Mira was excited and nervous, but mostly, she was tired.

“I want to try to sleep a little longer,” she told Fell when they made it back to the tent. He helped her lay down and tucked thick furs around her, running his fingers through her hair and kissing the top of her head until she drifted back into a dreamy rest.

Mira woke suddenly from discomfort several times, but the feeling was gentle, and she had no trouble falling back asleep. Each time she woke, Fell was there, vigilant and watching with a small reassuring smile. She had no idea for how long this lasted, but finally, she was woken by a stronger sensation, one that caused her to bend in an attempt to escape it, and she knew sleep was over with.

They lay together for some time, listening to the wind raging outside. When Fell stepped out to fetch the water she asked for, a stream of white blew in through the entrance. He returned with the water, his beard and eyebrows thick with snow.

“I want to walk,” Mira said. She felt warm, and the skin between her limbs was sticking together, and the little glimpse of cold that blew in when Fell returned had led her to believe a walk in the fresh, bitter air would aid her somehow. Fell helped her to her feet and wrapped her up in more furs, and kept his hands on her as they stepped out into the dizzying whirl of white ribbons.

It was near daybreak, but the sun could not be seen rising as the clouds were too thick. The whole world looked grey and white, and the snow came so quickly that it blocked the sight of anything further ahead than ten paces. The fresh air was, indeed, a relief to Mira, and she took down her hood to feel the cold wet on her scalp and forehead, imagining the wind was lifting her stomach a little, easing the weight of the child on her hips.

They took slow steps, stopping when the pain returned and then carrying on. At first, Mira apologized each time she tensed and froze, unable to do anything but experience the sting in her womb, but Fell laughed quietly and told her she did not need to be sorry in the softest of whispers. It was then that Mira realized how quiet he’d been, how little he’d spoken. She did not know why, but she found this funny.

“Why do you laugh?”

“You are so quiet!” she teased. “I have never heard you make so little sound. Even your steps are silent.”

Mira knew that Northmen did not like to be thought of as afraid, so she did not say her full thought. She knew Fell’s quiet came from nervousness, but she was not disgusted as other Northerners might have been. She thought it sweet. Mira had never seen the man when he was fearful and liked meeting this other side of him.

Soon the cold began to creep into Mira’s skin. “I want to go back inside.”

As they made their way home again, the pain surprised her, and Mira made the smallest of noises. She’d felt pain often when she lived in her home country—from her corset or kneeling at Eirren’s altar, from the leeches and the stinging nettle—but for many moons, she’d felt mostly pleasure. It was hard to go back to it. The futility of it. The impossibility of escaping it.

Orvir popped his head out of his tent, squinting as his eyes fought to stay closed. “Things are good?” he said, rubbing his face.

Fell nodded and smiled, but as an afterthought, he asked the man to fetch Myret. The man laughed and spoke what seemed like an encouraging phrase in the old language before doing as he was bid.

Fell eased Mira back to the tent and removed her wet outer layer, putting fresh dry furs around her shoulders and rubbing a rag through her damp hair to absorb some of the water. Myret found them inside with a warm, playful smile. She felt along Mira’s belly, locating the child quickly and feeling around its head.

“All is well,” she said. “The child is in a good place. It will come before tomorrow, I think.”

She asked a few questions, and Fell answered all that he could. Myret wanted to know when Mira had first felt the discomfort and how often it came.

Mira found it curious that Myret never once used the word pain and could not help but laugh. “You can name it as it is,” Mira said, feeling very Northern. “It is pain I feel, not discomfort.”

Myret smiled, but still, she did not use the word. She wiped Mira’s face with a damp cloth and massaged her back. And as the twinge intensified into a pang into agony, Mira lost all sense of the past and future. She forgot how things were connected. There was only the moment she was in. The wash of pain and then relief. Pain again. Relief again. No space for other thoughts.

By evening, Mira was exhausted, and the torment became strong enough that she had tears in her eyes and could no longer keep silent. Even though it did not last long when it came, the sting made her impatient and easily angered.

At one point, Fell asked Myret how much longer she thought it would be. Myret did not answer, but her eyes said it would still take some time. Mira had harsh words for him filled with half a dozen vulgar curses, even though it was Myret’s expression that truly upset her.

Fell laughed softly and then said, in a hushed voice, “I will go back to being quiet.”

In the moments of rest, when her muscles could be still and calm, and her breath came easily, Mira listened to the howl of the wind outside. A vehement whistling rush that sounded nothing like a usual breeze; it was mighty and enraged. Even the snow, which was weightless, made sound because it was slammed into the tent with such force. There was great comfort in this, and many times Mira found herself thinking, Hyrold is watching. He is here with me.

The gods of her childhood had left her to suffer alone, but Hyrold had come. Thank you, she prayed. Thank you.

During one moment of relief, when the wind was particularly deafening, and the previous pain had been overwhelming, Mira remembered all the women she heard of who died in childbirth. Her cousin Aellwyn. Her mother’s sister Bayleith. Fell’s woman before her. She did not want to die, and despair threatened to grip her, but she could hear the howl of the wind outside and sent her thoughts to Hyrold. Help me.

Like the day in Myret’s tent when the breeze teased her and Mira stopped taking the veerslhung and like the day she climbed to meet Vaneurim and the wind agreed with her thoughts, the wind responded: Come, it said.

What?

Be brave. Come to me.

Mira did not need the wind to explain its meaning. She recalled Dania’s birth story. “The sea...” she whispered. “We must go to the sea.”

Fell’s voice was nearly inaudible. “I do not understand.”

“We must go to the sea.”

He shook his head. “I do not understand.”

Myret left. Did she understand me?

The pain came again, and Mira cried, her legs shaking from the internal strain as Fell pulled damp hair out of her face and mouth. When the agony passed, there was someone else in the room.

Myret had fetched Rowan. He must have come quickly as he did not even have his furs on; his thick brows were white with snow. Mira could tell he was frightened by her appearance, but he sat down beside her and spoke softly, taking her hand in his.

“Do you need anything, my lady?”

At first, Mira could not recall what was happening before the last pain came, but within a moment, her mind settled, and she remembered. “The sea… we have to go to the sea.”

“My lady, there is a terrible storm.”

Mira tried to make her voice sound firm but failed. Her tears and tiredness mingled together, making her voice quiet and uneven and tinged with tears. “We have to.”

Her pain came again, and she cried again, her body tensing, her back aching. When the suffering passed. Rowan told Fell and Myret what Mira had said.

“She wants to go to the sea.”

The words. Upon hearing Rowan’s translation, Mira realized she had been speaking in the language of the Isle.

Fell shook his head. “The storm is too great.”

“I told her this.”

“The sea,” Mira spoke with all the firmness she could muster, which was nearly none. She sat up with difficulty, and the pain came again. Fell supported her back as she cried out, pressing his face into the back of her hair, his hands tangled into hers as her knuckles grew white with strain.

When it passed, Fell whispered almost inaudibly. “There is a great storm. The sea will be rough. It will be too cold for you.”

Mira shook her head. “It does not matter. Hyrold has asked me to go.”

Fell’s brow furrowed with care and confusion, his watery eyes revealing to Mira that he was fighting with himself.

“He is waiting.” Mira tried to smile to ease him, but she did not manage it.

Myret laughed, deep and beautiful, her vibrant voice ringing through the tent and mixing with the sound of Hyrold’s rage outside. She turned to Rowan and ordered him to find a man named Fynt at the docks. “He will know what to do, help him and then return to tell us it is done.”

She left to gather her own supplies with a promise to return quickly, leaving Mira and Fell alone.

Fell shook his head and tensed his jaw and looked tragically miserable, fear pleading with Mira from within his eyes. Mira took his face in her hands and gave his own words back to him. “Hyrold is watching,” she whispered. “Show him how strong you are.”

Fell was not expecting these words from her, and his stare grew intense. He nodded his head slowly and backed away from her, taking a big swig of strong wine. He began rummaging around, gathering the little furs Mira and Dania had stitched together and other supplies into a large sack.

Rowan returned in the middle of her next pain, and the two sat with her until Myret arrived, and the group made their way out into the storm, stopping whenever Mira needed them to, Fell keeping her from sinking into the knee-deep snow whenever she curled in on herself in anguish. They did not walk towards the shore to the west but towards the north, and Mira was confused. She tried to speak over the icy howl of the wind but was not heard.

It made sense only after they arrived at the gaping mouth of a vast, dark cave. Black sea littered with chips of white ice flowed into the open mouth, quenching the thirst of the giant. To the right side, a narrow wooden pathway was set on stilts above the water, weaving into the cave. The wood squeaked beneath their boots as they moved out of the blinding white chaos into the dim solitude of the cave.

Mira expected a hush, as the wind could not whip against their ears when inside, but it was not silent within. There was an echo of the rumbling tempest, so deep and thundering that Mira could feel the sound in her chest. The Northern ships were huddled together inside, waiting out the long winter together.

Fynt was there waiting to take them aboard. He’d lit braziers on one of the ships, and the light flickered and refracted off the cave walls in a torrid, hypnotizing dance. Later on, Mira would wonder whether it was the same ship that had brought her to the North many moons before, but in the moment, her mind was not so level or curious.

Fell held her steady as she stepped on board. Despite the violence of the storm outside, the large ship rocked gently and slowly, and the motion brought Mira profound relief. She could rest. She was at sea as she was asked.

Are you pleased? she said in her thoughts.

The wind roared. Yes.

When everyone was aboard, they moved to the cabin, a simple room with a bed and some maps and a large brazier filled with glowing coals. Whatever Fynt had done to prepare was done well; it was nearly too warm inside for Mira’s liking, and she thought about asking to have the door kept open, only the agony returned. She knelt on the floor with her head upon the soft straw mattress, soothed by the movement of the ship beneath her knees, wondering whether the water knew she was suffering and so moved to ease her as the cycle of pain and relief carried on. Myret gave her a leather strap to bite on, and her jaw, which was sore from being so tense, felt much better. It was not long before the time for birth came.

Mira did not think. She only felt. Her body did what it had to do, and she did her best to bear it. She felt the child move lower within her. She felt the strength of the wind and the storm and the sea. She felt the thundering voice of Hyrold promising her that all would be well. You have listened to me, it reminded her. I will stay with you.

Myret took one of Mira’s hands and set it between her legs, moving her fingers for her, allowing her to feel the fuzzy head. Mira’s mind came back in a flash, and she used her muscles inside to push it out, holding first the head, then the little shoulders. Myret’s hands were there too, making sure Mira did not lose grip of the child.

And then.

The most beautiful sound ever to touch her ears.

A cry.

Within moments Myret had moved the child up and into Mira’s dress for warmth, its naked, slippery body pressed against her bare chest. Myret wrapped so many furs around them that they must have looked like a hill of fur with Mira’s head on top.

The child screeched. And Mira cried. And laughed. And cried more.

Perfection.

A deep love for all the world, for each and every thing that led to her meeting the child. Life made more sense to her at that moment than it ever had before. Than it ever would again.

The remainder of the birth came quickly, and as Myret tied the child’s rope and cut it, Mira saw between its legs. His legs.

“A boy!” she cried as Myret left to toss the afterbirth overboard.

“A son?”

Mira had not looked away from the child since she had first laid eyes on him, but she looked up then. Fell was sitting on the deck, drenched in sweat, breathing heavily but laughing.

“Halvar.” Mira had heard the Northern name in a tale told to some of the children at the town hearth. Halvar was the human who came to fight alongside Hyrold in one of the great battles of the gods. He joined the fight knowing he would not be able to kill a god and that his life would be lost in the fray. After he’d fallen, Hyrold took him into his great halls and gave him to his youngest daughter, Valla, the goddess of the moon and good luck.

Fell did not object. “Halvar,” he repeated.

“Halvar Fervynd,” Myret said sternly.

Halvar from the storm.

When Mira stopped bleeding, they returned to shore.

Night had fallen by the time they were laying in the tent, just the three of them, the fire roaring because both Fell and Mira could not help but overfeed it in fear that the child would be cold.

Topless, Mira fed the boy. She was tired but could not imagine doing anything other than stare at the perfect little creature in her arms. Fell was shirtless as well, laying beside her, waiting patiently. He wanted to hold the boy, Mira knew, but she could not bring herself to let the child go. I never want to stop holding him. But after the boy had stopped eating and fallen asleep in her arms, his little lips pressed together tightly, she could ignore Fell’s eagerness no longer.

When she handed him the child, Fell cried and laughed and spoke with the old words. They knew they should have slept while the child slept, as each person in town had told them to do this (an irritating amount of times), but they could not. Halvar was too beautiful.

They lay with the child between them in the furs, running their fingers across his face and hands and tiny feet until tiredness overtook them. Needless to say, that was the day Mira converted to the Northern faith.

Later, Northern people would say that Halvar from the Storm was born beneath the constellation Utfyrsk, the Caribou. They also said Hidevir, the planet of gifts and good timing, was located in the part of the sky that had to do with exploration and discovery.

This is not true. The planet of luck was moving backwards in the sign of Yorunn, protector of home and hearth and the boy was born beneath the sign of Uterulv—the Outsider.