Joseph Lewis - Freya the Huntress

“Her death was Skadi’s fault, not yours.”

He shrugged and looked away.

“You really loved Riuza, didn’t you?”

Omar smiled at her. “I suppose I did, for a time.”

Freya sighed and leaned forward to pick at the small stones on the ground. “I should be more angry, shouldn’t I?”

He nodded at the charred remains of the reaver. “It looks to me that you were extremely angry. From my most considerable experience, I can tell you that most grieving women don’t rise to the task of giant-slaying in the heat of the moment. So perhaps you’ve already exhausted all your anger here.”

“Maybe. I should be sadder though, shouldn’t I? I’m not even crying anymore.”

“That’s all right. I’m sure you’ll cry some more later. Although, I have noticed that Yslanders are some of the more practical and less sentimental people in the world. That’s not a sin, fair lady. Erik knew you loved him. And you know that you loved him. Your gods won’t count your tears to judge whether your love was deep enough, or your devotion was strong enough. Feel whatever you feel, and when you’re ready, life will be waiting for you to move on.”

“To move on?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say-”

“No, it’s all right, I know what you meant.” Freya looked at him. “Tell me something. How did you cure the plague, really?”

“I told you, with the bloodflies.”

“But how? You didn’t want Skadi to know, but now I want to know. This whole business of souls and aether and rinegold, it’s not natural. But it’s in me now. It’s in all of us, and I want to know about it.”

“Actually, it’s more natural than you might want to believe. There are natural laws for everything in this world, and aether is no exception. I have studied it for centuries with-”

“Omar. Just tell me about the cure. Please.”

He took a long, deep breath. “Well, I told you that I couldn’t just pull out the fox-soul from the reavers, no more than you can pull a drop of fresh water out of the sea. So instead, I added something. I bred up my new bloodflies with another sort of soul in them, a soul that could counteract the fox, a soul that was so healthy and stable that it would restore a reaver to its natural human state, ears notwithstanding.” He cleared his throat. “ My soul.”

She tilted her head to look at him. “Really?”

“Oh yes.” He nodded. “My soul is already bound to the sun-steel, the rinegold, around my neck. That relationship is governed by the metal, it keeps me changeless, and thus immortal. So by giving all of you a bit of my soul, a small part of that relationship is passed on to you. It’s a transitive property. I can show you the math, if you like. But in short, your bodies now have a strong resistance to change as well. So I imagine that this generation of Yslanders will live very long, very healthy lives. Not as long as me, but that’s a good thing.”

“But the ears.” Freya passed her hand carefully over her head, petting her tall, soft fox ears.

“As I said, I can’t take the fox-soul out. It was still in those bloodflies. But my soul is holding it in check, and my soul is much stronger than some prehistoric mongrel’s.”

“Hm.” Freya rested her chin on her knee. “Is that why the bloodflies don’t bite you? Because your soul is in them?”

“Of course they bite me!” Omar glared at the sky. “The damn things must have bitten me a hundred times when I was making those nests.”

“But you don’t have fox ears or eyes.”

“Because I am entirely unchangeable.” He held up his rinegold trinket on the chain around his neck. “Oh, I started to grow ears once or twice, but each time the fox-soul would be pushed out and I’d return to plain, old Omar again.”

“So does this mean you’ve lost your soul? Did it hurt you?”

“The soul-breaking was a bit unpleasant, courtesy of the flies,” he said. “And it has left me feeling a bit stranger than usual, mostly giving me an extremely strong sense of where all the Yslanders are at any given moment. But as they die, as they inevitably will, those drips and drabs of my soul will find their way back to me. In a hundred years, everything will just like it was before I ever came here.”

“Oh.” Freya stared over the smoldering bones at the black waters of the bay. She whispered, “I miss him.”

Omar nodded.

“I keep looking out there like he’s just going to come up out of the water without a scratch on him, smiling. Holding a fish. But he’s not, is he?”

“No, it’s been far too long. I’m sorry, but if that drop of my soul inside him was going to save him, if he was going to come back, he would have by now. I’m sorry.”

She sniffed and exhaled loudly. “So it’s really over then. What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I should leave before I cause any more disasters around here. I don’t really belong here,” he said. “Not that I belong anywhere, but I definitely don’t belong here. It’s too cold and gray and quiet for my taste.”

“So your homeland is hot and bright and loud?”

He smiled a little. “Something like that.”

“Oh. I think Erik would have liked a place like that.”

Halfdan sat uneasily on the wooden throne of Rekavik. He shifted his weight, first asking for a cushion, and then putting it aside. And every time the wood creaked beneath his weight, he winced. Finally he stood up and said, “My cousin Ivar was a good man, and he’s dead. His son Magnus was a good man, and he’s dead. We’ve all lost good men and women over these last five years. Ysland has bled too much. There will be no more killing today. Turn them loose.”

The guards let go of the prisoners’ wrists, and Leif and Thora stepped away from them, rubbing their sore arms.

Freya stood on Halfdan’s left side with Omar, and Katja and Wren stood on his right in matching vala black. A single night’s sleep in a bed had brought Katja back from the shock of her cell, and now wearing one of the dead queen’s simpler dresses, she looked as confident and wise as ever, if a bit thinner around the waist and wearing a new pair of ears. Nearly everyone gathered in the new king’s audience chamber wore the fox ears now, and more than a few women had covered theirs with scarves, and some of the men wore caps, and some people couldn’t seem to stop tugging and picking at the soft furry things on top of their heads.

Freya touched her own ears. She kept forgetting they were up there. She wasn’t in the habit of fiddling with her hair, or wearing scarves, or looking in mirrors, and it was so easy to forget that they were up there. They felt soft and downy and warm, and they could bend and flop a little bit. Rubbing them gently sent a shiver down her scalp and spine, but mostly from the strangeness of it rather than any sort of pain. And they tickled sometimes when her short hair blew about in the wind. But otherwise, they were invisible to her.

I have a fox-soul inside of me.

And I have Omar’s soul inside of me.

What does that even mean?

The question faded as soon as she asked it. It didn’t matter.

“Leif Blackmane,” Halfdan said loudly. “You murdered many free and innocent men, and you allied yourself with the reavers, who also killed many free and innocent men, but you did so at the command of your queen. So you shall not die here today.”

“I’m telling you, I never spoke to any filthy reaver! It’s a lie!” Leif shouted. He turned toward Omar. “He’s a damned liar!”

“Shut up and be condemned like a man!” Halfdan snapped. “You are hereby banished from Ysland.”

The scowling youth looked up sharply. “ From Ysland? Where am I supposed to go?”