When Mira woke, she was alone in the hut. The fire was going strong, meaning someone had been in and out to keep it thriving, and the air felt thick with ashy incense and herbs. She was still cold, but not nearly as much as before, and when she looked down to her fingers, a shred of relief settled in her heart: they were not the wrong colour anymore.

There was the sound of laughter, music, and crackling fire outside. And though Mira had very little information with which to form her opinion, she decided it sounded like a celebration: gurgly chatter in the language of the north, fast-paced rhythms, and sinister giggling.

Her mind’s eye filled with images of the Northern raiders performing strange acts of terror like dancing with demons and eating raw flesh, their mouths and chins dripping with blood.

Mira was finally warm, fed, and rested enough to worry about what would come next. She had no sense of what would become of her, only horrific tales of wild northern raiders who acted more like beasts than men. Mira tried to tell herself that the stories she’d heard had already been proven false: the Northmen rode horses and did not live on their ships, but she knew one mistake in the tales did not mean that all of them were without truth.

After a long time of fretting, the older woman with bluish stains running down from her eyes returned to the hut and found Mira awake.

I should have pretended to be sleeping, Mira thought as the leaky-eyed woman led her out and through a maze of animal-skin tents and huts sculpted from branches. There were larger wooden structures too that Mira had not noticed before, but nothing of sturdy stone like back home. Every crude edifice had wooden chips dangling from their beams that twisted in the breeze and jangled together, making eerie hollow-patter sounds and making Mira feel like little malignant spirits were walking just behind her, eagerly awaiting the moment they would strike and pull her beneath the soil.

They approached a grand hearth surrounded by giant stones far too large for a single man to carry. A hush fell over the Northern folk gathered around the flame, and their cold blue eyes and brutish faces tilted towards Mira.

The older woman spoke and pointed at the Speartoothed man.

“Soten?” He scratched the back of his head in confusion.

Mira felt certain that the man could not remember her, which was infuriating. How could a man not remember the women he’d taken prisoner? The person whose life he had so drastically and terribly altered?

“Soten?” He pointed at Mira but looked to the men sitting near him. They nodded, and Speartooth began to nod with them. “Soten,” he said again with more certainty in his tone. He stumbled up and moved in Mira’s direction, though within a few paces, he set his feet wrong in his drunkenness and toppled to the grass, initiating the laughter of many.

Pinkbeard was there as well, lounging with Mira’s harp in his hands. He leapt up and set the harp on a large stone before Mira.

“Sole,” he said, pointing at the harp. “Soten, sole.”

The Northerners gathered around the fire were still watching her. Some looked interested and waited patiently, the red flickers thrown from the flam onto their broad faces making them seem like evil creatures. There was a handful, however, who seemed irritated by Mira—in particular, three women with crossed arms and expressions that revealed they hoped Mira’s music would be terrible. Her fingers were cold—a little too cold to play comfortably—but she took the harp gingerly in her hands and sat down on a large rock near the fire. It was hard to think of a song to play as she had no idea what would happen if they did not like her music. She wondered if she was to play a tune before they murdered her and ate her while her blood was still hot; if that was the case, she should choose a lengthy song so that she could live for more time.

Mira took so long deciding how to begin that people began to speak to one another. Pinkbeard made a deep whispery noise as he snapped his fingers so as to quiet the few people who were still chatting. A drunken man, the one with the red forked beard, was too deep in his cups to notice anything outside of the conversation he was having.

Speartooth raised his voice. When he still was not heard, he threw a pebble at the fork-bearded man. The man jerked his head in the direction the stone came from with a growl, rage tinting his face purple. His anger was so visible and potent that Mira was afraid the man would leap up and slaughter everyone in sight.

No one else seemed worried. Pinkbeard gestured to Mira and made the silencing sound once more, with a big smirk and some jugular words that caused many to laugh. None laughed as hard as the fork-bearded man. When his guffaw finished, everyone looked at Mira expectantly.

Pinkbeard sat forward in his seat and looked at her, nodding a little. “Sole.”

Mira obeyed, keeping her gaze on the strings, unable to bear all the eyes upon her and afraid to find looks of disapproval. Just before the song was to end, a young child—even younger than Emery—stumbled up to Mira and touched the strings of the harp. A woman, presumably the boy’s mother, stood up, seeming fearful of her child getting too close to the foreign woman.

Speartooth spoke, and the woman settled back into her seat, her fierce eyes threatening Mira with grave violence should harm come to the little boy. The child giggled, and Mira stopped playing so he could hear the sounds he was making. He ran his pudgy fingers all along the strings in joyous awe, shrieks and half-words stirring together in the back of this throat.

Mira understood the woman’s reaction. If a Northern woman came to Arcliff, no mother would let their child near her. Mira would not harm the boy, but her captor couldn’t know that. Why had he seemed so confident the child would be fine?

After a few moments, Speartooth grunted and ordered the child away, and Mira continued to play.

As the sun began to sink below the verdant mountains gone violet in the late afternoon light, the Northerners drank more, and by nightfall, many were a drunken mess. Two men took to playing the drums, and Mira read this as a sign it was acceptable to put the harp down and warm her frozen fingers by the fire. The moment her harp was settled on a nearby rock, it was picked up by a Northern woman who turned the item around in her hands before passing it to someone else. The instrument made its way around the hearth and, similar to when Pinkbeard first examined it, many bit into the wood. Mira did not want the filthy hands of these vulgar creatures or their saliva or bite marks on her prized harp, but she had nowhere near enough courage to attempt to make her desires known. Finally, the instrument ended up in Pinkbeard’s hands, and Mira decided this was a safe place for it to be, for the man at least seemed to have reverence for the tool: he held it delicately and with enough respect that Mira felt he was unlikely to break it.

The night was far colder than the day had been, and quickly Mira found herself pulling her knees tightly into her chest. Each time she exhaled, a ghostly white mist floated out of her mouth. She did not understand this, but it enchanted her, and she pushed more air out of her lungs, watching the fog spiral and flow like smoke rising off of a fire.

Speartooth laughed when he witnessed her awe. He came and sat next to her, blowing thick tufts of white from his mouth, giggling like a child. Mira could not explain it, but there was something off about the man, something that had not been off before the lightning struck him. His pointy filed teeth were still disgusting, and he smelled of wine, but she was less afraid of him than she’d been before.

At one point, Pinkbeard joined them. He set Mira’s corset in her hands and gestured to the roaring fire with a grunt. She didn’t understand at first, but eventually, it became clear he was telling her to burn it. Horrified, she shook her head, instantly regretting her disobedience as the wailing farmer’s wife flooded into her mind’s eye. To her relief, he did not insist; he shrugged and laughed, and the corset lived to see another day.

The Northern music kept a fast, wild rhythm, and people growled or shouted in meter with the song. When the men sang, their voices lowered, the sound coming out of their chests and throats instead of their mouths. Mira could not understand what they did differently to make the deep rumbling noises, but feeling the reverberation in her chest was horrifying as she could not be certain the curious singing wasn’t actually a cunning way of casting a spell.

The Northerners danced in a chaotic way, throwing their arms and chests around violently; they made faces like feral beasts, which sped Mira’s heart. She had not seen such wild movements performed by men ever in her life and could no longer keep her feeling buried deep within her as her mother would have wanted. Her circumstances, which until that moment she’d kept far from her heart, crashed into her like one of the great waves in the seastorm. She was in a vile, foreign place full of savages and might never see home again. Dreading that terrible things were in store for her, she began to cry.

She tried to keep quiet so as not to suffer the way the farmer’s wife did, but one of the women around the hearth saw and spoke, pointing. Speartooth tilted his head so as to see her better and laughed a little, speaking the way Mira’s mother did when baby Dinah was upset over something trivial. Mira wanted to shout at him. Her pain was not the frivolous fretting of an infant; she had been taken prisoner and forced against her will to come to a new and frightening land. Why had he brought her here? Was she to be put to work as a slave? Sacrificed in one of the godless rituals she heard Northerners performed? Would someone eat her body when she was dead?

Speartooth finished the last of his drink and stood with difficulty. He motioned for her to follow him, and Mira’s heart stopped. Should she run? Which way would she go? She could see a thick line of black trees in the distance, but surely the woods were filled with witches and bandits and wolves like back home. The leaky-eyed woman shook her head and spoke—though her voice was quiet, it carried great power, and everyone seemed to take notice of her words. Speartooth seemed very confused, a frown settling on his brow. As he pondered, his body tilted to one side and eventually, he tilted so far that his balance was lost, and he fell again to the grass.

Pinkbeard spoke. The leaky-eyed woman shook her head the entire time words were coming out of his mouth, and he laughed. He then spoke to Cat’s eye and, again, he was refused. Wolf-head’s hand went up, and it became clear to Mira the group was having some sort of debate. They spoke about her often; she could tell by how their eyes flicked to where she sat.

In the end, Pinkbeard laughed and shrugged and motioned for Mira to follow him. Her fear kept her still and breathless. He waved her to him again. “Soten, koffe.”

When Mira didn’t obey, he took hold of her elbow and gently tugged, guiding her to a simple tent that smelled of leather and ashes. There was a pile of furs bundled up along one wall, a shield, and a stack of wood inside—nothing more. He knelt to build up the hearth in the center of the room, humming a lighthearted tune. Mira’s ears could not hear it; she was breathing too quickly to get enough air. Under no circumstances was she allowed to be in the room of a man who was not her husband. Mira was certain the gods were watching.

No. Please. What do I do?

A fit was oncoming; she knew it. She knew she should kill herself as a sanctuary maid would, but she had no weapon. And she did not want to die. Would the gods forgive her weakness? Or would she go to the nameless place after her death, where demons would cut out her eyes and tongue?

Mira fell to her knees and prayed for mercy. Surely she had done something to offend the gods. She was not always obedient; she sometimes spoke out of turn or overreacted, and she did not pray every day as she was supposed to. She sometimes thought too much about her dreams. Please, she begged them. Being brought here is punishment enough. I will be nothing but dutiful to you for the rest of my days. Let no more terrible things befall me.

When Mira opened her eyes, the fit did not come. The fire was roaring, and Pinkbeard was lying down to sleep upon rich fawn-coloured furs; more furs had been laid out upon the floor a little aways from him. The man’s eyes were closed.

It is a trick, she decided.

Mira stayed still and silent for a long time, watching and listening as her heart slammed into her ribs. The man’s chest rose and fell, and, quickly, his breathing became that of a sleeping man, a faint hint of a snore mixed in.

When he had been sleeping for some time and the cold night air found its way into her bones, Mira crept soundlessly to the empty furs. She pulled them as far from the sleeping man as possible and wrapped herself in their warmth, determined to stay upright and awake.

Having slept for most of the day in the leaky-eyed woman’s tent and being terrified that the moment she fell asleep, the giant would waken and eat her, Mira found it was not so hard to keep herself awake. Instead of sleeping, she wept. Silently, of course, she did not want to wake the colossal beast across from her.

Why is this the way my life is unfolding? Is this my punishment for being afraid of marrying Loric? For thinking of running away?

A new fear occurred to Mira then, sickly and sour and hurtful. Even if she were to somehow make it home, would Loric still have her? Likely not. Mira had spent far too long in the company of men without a chaperone; this was the sort of thing that people gossiped about, the sort of thing that ladies from even lesser clans did not recover from. She almost certainly would not be wed now, or if she was, it would be to a lesser knight without a lordship or to one of the leaders of the Brynne clans from the North of the Isle who were said to be dangerous and dirty and covered with many catching sicknesses; they were said to speak so poorly that they could not be understood.

She felt silly for being afraid of Loric, of moving away with him to his own castle. What was any of that in comparison to her current situation? Sorrow overwhelmed her as she thought of never seeing her family again. She missed Dayne. And Rowan, of course. Had they survived the attack? For all she knew, they could all be dead—even Loric.