“Good. I said Iskir is too close to the mountains,” my mother reminded my father. She sounded exasperated, as always. “I don’t want Hessa anywhere near the—”
“She’s an Eangi,” my father snapped. “She’ll be slaughtering Algatt for the rest of her life, in Iskir or Albor or Meade. I hate that woman. Svala is an arrogant witch.”
The headman’s exasperated hiss followed. “Berin.”
“I’d prefer that her life be as long as possible,” my mother returned, ignoring the slight against the most powerful woman on the Rim. “And not under a Gatti belly.”
“Svala is a fair woman,” the headman’s voice rose, quelling my parents. “A powerful priestess. You know the number of Eangi ordained in the last few generations has… waned. Hessa is obviously Eangi but volatile. She needs a mentor like Svala. As for Yske, her power is more subtle; she could go anywhere. But it is better for her to stay with her cousin, especially as young as they are.”
Behind Yske, I saw my aunt’s eyes rise towards the door. Since her own husband’s death, she had become my father’s second wife according to law; the cautious counterpart to my mother’s bold.
I could see in her face that she didn’t want Yske to go. I wasn’t sure how she felt about me, but her obvious love for my cousin made me love her, too.
Anxiety stirred in my belly and I shifted closer to her skirts. She cast me a sad half-smile, but her focus remained outside.
A clamor began off in the village and the conversation between my parents and the headman fell away. My aunt, sensing the change, tied off Yske’s braid and fastened the tail of it under the crown with a fine pin. Then, with distracted fingers, she clipped her comb to the beads draped across the front of her apron.
“High Priestess,” my mother’s voice said. More voices came after, low and deferential.
My heart stilled in my small chest. I had never seen the High Priestess, but I knew of her. I’d heard her Eangi Fire was so powerful she could turn bones to ashes with a scream. I’d heard that she traveled to the High Halls, in spirit and sometimes even in body, to speak to the dead and hold council with the gods. And when the Algatt raiders came, her Eangi fought and died to protect us, their people.
I held very still as the door swung wide, sunlight washing around the forms of my parents, the headman, and a new, fourth figure. She was younger than my mother, with ebony hair and ruddy skin, like most Eangen. She was tall, evenly muscled beneath a tunic of muted hemlock-dyed red and loose undyed breeches, and her kohl-rimmed eyes reminded me of a hawk – or perhaps an owl. A hooded axe hung through a ring at one hip and a knife sat at the other, its wooden hilt dark and smooth from use.
“These are the girls?” asked the High Priestess of the Goddess of War.
My mother led her forward. The High Priestess surveyed Yske, but as she neared, her attention fixed upon me.
Svala crouched, shifting her axe as she did so, and beckoned me forward. I shuffled up to her knees and she ducked to meet my gaze. “So, you are the child who killed two Algatt raiders?”
My throat constricted. My memory of the event was fragmentary, blurred by the exhaustion that had overtaken me after the fact, but I still didn’t like to think of it.
“How did you do it?” Svala asked me.
Over the High Priestess’s shoulder, half-silhouetted in the doorway, I saw my mother watching me with her arms crossed. My father stood beyond her, staring outside with an unhappy expression around his eyes.
“I don’t remember,” I said.
At the sound of my voice, the High Priestess’s attention sharpened still more. She studied me for an uncomfortable length of time before she took my hands. Hers were scratchy with calluses and mottled with scars.
“Do you understand what it is to be an Eangi, Hessa?”
I sensed Yske fidgeting nearby, displeased that all the attention had fallen on me. Her status as an Eangi was something her parents had suspected for years – her dreams and visions and unnatural strength were known to everyone in East Meade.
But me? Me, they had not expected.
“Eangi serve Eang,” I said, uncertain. “She gives them Fire. They write the runes.”
“Yes. You are one. I am one. Your cousin is one.” Svala considered my younger, smoother hands. “We are chosen by the Goddess of War to serve her and the Eangen people.”
I felt like I was supposed to nod, so I did. My gaze was serious, my hands still.
“We’re marked by Eang with the Fire, a piece of the goddess herself,” Svala continued. “It’s not real fire – you cannot see it – but it is hot like fire. It burns like fire, in the blood and the mind and through runes. Eangi Fire is magic, magic that we can use to kill, to bless, to write the runes and call visions and heal our simple wounds – though we must pay for it with strength. Eangi Fire is power, and that, Hessa is what you used to stop those raiders.”
Again, my mind shuttered. I didn’t want to remember that night. Not now. Not ever.
I wanted to pull away from the priestess. I was scared. I was scared of her and scared of myself. My eyes darted up to my mother, searching for solace. Her expression softened, but her stare warned me to stay where I was.
Svala tugged me closer. “This world is dark and unkind – no, look at me, child.” When I tried to break her gaze, she slapped my cheek lightly. “You may be Eangi, so may Yske, but that will not spare you. Your days will be short, full of violence and difficult choices. I am going to protect you. You will be far from your family, but the Eangi will become your family. You will learn to fight, and you will never, ever, be alone. You will learn to control the fire in your blood. And when the Algatt come down from their mountains to raid, you, child, will protect your people. You will make our enemies fear the name of Eang.”
SIX
We were herded into an enormous Algatt encampment before dusk three days after my capture and the destruction of the Hall of Smoke.
The size of the camp made the hair on the back of my neck rise. How many tents were there, clustered between the hills beside the great river Pasidon? A hundred? Two? And how many stolen Eangen boats were beached between them, among the equally stolen flocks and carts and wagons?
I stared at the boats, at their carved rails and ornate figureheads of bears and eagles and stags. These were the vessels that moved Eangen people and goods up and down the river, roughly thirty strong. But now, it seemed, they had borne Algatt south. That meant the north itself was overrun, and, judging by the lack of warning they’d sent us, it had happened fast.
I looked more closely at the inhabitants of the camp. A woman paused in the midst of bathing her baby in a bucket. Her hair was so pale that it was nearly white, smudged with blue about the forehead, but carelessly so – as if it were days old, and she simply hadn’t the time to care for herself. She stared at me while the infant shrieked and splashed and, beyond her shoulder, a score of small children herded goats into a corral. Nearby, a pregnant woman leant on a man’s arm as they entered a simple hide tent and an old man brushed down a horse. Through them all wove trails of warriors, male and female alike, wearing mail and padded armor over their squared shoulders.
I recalled the dying Algatt’s words, back in the Hall of Smoke. Arpa in the mountains. If the legions had somehow thrust their way into Algatt land, driving the clan south, it certainly explained what I saw here. Families. Entire villages. Carts of meagre possessions. These weren’t raiders – at least, not all of them. They were refugees.