Summer continued to dwindle, and autumn’s damp fingers took hold of everything. Mira thought the Northern evenings were cold before and was not at all prepared for the frigid winds that blew or how long the nights became. The world emptied, leaving only bare trees, soft light, and long shadows.

The Northmen still spent their evenings outside at the town hearth, eating and drinking and listening to the drums, though often Mira could not stay out so long as the cold burrowed inside her and nothing but Fell’s skin against hers could end her shivering.

Mira was haunted by the words of Bjinn the blacksmith. What will you do when he’s gone raiding for two, maybe three, moons? Come spring, Fell would be away for some time. Of all the solutions that Mira came up with in this year of her life, her wisest decision, by far, came as a result of Bjinn’s words. She began to weave baskets out of dried grasses and spruce roots as she had done back in Arcliff.

A woman named Erla owned a small shop in town, and she agreed to sell the baskets for half of the income they provided. Mira spent none of the coin she gained, choosing instead to hide it in the bundle of her southern clothing.

Rowan continued to see Fyrrah, but it quickly became heavy and woven with meaning that anyone who saw them together could not help but notice. They stopped running off every spare moment they could find to a tent and instead sat with their bodies entangled and their faces close, talking for hours. Fyrrah convinced Rowan to stop cutting his hair. H let it grow out like a Northman’s, and she braided it for him. She made him Northern-style clothes, and he wore them. His fingers gathered the blue-green patterns that the Northerners stained on their skin, and when Mira played the harp near the fire at night, he did not listen as intensely as he once had. He was too infatuated with the moon-coloured woman sitting in his lap.

Mira wanted to be happy for him but found this challenging. He had a beautiful love. He had the respect of many Northmen, one of whom, when Rowan presented him with his new axe, hugged the soter and shouted, “I could kiss you!”

He began to train in the field and spent many days painting the thick round shield he had been given in exchange for repairing a sword. And when it stormed, he ran outside with the others, shouting at the sky. Egging it on. Asking for more.

Mira was not jealous, nor did she desire him in the way she did Fell, but part of her wished the boy had taken longer to move towards new things. It was as Fell said with Inga—Mira’s pride was hurt.

One day, when the clean taste of winter had just begun to appear in the air, Fell returned from fishing but did not remove his furs. “I will see Myret,” he said. “She will tell me of the child.”

“No,” Mira whined. “Stay. I am too cold.” She pulled at his legs, trying to get him to climb beneath their furs and warm her.

“I know you do not normally like this, but maybe you will come? To hear also what she says?”

Mira did not fear Myret or the stones in the way she used to, but she still was not comfortable with them. “What if she says something terrible?”

Fell laughed. “If it is skael, it will happen, but sometimes the gods send us false messages to change how we act. Maybe there is something we will not do if we do not hear Myret’s words. Something that they want for us.”

Mira did not want to go, but she sensed how important it was to Fell. He wanted her to come, so she did—but not before she wrapped herself in every fur she could.

Myret laughed when they arrived. “You feel cold?”

Mira nodded, and the woman put water over the fire, tossing in leaves and herbs.

They did not begin to speak of the unborn child until Mira had been given the warming tea. The heat spread throughout her mouth and throat and then her stomach, and Mira found herself laughing. “I needed this,” she said. “More than I knew.”

“We want to hear of the child,” Fell said as Mira sipped her tea.

“You both want this?” Myret smirked and raised her eyebrows, causing Fell to laugh.

“I am warm now, so I am happy. I will listen,” Mira assured her.

Myret took down her cup and swirled the bones inside around. “I will be able to tell you more once the child is born when I know the shape of the moon and the map of the stars when the first breath is taken, but some things can be known now.”

She did not ask Fell or Mira to pull bones out one by one, as she had when Mira saw her work before. She spilled half the cup onto the white fur and slowly spread the pieces out, careful not to change the angle. The stones were shiny and still and uncharacteristically quiet as Myret worked. There were two bones stacked atop on another perfectly, their engravings pressed together. Myret lifted the top piece and looked at it before, placing it back onto the bone it landed on. Strength lying beneath pain.

Mira unfocused her eyes on purpose. She did not want to see the details as already she was displeased with the reading. There was a chaotic cluster to the left, which she took to mean something troubling in the beginning of the child’s life, a sole piece in the center, and another gathering to the right. The rightmost pile branched out in many directions, and Mira was certain by the placement that they spoke of misery. The child felt alone in the middle of it all, and she wanted to cry. When she looked up to Myret, her certainty doubled; the woman stared at the pieces in astonishment.

“I do not like this,” Mira whispered to Fell. “I will go home—”

“Why? What do you see?”

Mira shook her head, not wanting to say the words aloud. Not wanting the thoughts to feel real. “There is suffering—”

“All lives have this.” Myret’s voice was different—sharper and quieter. “But there is also great strength, see?” She pointed, but Mira refused to look.

Myret continued. “There is wonder... a great many mysteries in the child’s life. A mind that seeks and questions—” She laughed a little. “This makes for a difficult child to raise, but often this also makes for power in later life. There is an echo, the child reaching outwards and onwards, affecting many. The gods use this child to deliver many people their skael, to knock those who have wandered away onto the correct path, though I am not sure the child will see this until much later in life... As with all strong people, there is hardship, but this is one who likes doing difficult things. Much of the struggle is sought by the child...”

Mira pointed to the chaotic tangle of bones to the left, the part that bothered her the most. “This is not chosen.”

Myret looked directly into Mira’s eyes and spoke with no gentleness. “No. That time is not chosen.”

“I will go.” Mira left the tent as quickly as she could, repeating the same thoughts again and again. It is not real. It is only a trick. A game for foolish people. She wandered along the shore until she could no longer handle the wind’s sharp teeth. They were wrong about where Fell went when he was gone. They’ll be wrong about this too.

Fell found her as she was making her way back to town.

“I am sorry,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “I should—”

“I do not want to speak of it.”

“You would like to walk with me? We have not gone to the forest together in many days.”

Mira shook her head. “I am too cold. I would like to be warm again.”

Fell’s eyebrows raised, and a smile crept onto his face, and Mira felt warmer already.

She put the stones cast for their child into the chest in the back of her mind with her dead father. And her brother’s army. And Rowan’s plans that he might not still be intending on acting on. And the words of Egil’s tallest son. And the things Myret said when she looked at Mira’s hand. And all the horrible things her mother ever said. The chest was nearly full, but Mira did not know what to do with any of the things within it.

The days grew even shorter, and the cold bit into the bones. Mira’s stomach and breasts swelled. Her walks became shorter. She could no longer bear the sharp cold air as she climbed out of the hot pools, so she stopped going. Her fingers were always too frozen to play the harp well. She shivered constantly, even when she was as close to the fire as possible. Each morning, bundled up in her furs, she begged Fell not to leave for work, pleading for the warmth of his body. He could not stay every day, as he fished and hunted and trained, but some days he remained, wrapping himself around her, laughing at her, promising that next winter she would find it not so cold.