Barrow of Winter E-Book

H.M. Long

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 552

Beschreibung

Thrilling epic fantasy adventures set in the world of HALL OF SMOKE and TEMPLE OF NO GOD, featuring murderous conspiracies, howling icy wastelands and the Children of Winter, for readers of Claire LeGrand, Margaret Owen, V. E. Schwab and Melissa Caruso Thray is the Last Daughter of Winter, half immortal and haunted by the legacy of her blood. When offered a chance to visit the northern land of Duamel, where her father once ruled, she can't refuse – even if it means lying to the priesthood she serves and the man she loves. In Duamel, Thray's demi-god siblings rule under the northern lights, worshipped by arcane cults. An endless winter night cloaks the land, giving rise to strange beasts, terrible storms and a growing, desperate hunger. The people of Duamel teeter on the edge of violence, and Thray's siblings, powerful and deathless, stand with them on the brink. To earn her siblings' trust and find the answers she seeks, Thray will have to weather assassinations, conspiracies and icy wastelands. And as her siblings turn their gaze towards the warmer, brighter land she calls home, she must harness her own feral power and decide where her loyalties lie. Because when the spring winds blow and the ice breaks up, the sons and daughters of Winter will bring her homeland to its knees.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Map

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six: Interlude

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen: Interlude

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen: Interlude

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Epilogue

Glossary of Names

Acknowledgments

About the Author

“A rich and wintry world of warriors, gods and monsters, with epic battles, dangerous magic, and complex family bonds. Thray is a heroine both powerful and vulnerable, and I loved her journey.” Sue Lynn Tan, bestselling author of

Daughter of the Moon Goddess

“Brimming with magic and intrigue, Barrow of Winter is a spellbinding read. Thray’s northern quest had me turning pages late into the night, as did Long’s beautiful winter-sharp prose. A vivid story that lingers long after the last word.”

Rebecca Ross, internationally bestselling author of A River Enchanted

“A world so vividly rendered you’ll feel the ice on the pages.”

Richard Swan, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Justice of Kings

“Evocative, lyrical, and brimming with fierce magic. Another brilliant addition to this clever, Norse-inspired series.”

Sunyi Dean, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Book Eaters

“Sharp as the winter wind, Barrow of Winter grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let go. Long's latest is a compelling portrait of a woman coming to know herself—woven through with betrayal, darkness, thunderingly epic stakes, and a cast of prickly immortals I couldn't get enough of. It's fantasy at its very best.”

Allison Epstein, author of A Tip for the Hangman

“Barrow of Winter reminds me why I love the genre. It pulls you in and doesn’t let go. It's a masterclass in world-building, with descriptions so visceral you can almost feel the icy winds. Thray is a complex, powerful character I would follow into the cold again and again. A superb new addition to the Hall of Smoke universe.”

M.K. Lobb, author of Seven Faceless Saints

“Epic fantasy teeming with adventure and wonder.”

Christopher Irvin, author of Ragged

“An epic journey into a strange and wintery world filled with intrigue, adventure, secrets, loss, battles and monsters. At its centre is Thray, a young woman who is half mortal, half god and determined to discover the truth of her own immortality... Her bravery and fragility captured me from the very first page.”

Kell Woods, author of After the Forest

“H.M. Long has done it again! ... Barrow of Winter offers all the action and adventure of high fantasy while also taking the time to offer deep, thoughtful exploration of the meanings of life and death, family and enmity... the perfect read for any reader looking for fascinating magic, adventurous heroines, and a fantasy world that feels real enough to book a plane ticket to visit.”

M.J. Kuhn, author of Among Thieves

“H.M. Long goes from strength to strength. Transportive and charged with intrigue, Barrow of Winter has a heroine in Thray whose appeal is in her turmoil and her flaws. She’s unsure yet indomitable as she journeys through a story steeped in ancient, terrifying magic and potential betrayal at every turn. With layers of lore and a sense of a vast, intricate history, Long expands on a world so vibrantly wrought I could taste the winter winds.”

Hannah Mathewson, author of Witherward

“Steeped in natural beauty cold to the touch and yet crackling with warmth, Barrow of Winter is about a young woman on an age-old quest of self-discovery that nevertheless feels as fresh and crisp as new snow. For fans of fantasy and adventure, this is a must read.”

Olesya Salnikova Gilmore, author of The Witch and the Tsar

“H.M. Long is a master of her craft... Barrow of Winter delivered exactly what I look for in epic fantasy: an immersive world of gods and warriors, with badass characters who will stick with me long after I reach the end.”

Gabriela Romero Lacruz, author of The Sun and the Void

Also by H.M. Long and available from Titan Books

Hall of SmokeTemple of No God

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Barrow of Winter

Print edition ISBN: 9781803360027

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803360034

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London, SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: January 2023

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© H.M. Long 2023. All rights reserved.

H.M. Long asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

To Dad, with love.

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

THE FAR NORTH, DUAMEL

ONE

Sixteen years after the Upheaval

I smell iron, dank fur, and carrion breath. Dirt, too, damp with blood.

I try to lift my arm, but it won’t move. I start to stand, but I falter. I end up crouched, my good hand braced in the frost and cooling blood—the same blood that coats my face, my arm, and clothes.

Across the creek, against a stark backdrop of trunks and dying undergrowth, a second beast prowls. She’s massive, a creature between a bear and a dog that emerged after the Upheaval, when so many strange beasts escaped the High Halls. A savn. Her mate lies at my feet, two arrows in his barrel chest and my bow snapped beneath him. Not that I could draw the weapon anymore, even if it had been whole.

Courage, I urge myself, but my head feels light and my senses dim. Late autumn branches clack overhead and the afternoon sky beyond is a thick, snowy gray. It can’t kill you. This is why you’re here. Fight.

I rise, every muscle complaining as I unfold to my full height. I’m tall for a woman, even taller for an Eangen, and I’ve complained a thousand times that I look all but the largest men in the eye. But now I appreciate it. Now I value the breadth of my shoulders and the strength of my arms, here in the wild, in the dirt and the blood.

The beast shuffles. She’s wary of me, but she still sees food—and vengeance.

She drops her head and stalks closer. Seven black claws punch through the thin ice and water rushes around her paw, washing my blood from matted gray fur.

I pull my bone-handled knife from its sheath at my hip. Mud and grit grinds between my fingers as I turn it, angling the weapon out to one side. At a push of my will, it lengthens into a short spear, birch white with a handspan of deadly tip.

The beast growls, low and deep. I feel it in my chest, even though we’re half a dozen paces apart. Doubt claws up my spine and I start to tremble, deep in my core.

Perhaps she can kill me. Perhaps my father’s blood spared me and, in moments, I’ll follow my mother into death.

I want that, I tell myself. The answer, the closure, the end to my uncertainty. But my body wants to run. It wants to push the sun back across the sky and talk myself out of my own recklessness. My village would have tried to dissuade me, if they’d known my plans when I left. But I’d been too quick and too foolish, and all of them too trusting.

I want more than to turn back time. I want to scrape the memory of my mother’s pyre from my mind, and claw out the fear that I will never follow her into death. That I’ll live on, while age and sickness, beasts and axes claim everyone around me.

I’m terrified and trapped. If I turn and run, the savn’s jaws will find the back of my neck. I’m not sure I want to live, but I am sure I don’t want to be eaten alive. Would I be aware of each moment? When the beast tired of me, would my fleshless limbs grow back? Would my consciousness live on in a pile of bones?

My mind spins, jittery and edged with hysteria. But another part of me whispers, calm and calloused, This is what you came for.

The beast stalks closer, splashing through the cold water and into the mud on my side of the creek.

I’ve no choice. I brace, settling my weight into my shaking legs, and raise the spear in a firm grip.

The beast roars. Her mate’s body lies between us, but I feel the heat of her breath and the force of her rage.

I lower my chin and hurl the spear in one fluid movement. It slams into her chest, right beneath the taught muscles of her throat and the fang-rimmed abyss of her jaws.

Her cry cracks into an agonized whine, but she still flies toward me. I grab the end of the spear as I roll aside and it slips from the wound, re-forming into a curved sword.

I snap the blade back out just as my feet hit the ground again. My boots slide, my muscles shriek, but the blade bites deep. Blood bursts over my face.

The next thing I’m aware of is lying on my side. The sword has re-formed into a small knife and lies in the muddy leaves beyond my fingertips. I squint at it, noticing fresh snowflakes on its blood-splattered grip. There are blood and grit on my lips, too, iron and earth.

I look up, past the bulk of two felled beasts, to the gray sky. More snow drifts down, placid and patient. The breeze is colder, rustling the dead beasts’ fur, but I’m burning hot. My ears roar like the sea and my thoughts clatter in my skull, increasingly distant and muffled.

Is this it? The moment when my question will be answered? Will my soul slip from my flesh and settle in the earth, or will I live on, in agony, until immortal blood binds me back together?

A form materializes in the snow—of the snow—on the other side of the savn. A man, with flesh and hair and muscle and warm, richly embroidered clothing of gray and white. His hair is pale like mine and his eyes blackish blue, like the underbelly of an iceberg in a spring sea.

I try to push to my feet, but my head spins.

The sound of the wind, my ragged breath and the man’s footsteps fade to a distant roar as he crouches beside me. His features are the jagged edges of ice and the contours of wind-smoothed snowbanks. He smells like winter, true winter—sharper and crisper than the late autumn around us. The flakes continue to fall and as they do, the scent of him—his presence—intensifies.

Despite my pain, relief seeps through me. I manage a weak smile and don’t bother trying to rise. I don’t reach for my knife. This man has led me through enough storms to prove he’s safe. Not human, not gentle, but safe.

“Granddaughter,” he says. His voice and expression are impassive except for the narrowing of his eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to die,” I whisper. The admission makes my heart flutter and I twist to look at my arm. My tunic is black with blood, but its welling has slowed. If I had more energy, I might have started to panic again, realizing what that meant.

But I’m past that point. Fear fades, and I have the presence of mind for one whisper before blackness washes over me.

“Please take me home.”

*   *   *

I awaken to the crackle of a fire and the insipid cold of dusk. I lie close to the flames on a bed of cedar boughs and moss, and the snow falls everywhere except my bed.

I’m not home, however much I wish I were. Most of the trees around me are birch with barren branches, rasping, curling bark and dead undergrowth, shriveled ferns, and blanched grasses burdened with white. There’s no birch grove near Albor.

I sit up slowly. As I do, I catch the thread of voices off in the forest, but the shadows beyond my orb of firelight are thick enough I can’t see the speakers. I recognize one voice, though: my grandfather’s, low and deep.

I wear no bandages and my torn tunic is gone. Instead, I wear a new shift of soft linen and a pale blue kaftan I’ve never seen before. It smells of lavender and pine, as does my skin, and it’s beautifully embroidered with geometric patterns, lined with gray fox fur at the collar and cuffs. Strangest of all, my wounds no longer hurt. When I lift my arm, there’s no pain.

The Great Healer has been here—her lavender and pine scent, as much as her work, betrays her. Goosebumps prickle down my neck. She might still be close by, if one of those voices belongs to her. One is certainly female.

I’m awed and sickened by the realization. My test is nullified. Am I alive because of her, or my own inability to die?

The last voice is another male, and I spy his broad figure through the snow. His beard is braided with horsehair and he wears a heavy cloak, but his head is bare. Gadr. Not a human, but a Miri, a higher being. Like the Healer.

Two former gods and Winter himself have visited me in the forest, tonight.

My nerves prickle, but I force myself to ignore it. Instead, I sit straighter and check for my belt. It’s intact, along with the bone-handled knife. I draw it, expecting the weapon to still be covered in blood, but my grandfather has cleaned it.

I stare at the blade, at its keen edge near the calloused skin of my hands. The moment stretches too long, and forcibly, I sheathe the weapon again. That route to answers is not an option. I promised my mother it would never be. Now she’s dead, and I’m trapped in my word.

The voices in the forest go quiet and my grandfather returns alone. He strides into the firelight and surveys me with his usual impassive expression. He’s carrying a new bow, I notice, and a set of arrows. They’re all as bone-white and unnatural as my knife.

“For you,” Winter says, setting the bow and quiver within reach. The arrows clatter softly in a quiver of dark leather and intricate stitching, its darkness a contrast to pale shafts and fletching. “The quiver will never run out of arrows, and the bow will never break.”

No ordinary weapons, then. Miri creations, like the knife at my belt.

“I don’t deserve them,” I murmur wretchedly, looking from him to the weapons without truly lifting my eyes. He barely looks like a grandfather; other than the white hair knotted at the back of his head, he has no wrinkles or other visible signs of age on his snow-pale skin. But he’s older than mountains and seas, and no one who looks into his eyes could forget that.

He shows no emotion at my self-pity. “Your bow is broken, and these collect dust in Eang’s Hall.”

“I can get a new bow anywhere.”

Grandfather looks at me long and levelly, so I stay my tongue.

“I’ve sent an owl to Albor.” He changes the topic, practical as ever. “But you roamed far from home. There is another village a day’s walk south. The High Priestess will meet you there.”

I choose my first words carefully. I haven’t seen my grandfather in four years, though I’ve sensed him and heard his voice every winter since I was a child. He’s not doting, ever on the periphery of my life. So why bring me gifts?

“How did you know I was in danger?” I ask. “And why was Gadr here?”

He sets my new bow and quiver on a rock and crouches to stoke the fire. He doesn’t require the heat, but it doesn’t bother him, either. “You are my only blood south of the mountains. I am always aware of you. As to Gadr, he was curious. He’s oddly fond of you, given his history with your family.”

That makes me feel… warm, watched over, even if my grandfather’s expression is flat. It’s a feeling I don’t often have, not in a world that distrusts my blood and whispers of my brother’s strangeness, my father’s crimes, and my mother’s weakness for bedding him.

I feel something else too. Longing. It makes tears prick at my eyes and my throat thicken.

“Do you visit your other grandchildren, in the north?” I ask, eager both to know and to shift the conversation away from myself.

He finishes feeding the fire and sits back, forearms resting on his knees, fingers entwined between them. “No.”

“Why?”

“They’re too much like him.”

Him. My father. Ogam, Son of Winter, Son of Eang; the immortal, matricidal traitor who nearly burned our world to the ground during the Upheaval—the year I was conceived.

“Are they…” I look down at my bandages, hesitate, then press forward. “Immortal, like him?”

“Many are.”

I think of the blood pouring down my arm and the roar of the blackness before I passed out.

“Am I?” The question comes out hoarse. Guilt and grief and dread wash across my skin, and the fire does nothing to soothe me.

My grandfather looks up, expressionless as always. “We will not know that until the day you should have died.”

“That wasn’t today?” I press, though my lips feel numb.

He shrugs, a small, stiff gesture. “Your father’s children might be able to tell you more, but I cannot. I am myself. You, all of his get, are something other.”

“Other,” I repeat bitterly. “That’s what the Eangen say. I’m not like you, not like them. Everyone like me is on the other side of the mountains.”

“Yes,” he agrees impassively. “And it’s best they remain there, and you here.”

“So I should stay here forever?” The words burn. Tears stream down my cheeks and I know I must look terrible, red-eyed and wet-nosed, a child rather than a near-woman, but Grandfather still shows no concern.

A log shifts in the fire and sparks dance up into the bare branches overhead. The sight and smell of it takes me back to my mother’s funeral pyre, and for an instant I feel the emotions of that night over again. The emptiness. The disbelief. Her death had been so sudden—drowned when a riverbank gave way and the current trapped her underwater. I feel the High Priestess’s arms around me, see the empathetic looks of distant relations, but they’re all droplets in the empty well of my heart.

And my mother’s other child, her son by her first husband? He didn’t reach for me that night. His black curls hid his handsome face on the far side of the pyre, but I still saw his tearless eyes.

He is duty personified. Stoic and steady.

I am conflict.

“Perhaps you will live a mortal life and die soon. Perhaps you will remain here forever. But when forever comes, I will be here too,” my grandfather tells me, and I can’t tell if he’s trying to comfort me or stating a fact. I want to believe the former. “We will stand together, you and I, at the turn of the age.”

“My father’s children will still live too,” I point out, my voice weak. My siblings, the ones who might be able to tell me if I’m immortal. Because short of finding another beast to bloody me, or an enemy I can’t best, I will not be finding out on my own. My courage is frail, my promise to a dead mother binding. The bone-handled knife remains at my belt, quiet and sated.

“Yes.” Winter’s eyes grow flinty, the first sign of emotion he’s shown. He murmurs again, in a voice so cold I shiver, “They will be there too.”

TWO

Twenty-five years after the Upheaval

I hear a voice on the breeze. It steals away the last of the summer warmth, rustling the dune grasses as I trudge from one sandy crest to the next. The sea lurks to my left, muffled in violet dawn and heavy fog. Waves swell, charge, and crash. I stay well beyond their reach as they wash away the tiny, three-pronged footprints of darting shorebirds, and drum in hollows of rocky outcroppings.

Granddaughter.

The word comes to me laden with moisture and salt. I plant the end of my spear in the sand and take in what little I can see of the coastline, searching for a shadow or a shape in the fog. But I’m alone, save for scuttling shorebirds and the muted cries of gulls.

“I’m listening,” I say to the breeze.

There is no response. I hesitate for a few breaths, then resume my course. My soft leather boots slip in the sand and my muscles complain at so much activity early in the day, but there’s a reason my grandfather’s voice is drawing me up the coast. Autumn is here again and winter, the heart of his power, isn’t far behind. He’s waxing, reaching for me, and it’s my duty to answer—even if I’d rather be back in the hall, in the warmth of my bed. There are few perks of being a village priestess on the edge of the world, but lying in my bed past dawn is usually one.

The dunes give way to smooth, gray rock, and the rush of waves grows to a steady boom. I carefully skirt tidal pools, catching glimpses of my own distorted reflection—tanned skin, windblown white braid, practical tunic and leggings. I jump shallow, freshwater falls, their journey from the glaciers of inland mountains finally ending at the sea. Lichen crunches beneath my boots in the drier reaches and valiant, stubby purple flowers quiver in rocky anchorages.

Granddaughter.

I stop beside a creek to catch my breath. Water trickles past my boots, over a ledge into the crashing waves. I eye the froth, fighting the urge to distance myself from it, and focus on the sounds around me.

I pick out something other than water and wind and the gust of my own breath. This sound is sharper, steadier.

Ships’ drums, and the grind of oars.

Fear scorches away my fatigue as the fog peels back. Seven ships materialize, thick-masted, with simple, reefed gray sails and many oars. Their prows are high, each decorated with the head and shoulders of a beast—whales, eagles, bears and serpents.

The drums beat, the shapes of men and women row in time, and the ships forge south. South, toward the waters where the Eangen fishing boats will be out for morning. Toward the settlement I’ve learned to call home.

But these are not Eangen ships. They’re too large, and despite the distance between us, something about the people on deck—their clothing and profiles—strikes me as distinctly other.

Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps they’re Arpa explorers, I think desperately. There have been more of those heading out in the world in recent years, or so I’ve heard. But even though I’m a child of peace, a lifetime of stories and warnings have taught me better. The Empire to the south does not build ships like this. Theirs are flat and heavy, made for rivers and shallow seas, while these are narrow and predatory, with high prows and sterns.

No, these are strangers, and strangers mean raiders. Raiders coming not from the northern mountains or over the great wall to the south, but from the sea.

“I see them,” I murmur to the wind. The breeze dies and the fog swirls back in, hiding me from sight as I heft my spear and draw a deep, settling breath.

I rise, turn my feet south, and run.

*   *   *

My lungs ache as I pound over the wooden walkways of Iesa. The fog is lighter here and the settlement quiet—the rush of early morning has long ended. The faint colors of dawn have faded into a solid, obscure gray, and there are no fishing boats on the beach.

More than half the population will already be out at the nets, including Havar. The image of his face as we parted last night slips through my mind, and I pick up my pace.

Villagers stir as I pass. A clutch of women carding in a pool of sunlight turn to stare, surrounded by baskets of raw, clean wool and a scattering of chubby, playing children. An older boy with an apron full of eggs peers around a corner and two old men, eyeing a huge deer hide stretched on a frame, mutter as I pass.

“Are you well, priestess?” one of the men calls.

I cast him a distracted, flat smile and keep moving. I might be the village’s priestess, but it’s not my place to throw its occupants into a panic. I must speak to the headman before anyone else.

“Thray!” This shout comes from a young man on the path ahead. He sets down a half-empty pack and hunting bow and snags my arm in one hand. “What’s wrong?”

I tug away. “I’m in a hurry, Branan.”

The concern in his eyes is tempered by offense. He gives a soft snort. “I can see that, but—”

I’m tired, sore, breathless, and in no mood for his needling. I brush past and make for the hall, ignoring the stares of other villagers.

The village of Iesa is perched on a network of smooth rock shoulders, overlooking the sea and punctuated by windblown pines. It once had walls, but now the settlement’s defenses are reduced to its vantage, the twenty-foot drop from ridge to sandy beach, and the spears of a hundred fisherfolk, weavers, crafters, and traders. Only the headman’s personal guard of ten, a few old raiders, and myself have undergone more than cursory martial training.

The great hall sits on the highest point of the ridge, looking over the beach and the waves. It’s smaller than the one I grew up in, but has similar heavy beams, a steep roof, and a door carved with intricate runes, declaring the history of the local people and the strength of the headman’s line.

The doors stand open to the fresh air as I stumble inside, the smoke-and-sage scent of home filling my ragged lungs.

Three huge hounds bark as they tangle about my legs. I brush them off, not without affection, and search the shadows. Curtains are pulled back for the day, the central hearth has burned down from breakfast, and all but two of the hall’s denizens are absent. I’m grateful for that—it gives the headman and I more time before the inevitable panic—but it also worries me. How long will it take to get everyone to safety?

“Thray.” Ossen, the headman, has already seen me. He leaves the bench where he’s been sitting with one of his daughters and approaches me. Behind him, the daughter pauses over the garment she’s embroidering. Her eyes, a usual Eangen brown in a tawny, freckled face, watch me curiously.

“Seven ships coming down from the north. Large ships—I’ve never seen them before,” I tell him rapidly, speaking low enough that the girl won’t hear. My lungs hurt and my muscles shudder, but I’m too tense to rest.

The dogs, still nuzzling at me, give up and go back to their spots near the hearth.

“At least fifty people on each ship,” I add. “They’ll have to round the peninsulas, but we’ve hours at most.”

Ossen is quiet for a long, strained moment. His gray hair is free about his aging face, casual in the walls of his own home. But there’s nothing casual about his tone as he asks, “They’re not Arpa?”

I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”

“Nor the mountain folk?”

“Definitely not.”

Another tense breath. There are no other seafaring peoples, not that we have a name for. I see that knowledge in his eyes, and I know it’s reflected in mine.

“Did they see you?” the headman presses.

I think back to the cliff, the fog, and the distance. “I doubt it.”

He moves then, striding past the hearth, his staring daughter, and the curtain to his sleeping quarters. A moment later he returns with his hair swept up into a knot and a long, curling horn in his hands.

His daughter stands, mute in shock, as he makes for the main door and the cliff beyond. Villagers have already started to gather, I see through the broad frame. They shuffle, murmuring to one another and holding back unruly children.

“Pray, priestess,” Ossen tells me as he passes.

I nod, my expression all determination and courage, but my stomach curls. If only I could pray.

The headman puts the horn to his lips and for the first time in over twenty years, a war horn sounds in Iesa. It begins as a low moan, swelling and oscillating as Ossen’s lungs strain. Then it crests, so loud I wince, and ends in a sonorous crack.

The village goes silent. The cries of gulls die out. The breeze itself seems to hush and there, in the quiet, I hear the drums.

Doom. Doom. Doom.

THREE

I watch fishing boats drive onto the beach, my breath lodged in my throat as their prows lodge in the furrowed sand. Each boat brings some measure of relief, one more familiar face returning to the marginal safety of shore, but drums still resound through the fog.

No sooner do the boats halt than fisherfolk sprint toward the village, sweeping up waiting family members and trading places with Iesa’s best warriors.

“Priestess, you should go into the forest with the others,” one of the warriors chides me. She’s older than me by twenty years, old enough to remember raids and have the scars to prove it. She’s also been one of the most critical of my appointment here, and after two years of service I’ve yet to earn her trust—even with something as simple as my own life.

“I’ll stay,” I reply, expression cool.

She glances at the bone-handled knife at my belt. “The chief priest still isn’t back?”

I shake my head. My elder counterpart left for a yearly journey to Albor three weeks ago. Last year he might have made the trip in those three weeks, but the villagers don’t seem to realize how lazy their priest has become since my arrival. I’ve little doubt he’s meandering his way back along the eastern road as slowly as possible, filling his belly at hospitable hearths and singing tales to the wide-eyed children of every woodcutter and charcoal burner from Albor to the coast.

The thought would have made me smile, any other day.

“I doubt he’ll be back until first snow,” I warn her. “I’ll stay.”

The warrior realizes I will not back down and gives way with a nod. She jogs after her companions, who are hauling the boats into a defensive line along the shore.

I maintain my calm facade, but it isn’t until I see Havar’s boat that I breathe freely. My betrothed leaps into the surf at the same time as Udr, one of his brothers, holding fast to the gunnel and running the boat into the sand. His sister-in-law, Jara, comes last, leaping out gracefully and grabbing their satchels.

He brushes off his hands and scans the beach as I start toward them, my pace urgent but measured.

Havar’s eyes find me. He’s a handsome man, with typically burnished Eangen skin, his head shaved at the sides, beard well-kept, and his body honed by a lifetime on the waves. His eyes are usually warm and soft, the color of autumn earth. Today, however, they’re hard and urgent.

He doesn’t bother asking why I’m still here instead of hiding in the forest, and I’m grateful for that. I embrace him, anchoring myself in his scent of salt and fish and waxed wool.

He crushes me in return. I feel his pulse at my temple and his breath in my hair for a few moments, then we step apart, resuming the careful distance I’ve cultivated since our betrothal last year.

“They’re raiders?” Havar asks, as if he still can’t believe it. No one can.

“We don’t know,” I reply. The drums, the fog, and the beach surge back in as his arms retreat, and I steel myself. The ships are closer now. Somehow, despite the fog, they’re finding their way toward us. They know we’re here.

How? Uncertainty trickles through me. Perhaps they’re following the fishing boats into the harbor, or they caught the echo of Ossen’s horn? But the fog is too close, too distorting, for that. Not to mention the shoals and jagged coastline, which threaten all but the most seasoned local sailors.

Belatedly, I let my priestess’s senses roam. Despite being gifted with the Sight as a child, it still doesn’t come naturally to me—ever an afterthought, a tool at the bottom of a dusty chest. Life in Iesa, where the greatest threat is the weather and the occasional disgruntled bear, hasn’t helped.

But now I stretch my senses, searching for a presence on the wind or a glisten of foreign magic. My own magic suddenly hazes around me, amber-gold and tasting like honey on my tongue. Havar can’t see it—only other Sighted can—but to me, it’s as real as the fog.

As I search, I feel Jara’s eyes on me, and the eyes of many others on the beach. I’m their priestess—my response to this situation dictates theirs, almost as much as the headman’s. So I stand straight and keep my chin level, showing caution but no fear.

A single gull cries in the distance. There’s nothing out of the ordinary here, save the ships.

“Are we running, or arming?” Havar includes his siblings in the question.

“Arming,” a voice answers from behind us, where Havar’s eldest brother and mother approach. His brother grins broadly and hefts the double-headed axe that usually resides above the family lintel, newly sharpened and unhooded. “Though if you want to hide, I’m sure Mother will hold your hand.”

Their mother frowns at him, her wrinkled eyes narrow. “I didn’t raise cowards.” She drops two shields and unshoulders a bow and quiver, which she passes to Jara, before she gives all her children another hard look. Havar, her youngest. Darag, the eldest. Udr, the middle child, and Jara, his wife.

She doesn’t look at me.

“Don’t leave me with Sare and all your babes,” she warns, naming Darag’s wife, but I see the worry hidden in the lines about her mouth. “We’ll be in the forest.”

The woman’s disregard for me sits heavy in my chest. I’ll be one of her children by the end of the summer if I hold to my promise, but she does not see me as a daughter. Not with the white hair of a dead immortal drifting across my eyes in the breeze, and the questions that go with it.

Though if I’m honest, I do not blame her.

Jara kisses her mother-in-law’s temple, then the older woman joins the flow of villagers back through the settlement. I’m left with Havar, his brothers, and Jara, who fits her quiver onto her belt with shaking hands.

The five of us stand together, gazes glancing off one another as we turn toward the sea. Darag hefts his axe. His grin is still there, but it’s deeper now, darker and tucked in around his black-lashed eyes. He, of all the brothers, remembers war the clearest. He was old enough to run when the Old World fell, but not old enough to fight and die. And, like so many of that generation, he eventually turned to raiding the Empire to wet his axe with blood and prove himself. He’s one of the few true warriors in the village.

He catches me watching him and gives a dry, subtle wink. “Stand behind me, little sister.”

A smile creeps into the corner of my mouth. “Probably wiser to stand behind me.”

He smirks and, without warning, the drums in the fog cease. Darag’s expression closes like shutters to the wind and everyone on the beach stills, straining their senses and raising their shields.

The thudding of the drums resumes—this time a stately double beat. The heartbeat of a sleeping giant.

“Warriors!” Ossen bellows.

Havar gives me one last glance, his eyes full of unsaid things, then he and the others sprint into line. I follow, falling in beside Ossen as a wall of painted round shields lock into place before us. More warriors hunker behind the beached boats just ahead. Jara and a handful of other archers—hunters, the lot of them—form a back row. And then we wait.

Threat hangs as thick as the fog. The figureheads I saw earlier emerge in eddies, carved like wolves and whales and more unfamiliar beasts. They’re followed by the sweep of high prows and masts, and I strain to make out the figures on their decks. Most sit at their oars but others cluster in the center of the vessels, standing straight and impassive. I see the glint of spears, and my hand tightens on my own weapon before I consciously relax it.

I hear a shout in a foreign tongue. The lead ship turns, dividing the shallow water in a shushing, frothing ripple. The oars give two more great hauls, then angle skyward in a dripping, clattering forest.

Our warriors brace as the ships drive through the shallows toward the beach. I look at Ossen, wondering why we’re letting the strangers make landfall without loosing a single arrow. But the headman’s gaze is narrow and shrewd, and he does not move.

The first vessel grinds onto the shore, followed by two more in a frothing run. The last four, the largest ships, remain out of bowshot in the fog.

Foreigners leap from the beached vessels with the ease of riders from horseback. Most of them remain near the ships, heedless of the cool waves lapping at their boots. Three come forward, all unarmed, the central figure with hands extended.

“Eangen!” the leader, a woman, calls. “Lower your spears, cousins.”

The words are not spoken in our language, but I understand them. I stiffen. She’s speaking in the Divine Tongue, the language of the Old Gods, universally lucid, yet impossible for any human tongue to shape. The Miri speak it—those like my grandfather, the Great Healer, and Gadr.

So, this newcomer cannot be human. At least, not wholly. My senses converge upon her and I touch my priestess’s senses again. From one blink to the next, silver hazes the heavy, moist air around the stranger.

My heart twists, not in fear, but disbelief. I glance at Ossen—I doubt he has heard the language before, but I can see in his face he knows this is no human greeting.

“Let me go first,” I say quietly, barely able to hide my urgency.

He looks about to protest, but gives in. “I’ll be right behind you.”

I step forward. The shield wall parts, the nearest warriors looking up at me in something between incredulity and curiosity as I leave the safety of their lines. I feel Havar’s eyes among them, but he doesn’t move.

I lead Ossen down the beach. I pass our fishing boats and the staring warriors behind them, then step onto the open shore, in full view of both Iesa and the ships.

The newcomers’ leader is perhaps ten years older than I, at least to the eye. Her hair is white, like mine. Her frame is tall, like mine, and her eyes deep blue, threaded with black in a way that reminds me of my grandfather. She is paler than me, and her eyes have a dulcet, youthful shape uncommon among the Eangen.

I recognize what she is with a fierce and sudden clarity. I manage to hide my shock, but I cannot look away.

She, in turn, examines me. Her eyes travel my face, my hair, and stature. She turns up the corner of her mouth in satisfaction and offers an open hand, long, graceful fingers gently crooked.

“My name is Siru, of the Duamel in the north,” she says. “Greetings, Daughter of Winter, sister of mine.”

FOUR

My thoughts come too fast and too many. All I hear is a disjointed hum. Siru has Father’s eyes, my hair, my very scent; a cool, crisp memory of winter that never fades from my skin. It twines between us despite the breeze and the stink of wet sand, fish, and decomposing seaweed.

“We are explorers.” Siru speaks to Ossen with a shallow bow and an unfamiliar gesture, tapping the middle three fingers of her right hand to the center of her forehead. She wears a long tunic, nearly a gown, slit from knee down, with a short sealskin cloak belted at the waist. Her clothing is clearly well-made but plain, with muted blues and grays faded from salt and sun.

“It has been centuries since our peoples met,” she says. “But the world has changed, or so we’ve heard. They say Eang is dead, and a new god rules the south.”

The south? My humming mind untangles her words. She said she’s of the Duamel in the north—far enough north that Eangen is south? The thought is a strange one.

The rest of what she says is simple, and true. Many of the Miri we once worshiped as gods are dead, including my grandmother Eang, from whom the Eangen derive their name. But if our peoples haven’t met in centuries, how would she know that?

“Yes,” Ossen answers, hesitantly. He speaks Eangen, though Siru still speaks the tongue of the Old Gods. “You… understand me?”

Siru gestures to her two companions. “I do, and I will translate for my people.”

Her companions, standing a pace behind her, haven’t spoken yet. A man and a woman, they’re a little shorter than her and their coloring is fair, mild brown hair with honey-hazel eyes and skin that must rarely see the sun. Their jawlines are narrow and the man wears a short, clean beard without braids or adornment.

“I am Ossen, of the Addack clan of the Eangen,” Ossen says, hesitancy fading. He’s still guarded, though—I see the tension in his neck and the way he holds his hand obviously away from his sword. He asks one of the questions on my mind. “Where did you hear Eang is dead?”

“From our spirits.” Siru’s icy blue eyes drift back to me. “They travel far, as our father once did.”

Our father. Our shared features. Her scent.

Daughter of Winter, sister of mine.

This is real. This woman is my half-sister.

Havar, his brothers, and Jara are my family, as much as my other Eangen kin from my mother’s line. But I’ve always known that my father’s descendants were somewhere in the far north, brothers and sisters from my father’s line, who my grandfather warned me of on a snowy, bloody day.

My grandfather’s caution seeps through me now, tempering my shock.

“You came to explore with seven ships?” I prompt in Eangen. Siru and I might look alike, but I do not speak the tongue of the gods. Or at least, I don’t know if I do, and that thought alone sends a trickle of yearning through me. I keep my expression neutral, cool, and direct. “Seven ships could easily be mistaken for a war party.”

She gives me an odd look, perhaps at my choice of language, but it’s fleeting. “Our ships have regrouped after a summer of exploration in the west. We thought it best to land here in strength, given the Eangen’s bloody reputation. We do, however, come peacefully. We want to explore, learn, and trade. Nothing more.”

I feel the shift in Ossen. “Trade?” he asks, interest wheedling through his guardedness. “What do you offer?”

Siru gestures to the boats behind her. “Knowledge. Goods. Tools and maps, the warmest wool and furs, oils that will burn for many days. Black pearls of uncanny beauty. Skills of medicine and shipbuilding.”

The headman considers Siru for a moment, then nods toward me. “Give us a moment?”

Siru opens her arms in a gesture of acquiescence and retreats toward her companions.

Ossen murmurs to me, still watching my half-sister. “What do you say? What does the God say?”

“The God has yet to reply,” I answer, but do not elaborate as to why. “I do not trust that woman.”

“Is she your kin?” Ossen asks, even more quietly. “Another of Ogam’s daughters?”

I clear my throat as my father’s name is finally spoken. It seems so much weightier than its two, simple syllables. “Yes. That is why I don’t trust them. My father was a traitor.”

“We trust you,” Ossen points out.

I smile, small and wry. “Not all of you do.”

The headman grunts at that. “Fools mistrust what they do not understand. I see opportunity. I saw it in you, and I see it here.”

“So you’re wise?” I quip, because I doubt his faith in me is deserved.

“I am.” Ossen glances back at the newcomers and sucks his teeth before he asks, “Will you oppose me if I invite Siru to the village?”

I hesitate. I was honest when I told the headman that I don’t trust the newcomers, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t want to learn more about them. I need to. Siru draws my eye like a flame draws a moth.

Besides, our people have gone into the forest and runners were sent to neighboring villages—within hours, they’ll reinforce us. There’s a chance we’ll be dead by then, but perhaps if we’re careful… the risk is worth the reward.

“If they leave their weapons on the beach,” I reply.

“We’ll offer a hostage too.” Siru’s voice carries to us.

Ossen and I look back to her, both realizing she’s overheard our conversation. She beckons a boy from the boats, barely older than twelve with pale skin and brown hair. The boy lifts his tunic, showing he’s unarmed.

Ossen glances at me once more, then grins deeply. He beckons the boy forward, smiling like a benevolent uncle.

“Welcome to Iesa,” he declares.

*   *   *

Havar pulls me aside as soon as we enter the high-vaulted hall, tugging me through a curtained doorway and into a shadowed room.

The curtain rustles closed behind us and hanging herbs brush my forehead. Light pours in through an open shutter, illuminating a table full of jars and bowls and neat lines of bundled plants. My hip jostles the table as we slip into the confined space and two clay jars clatter together, loud in the quiet.

I note all this in the half-breath before Havar backs me into the wall.

He takes my face in his hands and kisses me. Startled, I almost push him away. This is exactly the kind of moment I’ve avoided since our betrothal, but he’s all worry and tension, and I haven’t the heart to chastise him.

Besides, despite my better judgement, I’m kissing him back. I anchor myself in the moment, in the warmth of him, as I let my heart catch up to my head.

The ships didn’t attack. None of us died on the beach. We’re safe, at least for the moment. And from the way Havar’s kissing me, he’s as grateful for that as I am.

His lips withdraw. I crack one eye open, then both.

“I’m sorry,” he says, looking anything but. His lips quirk in a coy smile and he smooths his beard with one hand. His other hand slips from my cheek to my arm, then to my hand. Our fingers entangle.

I smile wryly. “Were you worried about me?”

“I was. I am. She’s one of them?”

I nod. “I suppose it was inevitable, meeting one.”

He lifts my hand to his chest and presses my fingers into the embroidered collar of his tunic. I feel his heart thundering, and it’s that, more than his words and the reminder of Siru, that steals the last of my smile.

Hearts like his are so easily stilled. What if the Duamel had attacked? What if he had died today?

What if I had not?

All at once, I wish the room wasn’t so small, we weren’t so close, and we hadn’t kissed like that. I thought I’d reconciled myself to the possibility of watching him die, whether by accident, violence, age, or infirmity. Reconciled enough to agree to marry him. But until now, his mortality never felt so real.

“Your father might have children where Siru is from, but your family is here,” he says, and I catch the strain in his voice. This, I sense, was part of the force behind his kiss. “You never even met Ogam, and your mother only lay with him to stay alive. And she was Eangen. I am Eangen.”

My thoughts flick back to the way his own mother disregarded me on the beach, but the pain is shallow.

“I’m not going anywhere, Havar.”

The anxiety in his face doesn’t change. “Even if they can tell you what you are?”

My blood still races from the kiss, but now the feeling shifts—from heady anticipation to a spark of hope, and a thread of unease. I don’t show him any of those emotions. I let myself shrink and look down, because I know if he feels he must comfort me, he’ll smother his own concerns and let this conversation drop.

It’s manipulative. But I’ve grown up in a world that held me at arm’s length, that mistrusted my bloodline and potential. I’ve learned how to protect myself, to guard my emotions and my secrets.

Sure enough, his fingers tighten around mine, still against his collar. “I’m sorry. I’m still afraid one day I’ll wake up and you’ll be gone. You’ve the blood of the Old Gods. How can your life be as small as mine?”

I catch his gaze. I dislike it when he belittles himself like this, but his fear is justified.

I hope he can’t see that in my face.

Voices rise beyond the curtained doorway. A second later the heavy fabric sweeps aside and an older woman peers in at us. Girda, Ossen’s wife. Her coils of gray hair are braided and set with the ornate bone pins the coastal people favor. Her overgown is a pale red, heavily embroidered, strung with glass beads at the breast and fastened by brooches.

She gives me a narrow-eyed frown. “This is not the time. Come, now. Both of you, you foolish children.”

She vanishes back through the curtain. Havar steps away from me, as far as the small space will allow.

“We can talk later,” he relents.

“I’ll hold you to that.” I’m already moving toward the curtain, quietly grateful for Girda’s interruption.

I push beyond the curtain and Havar follows. Ossen, several prominent villagers and our Duamel guests have taken seats in a circle of chairs at the other end of the hall. I lead Havar past the low-burning fire pit, sunk into the earthen floor and lined with stone.

I take my chair beside Ossen, while Havar fades into the background with dozens of other villagers to watch and listen. Our hostage sits with them, quiet and unmoving. One of the warriors offers the boy a flask, which he sniffs in distrust.

Girda sits on Ossen’s other side, easily exchanging greetings and niceties with the newcomers, with Siru as a translator. I’m grateful that’s Girda’s task, not mine. I’m free to watch, listen, and study my white-haired sister.

She’s charming and smooth, steady and clear-eyed. She smiles at the right times and speaks respectfully, but boldly. She’s confident and seems to feel no need to hide her… otherness. I don’t trust her yet, but I can’t deny that I like her.

Soon, Siru and Ossen begin to discuss why the visitors have come; exploration, friendship, and trade. Again, these are not my tasks, but I listen and watch as the travelers produce pouches of beautiful beads and black pearls, samples of herbs, precious metals, and rare furs. In turn, the Eangen produce dyes and glass, Soulderni iron and pouches of gray salts. Iesa isn’t the richest or best-connected settlement, but they make a fine show of it.

The visitors say little about where they’re from, other than they are called Duamel and they live in the far north, above the Algatt Mountains, beyond the Hinterlands. They worship wind spirits and I gather that Siru is tied to them. Though she translates, the Duamel obviously revere her. Their eyes drift to me too, respectful and curious.

By the time the discussion wanes, the sun is past its zenith.

“We will feast tonight,” Ossen says, standing and planting his hands on the edge of the table. “Our meeting is a momentous thing and it should be properly celebrated. Besides, warriors from several neighboring villages are on their way, ready to save us from raiders, so we must at least appease them with good food and drink.”

It’s a tactful warning and Siru’s small smile shows she’s understood. This meeting has gone well, but there’s still room for betrayal, especially under cover of darkness.

The foreigners outnumber the occupants of Iesa, but not for long. We have friends with axes, and they’re on their way.

FIVE

Firelight fills the rafters of the hall and pours out the open doors. Villagers on the ridge cast long shadows on the beach below, where most of the Duamel camp beyond reach of the tide. Their tents are simple hide and their own campfires glow in the night, surrounded by indistinct figures and distant conversation.

In the hall, the feasting has nearly ended. Several dozen Duamel guests sit across from Eangen from Iesa and the neighboring villages, some passing pitchers of mead and laughing over fumbled attempts to communicate, while others watch warily.

I sit quietly in my carved chair beside Ossen and Girda as the food is cleared away and more mead rolled in from caves beneath the village. The barrels are tapped, and the Eangen begin to sing.

They harmonize traditional songs, throwing in growls and churrs to punctuate the final lines. I haven’t seen Havar all night, but as the song fades I finally spot him stationed near the hostage, the boy’s captivity little more than a formality now, with our peoples so intermingled. The child sits surrounded by curious Eangen children, who show him toys and natter at him, even though they have no common tongue. The Duamel boy remains aloof.

Havar watches over them, leaning against the wall with spear in hand. He’s endeavoring to look casual, but I know him well enough to recognize the angle of his chin and tightness around his eyes. He’s wary, and the Duamel’s good behavior and the music have done nothing to lighten his mood.

My chest aches a little, watching him. I like him. I’ve agreed to marry him, and don’t regret that—most days. I want to spend my days with someone, and Havar is a good man. He’d make a good husband, a fine father.

But that ache feels more like uncertainty than love.

I’m not going anywhere, Havar.

Even if they can tell you what you are?

I’m about to go to him when a Duamel man stands on his chair. The last notes of an Eangen song fade as he claps his hands over his head and waves for the room’s attention. Quiet falls. Meeting the eyes of his kinsfolk, he begins to sing and nod encouragingly. They seem reluctant, but the leader’s mood is infectious. Soon they’re singing, and someone produces a drum. They begin to pound a steady rhythm, interspersed with taps on the heavy frame.

A sensation fills the air, amid foreign words and displaced notes. It feels like a memory, half stirred and snatched away, but its essence remains—heat on a frigid winter’s evening. It’s at odds with the warm autumn night, but that hardly detracts from the magic of it. It intensifies it, frames and contrasts it.

When I touch my Sight, silvered magic billows like dust with every beat of the drum. Magic. Magic drums. My aunt, the High Priestess of Thvynder, once told me that my father mentioned such instruments when he spoke of his centuries in the far north.

Now I know those centuries were spent with the Duamel. And one of the children he fathered during his sojourn is here, standing on the other side of the fire with craftsmen and merchants from nearby villages. She translates as the men and women converse, ignoring the music for the sake of oils and white bear fur.

Siru catches me watching her. Deciding to take the initiative, I nod to an empty bench on one side of the room. I rise and head toward it.

A moment later, she joins me. Nearby guests cast the pair of us sidelong looks and draw away.

“Little sister,” Siru greets me in the language of the gods. “Your people are very welcoming.”

I glance at the knot of merchants and craftsmen. “You’ve intrigued them.”

“I’m surprised,” she admits. “You have trade with a great empire in the south? When I heard that, I feared we would not have much to offer you.”

“My people are easily bored… Your arrival has opened the world again.” I let my gaze drift across the hall. “We warred for centuries with the Algatt—the mountain folk, just north—and the Empire to the south, but now we’re at peace. The young are restless because they’ve never known war, and the old are restless because they’ve never known anything else. Trade and exploration are a good outlet.”

“And you?” she asks. “Are you bored of peace?”

Something in her tone prickles the back of my neck. “No,” I say firmly. “I know enough of war from my aunt, and mother before she died. They both lost their first husbands to it, and I’ve no desire to lose those I love.”

“You’re not afraid to die, yourself?” Siru pries.

I look at her directly, her glacial eyes locking with my earthen green. I don’t want to be hostile, but I sense she knows exactly what she’s asking, and I dislike the backhanded way of it.

“I don’t know if I can,” I reply.

She glances at my white hair and raises a cup of mead to her lips. She says into the brim, “Have you had opportunity to… find out?”

I think of blood-muddied snow and a roaring, charging beast. I had, but my grandfather stole it. “I don’t know,” I say, rather than confess that.

She looks at me more closely, her gaze traveling the lines of my face. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-five.”