style="font-size:15px;"> They sat in silence for a moment and Kjellrunn began to eat.
’No singing today, Kjell,’ said Steiner. ‘There’s Imperial soldiers in town, perhaps a Vigilant too. You know how they feel about the old gods—’
‘Goddesses.’
‘Fine, goddesses.’ Steiner rolled his eyes. ‘Just keep your songs for the forest, eh? And pull a comb through that briar patch you call hair. You look like a vagrant.’
Kjellrunn showed him the back of her hand, raising four fingers to him, one each for water, fire, earth and wind. In older times it had meant good luck, but these days it insinuated something else entirely.
‘And don’t let anyone catch you flipping the four powers in the street. The soldiers will hack your fingers off to teach you a lesson.’
Kjellrunn stood up, feeling as restless as the ocean, her pique like jagged snarls of lightning.
‘Why are you so happy today, with all these soldiers here and a Vigilant too? What cause have you to be happy when you’ve a witch for a sister?’
Steiner dropped his spoon and his eyes went very wide. The fragile autumn light leeched the colour from his face.
‘Kjell …’
‘I’m sorry.’ Her voice was so low she could barely hear herself over the crackling fire in the hearth. ‘I didn’t mean it. Of course I’m not a witch.’
Steiner rubbed his forehead a moment, picked up his spoon and then put it down again, his appetite fled.
‘I was in a good mood because Kristofine and I started talking last night and, well, it was nice. I don’t know if she likes me or what I’m supposed to do, but it was …’ He floundered for the word, then shrugged. ‘Well, it was nice. And there’s precious little of that in Cinderfell.’
‘Oh,’ was all Kjellrunn could manage in the cavernous silence that followed. The kitchen suddenly felt very large.
‘Father needs me,’ said Steiner, not meeting her eyes as he stood. A moment later he was gone.
The dishes didn’t take long but sweeping the kitchen was always a chore on account of the huge table. Kjellrunn put off leaving the cottage for as long as she could but the shops would only stay open for so long. She entered the smithy with downcast eyes. She disliked the smithy more than the kitchen, all darkness and fire; the smell of ashes and sweat.
‘I need money for food,’ was all she said as Marek looked up from his work. Steiner was filing off a sickle blade, pausing only to spare her a brief glance. She imagined she saw annoyance in the set of his brow. He turned away and continued his work.
‘Business has been slow and I’ve not got the coin for meat,’ said Marek. ‘Unless it’s cheap.’
Kjellrunn nodded and noted just how few coins he’d given her.
‘Sorry,’ he said, and Kjellrunn felt his shame in the single word. Not enough money to feed his children right, that was hard to take for a man like Marek.
‘I’d best go with her,’ said Steiner quietly. ‘What with the Empire and all.’
Marek opened his mouth to object but said nothing and nodded before turning back to his work.
They had no sooner slipped through a gap in the double doors to the smithy when Kjellrunn spoke first.
‘I’m sorry about this morning. You do smile, of course you do. I’m just not myself today is all.’
Steiner put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed her close, pressing his face into her tangled hair to kiss her on the crown.
‘Of course you’re yourself today. Who else would you be?’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘You’re difficult and sullen and uncombed and lovely and my sister. That’s the only Kjell I’m ever going to know, I reckon.’
Kjellrunn smiled before she could stop herself. ‘You say I’m “difficult and sullen” when I apologize to you?’
‘What would you prefer?’ said Steiner, his arm now performing more of a headlock than a hug.
‘I’d prefer you to get off me, you great oaf. I may need to comb my hair but you need to wash.’
Brother and sister picked their way along the cobbled streets, past the winding rows of squat cottages and the few townsfolk brave enough to set foot outside.
‘Quiet today,’ said Steiner. ‘People are staying out of sight what with the soldiers here.’
‘Maybe you should go into town alone,’ replied Kjellrunn, mouth dry and a terrible feeling like seasickness rising in her gut.
‘We can’t let them push us around, Kjell. This is Nordvlast, the power of the north! Not very powerful if we can’t even buy food in our own town.’
‘It’s not the soldiers I’m scared of, it’s the Vigilants.’
‘If you’ve not got the witchsign you’ve nothing to fear,’ replied Steiner, but Kjellrunn had heard it a hundred times before. It was one of those mindless platitudes so popular with the dull and uninteresting people of Cinderfell.
Steiner slowed down and Kjellrunn felt his gaze on her, a glance from the side of his eye.
‘What you said this morning—’
‘I was angry. Of course I’m not a witch. I’m not scared of the Vigilants because I’m a witch, I’m scared of them because they’re decrepit old men. Men like that usually only have a couple of uses for a girl my age.’
Steiner winced. She knew only too well he thought of her much as he’d done when she was ten or eleven. Her body hadn’t begun to make the changes most sixteen-year-old girls took for granted; she felt frozen somehow, trapped in her girlhood.
‘Why don’t you go on in to Håkon’s and see if you can buy us some lamb neck or beef shin?’ Steiner shrugged. ‘I don’t know, something cheap.’ He pushed a few coins into her hand and pressed a finger to his lips so she wouldn’t tell Marek.
The shop was a single room, lined on three sides with dark wooden tables. Small panes of cloudy, uneven glass sat in a wooden lattice at the front, allowing dreary light to wash over the meat. Two lanterns at the rear of the store held back the gloom.
Kjellrunn told the butcher what she was after and endured the sour look she received. Håkon was a slab of a man, bald and compensating with a beard long enough to house hibernating animals. His eyes were small, overshadowed by a heavy brow that gave him a permanent frown.
Håkon named his price and Kjellrunn stopped a moment and regarded the selection of coins in her hand. The words were out of her mouth before she’d even thought to answer.
‘I’ve bought beef shin from you before and it never cost so much.’
Håkon
