It was in the early days of Summer when vibrant green and gold washed across the nearby hills, and all manner of insects flitted through the daisies and bluebells and chrysanthemums that Mira made the first true decision of her life. She decided to have a child.

Mira told no one, not Fell or even Dania, savouring her secret choice that grew more mythic in her mind’s eye with each day that passed. Myret knew, of course, seeing as Mira was no longer taking veerslhung, but she seemed inclined to keep women’s secrets, so Mira was not worried anyone would find her out.

Her next blood did not come.

She wanted to tell everyone she saw, and simultaneously, no one.

This will be my life, then. I will stay here. There was no bad feeling within her heart or her mind when she thought this.

Dania had been carrying since the full moon before Mira stopped bleeding, but you could not tell by looking at her yet. Because of this, Mira knew she had some time to be alone with her feelings about the child, about the North, and about what her life was to become before other people could sense her secret.

She still visited with Myret every few days, but instead of taking veerslhung, the woman would ask how Mira was feeling and set her hands on Mira’s stomach.

Always Mira’s answer would be the same: she was well. Myret told her she must take less wine, ideally none at all, and there were some teas she should not have, for they encouraged “wakefulness,” which apparently, babies did not like. At the time, it was not difficult for Mira to give up wine, and she was never as fond of tea as the rest of the Northerners, so this too was an easy price to pay.

She was, however, inclined to eat differently, having many helpings of the things she liked and sometimes having no desire to eat something she once loved (and on occasion wanting to eat something that was not edible like a leather tunic or soil).

“You have had this before,” Fell would say when she refused something at the hearth. “You like this.”

“Not today,” she would answer, causing Fell’s eyes to narrow in playful suspicion.

Sometimes Mira wondered if he could sense the difference in her, if he already knew the information she was withholding. Of course, she planned to tell him soon, but she also revelled in the pleasure of having such a profound secret all to herself that she wanted to hold off.

Mira felt as though she would love her child more than other mothers did, as it wasn’t just a baby, it was more than that—it was her choice to stay in the North with Fell; it was her chance to be better than her mother was. Never had she thought she would be able to decide even small things in her life, let alone big things, like where she was to live or how many children she would have or the man she would have them with.

There was a calmness in her that had never been there before: a settled, stable feeling that coursed through her veins with each pump of her heart. The serenity had nothing to do with the outside world—there were still new things every day that shocked her about the Northmen and the most irritating humming insect that bit the skin along her hairline and left itchy spots—but within herself. A whimsical harmony had been found within her mind that coated all her experiences in gold.

It was as if the child soothed her in a way she had never been soothed before. She did not know such peace could exist within a person and took long walks on briny shore alone, watching the land morph as the final remnants of spring flattened into a golden, buzzing summer.

Mira overslept by hours (sometimes by half a day or more) and had vivid dreams of swimming with grace-filled whales. She soaked in the hot pools almost daily, watching the clouds rush over her head, and played the harp for hours each night, picking the songs she especially wanted her baby to hear. What she felt was better than happiness. It was gentler and sweeter, and she had no word for it in either her mother tongue or the Northern one. Mira foolishly hoped the feeling would last forever.

As the world around her ripened into a dazzling swell of fruit and flowers and fragrant wild herbs, Mira pondered her mother, the good and the bad. Mira considered the rarity of the woman’s touch, the rarity of her approval or encouragement and the sting that came from feeling as though her mother’s love required her to be something other than what she was. The time Mira’s father took Dayne with him to handle some duty of his lordship or other, but Mira was distressed because they took their swords and wore their armour.

Mira ached for Dayne’s safe return and found herself lost in her harp lessons, unable to follow the most basic of conversations and instructions. That was one of the precious few times when her mother did not reprimand her but brushed her hair tenderly and said, “Your father will bring him back. He has never failed to keep a promise to me.”

Mira recalled the time she was given her first corset as well. Her mother was the one to tighten it, and Mira complained of the pain and the lack of air. Her mother was especially short-tempered that day.

“No one will ever want you if you can’t manage to bear it with grace.”

Mira did her best, though she was woozy and dizzy, especially when climbing the stairs. Dayne held her arm so she did not fall, but by midday, Mira fainted. Dayne yelled at their mother, calling her cruel, and their father used his belt on Dayne that night, which he did not often do, but in the lord’s eyes, yelling at one’s mother was not acceptable no matter how inhumanly the woman acted.

Mira wanted her child to feel her touch. She wanted the child to be held, to be able to speak if they felt something was wrong, to be allowed to feel sadness or anger or fear without the added difficulty of punishment. Those feelings were heard enough to bear on their own.

***

It was on one of her barefoot walks in the swelling summer heat that Mira watched the last big ship returning from raiding. Horses raced to the shore, giddy to be back with earth beneath their hooves. Lovers charged forward and pressed themselves together with fervour giving not one moment’s thought to onlookers or the foamy spray of the sea or the grainy sand that coated them when they tumbled to the ground. There was one ferocious woman who had gone raiding with the men; she wore leather trousers instead of a skirt and fur in the cut of men’s clothing and stood valiantly tall, a glinting sword at her hip. Though she was a formidable creature, the moment her adolescent son ran into her arms, she wept and kissed every part of his face several times. Children screamed and shrieked and leapt into their father’s arms with glee, and the whole beach echoed with teary laughter.

Mira remembered that she’d once been annoyed at how the Northmen laughed at everything, even painful things, like having a broken nose or accidentally cutting off one of their fingers. She liked it now. It was easy to find things to laugh at.

“Laughter makes the lungs strong,” Dania had said once.

There was a disgruntled commotion as one boat was unloaded. A new guest-slave, whose wrists were both bound, had wrestled an axe from the man rowing the boat and was swinging it wildly at the jeering Northmen. They backed away as the guest-slave swung, taunting.

“Get back!” the voice yelled in Islish.

A man’s voice.

Mira froze.

A familiar voice.

She wandered closer to the tussle.

“Rowan?”

It’s him. It is.

Rowan stopped swinging the axe and stood in shock.