When Mira had been living in the North for three-quarters of a moon, Fell came to her in the middle of the day and brought her to the field where the men trained. It didn’t rain much in the North, but that day the sky was dreary and grey like back on the Isle, filling Mira with particular homesickness.

The wind scraped against the surrounding trees causing them to creak and groan and sway, creating a ghostly melody that sent shivers across Mira’s skin. It seemed like everyone in town was gathering in the muddy field—all the people Mira had seen before but also many she had not yet met, everyone’s furs growing dark with rain.

Dania and her boys were present, though when Mira waved, Dania did not see her. She was clutching Layf tight to her chest and whispering something to the child as Hald pressed his cheek into her knees.

Mira looked up to Fell, dread squirming around within her… something was about to happen; she could feel it in the air. Anticipation was revealed by the way the Northmen kept their eyes open and focused despite the breeze; before that day, Mira had only ever seen them close their eyes and breathe in deeply when the wind brushed their faces. The taste of seriousness was stirred into the scene by the way no one was laughing… normally, there was too much laughing, and though Mira hated their constant giggles, she found it far more terrifying to see so many sombre expressions.

Fell whispered to her, seemingly trying to explain something (she could tell that much by how he moved his hands). Of course, Mira couldn’t understand his words, but his hushed tone said to her, this is important, and she felt suddenly like she was back home and her mother was informing her in a stern voice that she must behave perfectly. Her heart sped up a little in fear of her mother’s displeasure even though the woman was nowhere to be seen.

Ravens cawed from deep within the black forest, and the faint patter of rain splattering against trees and rocks and grasses filled the air as two people Mira recognized: a father and a son, made their way into the center of the field. The two men often playfully bickered at the hearth in the evenings, the father wanting the son to settle down with a woman and give him another grandchild (he had two already from another of his children), the son wanting nothing of the sort. Dania adored their disagreement and giggled endlessly as she translated their reused arguments; she’d often join in, siding with the father and earning jokingly threatening glares from the son.

Each man clutched steel with a grim expression, and Mira’s back straightened in terror. She did not know what was about to occur, but in her heart, she felt it would not be good. It was not so long ago that she witnessed swords and axes being used; her mind flooded with the horror of the attack on her father’s fortress, leaving her breath speeding and her fingers trembling.

When the fight began, the Northmen were uncharacteristically quiet, and Mira wondered if perhaps there was a dispute being settled that would affect many other people.

The father was old and held no chance of victory; his son cut him down within moments. A blade in the stomach left the elderly man sputtering and gargling blood as he sank to the ground, one leg bent behind him, and the other stretched out in front of him in a position that looked heinously uncomfortable. Tears pressed against the back of Mira’s eyes as she swallowed a cry, too afraid to make noise among the silent onlookers. She stumbled back a few paces before turning to leave, wanting no part in the atrocity, but Fell placed a hand on her back, whispering, “Stay.”

She watched as the son sliced again—that time in the chest—and his father stopped moving and stopped choking and stopped living, her heart thrashing within her not only from the tragedy of the death but from the cold indifference of those watching.

The son began to weep over the body, pressing his forehead and hands against the dead man’s chest, covering himself in blackened blood in the process. Mira shouted at him in her thoughts, Demons take you! Why would you do this? How could a child kill their own father?

That day Mira witnessed her first Northern funeral. The body was placed on a boat, big enough only for one. Everyone who knew the dead man set things of great value around him, along with plants and branches and the sword he had carried to the field that had not one speck of blood on it. The little ship was pushed out into the briny black waves, and when it was far away from the shore, it was struck by a flaming arrow—released by one of the dead man’s sons—and the ship began to burn.

After what felt like an age where the only sound was that of the wind and the sea and the taunting gulls, during which every Northern soul stood still as stone, the boat was gone, burnt into something that would not float, its flame extinguished as what remained of the man sank into the sea.

The crowd shuffled to the hearth and began drinking, chatting in muted voices, shedding tears of compassion that confused Mira’s soul.

Why did you all stand by and let him die?

Mira’s blood ran cold with hatred; she felt dirty and set off, meaning to return to the tent and wash the filth of the day off. She wanted to gag and scrape away at her tongue with a stick to get the taste of the moment out of her mouth, but, again, Fell stopped her.

“Stay,” he said, placing a wineskin in her hands.

The Northerners drank and talked until it was nearly morning, and the stars were beginning to fade in the sky. Throughout the whole evening, the murderous son received not so much as a single bitter look for his dreadful crime.

Finally, people began to stumble home, and Fell led Mira away. He came back to the tent with her that night, leaving Mira feeling even more wretched, for she would not wash while he was there and had grown accustomed to having the tent to herself. She waited, hoping he would wander away to Cat’s eye or wherever else it was he went in the evenings that she may have privacy for the tears of disgust that were roiling within her.

Fell did not leave.

“Sole?”

Mira told him “no” in the Northern tongue.

She had not yet refused one of his requests, but any fear she would have had was overcome by the profound loathing she felt for all things Northern.

“Why?” he said.

“Angry.”

“Yes.” He smiled. “Why?”

“You…no…” Mira did not know the word for help. She could not say what she meant, and this frustrated her further. “You should have helped him!” she shouted in her own language. “Someone should have stopped it!”

Fell laughed at her outburst and shook his head. “Norsern,” he said. It meant Northern. He wanted her to use words he could understand, but she could not find them. She gave up and pretended to sleep though she was too filled with wrath to truly rest and managed perhaps an hour before daybreak.

In the morning as the birds chirped, gleefully unaware of the foul tragedy that had taken place only the day before, Fell asked Mira to play again. Again she refused, pushing the harp away and shouting, “No!” in the Northern language. He laughed at her rage and left, returning quickly with Dania.

“He says he has made you angry, but he does not know what he has done.”

Mira’s rage returned with such a vengeance that she had trouble speaking. “Yesterday… he… no one helped that man—”

“Which man?” Dania said.

“The one who was slain!”

“Ah, Erlend.”

Dania’s calm only fuelled the fire burning within Mira’s stomach. “They drank with the son who killed him!” she shouted. As the words tumbled out, Mira’s voice rose, and quickly she was overcome with hostility. “I hate these beasts! They have no sense of good or righteousness. This is an evil place—”

Dania stopped her. She could not translate too much too quickly. She spoke to Fell, and he laughed, and for the first time in her life, Mira felt inclined to strike someone.

“He says you do not understand, so he will explain. The man was ill and would die before the next raids.”

Fell continued to speak, and Dania waited patiently. “He says that to go to Hyrold’s halls, a man must be brave; he must die in battle or doing something dangerous. Toke knew his father would not live to see another raid, so he challenged him. He did his father a great kindness.”

Mira’s stomach turned at the vulgar idea.

“I know it is a strange way, but you mustn’t be angry, my lady. Fell speaks the truth; it was a beautiful thing Toke did for his father. I have seen him this morning; he suffers greatly. He did not want to do it, but he knew that he must.”

Despite herself, Mira felt badly for the man. In her own country, there was belief in an after-world, but you did not have to be brave to go there. Her anger was not eradicated, only softened, for she was angry about so much else; Erlend’s death had opened her up to it, and she spent her morning sitting alone on the shore chucking grey pebbles into the sea, ruminating on her dire circumstances. She was trapped in a foreign place where everything seemed wrong to her, where she could not speak easily nor understand the most basic things nor even eat her meal with a fork.

By midday, Mira found herself too cold to stay still any longer. She wandered around in search of thistle. On the Isle, thistle was commonly gifted to those in mourning. It was believed that if the flower was kept close to the heart, it would absorb some of the pain. Her search took time, but she noticed that the Northmen had begun to give her even more freedom as of late; they did not watch her with as much care as they once had.

She was farther from town than she’d ever been before when she found what she was looking for. Of course, Mira thought of continuing on; no one would know her missing until she’d been gone for some time, only, she did not know which direction to go or how she would eat or what she would do if she came across a bear or a wolf or a witch or a band of thieves. In the end, she did not flee. She picked the prettiest thistles and made her way back to the great hearth at the center of town. Mira tossed a thick chunk of wood from a nearby pile into the flame before taking a seat and waiting for the man who killed his father. As she waited, she twisted the thistles around in her fingers—careful not to touch the thorny bits—the thick sponge-like stems seemed to be sucking out some of her own pain. She thought of Loric and the flower he’d given her and wondered if he would approve of the kindness she thought to offer the man who slew his father. Dayne would not give a gift, she knew. Her mother would be more mortified by the way Mira had fed the fire herself without a second thought; it was a servant’s task, but Mira was cold and also, she was the servant now, so she’d done it herself.

Sure enough, Erlend’s murderer and son made his way to the hearth, wine in hand. When Mira approached, she could feel the hollowness of him, a cold emptiness that radiated from his skin. She gave Toke the thistle, and the man twirled it around in his fingers before looking up at her. He lost none of the dullness in his eyes but placed a thick, calloused hand on her cheek.

“Thank you, soten.”