I FEEL AS IF I’M LIVING IN A DREAM.
Still warm from Iker’s strong embrace, I twirl across the dance floor in his arms.
I tried to tell Iker we shouldn’t, but he wouldn’t hear of it. “Let them talk,” Iker said. If only he knew how much they already did.
I can sense Malvina’s eyes following me. Yes, Malvina, this is what it looks like when someone dances without fearing for his life. But I try not to think about her. I want to remember this moment, even the smallest details. Everything about him wears like oiled leather and loved muslin. His hands are rough and worn from the sea, and yet they are gentle, his thumb delicately caressing mine.
My twelve-year-old fantasies were never this detailed—hardly anything beyond me in a grand purple gown and Iker in his royal finery hand-in-hand on a stroll through the palace gardens. The reality is so different, so intense, and I’m not sure I’m handling it well. I know I’m not. Can he feel my palms sweating? My heart beating loudly against his chest?
“I saw you from my deck, you know,” he whispers in my ear. “Before coming aboard. You’ve never looked more beautiful, Evie. And I’ve never begged the gods to steer my ship faster.”
I don’t know what to say, my voice seizing in my throat. I look around instead, trying to organize my thoughts. The sun has completely set, the last strands of light gone with our plates in a rush and clatter of tiny quail bones, torsk tails, pea pods, and strawberry hulls. And though the entire ship deck is still lit by a ring of miniature lanterns, the remaining shadow is enough that it almost feels as if we’re alone.
Just a boy, a girl, and the sea.
The song ends and he hugs me tight. When he pulls back, he runs his fingers along my jawbone. “I shouldn’t have stayed away from Havnestad so long,” he says, capturing one of my curls between his fingers. “You have the same hair you did as a child.” His gaze lifts to mine. “The same starry-night eyes.”
I struggle not to look down—down to where he’s still wound a lock of my hair lightly between his fingers. I bite my lip to silence the sigh there. His fingers wind tighter around the curl. It almost seems as if he doesn’t know he’s doing it—this boy made of smiles and grand gestures doing something so small it’s escaped him.
Iker’s eyes drift to the band members who have circled around a bench where someone has begun to play a guitaren. Though we can’t see him, the shiny, precise plucks are a dead giveaway that the musician is Nik. He’s always been the kind to pick up any instrument and immediately know exactly how to play it, ever since we were children. He’s strumming the song I used to sing on the docks as a girl to wish my father safe travels on his fishing trips. Nik said it always got stuck in his head.
Iker drops the curl.
Clears his throat.
Adjusts his body so that we’re not touching in so many places.
It’s over. I know it. Perhaps fantasies are only meant to come true for a moment. Surely a trick of the gods.
His eyes linger on the band when he eventually speaks, but his tone has changed. “Evie, I love visiting Havnestad, but I don’t like to step on my cousin’s toes.”
Now my voice isn’t right. Why did Nik have to play that song? I swallow. “But you aren’t,” I say, hoping he can’t hear the pleading in my tone. “Besides, I don’t think Nik would mind seeing more of you, and there is the Lithasblot festival coming up in a few days.”
“Ah, yes, when you people go nuts for Urda, throw bread at anyone without a double chin, and run in circles until you pass out.”
“You people?” I say and give him a jab. Iker may be from across the strait, but he’s just as much an Øldenburg as Nik. Their family has ruled Denmark and Sweden for four hundred years. They know better than anyone not to discount the harvest the goddess has bestowed on us. “Don’t poke fun at the games. We take them very seriously.”
“Oh yes, a life-or-death game of carrying around the heaviest rock.”
“Or running the length of a log. All useful skills.” I laugh, happy to have lightened the mood again.
Iker turns to me. “If I stay for this Lithasblot extravaganza, you must promise you will scramble across some recently murdered tree for my entertainment.”
“If that’s what it takes, then I promise,” I say, dipping in a mock curtsy.
A laugh escapes from my lips, but Iker’s attention is locked on my face. Almost as if he can’t help himself, his thumb grazes my cheekbone again, down my jaw and to my mouth. The touch of his finger to my lips sends color rising in my cheeks as I meet the glacier blue of his eyes.
“Iker, I—”
“Gooooooood people of Havnestad!” Our heads whip around as Nik’s voice booms across the length of the ship. He is still holding the guitaren, but now he has a crown fashioned of lemon wedges squashed on his wavy flop of hair. There’s a huge smile tugging at his cheeks, and his long arms are thrust high into the air. He’s actually doing quite the unintentional impression of Iker, though only after a few mugs of King Asger’s special brew. “As your crown prince, I hereby issue a royal decree that we sing for me on this, the sixteenth year of my life.”
“Hear, HEAR,” yells Iker, followed by the rest of the crowd, which has suddenly crept back into the corners of my vision.
“Excellent. Ruyven has sent the signal for fireworks. But first, a so—” Nik’s voice cuts out as Malvina’s strong hand jerks him down so her lips can meet his ear. The other hand is gesturing behind them, toward the cake. Nik stands back up slowly and resets the guitaren. “The lovely lady Malvina has informed me we are at a loss for candles.” Nik points the instrument’s neck at me, feigned formality still thick in his throat. “Evelyn?” He raises a brow.
I raise one back.
“Come on, I know you know where they are.”
And I do. Exactly where Nik left them when he “borrowed” the king’s boat for the first warm day after a long, ice-filled winter.
“Yes, I do, good prince.”
As much as I don’t want to leave Iker’s side, I step away, the warmth of him clinging to my skin for a ghost of a second as we separate. I snag a lantern that’s dipped low on the line ringing the deck and move away from the crowd.
Boots clomping on the stairs, I disappear belowdecks to the captain’s quarters. The space is much larger than something that should be a captain’s anything—the whole place is nearly bigger than the home I share with Father and Tante Hansa. The miniature lantern struggles to keep up with the vastness, illuminating a halo barely beyond the hem of my party dress. It’s utterly annoying.
Glancing up the stairs, I confirm that I am alone; no one followed me below. My back to the door, I reach a hand into the lantern. Softly muttered words of old fall from my lips as my fingers pinch the tip of the candle. “Brenna bjartr aldrnari. Brenna bjartr aldrari. Pakka Glöð.”
The candle begins to glow with the full force of one three times its size.
It’s
