take after her, do I?’ There was no wistfulness in her voice, only a resentment that he’d not told her sooner. Discovering tiny truths about her mother should have been a happy event tinged with tears, not a revelation on Steiner’s last night in Cinderfell.
‘You have her eyes, and her hair too if you’d ever care to pull a brush through it.’
‘And where is she now?’
‘The Empire took her,’ said Marek. He stepped away, not meeting her eyes, gazing into the darkness outside their door. ‘We had a handful of happy years together, and two beautiful children, but she was always looking over her shoulder, waiting, waiting.’
‘Waiting for the Vigilants to find her,’ said Kjellrunn.
‘They can track anyone down given enough time.’ Marek prodded the anvil with his boot. ‘In the end she went of her own accord. Better that way.’
‘The Empire doesn’t know she had children?’
‘Of course not.’ He pushed the door closed and set the latch in place, locking the night outside. ‘They’d have killed you to make an example to the others.’
‘What others?’
He ignored that question and provided one of his own. ‘How are you …’ He frowned and tried again. ‘How are your powers?’
‘Powers?’ She gave a lop-sided smile, filling the word with disdain. ‘I don’t feel very powerful. I don’t feel powerful at all. They’re just sensations really. I know when it will rain, and what tide it is.’
‘That’s it?’ said Marek, and Kjellrunn felt a sting of shame.
‘Were you expecting some great sorcerer?’
‘Sorry, Kjell. I don’t know how it works and I forgot that you’ve not been trained.’
‘And that I’m just sixteen. You forgot that too.’
‘Yes, sorry, Kjell.’ Marek pressed his fingertips into the corners of his eyes and she could almost see the wave of tiredness wash over him. ‘So just senses then?’
‘I’m happiest when I’m in the forest; it feels more natural there. I imagine I can feel the animals moving around in their lairs and sets under the earth.’
‘You may not be imagining that so much as feeling it.’ He fixed her with a long appraising look, then gestured that she follow him into the kitchen.
Verner sat at the table, cleaning his nails with a small knife. He looked up at Kjellrunn but no expression crossed his face. The way Steiner told it, Kjellrunn was Verner’s favourite out of the two of them. She didn’t care. To her mind Steiner had long been their father’s favourite so it was almost fair, inasmuch as families are ever fair.
‘Don’t worry, Uncle, I’ll not call a storm down on your little boat next time you sail.’
Verner didn’t smile, simply put away his knife and stared into the fireplace where the embers glowed orange.
‘You shouldn’t joke about such things. People have died for the power you hold, died and suffered for it.’
‘You think I’m not suffering?’ she replied, her tone as cold and unforgiving as the Sommerende Ocean. ‘My only brother has no choice but to go to the island to be killed.’
‘We don’t know for sure he’ll be killed,’ replied Verner, getting to his feet. ‘And he may learn something useful if he keeps his wits about him.’
‘You can’t send him to the island.’ She gazed up into the fisherman’s eyes. ‘I won’t let you.’
Marek and Verner exchanged a glance and both turned to her with wary expressions on their faces.
‘Kjell, it’s not up to us. If there was a way to stop the Empire I would, but …’ Marek held out a placating hand to her but she had no mind to take it, no mind to be held by him when he had held back so much. The urge to scream came again, to howl like a trapped animal. Her hands closed into fists and the room took on a dreamlike sheen; she was suddenly light-headed and took a deep breath to steady herself.
The Empire mean to take my brother.
The kitchen door rattled on its hinges and blew open, smashing into the kitchen counter behind it. The fire in the grate was swept up and cinders and ashes swirled about the dim chamber, an angry blizzard of grey and radiant embers. An old rag was blown about like a discarded flag of surrender. Marek and Verner stumbled backwards, one of them calling out in alarm. Kjellrunn fled the kitchen, her eyes shut tight, almost tumbling through the door and out into the street.
Marek was at the door coughing, reaching after her, but she retreated from the man who used the truth so sparingly when it meant so much.
‘Kjell, please. You don’t know what it does to a person.’ His voice was a harsh whisper, afraid of being overheard on the quiet street. ‘Over time the body rejects the arcane, or is burned up by it. I’ve seen people turned to stone, petrified for all time.’
‘I won’t let them take him,’ she said, loud enough that a few curtains twitched in the neighbouring windows.
She sprinted down the street, glad to be away from the smithy and the smell of metal and fire, glad to be away from the low-ceilinged kitchen and the over-large table. And though she was loath to admit it, she was glad to be away from people, even her own father, her own uncle. People. She’d rather have the company of trees and her own restful solitude.
The wind howled, given voice by the jagged cliffs. It wailed and sang, filling Kjellrunn’s senses with a deep unease. She squinted through a flurry of grey snow, finding her way through the drab town, slinking through side streets and shadows so she might avoid the patrols of Imperial soldiers.
The winding roads were almost completely dark at this time of night and she’d fled without torch or lantern to light her way. Slivers of illumination spilled from windows, ribbons of glowing gold shining from the cobbles or glittering on the snows. How many families lived in Cinderfell, she wondered? How many families lived in these shuttered cottages? How many people with nothing to consume their thoughts but the simple pressure of existence? Where to work? Where to find food, find comfort, find peace? Here they slept, these simple families, beneath thatched roofs, untroubled by old secrets and unearthly powers. Only the howling wind and the ever-present cold troubled them, and Kjellrunn felt a deep wellspring of envy.
Bjørner’s tavern was a beacon in the darkness, light streaming from windows, declaring a welcome to any who might climb the steep street leading to its door. Kjellrunn’s teeth chattered as she pushed herself onward. She had no desire to be here, but it was the only place she could think of where Steiner might seek refuge. A burst of laughter sounded from inside, though it sounded coarse and unfriendly, and the smells that greeted her were no different. She wrinkled her nose as she lifted the latch on the door, pressing her shoulder against it.
‘Everything seems coarse and unfriendly tonight,’ she muttered to herself, willing the courage to look for Steiner and find him and bring him home.
She had no sooner placed one tentative foot across the threshold of the tavern when the wind gusted in behind her, blowing the door wide open.
