It was not long before Mira began to miss being called soten. She hadn’t realized how well-liked Fell was or how many grievances she’d caused. It turned out that Mira had irritated a fair few people, but the northerners had kept their mouths shut because they didn’t want to direct their anger at Fell.

It began the evening after Egil’s children had come. Mira was playing her harp among the villagers who gathered at the great town hearth. The flame crackled and leapt up towards the orange-tinted clouds that whispered of the sunset to come, and Forkbeard—who by now Mira knew to be Viggo, the captain of the ship that brought her to the North, Fell’s captain—requested a song. She’d learned some of the Northern tunes, and there was one he always asked for when he was deep in his cups because he liked to sing along to it.

He said, “Soten! I want to hear of Svenden!” And Mira knew what that meant.

But before she began, Fell corrected the man. “Not soten.”

It was quiet.

Inga rolled her eyes. “That was quick.”

Some of the men teased Fell, accusing him of “getting lost in strawberries.”

Some congratulated Mira, like Toke, the man who’d slain his father, and Orvir the one who’d fought Fell over the stones already—they welcomed her among them as Norsen, with no questions asked.

Others grumbled that she was not ready, one older woman in particular. “Soten is for teaching, for protecting,” she said. “The girl doesn’t know the first thing about being one of us… it will be hard learning.”

And it was.

The first hit came that very night. Of all people, it was Dania who delivered the blow. She slapped Mira right across the face with no warning.

“What was that for?” Mira said, bringing a hand to her burning cheek and trying not to cry because there were people around, and that would be embarrassing.

Dania smirked. “I’ve always wanted to hit a lady.”

“How dare—”

“It is maybe time for you to stop ordering me about. Maybe also it is time I stop calling you my lady.”

Mira’s heart hurt far more than her cheek did. Had Dania been hiding hatred for her all this time? “You do not want to be my friend?”

Dania laughed. “We are bonded; we will be friends forever. Only now, it is better because we are equals. And now you know it. Today our true friendship begins.”

There was such a shift in Mira’s mind during that conversation that her head hurt, though maybe part of that was the slap. Had she been treating Dania like the girl was lesser?

Dania pulled her in close and kissed her cheek, and whispered. “Someone else would have if I did not. It is better me than Inga, I think.”

Dania had done her a great service that night, only Mira did not fully understand it right away. Despite the layer of kindness in Dania’s action, Mira knew deep in her bones that Dania’s slap had come from real anger, from years of being told that she belonged low on the ground because of her birth. From years of toiling away as a serf. From watching her father’s body fall apart and ache because of his birth. Of course, it wasn’t Mira’s family who ruled over those in Emsley, but it was a family no doubt very similar.

“That is right,” Ødger said with a smirk. “She was a lady.”

“I still am a lady,” Mira said, realizing the moment the words were out of her mouth that this had been the wrong thing to say. Ødger picked up a pebble and chucked it at her, hitting her in the chest. Though the stone was small, his throw had been strong, and it stung something terrible.

Mira scowled, and another pebble came her way, and then another.

“Stop!” she shouted.

Ødger giggled. “Or what? You’ll call your father? A knight will come and cut my hands off?”

Another stone flew.

“I am not understanding something?” said Viggo, scratching his crimson beard.

“Yes, what has she done to upset you?” said Toke.

Ødger’s eyes blazed with a terrible glee as he continued to accost Mira with pebbles until Fell opened his arms, and Mira tucked herself into his lap, his steady breath pressing his chest into her back and calming her, his hands wrapped around her middle leaving her feeling safe.

“It is hard to explain,” said Dania. “But where we are from, she is not the same as Ødger and I.”

Ødger nodded. “Because she was born in a stone building, and we were born in straw, her kind thinks themselves better.”

“It is more like...” Dania frowned, trying to find the right words. “Everyone in our country is sotern except for very few, and we cannot ever be more than sotern... if you are born to sotern, you stay that way for life. There is no way to escape it. She was one of the ones born above us.”

“You know,” said Inga. “I feel this from her; she was born on a very tall horse.”

Many of those gathered around the hearth nodded in agreement.

“She does sit pompously straight.”

“And when she walks, her nose points into the air.”

“Her hands are soft like a baby’s; she almost certainly has never done work before.”

“You have made your point,” Mira said to Ødger, trying to steer the conversation away. “It was not my choice to be born where I was, just as it was not your choice.”

Her comment did nothing to alter the discussion. If anything, it irritated Ødger. “Oh, it must have been so tiring to wear soft clothing and sleep on feathered beds.”’

“I will have you know that it was not always so—”

“Living in a great fortress where you did not even need to see your own shit.”

Mira huffed, and though she knew there was no winning the argument, she dove into it. “I was not allowed to speak without first someone speaking to me. If I did, they would put a blade in my mouth—”

The evening passed with Northmen laughing and asking explanations as Mira and Ødger debated whether Mira’s childhood had been difficult or easy. The Northerners learned about chamber pots and corsets and the grotesque punishments given to common Islish folk by their Lords, and how serfs did not own anything they produced with their hands. Mira learned about torture and the structure of serfdom, to which Ødger devoted many words. Ødger did not seem to learn anything, but when his wrath was spent, he offered to share his wine with Mira.

After they found their way home, Mira begged Fell not to judge her. “I did not make my country this way,” she said.

“I know,” Fell said as he pulled her close. “There is no blame. There is only skael.”

“But I feel badly for them.” Mira wept for hours that night, cursing the conditions born by the common Islish folk.

The days following Mira’s move from soten to Norsen status were spent trying to avoid a fight, even though it seemed like everyone in Gittenurg wanted to have one. It was Ake, the man who’d lost his arm in the most recent raids (he was still bitter about it) the next morning. He tripped Mira while she was on her way to Dania’s. When she turned to him, a petulant look on her face, he laughed and said, “Is there a problem?”

The man was at least two heads taller than Mira, and even though he had one arm, she knew he could still cause a lot of pain if he wanted to.

“No,” she said.

When it came time for meals, Gorn would always give her some form of trouble, though he didn’t seem truly mad like the others. It was more like he was enjoying the fun of a game. He’d give her the smallest portion imaginable, and when she asked for more, he’d put one drop in her bowl, and when she asked for more, he’d put another drop. When he’d gotten her nice and angry, he’d laugh and stand up straight so that he was towering over her. “You think you could do my job better?”

“No.”

A woman named Kelsa punched Mira in the stomach. That was the hit that hurt the worst. It turned out Kelsa was Sigyn Speartooth’s sister. “You will not stand by and let the children harm him again.”

Though Mira was keeled over in the dirt and struggling to suck in air and feeling like she might vomit from the pain of it, she nodded. That hit was the only one she felt was somewhat fair, and if the blow hadn’t made her feel sick, the guilt would have. It was cruel of her to watch them taunt Sigyn and say nothing.

In the evenings, it was always Vreydis—the woman with the blue hair who’d already expressed her frustrations many times over having to wait for nearly a moon to have her stones read because of Mira. She took Mira’s wine right out of her hand, and when Mira asked for it back, the woman shrugged. “You annoy me when you drink.”

Vreydis dumped the drink out and laughed at Mira’s sour expression. “You’re not going to do anything about it,” she said.

And she was right. Every evening Vreydis would keep Mira from drinking wine, and there was nothing to be done about it unless Mira felt like having a fist meet her jaw—which she didn’t. At least I will not play the songs she likes anymore.

Everywhere she went, Mira was pushed or knocked into or tripped, and if she said anything about it, people’s expressions would make it clear that they’d be happy to take a swing at her if that’s what she wanted. To make things worse, it always seemed like Inga was watching and smirking.

Mira complained to Fell in the evening about how miserable people were making things for her.

He laughed, which added to her dour mood.

Of course, he laughs.

“They are only testing you. They want to know how strong you are. This way, many fights in the future can be avoided. Like… I know that Eggun is stronger than I am, so I will not fight him unless it is really important. Important enough to break a few bones over. They want to see where you fit among us.”

Fell’s words did nothing to soothe Mira. If anything, they made her feel worse. She was smaller than most every grown person in town and hadn’t been raised in the North. She felt certain she wasn’t stronger than anyone, not even most of the children.

For a brief moment, Fell looked the slightest bit worried. “No one has hit you twice, have they? If you haven’t hit back?”

Mira shook her head, and he relaxed.

“See? They don’t want to harm you, not truly. They know they will have to deal with me if they do. They just press against you a little to see how hard you are.”

He held her gaze for many moments and then said, “You are harder than you think.”

Mira did not believe him.