The bones grew giddier within their vessel while Myret crushed up dried leaves and packed them into her flute, breathing in the smoke and letting it twist slowly out of her nose in two wispy strands. The medicine maker then offered the flute to Dania, and the girl refused. Finally, she presented the flute to Mira.

“I think you should wait some before you try it, my lady,” Dania said. “You may become afraid.”

When Mira didn’t take the flute, Myret set the tool aside.

With a perceptive smile, Myret brought out the little bone chips, shaking them within their receptacle before offering the thin pitcher to Mira. When Mira peered inside, it seemed like the shiny pieces were moving, just the slightest bit—pulsing or buzzing like eager children—like they were saying: Pick me! Pick me!

“She says to reach in without looking and take one.”

Mira did as she was asked, letting her fingers swirl around amongst the dry, polished pebbles until one called to her fingertips. The piece she pulled was cold and so smooth that Mira could not help but rub it between her fingers—even the engraving was sleek, filled with some blue ink or wax, maybe.

“She says to place it on the fur.”

Mira went to obey, but a question occurred to her. “Which way is it supposed to face?”

Dania translated, and the leaky-eyed medicine woman could not get her words out as she was cackling so much. This bothered Mira; she felt as though the woman were jesting at her expense; her question had not been stupid, nor was it worthy of so much laughter.

“She says you are cheating. Place it how you like.”

Mira did this, beginning to understand that it was a game of sorts they were playing. She had not been allowed to play games since she was little but had always enjoyed winning and greatly looked forward to the brief respite from her sufferings the sport would make.

“She wonders if you have done this before.”

Mira shook her head.

“She asks you to take another.”

Mira did but hesitated again, unsure if the pieces were meant to be touching when she lay the second one down or if they should be placed in a line. “Is there a rule as to how I am to place the second? Should they connect?”

Myret laughed again, though she seemed to sense this annoyed Mira because she quickly calmed herself.

“She says there is no such rule; she laughs because you have surprised her with your questions. She finds you clever and thinks you have the right mind for reading.”

Mira stopped asking questions and placed piece after piece. It was unlike any other game she’d played before, mostly because she had no sense of the rules or whether or not she was winning. There was one moment when Mira went to set a piece down, and she could have sworn the little bone fragment wanted her to stop. There wasn’t a voice so much as a feeling… a knowing.

I don’t go there, silly! That’s what the bone chip felt like in her fingers.

Mira froze and looked up at Myret, wondering if the woman had noticed the liveliness of the piece. Myret’s amused smile widened, but she gave no indication that she had heard the bone’s message.

Mira moved the piece around until it no longer seemed bothered by its placement.

Ah. Yes. Here is good.

“Myret asks if you have had any kind of training in your life.”

“I have taken harp lessons,” Mira said. “And also I was taught to weave baskets.”

The translation took Dania some time as it seemed there was no Northern word for harp; the girl gestured as if she were playing one until Myret nodded in understanding. “She asks if there are things you are much better at than others, like determining people’s feelings or knowing when someone is lying—”

Mira shook her head.

“She asks if there have been bears in your life.”

Unease flittered around in Mira’s stomach—she did not think Myret should have been able to ask such a specific question. Perhaps her captor or one of the other men had spoken of the bears on the flags and banners back home. “The image of my family is a bear.”

Myret must have asked a few additional questions because she and Dania spoke in the Northern words for some time after this was said.

“She asked me what bears mean in our home country. I told her I didn’t know; they are seen as fierce and to be avoided when possible. She asks what bears mean to you.”

Mira had never considered giving meaning to a creature beyond what it was or what it could be used for. “They are big?”

“She says while Fell was gone, she dreamt of him and a bear in a cage. And here, she sees bears again. She says that bears are seen as strong in the North, that they are good mothers. They are protective.”

Mira felt further discomfort as the interpretation of dreams was a grievous sin in her homeland; indeed, she had grown so used to ignoring her dreams that she could not often recall them. All the same, she asked the question that came to mind. “Does she think I was the bear he put in the cage?”

Myret laughed so much her whole body shook, and she curled forward, her forehead nearly touching the furlined floor.

“She says you have made a false assumption. Fell was not putting the bear in a cage; he was setting it free.”

I am not the bear then, Mira thought.

“She asks about what you were wearing when you arrived. She wonders if you were being punished for a crime.”

Mira shook her head. “She is maybe speaking of my corset? It is what all ladies wear.”

Dania uttered chopped-up Northern words for some time, leaving Myret looking more and more confused as the conversation unfolded. Eventually, the two of them laughed.

“She asks if I also wore this, and I told her no. It is only highborn women. I tried, but I could not explain lords and ladies to her, so we have given up. She asks you to look at the first piece you placed. She wonders what you think it means.”

Mira looked at the sleek, buoyant bone chip; it meant nothing to her. There was a diamond carved into it, but it was crossed out by another line. When she looked back up to Myret and Dania, they were watching her with such intense attention that Mira felt uncomfortable. She made up an answer in hopes of altering the feeling of the moment. “It is... not getting the things you want.” The diamond could be the desired thing, and the line through it meant it was not to happen.

Myret’s smile, which had been upon her face since the girls arrived, disappeared. Her gleaming hawk eyes fixed on Mira: shiny and potent and penetrating.

“She is most interested by your answer. She wonders what you think the second piece means.”

“It was only a guess; I would like to know what she thinks.”

“She says this is not how it should work for someone from so far away the first time. You see one thing, and it is true from your eyes, but she will see another. It will be true to her but maybe false to you. So you must teach her to see as you do.”

“Still,” Mira said. “I would like to know.”

“She says it is connected to the other pieces. When she looks at them, she sees that you will have many men in your life, more than any woman she has read for—”

Mira’s ears burned in offence. She would not be with many men; she would be with one, as was proper. (And, in truth, now that she knew fully what that entailed, she was not even sure she wanted the singular man). She also began to see that the game was not truly a game. It was divination.

“She is a witch!” Mira stood up and backed away from Myret, her fingers trembling, a stack of vessels behind her clattering to the floor.

Witchcraft was another way to guarantee one went below the ground to the demons.

“She is not, my lady; she is a healer. Not just of the body, like healers back home, but she heals the heart and the mind—”

Mira could not leave fast enough, pushing through the tent folds and tripping over her own feet until she could taste the crisp outdoor air. She had been misled and had begun to read the witch’s stones. Was she doomed already? Or would the gods forgive her folly because she had not known what she was doing?

“My lady,” Dania spoke as she caught up. “My lady, I am sorry. I did not mean to upset you. I swear it. She is no witch, though... if she lived on the Isle, people might think this of her.”

When Mira was thirteen, her handmaiden took her to see the burning of a witch. Mira knew the witch was evil, but still, she ached with empathy as the woman cried and begged for mercy. When the screaming began, Mira fled into the woods and was only found hours later by one of her father’s men—he’d sent out a search party to find her.

Mira’s mother did not so much mind the lesson; she was more angered by Mira’s running away. “There are thieves and witches in the woods,” her mother said.

Mira’s father, however, did mind the lesson. The next day Orlaith was there, and Mira’s old handmaiden was gone. Dayne repeatedly asked Mira about what she saw, but all she could tell him was that it had been horrible. For many nights, she dreamt of being burnt at the stake and from that day onwards, she was especially quiet and obedient. Of all things that frightened her, being burnt alive while people watched her flail in agony was the most hideous.

Mira could not speak. The world grew vivid, and the air doubled in weight, making it hard to breathe or stand. She felt certain she would be torn apart for all of eternity in the dark, nameless place below. The gods would not forget that she had read the witch’s stones. Her countrymen would come to her rescue, and somehow they would know she had become a witch. They would burn her for it. The fit brought her to the dirt, her hands and knees digging into the damp earth as she gasped.

“My lady?” Dania knelt by her side and ran her hands along Mira’s back. “My lady, what is it? What is happening? Can you breathe?”

The space behind Mira’s eyes burned. Her tears blurred the world, and a torrid dizziness lifted and lowered the ground as if all the earth was floating upon the sea.

Dayne.

Dayne would not let them burn her, nor would her father.

The fit did pass. Mira’s breath became of right pacing, and her voice came back. Dania wanted to bring her water or take her back to the witch, but Mira refused.

“Can we go to the shore?” Mira wanted clean, fresh air. The Northern town smelled of blood and sweat and goats and many other awful things Mira could not identify all stirred together.

Dania nodded and led her along an earthen pathway through tall dead grasses, and they sat on the speckled beach together, cold but calm.

“You will get used to the cold,” Dania said.

Mira did not know if she believed the girl; Dania shivered just the same as she did.

The girl explained many things to Mira that afternoon, starting with Mira’s new place in the world. “Soten is... there is not a word for it back home, but it is something between a guest and a slave. No foreigner can become Northern without spending a few years in this role.”

Dania explained that Mira, by law, belonged to Sigyn Speartooth. He could do whatever he liked with her, and that no one else could harm her except with Sigyn’s approval.

“But there is talk of having someone else mind you,” she said. “Because Sigyn... he will have a hard year.”

Dania also explained that likely Sigyn—or whoever ended up minding Mira—would give her work at some point, and it would be best if she did it. Most guest-slaves worked in some capacity as servants.

“What sort of work? What if I don’t know how to do it?”

“Probably washing clothes or repairing nets or something like this. Someone will show you how.”

Mira could not accept it; she was the daughter of a great lord; she could not spend her days serving a filthy animal.

Hot tears pressed against the back of her eyes as Dania tried to console her. “But you mustn’t worry, my lady; Sigyn is kind-hearted. I don’t expect he’ll ask anything terrible of you. And also, I think many of the men are cautious of you because of the lightning. Perhaps he will be as well—”

“You have heard of this?”

“Everyone in town has heard of this, my lady. It is quite a tale.”

Mira could not hold back her tears any longer.

“Do not fret, my lady,” Dania said, taking Mira’s hands in her own and pressing it to her chest. “I, too, was in this position when I first came North, but the work here is easy and takes only a few hours each day. Back home, I worked from sunrise to sunset with no time for rest.”

Mira found no comfort in these words, but the longer Dania held her hands, the easier it was to slow her breathing and keep her eyes dry.

The sun began to settle lower in the sky, tinting the sparse clouds pink, and Dania stood. “Let us go back before the air grows too cold. There will be a fire and ale and fresh meat in town.”

Mira did not want to go, but she followed anyway, mostly because Dania again offered her hand, and Mira wanted to be held. She wanted her fear and confusion dulled by warm kindness.

“Soten!” Fell called to Mira the moment they arrived at the hearth.

“Mira,” Dania corrected.

“Me-rah, Merah,” Fell repeated, frowning as he tried to make the foreign sounds with his mouth. He pointed to himself. “Fell.”

He and Dania chatted as the man poured them all strong wine. Mira had never seen a man serve a woman before and found that she quite enjoyed the sight. She meant to drink her wine slowly, but it was so full of heat that she could not help but finish it quickly. Fell laughed at this in a goodhearted way and poured her more.

Dania and Fell spoke and laughed, and sometimes Dania would let Mira know what they were speaking about. “He has asked about our day. I told him we went to see Myret and that you did not like this. I explained to him about witches from back home. They do not have them in the North. He found this funny but also he is sad, as she is his closest friend, and he does not like the idea of her being poorly thought of.”

Sigyn Speartooth stumbled over to where they sat. His face was swollen, and a sickly purple colour and the spaces around his eyes were black as night. Despite how sore he looked, the man appeared to be in good spirits. He laughed and gargled up words with Fell and Dania. Likely his ease came from his drunkenness, for he was extraordinarily drunk.

At a point, Dania looked to Mira in shock. “They say you were a prisoner back home?”

Mira shook her head, having no idea how the men could have come to that conclusion.

“Fell says you were kept in a tower, like in a fairytale.”

Mira shook her head again.

“He says the door was blocked from the outside.”

Mira was taken aback. Fell’s thoughts were sensical, but still, it was challenging to consider him as potentially chivalrous and not barbaric, as she’d already set her mind on hating him. And he’d stolen her harp, and though she had not expressed her disdain for him over this, it was something she had not forgotten and was very much sore over.

For the first time, Mira looked at the man truly, not as someone who had invaded her home and stolen from her, as a man like any other—the sharp angle of his cheeks, the pale clarity of his eyes, the flatness of his brow, furrowed in confusion.

“My brother locked it when the Northmen attacked. To keep me safe.”

When Fell heard the translation, he laughed. He laughed long and hard, beginning to speak many times but being unable to complete his phrase because the deep, hearty convulsions took hold of him again. Speartooth seemed baffled, his eyebrows held high on his face in non-understanding. Dania spoke more, and soon he was also laughing.

It was Speartooth who managed to combat the joyous fit and respond first.

“He says they have dropped their shields.”

Mira’s face must have betrayed her bewilderment because Dania chuckled and elaborated. “It means they have made a grave mistake, my lady. Fell says this is not the first time he has been so wrong about something, but usually, it is he who suffers for his errors, not someone else.”

Their lightness kindled such a rage within Mira she worried she was to be sick, and if she’d had anything in her hands, she most certainly would have thrown it at them. Within an instant, the fervour was quelled.

Speartooth spoke up. “He says he will return you if this is what you wish.”

Fell shook his head and spoke firmly. “He says he will take you because Sigyn is… not himself. Next year, when the ships go to raid again, he will bring you back.”

“Why not now?” Mira’s voice was full of demand.

“He says he does not have the coin to pay for your passage, but even if he did, ships do not go to your country for trade. You will have to wait until the raiding season comes again. You should also prepare yourself as it may not be the same town you go to, as the captain is the one who decides where the ship will moor, not him.”

The men’s laughter picked up again.

“Sigyn says: if only he had stolen something gold instead of setting you free, he could afford the journey. But Fell says, if he had, he would not be in need of it. Sigyn will be without wealth for a year because of Egil’s trickery.”

Dania also found the situation comical; she giggled along with Fell and Sigyn and took more wine, laughing all the harder when Mira’s sour expression did not fade. “You must admit, my lady, it is funny. It is such a... large mistake, so very monstrously grand, but it has come from such a pure idea.”

Fell appeared to grow aware of Mira’s misery, for he cleared his throat and struggled with himself, managing to force his smile away from his mouth. “Sole?” he said.

“He would like you to play a song for us.”

Mira did not want to obey the oaf, but she knew that playing would lift some of the anger that surged within her. Dania led her back to Fell’s tent, again with interlaced fingers, swinging her arms as they walked, giggling several times with a playful expression that indicated she still thought of Sigyn and Fell’s grievous error.

Despite the irritating snickers, Mira was grateful for Dania’s company. She was not sure she could find her way through the maze of tents alone, especially because all of them looked so similar, and she was frightened of wandering alone in the dark. Again she was soothed by human contact, by the warmth and steadiness of Dania’s grasp.

Mira fetched the harp and returned to the hearth, meaning to take a seat on a smooth flat stone where she could feel the fire’s heat in full, but before she could, Dania linked their arms together and whispered. “They speak of you, my lady. The townsfolk discuss what to do with you should Sigyn’s mind not return.”