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Chapter Three

Fenli

S hit, I was in so much trouble. They were sure to give me hell. They’d feed me to the wolves for this. Maybe put me on the first boat pointing towards Runehall’s clan and wash their hands of me.

But I’d done it. I’d looked him right in the eyes and told him to leave. The words, though they were slow, had been there for me.

And then he’d gone.

They were going to have my hide. He’d probably gone straight to his father. Baer had long past had enough of my defiance and would likely rage at my door soon. I hurried over and bolted the thing.

It wouldn’t be good enough.

“ Shit .”

I didn’t know what I was doing, kicking him out. He’d never come home before, and I’d never had to figure this part out. Oh, I was making a mess of it now. There was a list of things they’d put up with from me, and I’d gone far beyond it.

I scanned the room, and my heart sunk at what I found.

There on the table were all my mapping supplies, my secrets laid bare.

All he needed to do was glance. The birch bark I made my early sketches on, the parchment I’d traded with the Saik to get, straight edge, chalk, ink, and quills.

I dug through the stacks, and every last one proved my guilt.

Etchings of the coastline, another of the deer trails, the village, waterways, even the trek to the Saik laid out in detail.

Not a woman’s work, not even close.

Surely he’d seen.

I started grabbing evidence by the armfuls. Birch and parchment went under my mattress and at the bottom of my laundry sack, all my tools in the wall behind the loose board.

But even as I hid the things, I knew I’d been too late.

Damn my laziness. I should have been hiding them all along.

I’d been too comfortable, thinking he’d never come back, feeling like the hut was mine.

That had always been a lie. I’d known it, and I’d ignored it.

The hut was my husband’s, given to me only because I was a married woman.

I should never have made myself at home.

I shoved in the last bottle of ink and wedged the board back into place, wiping tears from my cheeks as I stood.

On uneasy legs, I made my way to the fire and sat before it.

In truth, I was waiting for the storm that was sure to come.

I listened closely for the footsteps. Soon after, someone would bang on my door.

They would demand that I open up, and there would be nothing to gain in refusing.

Only they never came. Eventually, I fell asleep there in my chair, the heat of the fire on my face.

When I dreamed, it was of my father’s clan.

There did come a pounding on my door, but it wasn’t until morning, and it was only Esska. Still, the dog barked like hell until he heard her voice.

“Let me in,” she was saying. “Roan, Baer wants you in the meeting house.”

I fell out of my chair, striking my elbow against the side of the now-cold hearth. I rubbed it, blew the hair out of my face, and rose, my hips aching from having slept all night in the chair.

“Am I interrupting something?” The knocking continued. “Have you two killed each other, or are we getting along a little too well?”

“Hold on,” I called. I muttered curses on my way to the door and raked my hair back with my fingers. Begrudgingly, I drug the thing open. Esska took one look at me and frowned before peering over my shoulder.

“Oh shit,” she said. “You killed him, didn’t you?”

I shot her a look before turning away.

“Where is he?” she asked, following behind and closing the door.

“Don’t know. He didn’t…”

“He didn’t stay here last night?”

I shook my head.

“Where did he stay?”

Hell if I knew. I didn’t even try to answer her. Instead, I went to my table and pulled out a chair. The night before came back to me in waves, and I relived the nightmare in my mind. He’d been there, in my hut. He’d laid out his things in the corner, his arms wrapped in the same ribbons as mine.

I’d hated seeing that. Our ribbons made a match, a pair.

Like we were meant to .

No, no, never, and no. That man or boy or whatever he was could not be my husband.

I would dig in my heels, and I would refuse.

Only as quickly as the stubborn thought swelled, the cold reality seeped back in, reminding me of my precarious place in this clan.

I was in turbulent waters, and there was already a riptide threatening to pull me under.

Elsynbr, help me.

Had I really gotten away with having sent Roan away for the entire night?

Baer must not have heard then. Roan hadn’t told him.

It was possible that he didn’t want to involve his father any more than I did, and it dawned on me for the first time that maybe the old man was as hard on his son as he was his daughter-in-law.

“I can see this is going well,” Esska said, hands moving to her hips. “How bad was it?”

I sighed, staring at the empty table in front of me, but my gaze went through it.

“Bad,” I finally said. “He and Goose got into it. I yelled at him.”

The dog perked at the sound of his name.

Esska shook her head at that. She walked up to the table and looked over my shoulder. The whole surface of it sat bare. She noticed, no doubt. I had cleaned up, and I never cleaned up. She knew what it meant and why I’d done it. “I’ve never known you to raise your voice at Goose.”

I frowned and gave her a sideways glance.

“The dick, not the dog. I yelled at Roan.”

Esska opened her mouth to say something, then shut it. The surprise she’d shown withered into something significantly less impressed, and she sighed.

“Of course you did.”

I twisted to face her. “He pulled his knife. ”

Esska frowned. “He did?” When I nodded, her mouth hardened. “Well. My brother is going to regret the day he threatened Goose.”

“Yes. That.”

“I will kick his ass myself.”

“Please.”

“And when he apologizes with satisfactory passion—maybe a little groveling for good measure—you can introduce the two of them properly. Roan can feed him a cut of meat.”

I turned back in my seat.

“You’d started off so well.”

Esska slapped me on the back before rubbing the spot she’d sent aching.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s get you outside where we can both think straight. I’ll snag us some food, and you can tell me everything while we walk.”

Sighing, I gave in, dragging myself up and bumping around my hut in preparation.

I got myself together quickly, but I didn’t miss the way Esska kept looking at the spaces where my supplies used to be.

When I’d laced my boots, we pushed out into the morning air, Goose close on our heels.

Esska made good on her promise to secure us both breakfast—a hot grain porridge—and we headed out to the bluffs.

It was the best place to get some privacy while I confessed my treachery of the night before, and when I’d finished the story and we’d finished our grub, we both sat and looked out over the sea.

Elsynbr seemed in a sort. The waves were choppy and rough, battering the rocks below with a fury, and I watched as the water churned into a frothy white.

The wind was cold in my face, and it brought a wetness to the corners of my eyes.

Goose gave up on his attempt to catch insects in the tall grasses behind us, and he came alongside me, grunting as he laid down and pressed into my thigh.

“Where did you hide your things?”

She asked it quietly, like she was trying to leave her emotions out of it, but I couldn’t help but feel that the attempt had the opposite effect.

I glanced at her. Her blond hair shone in the sunlight, braided down the back and pulled over her shoulder, and her eyes were as blue as the sky.

I’d seen so much of her in Roan, and it had startled me.

Same blond, same blue; that strong jaw and the Faasval nose.

There was little more than a year between them, and the two could have passed for twins.

I hadn’t been expecting it.

I turned back to the waves.

“In the wall. Under the mattress. At the—the bottom of my laundry.”

She nodded before pushing off the ground.

“Well, I think you should be yourself,” she said. “I, for one, am tired of doing what I’m told. Sometimes a person needs to raise a little hell.”

I smiled, but Esska turned away without having seen it, and it was for the better. It was a sad and half-hearted thing. The truth was, Esska was in a much better position to raise hell than I was. Sometimes she forgot that.

“Anyway, you don’t have to worry about Roan having seen.” She shook out her skirt. “He won’t snitch.”

I blew a frustrated sigh from between my lips. She wanted to trust her brother, and I could admire that. Of course I wanted her to think well of him.

But it would have been nice to have someone to hate him with me, preferably while we sat on my bed eating maple candies. I knew I couldn’t ask that of her.

I looked at Goose, still pressed against my leg. “Guess that just leaves you,” I mumbled, and he cocked his head at my words.

It wasn’t like I had anyone else.

When we got back to the village, we found the mood had changed. The once sleepy streets were now teeming with people, and there was an excitement in the air that I couldn’t place.

“What’s going on?” Esska asked a passerby.

The young boy looked at her like she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, like Rynwin herself stood before him, and the blush that rose in his cheeks made my brows lift higher.

Had he even begun learning his bow? I knew Esska was beautiful and considered a prize, but, Toke’s bits, were even the young not immune?

“It’s a meeting,” he said. His hand went to his hair, trying to smooth down a tuft that had no intention of cooperating. “The men are giving some important news.”

“When?”

“Just as soon as everyone can gather.”

She thanked the boy and turned back to me.

“Well, this sounds interesting.”

I was feeling less intrigued.

“I’m heading back,” I said quietly.

“To your hut? No way. ”

Then she had her hand around my arm and was pulling me close to her side.

“You can’t leave me,” she said. “I could get lost. You’re a mapmaker.”

I tried to pull away, but her grip was relentless. My eyes darted around the street, between and among the people, landing nowhere for long.

“He’ll be there,” I whispered.

I saw her frown out of the corner of my eye.

“Roan?”

Of course, Roan. Who else? Toke himself, god of storm and skies?

It was the kind of thing I wanted to say but held back. Words weren’t easy for me with so many people around, and it was better to keep my thoughts to myself.

“I can take care of him,” she said, and then she proceeded to yank me after the others like a mother struggling with an obnoxious child. I put up a valiant effort on my part. Unfortunately, it only made us late.

Damn and hell, Esska was strong. She shoved me through the door to the meeting house, and I stopped resisting only as the dark and the warmth enveloped me.

“—and we grow weary,” the man at the front of the assembly was saying.

I blinked, my eyes adjusting slowly, and made room for Esska to slip in as well. We took spots standing alongside the far wall, and I didn’t miss the dirty look she shot me.

I lifted my chin, ever the defiant youngling.

“We would be foolish not to notice the changes in the land around us,” the man continued, “and we would be foolish not to change with it. ”

What was he on about?

I turned my attention from my horrible friend and sharpened my gaze.

It came as no surprise that I didn’t recognize the speaker.

I avoided the men like the blood cough, and many were often away hunting.

This man looked the same as the others: tall, burly, likely smelled.

It was clear he was an elder, the silver broach of a storm cloud saying as much from its place pinned over his heart.

His skin was tan with sun and looked thick and dry, like he spent his days out of doors, because of course he did.

He was a hunter. He’d crewed the boats, navigated rivers, trekked the forests, and stalked his prey.

His weathered face and rough hands told the story. One had only to read it.

I pushed my ink-stained fingers into my pockets and glanced about for Roan. It was useless. I’d never seen an assembly so large, and I could hardly make out one hunter from the next in the dim light.

“I will be brief and to the point,” the man said.

“We hunters no longer wish to sail between the hunting grounds to the north and our village to the south. The elders have come to a unanimous decision. We intend to hunt on the same lands where our families live and grow. The other Caed clans have moved north, and the time has come for Toke’s people to move as well.

We’re building a new village. It’s among the northern forest, in the heart of the Hinterlands, and you’re all coming with us.

“We are leaving the home of our parents behind and traveling to the home of our children—together.”

The meeting house filled with the din of gasps and talking, but the sound of it grew distant as I saw my future shifting. My heartbeat was in my ears, and I was only vaguely aware of Esska’s hand squeezing mine. I’d hoped I could lie low until Roan sailed back away. Now that hope was slipping.

Because, when he did sail away, he’d be taking me with him.