A sick thought itched at Mira’s mind throughout the night, like flies drawn to rotting summer fruits: Why has no one come for me?

She lay in a ball, bundled beneath the furs, her nose growing numb from the northern air, alternating between staring at Pinkbeard’s axe (which he had left completely unattended as he snored), wondering if she had the strength to use it—indeed, if she wanted to be able to use it—and looking at the tent opening, debating whether she could run away without being seen by anyone in the town and where she would go if she did.

Why has no one come?

Of all the knights and lords in all the Isle, not one had given chase. Not one man had shown up on the Northern shore and demanded her release. Why tell stories if they are lies? It was a childish thought to have, but at that time, Mira had no true understanding of the world, and so to her, it did not seem unrealistic to expect strangers to cross the sea and save her within a matter of days.

The ache of feeling abandoned twisted within her and added to the despair she felt each time she recalled the ghoulish pale Northern faces gathered around the fire the night before and their savage dancing and yipping.

Pinkbeard, in contrast, was in high spirits when he awoke, humming a lively tune while he fed the fire before leaving briefly and returning with flattened bread and a strong-scented purple fruit Mira had never seen before. Though she was hungry, the idea of eating made her feel ill.

The Northman pushed the plate towards her, and when she did not eat, he broke the bread into bite-sized pieces as if she were a child Emery’s age before pushing the plate forward again. Mira wanted the fare even less after he had touched each piece with his filthy fingers.

The man set the back of his hand against her forehead as her mother would do to look for fever as Mira froze in fear, hating herself for how little resistance she offered the touch she so hated. He left and returned with an alternative meal: some sort of fish and a long skinny vegetable that looked wilted and horrid. Mira did not eat this either, and the man shrugged and wandered away.

She stayed all day in the tent, lying beneath the furs even when it grew warm, urging herself to get up and run into the woodlands to the east but thinking about witches and wolves each time her courage felt sturdy enough to facilitate her flight. She would then give herself a list of reasons as per why it was unwise to flee. As she listened to the Northern village folk outside, laughing, chatting and chopping wood, she reasoned that, without a doubt, someone would return her to the tent should she think to run. They may even offer up some sort of punishment for her feeble attempt at escape. When the sounds of dogs sniffing and wandering in flurried circles reached her ears, she considered that some of the beasts might be scent hounds meaning even if she made it into the woods, they would be able to follow her and catch her once she grew tired and could no longer run. If that were the case, she might get bitten by the dogs as well. As the countless wooden ornaments dangling from every post and ledge created a grim melody each time the breeze rushed past, Mira concluded that some sort of awful curse had been placed, and the moment she stepped outside, it would take effect causing some atrocious outcome that would leave her wishing she had stayed in the tent. This was the sort of thing that frequently happened in children’s tales. A child or maiden would be given a clear and easy instruction which the girl would disobey, and unforeseen consequences would bring about some gruesome demise or other.

While these lines of reasoning were not without their merits, all of them were partial truths. Mira did not attempt escape because she was afraid. She held onto a timid respect for herself by imagining sound arguments for her fear, but if none of these thoughts had occurred to her and none of the sounds that inspired them could be discerned from where she lay, she still would not have run because she was afraid.

Pinkbeard returned occasionally, bringing salted fish or strong wine or water, but Mira found it hard to eat in her despair. Mostly she cried and thought about home.

As the days wore on, Mira grew weaker from refusing to eat. Another piece of her heart was scraped away each hour that passed without rescue. Not one of her father’s knights came for her. Her father had not come. Dayne was the one who promised most fervently that he would never let anything terrible befall her, and even he did not arrive.

Pinkbeard grunted and pushed food towards her, but she could not stomach it. He spoke to her, though, of course, she did not understand. He brought things and set them before her as if a small gift would make her forget she had been stolen from her home. A comb. A carved totem of a woman. A little wooden bear. The bear struck Mira as the most peculiar of his offerings because this was the image on her family crest. When gifts did nothing to soothe her, Pinkbeard began bringing people.

First, he brought the older woman, the one with the leaking eyes whose tent Mira had slept in the first day. The woman knelt and spoke gently, presenting something to eat. Then, she examined Mira’s palm again and spoke to Pinkbeard, laughing.

He brought Cat’s eye as well. The woman carried with her Mira’s old clothing, washed and dried with Loric’s silver handkerchief folded neatly atop the pile. The woman spoke three or four words, and when Mira did not respond, she shrugged and left.

Even Speartooth was dragged into the tent. Again he did not recognize her. And again, this caused her pain. To feel so inconsequential—to have been forgotten by someone responsible for the greatest travesty in all her years—it broke her spirits into countless threads that she felt could never be woven together again.

Mira expected Pinkbeard to grow frustrated with her, but he did not seem to. There was no evidence on his broad face of bitterness or vengeful thoughts; her sorrow was met with the shrug of his shoulders and him wandering away. Each meal he brought was different from the one before, and he bothered her several times a day to drink water, jostling a skin so she could hear that there was liquid in it, pouring some out into a receptacle so she could see that it was only water, drinking from it himself, sometimes even lifting the vessel to her mouth. She refused with the pathetic fragments of her courage remaining, realizing that no one could force her to eat or drink if she kept her mouth closed. Perhaps she did have the strength to end her life after all. Maybe it was only the brutality of using blades that she was unable to cope with.

The man sang songs and tried to coax Mira out of the tent, sometimes tugging gently on her sleeve, resulting in her whole body trembling and him quickly releasing her. It reminded Mira of a time when she was younger—not yet eleven. She’d been in the courtyard with Dayne and Rowan as they kicked sticks and mentioned her dislike of mice. She often heard the critters while she lay in bed at night, creeping along the edges of the room.

The following day Rowan brought her a present; it was a tiny orange kitten, and he said when it grew up, it would chase away all the mice if Mira kept it in her chamber. She thought this the sweetest thing, and perhaps this was the moment her affections were first kindled for the boy.

At first, the kitten was terrified of her and would hide under the bed all day. Mira would go to the kitchens and bring little dishes of milk or fish scraps and leave them beside the bed, hoping to tempt the kitten to come out. If he did come, she would reach for him but feel the quick patter of his little heart and know that he was terrified and hate herself for terrorizing the creature, letting him loose once more.

Dayne tied a few feathers to a string and wiggled it just beyond the bed, cajoling the kitten out with the idea of fun. The kitten leapt into the light, swiping at the feathers, only to dart back to safety the moment he noticed that he’d strayed too far from his cave.

Eventually, Mira’s parents found out about the kitten (because Elfrith had told them) and said she must give it back. They did not want yet another critter in the castle. Mira cried but did as she was told, asking Dayne to climb beneath the bed and pull the petrified creature out. She gave it back to Rowan, and he said he would watch it for her and that she was welcome to play with it whenever she wanted. Only a few days after this, her mother told her she was not to play with the servants’ children anymore as she was growing up and needed to start comporting herself like a lady. A woman does not disagree...

Mira was not a kitten. She was a person, and so the Northman’s attempts to coax her irritated her. Though, in his defence, he did one thing of great interest in this time. He sang a song she knew: Tears of the Mander.

At first, Mira wondered if he’d managed to memorize the tune, having heard it only the one time, but then realized the words he was singing were in her language. She had not sung for him in the gallery; he must have known the song from before. Of course, he mispronounced many of the words, and it was clear he had no sense of the meaning behind them, but still, there could be no mistaking it. Mira kept a disinterested look on her face, refusing to admit that he had done anything compelling.

On the fourth day, Pinkbeard brought with him a young woman, maybe a few years older than Mira, with perfect skin and big, round eyes. He spoke to her, and she spoke to Mira.

“He says you must eat. You must eat, or you will die.”

Mira stared at the girl in awe as she offered up a bowl of soup. There was no accent. Had she been stolen, too?

The Northman spoke again. “He says if you wish to die, he will respect this and kill you, but if you wish to live, you must eat.”

Mira looked between Pinkbeard and the girl in shock. She thought back to the woman on the ship. Still, would it not be better?

“I have been with the Northmen three years now; you will find it is not so bad—much better than dying.” The girl knelt and offered Mira the bowl again.

Despite her dark thoughts, Mira did not want to die. And the soup smelled sublime; it called to her stomach painfully. She took the bowl and sipped at the steaming broth, knowing full well she was not going to be offered a spoon.

“That’s better.” The girl smiled and sat beside Mira, picking up the comb that still lay where the Northman left it. She began to tease the knots out of Mira’s hair with the utmost gentleness.

Pinkbeard said something, the girl nodded, and he left.

“What did he say?”

“He thanked me.” The girl hummed while she combed through Mira’s hair. Then, when Mira finished the soup (which happened remarkably fast as she was so hungry), the girl spoke again. “I’m Dania.”

“And your family name?”

“I don’t have one. I was the daughter of a miller in Eamsley.” The girl waited, her big round eyes burrowing into Mira with friendly eagerness. “Are you going to tell me your name?”

“Mira.”

“You were a lady back south?”

“I still am a lady.”

“Maybe to me, my lady, but the Northmen don’t have such titles. They won’t understand if you explain it to them.”

To Mira, it was a barbaric idea. How could a place be governed without titles?

When she did not comment, Dania seemed to grow uncomfortable and filled the silence with chatter. “Fell Heartsong has been speaking of you in town; he was afraid you would die on the journey here.”

“Fell Heartsong?”

“Well, Fell Sulertag, the man who brought me to you. He very much wants you to live. Many of us from the southwest die aboard the ships, from the cold.”

“Sooler-tagk.” Mira tried to mimic the sound, but it felt like pebbles in her mouth.

“Yes, my lady.” Dania chuckled. “It is the Northern way of saying heartsong, but it’s more like….” She paused, thinking about the words. “With song in heart.” She moved her hands in a sweeping arc as if reciting beautiful poetry. “I was told that as a child, he would always hum and sing as he did everything. He was never without a melody, so the Northmen gave him a second name.”

“Why did he not bring you to me sooner?” Mira felt certain the man was very stupid; here was a girl from her own country who could speak with Mira, and yet he had not thought of fetching her for days.

Dania shrugged. “I was minding the goats, up the hills. I’ve only just returned to town.” She finished combing through Mira’s hair and began to weave strands together as if she was making a basket. Many of the Northerners had weaved hair.

“Stop,” Mira commanded. “I do not want the style of the Northmen.”

“As you wish, my lady.” Dania set the comb down where she found it. “Would you like to come through town with me? I can show you what is where.”

Mira did not want to wander in town. She wanted to go home.

“At least let me bring you some veerslhung.”

“Vere-sloon-k…”

“Yes, my lady, it stops the womb from quickening.”

Mira had never heard of such a thing.

“Unless you don’t want it?” Dania raised her eyebrows, her doe-eyes growing even wider with curiosity.

“I don’t understand it.”

“It will stop you from bearing a child. Only for a time. You can change your mind later and stop taking it and have a baby if you wish.”

Still, Mira could not grasp the concept—how could something be stronger than the gods? “The gods would not give me a child in this place,” she said, doubting the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. If they were punishing her, as she suspected, they might well give her a bastard.

Dania laughed. “Your gods have very little say in such a thing. Has Fell or Sigyn given you seed?”

“Sigyn?”

“The one with the filed teeth, your captor.”

“Seed?”

The conversation that followed left Mira feeling stupid and embarrassed. She had not known children came from the union of a man and a woman. In truth, she had not known the parts of a man and woman were different. She thought the gods granted children whenever they felt like it. If one had a good child, it was to be seen as a reward, and if one had a bad or sickly child, it was to be seen as a punishment. Eventually, Dania explained the details well enough that Mira could confidently say she did not need the veerslhung.

Dania was most interested by this. “Truly? You have not lain together?”

Mira shook her head.

“But you will, I—”

“I will not!”

Dania laughed a little. “Would you not like me to show you where it is just in case? I will take it today anyways.”

The girl stood without Mira’s answer and offered her hand, a level of warmth in her burnished brown eyes Mira could not recall having ever encountered before. Of course, she knew her mother would have her wait in silent gloom for rescue, but Mira had never spent time with a girl so close to her own age, and Dania seemed sweet—indeed, more tender than maybe anyone Mira had met before.

The temptation was too great, and Mira took the girl’s hand, wrapping herself tightly in the thick cloak Cat’s eye had given her a few days before. She let Dania pull her along the narrow earthen pathways carved into the grass from the steps of many boots across years.

Dania told her which shops sold what and shared gossip about the Northerners that Mira had no context for. In truth, Mira was not fully listening to Dania’s words but to the honeyed ring of her voice. The girl’s hand was warm, and she laced her fingers into Mira’s, holding on tightly, promising some form of unspoken safety. There could be no way to explain how soothing this was, how not alone it made Mira feel. She never wanted the girl to let go.

“And along that tree line... you see there? That is where women relieve themselves; you can go in a deep as you’d like for privacy’s sake, but...” Dania stopped and moved her mouth around until she found the words she was looking for. “My lady, I know back home chamber pots are a common thing, but here they are seen as... unnecessary and um... unclean.”

Mira’s face burned with the shame of discussing something so uncouth and with the knowledge that she had indeed made use of a larger bowl in the tent where she’d been kept, which she would have to stealthily be rid of.

“My lady, there is no need to be embarrassed. I, too, made the same error upon arriving here.”

“Let us not speak of it—”

“As you wish, my lady.”

The sky was clear and blue, and the sun bright as Dania led Mira to the tent of the leaky-eyed woman. The woman greeted them with a knowing smile, and Dania was offered a broth that was thick as mud, with a strong bitter smell. The girl took hold of the wooden bowl with both hands, and Mira’s fingers felt a brisk absence. The comfort she had only just gained from Dania’s hand clasped around her own faded quickly, and she once again became wracked with woe.

“If you need it, once every three or four days will be enough,” Dania said, nodding to her bowl as she sipped. “This woman, Myret, she makes a lot of the Northerner’s medicine. But this—” Dania lifted her bowl. “This she gives for free.”

It was a strange concept to Mira. She thought of the stonemason’s wife back home and how the woman had eight children and always looked exhausted. There were probably many Islish women who would like such a tonic. Maybe when she was finally rescued, she would tell people about it.

When Dania finished the sludge, she set the tiny bowl on the floor before Myret, the medicine maker, and they spoke some to each other.

“My lady, she has asked your name, so I told her.”

Mira found this odd as she had not been able to pick out her own name in the conversation.

“Myret has been interested in speaking with you since you arrived and would like to read for you, for free, as a welcome gift.”

Mira again was confused. She would not be able to understand anything this woman read her as she did not know the Northern words.

Dania laughed. “Not how you are thinking, my lady. She would like to cast stones for you and tell you what they say.”

This was even more bewildering.

“Just sit, and I will explain.”

Mira looked first at Myret, the spooky stains on her cheeks, the sharp yellow tinge to her eyes that seemed to notice and know everything, the playful smile on her thin lips. She then looked at Dania: wide brown eyes full of invitation and goodwill. She knew her mother would have her frown and refuse any pleasantry with the barbarians who held her or a girl who had so readily accepted their ways, but this is not what Mira did.

She nodded, and Myret rolled out a cloud-coloured pelt onto the floor with a ceremonial flourish.

Mira could have sworn she heard the bone chips giggle from within their receptacle.