskiri Devoted. I’d heard the stories many times in my eight years. Though the adults tried to protect us from the worst of those tales, other children gleefully whispered the details between themselves. Iskiri Devoted still served Eang, the Goddess of War, even though she was dead and hadn’t really been a goddess at all but a Miri—a powerful being, almost immortal.

The Iskiri Devoted reveled in killing the priests and priestesses of new gods in the most brutal, bloody, and painful ways. But my mother wasn’t just a priestess. She was the High Priestess.

She had killed Eang.

The Iskiri tore a hatchet embedded in a nearby tree and threw himself at my mother. My mother, already on the ground. My mother, who protected others, protected me. Loved me.

My fear flickered like a candle in the wind. That wind was a battering, righteous indignation, a refusal to accept the reality of the moment and the truth of what was to come. Then there was no thought in me, only rage that burst through my veins—hot, blinding and feral.

I shrieked. I threw myself from the trees and onto the Iskiri’s back. My fingers clawed his face, his throat. They pried into his eyes.

He threw me to the earth and spun on me, spitting blood and roaring like a wounded bear. I rolled right back onto my hands and knees and weathered the force of his fury.

My mother’s knife was in my hands. I darted forward and stabbed at his calf, down to the bone. The man stumbled and I went after him, still unthinking, carried on a wave of hate and the need to destroy the cause of my fear and my mother’s pain. Another stab, this one to the thigh. He tried to grab me by the hair; I dodged and hacked at his ankle.

But rage couldn’t change the fact that I was a child, and particularly small for my age. Another lunge—the Iskiri plucked me from the ground and threw me like a doll. I smashed back into the stand of firs, branches cracking and bending, tufts of needles painting blood across my skin.

I hit the ground and did not move again. I couldn’t. The anger that had fueled me sputtered with the erratic beat of my heart. All I could do was stare through tear-filled eyes as the Iskiri picked up my mother’s axe and advanced on her again.

I opened my mouth to scream, to try and save her with my tiny, torn voice. But Hessa moved. Wielding a fallen branch like a spear she staggered to her feet, smashed the axe aside and snapped the other end into the man’s face. His head cracked back and she pressed—beating him again and again in the head, face and shoulders until he collapsed, choking on blood and shattered teeth.

My mother did not stop. She kicked him onto his back and straddled him, branch braced across his throat. He clawed and beat at her, but she was impervious—she didn’t break his gaze until his hands fell limp and his fingers, creased with mud and blood, twitched on the sodden bed of needles.

Hessa unfolded slowly and stepped away from the corpse. Chest heaving, she spat blood and retrieved her axe, holding it loosely in both hands.

A new kind of dread gripped me then, twining through remnants of my ferocity and an incomprehension of what I’d done. That dread wasn’t directed toward the blood on my lips, or worry that my mother was badly injured. It wasn’t even because of the body, lying face-up in the rain. No, this new alarm came from the expression on my mother’s face—cold, remorseless, and weary.

If my rage had been a fire, hers was a deep, drowning sea.

She saw me and her expression faltered. I didn’t know if she’d seen everything I’d done, but I saw regret flicker through her eyes, the promise of a difficult truth. Then she brushed a tired hand over her face, slicking away blood and rain and black hair caked with dirt.

Are you hurt? she asked, composed now, her expression guarded.

I looked down at myself. I ached and was covered with cuts, but those pains were distant. No, I said simply.

Then stay there. Wait for me. She vanished into the trees again.

I stayed this time. I couldn’t have moved if I’d wanted to, for as I sat beneath the fir boughs and watched rain drip on the face of the dead Iskiri, something within me fractured.

* * *

The days passed and we completed our journey to the northern settlement of Orthskar, but nothing my mother said or did could mend me. When I looked at her, I saw the cold weariness in her eyes, bloody rain on her cheeks, and how she’d held the Iskiri’s gaze as she killed him. I remembered the heat in my blood, how I’d thrown myself on her attacker, and how I’d wanted to cause him pain.

It was my first true understanding of myself—of the potential for violence inside me, the nature of survival, and the fear that girded it on all sides.

My father and brother met us in Orthskar’s great hall, full of light and warmth and laughter. I recalled little of the meeting, after—only that my father held me for a very long time, and my brother pestered me with questions about the attack. I didn’t answer.

When the four of us retreated into a curtained chamber off the main hall, I noticed my mother limping. My brother fell asleep swiftly. My parents spoke for some time, then my father, too, grew still. From my pallet, I watched my mother massage her leg, wincing with each movement.

Does it hurt? I whispered.

Startled, she looked over at me and smiled consolingly. Yes, but this one is an old wound, my love. It will stop hurting again, with rest.

I wish I could make you better, I murmured.

Her face softened. I wish that, too.

Aita could heal you, I suggested with a child’s innocent practicality.

Mother’s smile slipped into the corner of her mouth. Yes, I suppose she could. But Aita is a Miri, and I’ve no wish to owe her any more favors than I already do.

Miri. Eang had been a Miri too, before my mother killed her.

Memories of blood and violence swelled toward me again and I felt my muscles tighten, my tongue thicken in my mouth. Would I kill people someday? Would I hold their eyes as I choked the life from them, like my mother had?

My mother saw the change in me. She shifted closer, breaking me from my spiral, and brushed my blonde hair behind my ears—blonde like my Algatt father, not like her Eangen forebears. My mother and I looked little alike. You did well, Yske. You’re brave. So brave. I’ll teach you how to properly protect yourself, and until you can, I’ll always be there to guard you. What happened with the Iskiri will not happen again.

No, I croaked.

My mother’s brows drew together. I will be there, she assured me, misunderstanding my protest.

No, I repeated, more forcefully. I don’t want to hurt anyone.

Want means nothing. She pulled back, her expression grave.

I don’t want to fight. I could feel myself starting to shake again and I tried to whisper, but I saw my father stir.

That doesn’t matter. Every child must learn how to protect themselves. Especially mine—you know that. She spoke firmly, but not unkindly. You’ll learn to do what you have to, just like I did.

I don’t want to be like you.

Silence dropped between us like a boulder into a stream. My mother’s face blanked, but not before I saw a shot of hurt and indignation pass behind her dark eyes.

I want to make people better, I said in a rush. I want to be like Aita. Or Liv, who healed the Great Bear.

My mother eased back onto her pallet without a word.

Mama, I leaned after her, desperate for her to understand. I—

Go to sleep, child, she told me, her voice level and devoid of emotion. Just… go to sleep.

Quiet regained its hold over our small chamber, but I could not rest. I tossed and turned, tugged my blankets, and covered my head.

A long time passed before I heard movement again. My father lay down beside me. He pulled me against his chest, sheltering me in the strength of his arms, and murmured into my hair.

If you want to be like Aita, I’m sure she will be flattered, he said. I’ll speak to her.

I twisted to look up at his face, but all I found was scratchy beard. I wriggled away and peered at him through the darkness. About me?

Yes, my father said decisively. I know her very well. Would you like that? To learn from her?

I felt a shock of hope and pure, childish excitement. But then I remembered my mother and how my words had hurt her, and my face fell. Mama will be angry.

Your mother wants you to be safe and happy, he told me, tugging me back into his chest. She lives to protect you and everyone around her. She expects the same of you. But there is more than one way to protect. Berin will be a warrior. When he’s injured, who will heal him? When he’s being silly and reckless, who will protect him from himself?

I will, I said immediately, because this had always been my task. Now, though, the idea took new life in my mind, etching out a future not soaked in blood, but marked with solace and making broken things whole.

Then tomorrow, I will speak to your mother, Father promised. And after that, I will take you to the High Halls to meet the Great Healer.

Two

There is always smoke in the Hall of the Gods. It drifts up from the ever-burning hearth, within the circle of thrones where the Miri once presided and gave the hall its name. It wafts between the carved pillars, where intricate runes merge with scenes from history and myth beneath garlands of holly. Sometimes the smoke is dense. Others, it lingers only in the corner of my vision. It does not harm the lungs, but it tricks the eye, here showing a previously unknown door, there concealing a path one has trodden a hundred times. And it rises from the bowls where Aita, the Great Healer, labors.

I stood at her side, watching as she crushed leaves between her hands and dropped them into a shallow iron bowl. Her simple gown was the palest green, bound above each broad hip with a trailing, braided belt. Her loose hair was wrapped in cloth that draped down her spine, and her face was beautiful and ageless, as only a Miri could be. If I’d been born in my mother’s generation, I would have called her a goddess. Instead, I called her mistress—my mentor, my guardian, and my shelter from the blood and death of the Waking World.

The leaves were swallowed by clear, hot oil, and their bitter scent merged with that of the hall—smoke-laden cedar, beeswax, and lavender. It had been years since my mentorship under Aita ended, but I still knew the scent of each leaf, root, oil, and powder. I knew their properties and uses, their dangers and benefits, where they came from and how to prepare them. And I knew that, together, this particular creation could cure the deadliest fever.

Aita watched the leaves dampen and curl, and when a fresh tendril of smoke coiled from the surface of the oil, she lifted the bowl from its small brazier and turned to me. I set out a clay jar, its black glaze smooth and cool against my fingers, and she poured the mixture inside. We moved with thoughtless efficiency, a partnership honed by years. I needed no words to prompt me, just the barest glance, the lightest hum.

That silent competency, rather than satisfy me as it once did, now filled me with an aching nostalgia.

As the last drop fell and the clay warmed beneath my hand, I slipped waxed cloth over the top, wound it tightly with string, and set the little vessel aside as quietly as possible, reluctant to break the stillness. A soft tap of clay on wood. The shush of my sleeve. The brush of my fingers as I laced them over my soft belly.

It is unwise for the living to linger in the High Halls of the Dead, a voice reverberated through the pillars, scattering smoke into eddies around a man in layered southern robes—burnt sumac red over earthen brown, embroidered with gold and white. His skin was pale as summer clouds and seemed to shift under my gaze, but his eyes were his most arresting feature: a deep bloody copper that once, my mother told me, had been the gentlest blue. Go home, Yske.

As blunt as his command was, he delivered it with distraction rather than ire. He wasn’t wrong. If the priesthood knew I still visited the High Halls as often as I did, they’d have said the same.

Estavius. I gave a short bow and reached for my satchel, hanging from a peg on the nearest pillar. It was heavy, already full to bursting with the herbs and salves and tonics I’d come to gather from Aita’s stores. I turned to conceal its weight, hoping the newcomer would not notice.

What is it? Aita tipped her head to one side, measuring the man as he approached. They both spoke in the Divine Tongue, the language of the Miri and the High Halls—a tongue no human could master, but which was universally understood.

Estavius, Miri and Emperor to the Arpa Empire in the south, remained quiet. I pulled the strap of the satchel over my head and settled it between my breasts, the hush thickening around me.

When Estavius had ascended to the throne of the Arpa Empire, drinking the blood of a true god and becoming that deity’s vessel, the price had been simple—his heart. Where affection, love, and all the complexities of emotion once occupied his pale blue eyes, now there was only that sharp copper glow.

His eyes followed me now. Whatever had brought him here, he clearly had no intention of discussing it with me present.

I felt a flutter of irritation, but it had no teeth. I’d spent enough time in these Halls to know there was little point in openly resisting when the Miri decided to hide things from me. When I was a child, the secrets told in my hearing had been myriad. But now that I was a woman, keen-eyed and possessed of magics I shouldn’t wield, the Miri were more inclined to guard their words.

I gave Aita and Estavius a lean smile and bowed. Mistress, Lord.

The healer ducked her chin in farewell. Bring me that sweet tear, whenever you may.

I nodded and, casting Estavius one last appraising glance, slipped off through the carved pillars.

The distance to the main doors was not what it should have been; to my eye, it was well over a dozen paces away, but the Hall brought me to it in little more than five. The Miri wanted me out, and the Hall, intrinsically bound to them, obeyed.

I pulled one of the great rings on the door, opening it just enough to slip into a cool summer night of churring insects and salt-laden breeze.

Before I pushed the door closed, I paused. I might be used to the Miri guarding their words, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t curious. Wood cool against my cheek and skirt brushing the dew-damp grasses, I put an ear to the crack between the doors and listened.

…beyond the edge of the world, north of the rising sun, Estavius’s voice confided. His words were quiet, but my senses had always been unexpectedly strong. Movement, in the Unmade.

A shadow in darkness? Aita laughed and the direction of her voice shifted, as if she’d turned back to her work. Human eyes are faulty. You place too much trust in your people.

Beneath my ear, the doors of the Hall of the Gods closed themselves with a soft, chiding tap. I stood back and stared up at them, every inch of the wood laden with knotwork and runes. Above them the steep roof of the hall swept out, the end of each beam carved in the likeness of animals and monsters, both of this world and the Waking one.

One of the creatures, a slit-eyed lynx, seemed to glower down at me for a moment, then returned her gaze to the looming sky. Sporadic stars trailed from horizon to horizon under her cool regard, the divided realms of the broadly termed High Halls united in a rare, uniform night.

I let out a shallow breath. The edge of the world. North of the rising sun. The Unmade. These were terms I’d heard the Miri use before, usually when they thought my child’s mind immersed in bundling plants or grinding seeds in a mortar. In creation there existed the two realms of the Made: the High Halls, where the Miri and the souls of human dead resided, and the Waking World, where humans lived and the Miri meddled.

But there were edges to the Made, and beyond them was the Unmade. I knew no one who had seen that emptiness, nor anyone who had seen the place where the sun was born, each morning, at its edge. Yet it seemed that Estavius’s people, the Arpa, had finally reached the boundary. And it had not been what they expected.

The thought was perturbing in a weightless, disconnected way. If I’d learned anything from my time in the High Halls, it was that the world was vast, and I was both small and irrelevant. I might turn an inquisitive ear to the Miri’s conversations, but the secrets I gathered were pretty stones in a child’s pocket. Novelties. Irrelevancies. What took place beyond the edges of creation was not my concern. What took place beyond the borders of my own village was not my concern.

Nor did I want it to be.

But then I saw the owls fly. They swept out from the slits of the hall’s high windows, carrying messages to the north, south, east, and west, and my curiosity turned to a burning need.

Aita and Estavius were summoning the Miri to counsel.

* * *

I waited silently, in the shadow of the forest at the base of the hill, as time stretched. At last, runes pulsed in the night. Each heralded the arrival of another figure or two, stepping seemingly from nowhere in hazes of runelight. It was too dark to make out the identities of most, but the last one was undoubtedly my mother, small and muscular, striding through the door of the hall in a mist of lingering amber magic. The hall’s double doors closed behind her with finality.

I hid my satchel in a tree and, gathering my skirts, slipped back up the hill.

By the time I convinced a side door to let me back inside—one carved with the face of a suspicious bear, who yielded to my pleading only after I sang him a whispered song—the council was deep in conversation. Voices drifted through the holly-wrapped pillars and the Hall’s usual smoke had lightened, streaming only up from the distant hearth. There, firelight cast a circle of old thrones into varied silhouettes.

I closed the door with the barest breath of wind and brush of fabric, then moved into the shadow of a pillar.

…myself, a deep female voice said from one of the thrones. Esach. She was the Miri who wove summer storms and birthed the yearly harvest. I saw her from the side, the slight curve of her pregnant belly visible above the arm of her chair. Her gray hair wound in a twist over one shoulder, stray hairs ignited by firelight. Fate has said nothing of it.

Perhaps whatever these Arpa merchants saw is already gone, Aita’s calm voice put forward.

They saw nothing, a male voice scoffed. I couldn’t see him—he lounged in a throne with its back to me, one booted foot dangling over an arm of the chair. A burly shoulder and elbow protruded from the opposite side. This was undoubtedly Gadr, former god of the Algatt and Esach’s temperamental lover.

I glanced around for their eldest son, but didn’t see him yet.

Gadr went on, "There is nothing and can be nothing in the Unmade. It’s Unmade. Why are you wasting my time?"

Because what they saw may not be nothing, another younger man replied, tempering him. He stood beside the fire, clad in a tunic of gray and blue herringbone weave. This was Vistic, one of two physical representations of our true god, Thvynder. He was also my cousin, by bond if not by blood.

Just because the Arpa are human does not mean they are foolhardy, Vistic reasoned, his golden eyes calm. His hair, dark and curling, was knotted at the back of his head.

The robed form of Estavius spoke from the other side of the circle, half visible through the rising hearthsmoke. Agreed. They would not have come to me unless they were convinced what they saw was real.

An unfamiliar figure shifted, and my heart leapt into my throat. Her hair was white and her skin pale, her body clad in a light kaftan and her feet wrapped in shoes of pale leather. She was a Winterborn, from a half-Miri tribe in the far north, and she looked so like another of my cousins—there were few in this world to whom I could not trace some relation—that my heart ached. But Thray was still in exile.

I’ve sent Windwalkers to the edge of the world in the far north, the Winterborn revealed. They’ve yet to return.

Fate has given no sign of a new threat in the mortal world, Esach put forward again.

Gadr threw in, Go to her yourselves if you’re unconvinced.

I intend to, Estavius murmured. His patience for the meeting already seemed thin.

Then that’s good enough for me. Gadr’s leg and shoulder vanished as he sat up straight. Also, I feel I should point this out—Hessa’s daughter is skulking over there. Is no one going to do anything about that? Aita, if you’re going to keep your pets in common spaces, you really need to take responsibility for them.

Every head turned and I pinned my spine to the pillar, biting the inside of my lips.

Yske? my mother’s voice called from a shadowed throne.

I felt my cheeks flush. Steeling myself, I stepped out from behind the pillar and strode toward the circle.

No one stopped me as I drew up next to Aita’s throne. Now that I had a clear view, I saw there were five Miri or half-Miri present: Aita, Esach, Gadr, Estavius, and the Winterborn woman. Then there was Vistic, standing by the fire. He couldn’t be rightly called a Miri—he had been born to mortal parents and was mortal himself, though he carried a vestige of our god within him.

Another young man lingered at the edge of the circle, previously hidden from sight by Esach’s throne. Isik, one of her sons by Gadr. He stood quietly at his mother’s left, their resemblance clear in their wide-set eyes and calm posture. He was trying not to laugh at my embarrassment, his eyes crinkling and his chin raised as he suppressed a grin. The corner of my mouth tugged in response, despite my burning cheeks.

The last guest was my mother. She sat in the throne that had once belonged to Eang, her black braid heavy over one shoulder. She wore a simple slate-gray tunic and belt, hung with a hooded axe at one hip and a long knife, horizontal across the opposite thigh. Her face was young for her age, despite a few threads of graying hair—a gift, Aita had confided in me, from the forbidden honey and water of the High Halls. But I could still see every one of her hard years in the depths of her earthen brown eyes, flecked with gold.

She raised her brows at me. The high back of the chair framed her like a crown, its knotwork carved in the memory of blade-sharp feathers and an owl’s watching eyes. Daughter. Skulking?

I smiled wanly. At least she didn’t seem angry with me. I might be twenty-one, but my mother’s disapproval still made my stomach curdle. I was visiting Aita.

Aita made a faintly amused noise, though it was so soft, I wasn’t sure anyone else heard.

Hessa watched me for another moment, then glanced back at the others. What have we decided, then?

We do nothing, as my mother said, Isik put forward. The amusement had faded from his eyes. In this meeting, he was not just my friend; he was a Miri, and heir to the powers and responsibilities of his parents.

Isik turned to Vistic. If Windwalkers have already gone to check the northern borders, I suggest we wait to see what they find. Then we can reconvene and reassess.

I felt my mother studying me and pulled my eyes from Esach’s son.

Vistic glanced around the circle and caught Estavius’s attention. The other man nodded, though barely, and Vistic concluded, Very well. We wait.

After a few more closing pleasantries, the assembly dispersed. Gadr crooked a farewell smile at his son and sauntered off toward the doors. The Winterborn and Vistic departed too, the latter leaving a kiss on my mother’s cheek before he followed Gadr out into the cricket-heavy hush of the night. Esach and Isik, however, fell into discussion and remained among the thrones as Aita and Estavius drifted away, wrapped in their own low conversation.

My mother put a hand on my back and prodded me out of the circle.

I didn’t mean to intrude, I said as we found a quiet spot among the pillars. I only thought to visit Aita.

There was nothing to intrude on—just Arpa murmurings of strange sights in the east, but I’m sure you gathered that. We were of a height and when my mother leaned in to speak in my ear, our foreheads brushed. Have you spoken to your brother recently?

No. I glanced surreptitiously back toward the thrones. Esach and her son had begun to leave, and I suppressed an urge to call to my friend. Why?

You should. Hessa sighed and followed my gaze, but she didn’t seem to see the other pair. I’ll let him explain.

Is something wrong?

Only that he’s a grown man and his choices are his own, and I can no longer stop him from doing as he pleases. My mother paused, then took my arm in a gentle hold. "Speak some sense into him? Though please, tell him nothing of today.