Chapter 33
Outside the Goddess’s temple, the dragon stood waiting. I understood without asking: at the instruction of the Goddess, it would take me home. It bowed its head to allow me room to climb his shoulder, where I gripped its ice-cold neck with all my strength.
The ground fell away and the sky embraced us as the dragon took flight, soaring far above the mountains towards the foothills and the plain. My head swam as we rose higher and higher, and my heart couldn’t help smiling at the beauty. It was a view of my island I’d never seen before and perhaps would never see again.
Something moved below – a small figure clad in white, waving its arms, and a few notes of song teased my ears.
“Down!” I exclaimed, sitting up and staring. I knew who it was even before we landed softly in the snow.
Sejer.
“Let me fight with you,” he said, placing a hand on the crossbow strung across his back. “There is nothing left for me here. Let my weapon serve you.”
I answered with a smile.
How small everything looked, everything that had once seemed so monstrous. The mountains shrank away, the foothills were little more than mounds in the snow, and the plain was a blanket of white as we passed by in silence overhead. It was the closest I’d ever been to the stars, and while their beauty didn’t escape me, my hurry to get home clouded my mind.
The trees streamed by. The River Horn. Everything below turned familiar, and in the distance, I saw the shimmering surface of the lake. And then we were over my village, seemingly devoid of life – and shouting reached my ears on the breeze. Smoke and fire rose from the beach. My stomach clenched as I leaned as far forward as I dared, straining for a better look.
We soared on to the beach and the fighting around us paused as everyone glanced up at the newcomers. I couldn’t waste time, but I also couldn’t stop my eyes from roving the beach, searching for those few beloved faces I longed to see. It was instinct, almost; against my will, my eyes searched for my family. For Ivar. But the Ør didn’t let themselves be distracted for long. Again their blades were raised in the air, seeking a victim to sever in two. Already, bodies littered the beach.
Whose were they?
I sang to the dragon and he kneeled, giving us a way to slide down. Sejer jumped into action, the crossbow already off his back and in use. I snatched the knives from where they hung at my waist and let one fly into the face of a nearby Ør. Thank goodness for all of those lessons with Ivar, growing up. The Ør howled and fell backwards, tripping over the body of a villager. I swallowed vomit. I might have known that person. As I ran to retrieve my knife, I chanced a glance at their face. Unfamiliar, yet my heart still ached. They were one soul I hadn’t been able to save. One out of the many who lay motionless around me.
A shriek sounded from behind, and I spun just in time to dive out of the way of an Ør blade that crashed to the ground where I’d been standing. The Ør howled and raised the knife once more, but I danced away, drawing back my hand to throw my own blade again. It surprised me, though, by charging forward and knocking into my body so hard that I hit the ground. All the air left my lungs in a burst and I opened my mouth, gasping, but they couldn’t seem to refill. Tiny rocks and shell shards from the beach tried to cut through my clothing. Silhouetted against the dark sky, I saw the Ør raising its blade, and for a terrifying moment, I thought that was how it would end, gasping and breathless, beheaded by a monster who stood framed by my beloved stars.
The muscles in its arms tightened as it made to swing the blade down, but a whisper and a thud left an arrow protruding from one of its eyes. It screamed and snatched at it, pulling the arrow out with the eyeball attached to the end of it. I cringed and looked away as the beast thudded to the ground, writhing in pain.
And Ivar was there, running across the beach towards me, a bow in one hand. I couldn’t hear the fighting for a moment, couldn’t see anything else but that beautiful, familiar face coming for me. His heart still beat, his eyes still saw. Something poured down my face, and while at first I vaguely thought it might be blood, I realized they were tears.
“Ósa.” He crashed to his knees and grabbed one of my knives, hurtling it towards an approaching Ør. Then he took my head where I still lay breathless on the ground and cradled it, saying my name over and over again. “You made it,” he said into my ear. “You made it, Ósa.”
I knew we needed to rise, needed to get back up and face the fight raging around us, but this moment was so perfect, so filled with comfort and beauty that I couldn’t tear myself from it. I wanted every second to drag into a moment, to wrap myself in his familiarity and cherish it like I’d never done before. I buried my face in his clothing, allowing myself a few more seconds of being able to hide from the death, from the danger that lurked only paces away. I’d faced so much of it alone, faced so many fears and terrors without him, suddenly seeing his face and hearing his voice left me drowning in relief.
“Come,” he said, standing and taking my hand. “We can fight together.”
I drew in a breath, my lungs still fragile from the blow to my body, and used him as leverage to pull myself to my feet. The sound of the fight, the screaming Ør and shouts from my people, closed in all at once, a deafening amalgamation of fear and anger fighting one another beneath a starlit sky. I took it in for a moment, took in the bloodbath happening around us. Villagers were being cut down, and while some had managed to overpower a few of the monsters, the odds were stacked firmly against us.
“Ósa!” Ivar shouted. Two of the Ør were running towards us so fast I barely had the time to draw back my hand to throw a knife before they were upon us. They swept their arms out wildly, their blades looking for any body part to lodge into. I darted away but the tip of the knife caught my clothing – just my clothing, I hoped. I was too focused, too full of energy to feel any pain.
Ivar ran back a few steps, drawing away one of the attackers and giving himself enough time to string his bow. His quiver only bore one more arrow after the one he’d just strung.
He missed the shot. “Damn it!” he screamed, running further and reaching for the last arrow.
I couldn’t watch. My attacker was growing tired of me evading it, and all around us there were the sounds of people dying. I took one of my knives and let it fly through the air, but in a surprising show of agility, the Ør used its own blade to knock it away. It clattered on to the beach too far away for me to be able to reach it. One more knife, that was the only weapon I had left.
I followed Ivar’s example and turned, running away to allow myself enough room to throw. When I span back around to face the Ør, it was close behind me. There wasn’t time to focus, to aim, so I just let the knife fly and prayed for luck. It clipped the left side of its head, taking his ear off completely, and then sank into the ground behind him. There was a sickening moment of silence from the monster as its eyes went wide and it reached a gnarled hand up to its severed ear. Then it erupted in a piercing scream that overwhelmed all other noises on the beach. I ran to my right, towards the knife it knocked out of the air, but it followed me. I reached for the knife, grabbed it, and whirled just as a blade was coming crashing through the air towards me.
Further along the beach, something caught my attention. An Ør was making for a villager – one I recognized – who seemed to be unaware of its approach. Anneka. I screamed her name, but my voice drowned in the noise. I’d never reach her in time, but I started to move anyway.
Just as I began to run, another figure joined her, slashing into the monster’s neck. Ymir. My mouth opened in shock and joy. I’d hardly seen the old man move in recent years, let alone fight. Not far behind him, Gregor – the leader of Is̊avik – swung a sword with the agility of a much younger man.
It warmed me, somehow, seeing the two older men fighting together. If they were going to die, they wanted to die defending their country. I couldn’t help but respect that.
Ivar rejoined me, throwing another knife as he did so. I gripped my own knife, ready to engage it once more, but the sight of another villager being cut down stopped me. The Ør slashed at the man’s neck, nearly severing his head from his body, and then turned to find another victim.
Arvid, the man who’d loaned me the horse.
I swallowed bile.
I thought, then, as I watched the villagers being cut down, as more of the monsters poured on to the beach, as a hint of dawn began to glow on the horizon, of what had happened on the ridge. You carry within yourself the power of the stars, the power of the sky. I didn’t understand then, and I didn’t fully understand it now, but it meant something, of that I was certain. As Ivar shot the single arrow he’d retrieved, as screams and cries continued to echo around us, I looked up. The stars shone overhead, silent and peaceful as ever. They were all there, just like I’d left them on the mountains. The kneeling Giant, the fearsome Wolf, the Horse with that majestic horn. They were watching us, I realized, though I didn’t know how I knew it. I could feel it, perhaps. Sense it. But watch us, they did.
Even with our numbers, we were all going to die if I didn’t do something. We were all still in danger.
Go and fight your battle, and the power will go with you.
Overhead, there were faint traces of the lós glowing against the stars, only instead of blue or green – or red – the lights were gold.
Reawakens something old.
The words filled every corner of my mind, echoing and bouncing. Something was reawakening.
A shiver ran through me, heavy with power and spark: a shiver of snow and sky and everything that made Skane the fierce and beautiful island it was. Everything around me – the snow, the ice, the sea – seemed to flood me with its strength, its power, until I was brimming with an energy so intense it awoke every fibre of my body.
A song began then. It started in my core, in some unknown point deep within me, and grew from there. Words and notes carried themselves almost unbidden out of my throat, off my tongue and into the frozen night air in a burst of white. I kept my eyes on the stars, no longer hearing the fight around us, no longer thinking of anything but the sky and my song.
The words were foreign, even though they came from me, but a small part of my mind understood what they were, even if I didn’t understand what they meant. It was an ancient language, long forgotten, if it was ever truly known at all, but it was one that the stars understood. The language of the Goddess. Somehow, I knew it. It held a power, a power that even now they were beginning to respond to. The constellations began to shine more intensely than they’d ever done, like each individual star was exploding. They grew brighter and brighter as my voice carried louder and louder, and within moments, they began to move. To the west, the Horned Horse shook its head as it came to life, its mane rippling in a breeze I couldn’t feel. It wasn’t just a set of stars any more. It had legs and a head and a tail, and a wind of light and song seemed to carry it to Skane. It landed on the ground, taller and stronger than any horse I’d ever seen – and as its hooves touched the earth, a ripple fanned out around it, a wave that swept through everything and everyone and vanished in an instant. Words rang out in my mind once more. Bring it to life, that it may chase away the darkness haunting these lands.
Its coat glowed white in the dim light, illuminating the air around it. Tearing forward, those powerful legs raising thunder, it flew across the beach until its horn, as long as my arm from shoulder to wrist, plunged through an Ør’s armour and out of the other side, dripping with blood.
All around us, the constellations were coming to life. The Warrior descended upon us, landing in the water just off the beach with a splash. He was tall, taller than the Ør, and his body was hung with armour. In his hand was a sword, the sword we could see in the sky, but though the entire blade was the length of my body and caught the light from the stars. He charged out of the water, his long hair tied behind him.
The Wolf swept down from above, running before his feet had even touched the ground. He was huge, easily the size of the bear I’d encountered in the mountains, and under his fur I could see his muscles rippling.
“What did you do?” Ivar asked beside me, his voice rife with disbelief.
“I brought the stars to life,” I replied, looking at my hands as if they’d worked the magic themselves. “The Goddess gave me a power, but I didn’t understand it until now.” This was what it meant. What it had all meant. The new constellation. The others moving around. She was giving me her power, channelling it towards me, a power that could control the stars themselves. The gold lós, the reawakening, it all pointed to Her, and that ancient, Goddess-like power coming to life. In Gregor’s story, the gold lós must have foretold of those lights that would carry them to safety. The same lights I saw in the mountain peak. The same lights that had led me across the plain. All of it was Her way of communicating with us, of helping us in whatever ways She could from Her place in the heavens.
Ivar’s mouth hung open, and he stared at me like I was a stranger. That pained me, almost. Pained me because until this moment, Ivar had known everything about me. There was so much to explain, but I’d have to do it later. For now, I ran to collect my knives and charged back into the fray, newly energized and with the stars on my side. With the stars on your side, the universe stands with you.
The fight continued to rage on. Nearby, Sejer shot spider webs at the Ør, immobilizing them as a villager finished them off with a knife or a bow. I took a running leap and launched myself at the back of one of the monsters, my knife digging into its jaw. When it crashed to the ground, taking me with it, I saw whom it had been attacking.
My father.
We both stood still for a moment, an entire conversation of unspoken words passing between us, and then he shook his head. It was dark, and I couldn’t be certain, but the left corner of his mouth seemed to move slightly. I smiled then, too, as widely as I could as a laugh rose up from within me. I didn’t know why, didn’t know what amused me at such a moment, but it was the kind of uncontrollable laugh that leaves one out of breath. How utterly out of place it was, how wholly inappropriate, but so right. He was still alive. Still fighting. I reached a hand towards him, almost without thinking, and he took it. We both wore mittens, but I imagined feeling the comforting warmth of his hand in mine. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d held it. Not as far back as I could remember. Now, in the midst of death and battle, he gripped it so tightly, it was as if he was making up for all the years he’d never done it. Making up for seventeen years of wrongs. In his own way, by holding my hand on this frozen beach filled with screams and smoke, he was saying sorry.
He turned away, dropping my hand, and I turned my attention back to the fight too. The dragon flew down in a crystalline flash, incinerating a group of the Ør where they stood. I remembered that heat, that burning sensation in the mountains, and shuddered. The Horned Horse fought close by, facing an onslaught of Ør who seemed determined to take him down. He had that sort of strength about him, that power that told them they should remove him from the fight. Taking the large blade from the hand of the Ør I’d just killed, I charged forward and grabbed hold of the Horse’s mane, swinging myself on to his back. He ran, then, ran along the beach while I swept the blade from one side to the other, making quick work of a large handful of the Ør. When we stopped and turned, I looked to the water, where many of them were returning to their boats. Throughout the whole of the beach, there was a general movement towards the water, and a few of the boats were already being rowed back out to sea.
The Ør were retreating.
My breath caught as I watched, urging the Horse forward. I had to find Ivar. The Wolf took the head off a monster in one gruesome bite, a growl strong enough to shake the earth rising from its throat. A group of villagers were overpowering one of the Ør together, and the Giant was plucking them from his back, flinging them away like flies until their bodies broke against the ground. The Warrior severed two of the monsters nearly in half with one swing of his sword.
But many of the Ør were running.
“They’re leaving!” Ivar shouted, his mouth open with elation. “They’re running away!”
Something between a cheer and a cry of victory rose from a few villagers, and it spread like fire through kindling. The sound reignited them with life, replacing whatever energy they’d lost as they fought harder, stronger, chasing the monsters across the beach until they were clambering back into their boats. The Giant snapped one of the boats in two, sending its occupants crashing into the icy water.
I swung down from the Horse and lowered my knife, hands shaking with exhaustion and joy. The fighting was over – the Ør were leaving. They didn’t belong here, and they never would – Skane was our home, our sanctuary after they ran us out of Löska. We’d fallen then, but we wouldn’t do so again. All around me, villagers had become warriors and fear had given way to courage. Skane wasn’t ours – we had to share it with others, and more than we’d previously thought, but this cursed little island stuck into the Grey Sea was worth defending, and we’d done it. We’d done it, and the pride running through my veins was a feeling I wouldn’t soon forget.
Overhead, faint bits of light clung to the sky, fighting against the approaching dawn. I stared, a smile tugging at my mouth as I was bathed in a relief so intense I dropped my knives. Against the lightening sky and the fading stars, the lós shone green.
All is well.
As their boats sailed away, I caught my father’s eye further down the beach. In the dim light of early morning, tears of joy glistened on his cheeks, and his lips curled into a faint smile.
On a cold beach riddled with blood and the bodies of monsters, my father was more human than he’d ever been before.
After
As the sun climbed ever higher in the sky, peace at last reigned in the village. The stars had been swept back into the sky, where they’d been since the beginning of time, like they’d never left. The dragon had vanished to the mountains with a few beats of those powerful wings, and for the most part, everything seemed as normal as it had been before all of this started.
Save for the bodies on the beach.
They would be burned in due course, but for the moment, no one had the heart to do it. A period of mourning would soon start, as we honoured their lives and sent their bodies to the sky in flames. To some who’d lost family, it didn’t feel like a victory, but it was, though hard won. The Ør had left Skane. The plague was nowhere to be found.
That was a victory.
Most of the village was busy celebrating – Sejer amongst them – their faint cheers and relieved voices reaching me now and again on the breeze. They’d called for me to join them – cheered my name over and over – and I would go soon enough. But after the noise and violence of the night, my mind sought calm.
I stood in the trees, staring at a lonely form on the beach. He’d been there all night, sometimes helping to collect the bodies, sometimes searching for more wounded, and sometimes, as he was now, shooting triumphant arrows he’d plucked from the battlefield out towards the horizon, where hours ago, the boats had disappeared.
Not far off, Ri – who had safely found her way home – and a few other horses were helping to haul broken weapons and debris from the beach.
Ivar released another arrow. It soared in a wide arc over the water, then disappeared beneath the waves. I took in a deep breath, looking down at the scroll in my hand. Soon I’d leave the village and trek into the woods, to find a cave with a wall that I could call my own. After a lifetime of seeing runes and hearing their stories, I wanted to add my voice to their ranks. I wanted to leave something behind, something hopeful, that frightened souls in the future might take comfort in. Sometimes, when the world seemed shrouded in darkness, words could offer light.
On a branch beside me, Uxi’s head spun to look behind, just as I heard gentle footsteps in the snow.
“I searched the village for you.”
I turned and found my father standing there. His face was pale and tired, but his eyes shone with light. He stood with one foot resting atop a rock, hands behind his back. I’d seen my sister earlier, but only for a moment. She’d opened her mouth to say something, a look gentler than I’d ever seen softening the usual harshness of her face, but whatever words she’d been about to utter, she’d decided against them. I’d never know what they were, but the hard lines of disgust that had always haunted her features were nowhere to be found, and that was enough to make me smile.
“Skane is peaceful again,” I replied, turning back to the beach. “I wanted to hear the silence.”
A few heartbeats slipped by. I saw Ivar kneel to close the eyes of a villager on the beach.
“I…” My father’s voice trailed off, as if he weren’t quite certain how to proceed. I faced him as he cleared his throat. “I haven’t thanked you. For everything. We, all of us, owe you so much. I should have put more faith in you than I did, and for that, I am sorry. I should have known you were a fighter. If that plague didn’t take you, nothing would.” He shook his head and looked at the snow at our feet. “You should know that it wasn’t your fault. None of it. Petra – your mother. Her death. It wasn’t your fault. I think I’ve always known that.” His lips pursed and the last few words carried so much emotion that my own eyes burned.
He shook his head again and turned away, unable to continue.
I didn’t give him the chance to collect his thoughts. I crossed the short distance between us and wrapped my arms around him. It didn’t come naturally. I’d dreamed of doing this for seventeen years, but it would take time for it to become my normal. In that moment of pain and forgiveness, words felt powerless, yet there were two that pressed against my tongue. Two that I’d always wanted to say, if this moment ever came.
“Thank you.”
*
I waited until Ivar left the beach and was part way home before I approached him. He heard my footsteps and stopped, his face unreadable. The trees surrounded us, their presence as comforting as it had always been, and nearby, birds sang softly. My heart rejoiced at the stillness. The sun had chased away the dark of the night and it warmed my soul.
“I don’t know why,” Ivar said when I was a few paces away, “but I’d let myself give up hope for a while. After I got the note from Uxi, I never heard anything more and I tried to hide it, but I stopped believing.”
I said nothing, only drew in a breath and nodded. He took a step closer.
“I kept remembering all of those times when we were younger, when you’d prove me wrong any chance you could. When you’d prove anyone wrong. But I told myself this was different, that this wouldn’t be like those times and that it wouldn’t be your fault.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat as he reached out and gently touched my hair, dark blue eyes shining in the cold.
His voice shook as he said, “I’ve never been so happy to be proved wrong, Ósa. I’ve never felt as whole as I did when I saw you alive.”
Something tickled my cheek and he wiped it away. A tear.
“There was a time in the mountains,” I said, pressing his hand to my cheek, “when I thought I would die. There were many times, but one in particular, I saw your face and all I wanted was to kiss it before I died.”
He swallowed, and the quiver in his lip hinted at suppressed tears of his own. “But you didn’t die,” he said softly.
“I didn’t die,” I repeated.
“Do you still want to kiss me?” he asked.
I didn’t let myself stop to think, I only answered by rising on to my toes and pressing my lips against his.
“How did you do it?” he asked, when the kiss had passed and we just stood in the trees with our foreheads touching, breath intertwining in the cold air.
“Do what?” I asked, without opening my eyes.
“She helped us with the Ør,” he said. “The constellations, the dragon, all of it. But how did She stop the plague?”
I took a step back and looked up to the sky, remembering my time in the temple, surrounded by those lights and voice and the unmistakable feeling of Her presence. “She didn’t,” I finally replied. His head twitched to the side, confused. “She couldn’t do it,” I explained, shaking my head a little. “It’s part of a curse on the island, placed here by a god who said that no immortal hand could break it. She could do nothing.”
“I don’t understand,” he said calmly. “Then, will it still come back?”
I shook my head again. “I’m not immortal,” I said, and remnants of disbelief over what had happened still clung to my voice. “‘The power of the curse is strong, but the power of the stars will always be stronger.’ That’s what she told me. So I brought the stars to Skane.” The words sounded strange when spoken aloud, but they were true in every sense.
“The stars,” he repeated distantly. “There was a wave that ran through the air when they came down. You must have felt it.”
“I did.”
“You brought the stars down, Ósa. You did something that even gods and goddesses can’t do.” He took a step closer, wide eyes searching mine. I always loved how they looked in this light, the bright snow reflecting off their steely blue.
“I was given the tools,” I told him, but a spark of pride danced in my heart.
“But it was you,” he said again, resting both hands on my shoulders. “You did it. You wielded that power. You saved Skane.”
I nodded, heart quickening as I turned his words over in my mind.
“You did it,” he said again, quieter this time. Then, in a whisper, “You did it.”
This time when he kissed me, I let the spark I’d spent years trying to quench grow into the blaze I’d always wanted.
*
Skane was built on superstition. Always enter your home right foot first. When you sneeze, someone who bears you ill will has just spoken your name. Don’t whistle while looking towards the sun or you might bring on rain.
Mostly, the superstitions were about the lights.
But not any more.
ÓSA’S POEM
Red are the lights that darken the stars
And cold are the days that follow.
Frightened are those who have seen a red sky
That means there won’t be a tomorrow.
Fear is a beast that haunts darkest of nights
And swallows our minds one by one,
But hope is a light that takes root in the heart
And can grow to be strong as the sun.