I enjoyed watching the sun move over the hills, changing the color from jade to gold to amber and back again, shadow and light moving across the land. A family of grouse ran in front of us, and I smiled.
We ascended the first hill, sweat gathering at our temples. A grove of black pines was at the crest—Viggo and I had spent time there one warm summer afternoon. My stomach fluttered pleasurably at the memory, but the feeling faded quickly, leaving only a deep heartache.
I selected the tallest tree and walked to its base.
Gyda gave me a wary look. “Are you sure you can do this?”
“Every Vorse girl worth her salt can climb trees,” I said.
The druid shrugged. “The trees don’t grow this tall on the Boar Islands. And I don’t appreciate heights.”
“Can’t you just magic your way to the high branches?” Morgunn asked. “Chant a bit of druid gibberish, blink your eyes three times, throw a pebble over a shoulder, and whoosh, you’re up a tree?”
Gyda and I laughed.
The druid brought out my sister’s sardonic side, and I found it delightful.
“Yes, that is just how druid magic works,” Gyda replied. “How clever you are, Morgunn.”
They kept up the banter as I dropped my pack and furs and grabbed the red cloth from my pocket—it had once been a tunic of Aslaug’s, one she wore for feast days.
I scrambled up, ten feet, twenty, thirty, fifty, seventy, gripping the bark with my knees and my feet, my hands clutching branches. I gave a yell of victory when I reached the top. Morgunn and Gyda echoed my yell from the base.
“I’ve conquered the tree,” I shouted.
“What can you see from up there?” Morgunn asked.
I shielded my eyes and looked out, scanning the Cloven Tell Valley. It was a sea of green, pitted with a group of blackened lumps that used to be Trow. The smoke had weakened into thin gray wisps. I saw no one moving among the ash … not a soul.
“Nothing,” I called down. “Nothing but trees and hills and birds.” I didn’t mention Trow.
I tied the cloth to a high branch, tight. The Butcher Bards would see it if we were lucky. If the gods were on our side.
We continued to follow the stream as it wound between hills, the sunlight dancing across the water’s soft curves. It soon joined up with another beck and formed a proper river, loud and fast, a thousand shades of blue pouring over gray stones.
I’d first met Viggo on a day such as this in spring—warm sun, cool breeze, wild green hills, my life stretching out before me in an endless flow of lazy, quiet days.
My father had left on a beautiful day in spring, and each year my mother mourned his return to the sea during this season. She didn’t suffer from a broken heart—she suffered from fury, fury that he’d left and that he’d broken his promise. She would wander the steading, searching for ways to relieve her rage.
My features resembled my father’s. I have my mother’s physical strength and height, but I have my father’s straight nose, high cheekbones, and pointed Elver ears.
I have his soft heart as well.
Aslaug pulled me aside one day and told me to take a walk into the hills so that my mother could find some peace, for seeing my face every day fueled her anger.
Morgunn wasn’t asked to leave. Unlike me, she didn’t take after Father, with his serene, amiable gentleness. She was Vorse.
I spent the next weeks wandering like a stray dog until I turned half wild with it. I went farther away from home and stayed away longer than I’d ever done in the past. I walked and walked and walked.
That spring day, the sky was blue, with wispy, feathery clouds, and the birds seemed to sing louder than usual. I followed our steading’s stream to a nearby waterfall—I would often sit beside it and let the cold mist settle on my cheeks.
As I drew closer, I caught sight of something behind the cascading water, a glint of sun off something smooth.
He stepped out of the falls, naked from the waist up, tossing his wet head like a wild red stag.
Our shepherd was something of a legend among the women of Trow. They often whispered that Viggo was as shy as a deer and as handsome as a god. Aslaug had hired him a few months before to replace the old shepherd, Magda, who had decided to spend her last good years wandering Vorseland, as long as her ancient legs would allow.
I had yet to meet Viggo. He kept to his hut and his sheep, rarely coming to the Hall and appearing in the village only when he needed food and supplies. He was young for a shepherd, not much older than me, but I’d known younger—one of the Tathers’ shepherds was a wiry girl of twelve, with wild red hair and a feisty temperament that matched any sharp-tongued village elder’s.
I took one step toward him and then another. He shook his long hair again, and droplets hit my face.
“Viggo,” I said, and then flinched when he opened his eyes.
He paused for a long moment and then whispered, “Torvi.”
So he knew who I was.
His thick hair bled thin streams of water down his bare sides. He had a wide forehead and piercing eyes under a deep brow. Classic Vorse. There was a pink scar on his left cheek, two inches long, and another of the same length down his right forearm.
“I’m not used to visitors,” Viggo said finally, “but I can offer you some Vite or nettle tea.”
I nodded. “Yes, to both.”
He lifted a calloused hand and rubbed a palm up and down his cheek. “Come,” he said.
Viggo took me to his stone cottage. It was hidden in a small grove of pine and juniper trees, hard to see unless you were really looking for it. I could feel his eyes on me as I walked in front, and I was suddenly aware of the way my thighs moved against my long tunic, and how my black curls swung between my shoulders.
The shepherd made me nettle tea over an open-hearth fire. His hut was small but clean, with a thick sod roof. I sat on a simple bench, my knees almost touching the flames. We sipped and didn’t talk, but it was a soft and comfortable silence.
I emptied my cup but didn’t leave. Viggo began to whittle a piece of brierroot into one of the fat, short-stemmed pipes Vorse shepherds smoke. He occasionally glanced at me but remained silent. He seemed at ease, despite what he’d said earlier about being little used to other people.
Viggo retrieved a small jug from a shelf in the corner, and we started sipping Vite. He passed the vessel to me, his fingers grazing mine, and I passed it back.
It grew dark. Morgunn would wonder where I was, but I couldn’t seem to make myself care.
“A god,” I said.
“What?” Viggo asked softly.
“The women in Trow say you look like a Vorse god, one of the strong, quiet ones—Obin or Ved. They say you were cast out of Holhalla for a love crime and are now in hiding, disguised as a shepherd.”
Viggo smiled as he leaned over to stoke the fire, then broke into a low laugh. “Do they really, Torvi?”
“Yes,” I said. “And now I see why.”
* * *
I thought it would be easy to go back to Viggo’s hut. I thought my memories of the place would fill me with happiness and peace. I was wrong.
He was everywhere. In the firewood stacked in neat piles against the outside wall. In the gray wool cloak that hung on a nail by the door. In the carved wooden mugs stacked on a small shelf, in the wooden bench by the stone hearth.