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Chapter One

Fenli

Iwas angry about a good many things.

My mind was a mess of thoughts, but words didn’t come easily around others. That was one. How I’d love to wad up my panicked heart and tripping tongue and lob them at the god responsible, but the notion gave me a painful pause. I didn’t know which god was responsible for me. It was another thing to be angry about and the reason I struggled to fit into Toke’s clan—my mother’s clan—when my father had belonged to Runehall. It was also the thing that should have upset me the most.

It wasn’t, and not by half.

I picked my way over the muddy path. It was raining out, same as it had been for days, and it steadied me. I felt like a storm; Toke was the god of them.

So why wouldn’t he have me?

It was a useless question. If I knew anything, it was that the gods didn’t deign to answer to the likes of me. I tried to remember it. I tried to keep my head down, and I tried to keep to myself.

I tried not to be angry.

My dog ran past just as I approached the hut at the end of the path. I glanced at him, watching as he flopped down under a barrow. I should have been more concerned with the state of his pelt, sopping wet and splattered with mud, but I only checked to make sure he was settled before turning back to the door.

My hand hovered. In all my eighteen years, I’d never been so tempted to skip chores. For the third time that morning, I considered shirking my duties and going to the caves instead. Esska was there with some friends of hers. If I joined them, I could… do whatever they were doing. Braiding each other’s hair, playing a game of truth teller, dancing nude around a fire? With Ess as their leader, they could be doing anything. And I was almost sure to hate it.

I ground my teeth and rapped twice on the wood.

I’d have to ask Esska about it later. For now, I had a job to do. A stupid, unfair, no-good job that I should never have been stuck with yet had been for the past ten years.

My mother-in-law opened the door.

The woman barely glanced at me before she slipped back into the darkened room. I followed. Closing the door softly behind me, I stood just on the other side of it, dripping water onto the packed dirt floor while I waited for my eyes to adjust. One small window on the far wall had been unshuttered, spreading a meager light throughout. A lamp was lit at the table, and I could see where she had just been sitting. Wood shavings littered the floor around a three-legged stool. A large wooden bowl sat on the table, surrounded by carving tools.

“Laundry today,” Rahv said, pulling my attention back, “and the birch you brought me last week isn’t big enough. You’re gonna have to go out again.”

She didn’t notice the annoyance that crossed my face, thank Toke for small blessings. Instead, she focused on the woven sack, hauling it over and hoisting it into my arms.

“There.” She turned to her work. “Bring the birch as soon as you can.”

And that was it. The woman was done with me. I hadn’t even made to leave, and already my mother-in-law had put me out of her mind. I was meant to do the work out of sight so that she could try her best to forget that I existed. Her laundry might as well have been washed, dried, and folded by river spirits. Her wood felled and prepared by rock creatures. Wouldn’t that be so much better than the truth?

On this one thing, I had to agree. Because as much as Rahv hated our arrangement and wished better for her son, no one hated it more than me. This was what made my anger burn hot. A husband I’d never asked for to save me from the clan I’d never wanted. The elders had betrayed me ten years ago, good intentions be damned, and I’d been too young to even realize what they’d done.

Now it was too late. Me and Rahv both knew it. Our mutual disdain could have aligned us, but the marriage kept us at arm’s length. Rahv blamed me. After the ceremony, they’d sent her boy away on a longboat, off to the Hinterlands with the hunters and the boys pretending to be hunters. Others returned, stayed awhile, then headed out again; Rahv’s boy never did. It had been ten years, and the men had made sure he’d never taken the trip back home. I preferred he stayed away forever and then some; Rahv was heartbroken.

It wasn’t my fault. I hadn’t asked to be married to him. And yet, it was only then that Runehall’s clan—my father’s clan—had put away their weapons and left me with my mother. I was supposed to be thankful.The marriage ribbons wrapped around my forearms were my salvation. I knew it was true.

And yet.

And yet, I was pissed as hell.

I moved to leave, not bothering to mutter a farewell, but paused in the open doorway when I heard shouting. Rain fell steadily onto sod roofs and into puddles below, and I cocked my head. I only caught what the woman was saying when she came around the hut up ahead, a bent figure with her skirt pulled high.

“Boats!” she was yelling. “The hunters will be livid if they come home to a village of sleeping women. Get up and get preparing!”

Livid. I rolled my eyes and wished I had a wooden spoon to cram down the back of my throat in a gesture of how much I cared. It was the same every time. A couple of lousy boats made their way back, and the women had to drop everything to dote over the hunters.

The woman bringing the news was Beckra, and I thought she’d turn around when she saw that I’d heard, but she only hobbled closer. Rahv came to the door then, and I stepped out into the rain.

“Boats, Rahv, and news with them,” said Beckra. I moved to walk by her, but the woman grabbed my arm, nearly sending the sack of clothes I was holding into the mud. “You’ll want to hear this, Mute.”

She said it like it was my name; most of them did. I’d never been well-spoken, but I’d also never been mute. Still, I didn’t correct her.