The following morning, Arik had a meeting with the four captains of Gittenurg. Fell attended as well, and Mira busied herself with intricate basket work to keep her thoughts away from the spring raids and the idea of Fell being gone for a full season. By midday, the meeting was done, and the king sat at the hearth with the townsfolk. He adored Halvar and could not bring himself to put the child down. Mira decided that perhaps the man was not so bad after all and found joy listening to the things the king said to her son and the way he laughed whenever Halvar did anything.

One of those in Arik’s company was a thin man with pointy eyebrows and a great scar on his chin that left his beard with an odd gap in the middle. The king called to this man. “Jorn! Come look at him for me.”

Jorn obeyed, taking a seat beside the king and lifting Halvar, so the child gazed into his eyes. Halvar cried, and Mira stood to fetch him, but quickly the king spoke in a gentle voice, distracting the boy with his eye-shaped pendant, and Halvar was calmed.

Jorn stared at the child for some time before setting him on his lap and examining his palm.

“He is trouble, like his father.” Jorn chuckled. His accent was light and slow, each word drawn out and tasted fully before it left his lips. “There will always be many strong people around him. He—” Jorn grew quiet and looked up to Mira.

Mira didn’t want to hold his gaze, but she also didn’t want to be thought of as a coward by the king, as in the North, this was the worst thing a person could be. She couldn’t read his expression, but whatever Jorn was thinking, she knew she did not like it.

“That is all you see?” Arik said. Even when he grumbled with irritation, the king’s voice carried far and wide above all other sounds.

“No,” Jorn said, his eyes still locked on Mira, “I see many things...”

“Speak then!”

As Jorn thought and chose his slow words, he moved his lower lip around, first in front of his upper lip, and then behind it, in front again, then behind. “This is a very important child… for many reasons, but there is one act he will commit that will tie together loose skaels… He is the last piece in a great plan of the gods… It is unlike anything I have seen before.”

Annoyance came out in the king’s booming voice. “I want stone in your answer, not mist.”

Jorn laughed. “There is something that many men desire; great, strong men… but somehow it becomes lost. They look for years—or maybe they are already looking now, I cannot see that… but it will be this child who finds it. He will succeed where many powerful men fail.”

Arik’s eyes grew brighter, making him seem younger—almost of age with Mira. “It is a treasure? Who are the men?”

Jorn shifted in his seat. “Some will call it a treasure, others a curse. I do not recognize the men, apart from one.”

The king smirked. “Me?”

Jorn nodded.

“Do her then.” The king jutted his chin towards Mira, taking Halvar back into his arms and laughing when the babe sneezed. The king used his own sleeve to wipe the snot away before cleaning the arm of his tunic on one of his companions. The man did not seem pleased to have been given the baby snot.

Jorn moved to sit beside Mira. “May I see your hand?”

Mira’s face must have revealed her reluctance because the king laughed. “What? Speak your mind, girl. We say our thoughts out loud in the North.”

And so Mira was brave. “I am surprised that your Grace puts stock in these things.”

A grin spread across Arik’s face and his eyebrows lifted. “These things?”

“That a hand can reveal someone’s life.”

The king sat up straighter, his shoulders square with Mira, his grey wolfish eyes piercing into her. For a long moment, he let her simmer in the discomfort of the strength of his gaze. “A man’s hands make his life. It is with his hands that he eats and works and fights and loves. It is his hands that lift him or lower him. All that he is capable of—all that he will be or not be—rests in his hands.” Though the man had not raised his voice in the least, Mira could feel the sound reverberating in her chest from across the hearth.

She did not want to argue with a king, so she kept quiet and offered her palm to Jorn. At first, he laughed. “She is skeptical of this because she is good at it. This is one who does not come when skael calls.” But then, as with Myret and Egil’s tallest son, there was a pause. When Jorn spoke again, it was to Mira, not the king.

“I am sorry.”

Arik’s boot tapped against the earth. “Well?”

“I dare not alter the choices she is to make by speaking of them,” Jorn said. “But they are of great interest to you. I will speak of it later when she has gone home.”

“It was as I thought?”

Jorn laughed again. “No, it is different. But more.”

Arik spent much of the day playing with baby Halvar and complimenting the child, calling him strong and brave and handsome enough to have any woman he wanted. “But not so handsome that other men will despise you.” He repeated his compliments many times as if he believed Halvar understood him, and he wanted the boy to memorize his words. “You are clever. You are well-sensed. You always know when something is not right.”

Each time Mira took the boy back to her tent to feed him, the king said something like, “You must bring him back as soon as he is satisfied. I will miss him while he is gone.”

When evening rolled in, the Northerners grew messy, seemingly excited to be drinking with their king. Mira learned that it was rare during the king’s spring visits for the man to stay more than a few hours in each town, but because of Fell, Arik always stayed at least one night in Gittenurg, sometimes more. She witnessed her first shield dance, which was one of the most ridiculous things she’d ever seen. Drunken men balanced atop shields held up by other men, trying to drink as much wine as quickly as they could. No one escaped the game without injury, though Inga took a turn atop and managed to stay relatively balanced.

After the evening meal was finished, Arik again summoned Mira to his tent. Alone.

“I will take Halvar to Dania and wait for you outside,” Fell said, his eyes filled with care and reassurance.

When Mira entered, the swell of rich, smoky air stung her eyes. The king was breathing from a flute, as Myret sometimes did and motioned for Mira to come and sit with him, offering the flute to her.

Mira did not know if she could refuse the king’s offer. “I am still feeding Halvar,” she said as humbly as she could manage.

The king furrowed his brow as he ground up more dried herbs. “Have you heard the story of Calder the Foolish?”

Mira shook her head, and the king gestured for her to sit as he inhaled the pungent smoke, holding his breath for many moments before letting grey tufts billow out of his nostrils.

“It is one of my favourite tales.”