Chapter 22
It was Ivar’s turn on the watch. They’d established it after the heads came back in the boat, for it undoubtedly meant the Ør were out there, waiting somewhere offshore. Waiting for what, though? Other ships to arrive? Weapons to finish being made? The wives’ cries could still be heard when Ivar passed by their houses. Albrekt’s wife had been one of the women on the beach when the boat had washed ashore. What she must be feeling, after seeing her husband’s severed head tied to a boat, Ivar couldn’t begin to imagine. Trying to understand such a pain that wasn’t his felt as though it were bordering on disrespectful.
And then there was Móri. Sigvard had offered to be the one to tell his mother and father, but Ivar had done it, instead. Perhaps out of a sense of duty, perhaps out of guilt. It was difficult to tell. Ever since they’d returned from the fight, his heart felt so heavy it might stop working altogether. His throat constricted every time he saw the boy’s face in his mind. At night he had nightmares where he saw it happen all over again. He tried to sleep as little as possible, but had to succumb eventually.
Fresh snow lay on the rocks around him, and though he tried to keep from thinking of it, it was everywhere he looked. When the storm swept in, Ósa would have still been on the plain, about halfway across, if she’d been making good time. There was no cover out there, Gregor had said. Nowhere to seek shelter. Though he’d worked to fight through all manner of hopelessness and disapproval about her choice to go, since the storm, even he’d lost hope. In a way, giving up felt like sentencing her, like condemning her to die out there alone, frozen. But perhaps it had already happened. Perhaps this very moment, Ósa no longer drew breath.
That meant so much. It meant he’d lost his closest friend, his companion since childhood. The only person in Skane whom he could picture as a companion for the rest of his life. He could keep up his appearance, look hopeful for those around him, but his heart had given up. Hoping felt foolish. Soon, these waves would continue to crash, this sun would continue to rise, and his people would no longer be here. What would it look like when they’d gone? How changed would this landscape be? The Ør would set up their kind here, build whatever homes they lived in, hunt whatever food they ate, and spread their brutal existence around the whole of this cursed island.
The sun was about to set. The ocean was cast in a dull, deep blue colour, and far in the distance, the first star sparked into view. After the first, more and more seemed to follow its example, springing to life in the growing darkness. No sails, yet. Just sea and sky and stars. Right now, it was still beautiful, still as he’d always known it.
“That star,” Ósa would say of the first one. “That belongs to the knife of the Warrior.” She was always talking about the stars, ever since she was a child. He’d asked her why, asked her many times where her fascination with them came from, and she always had a different answer.
“Because I don’t know what they are.”
“Because they tell a story, and one we can never know the beginning or the end of.”
“Because they symbolize that, even when the world is shrouded in darkness, there can still be light.”
He picked up a handful of snow and let it fall back on to the rock. There can still be light.
It felt almost cruel to think the words, cruel to think of continuing this fight without her, after everything she’d given for it. Everything she’d sacrificed. But it would be wrong and unfair to give up on it now. To make her death be in vain. Even without Ósa, there could still be light in Skane. They could follow her example, stand up and give their all.
He stood and threw a fistful of the snow out into the water. “You won’t have died for nothing,” he whispered, and the wind carried his words away. It blew to the northwest, and he turned to stare in that direction, wishing the wind could carry his words all the way to wherever her body lay and whisper them in her ear.
Something overhead, a shadow, made him look up. A bird was circling down, down, down, towards him.
Uxi.
It was that owl she’d loved so dearly. She’d mothered it for ages, feeding it and mending its wounds just because it was in her nature. He’d told her it was foolish, that the poor thing would die anyway, but that was the thing about Ósa, as her journey was evidence of: she did things others thought were irrational or reckless. She did them, and most often, she succeeded, managing to somehow still retain her gentleness and grace. The owl had survived, and now it followed her around like a shadow. Surely it had followed her on her journey. So why was it here?
It landed on a dead shrub stuck between two rocks, something tied to its ankle. His heart pounded as he slowly reached for it, afraid to chase it away. The owl didn’t move, only stared at him with wide, round eyes. He carefully untied the string and unfolded the scrap of paper.
I have reached the mountains.
He fell backwards on to the rock, tears welling in his eyes. Blind happiness soon gave way to a million different thoughts. She’d made it. Against all odds, she’d reached those damned mountains on her own. And with her, she’d carried the hope and future of Skane, all the way across the plain. She’d proved the villagers wrong. Proved that she could do what others thought was impossible. And despite the dark events of the past few days, despite the red lights and the Ør and Ósa’s father sending her off alone, Ivar smiled. There was something about her, a fire, a will to survive that could not easily be quenched. Eldór was cold, harsh, always preparing her for survival. And now, at last, seventeen years as his daughter had paid off.
He folded the paper and tucked it gently into his pocket, but when he returned his eyes to the horizon, his movements froze.
Set against the darkening sky was the sight they’d all be waiting for, all been dreading and anticipating and imagining since learning about what was to come.
Sails. So many sails, spreading from left to right, as far as the eye could see. More sails than there were villagers in the whole of Skane. With Ósa rested hope, life, a chance at a future. And with those sails came torture, death, and the beginning of the end.