As they travelled further north, it seemed as though the seasons were moving backwards. Everything was damp and muddy and chilly once again, and Fell expressed his desire for Mira to train with him and Rowan. The first few times he mentioned the idea, Mira ignored it, for she could think of nothing that she wanted to do less than swing around a wooden sword at people who were bigger than her (all Norser were bigger than she was) all the while pretending she was truly fighting.

On a particularly grey and dreary day when Fell once again made the suggestion, she sighed and decided to put an end to the idea once and for all. “I don’t want to kill anyone,” she said. “Besides, I have you with me; there is no need—”

“Perhaps one day I will need your help. Did you think of that?” Fell lifted his brows, smirking at her.

Fyrrah trained with the men, and it was her words that actually settled the issue. “Even if you never fight a soul, it is still better to be strong, do you not think?”

Fell nodded with an impish grin, his eyes wide and full of thanks for Fyrrah. “Yes. Exactly. One day soon, I will be raiding, and you will be alone with Halvar. If you knew how to use a shield, I would feel more peace.”

Mira knew there was wisdom in his words and her heart sank deep down within her stomach as she thought of Fell being gone for a full moon or longer. She desperately wanted to make the man happy, as no one deserved joy more, but at the same time, she despised the idea of wasting some of the precious hours they had together training. Mira put Fell’s looming absence into the chest in the back of her mind and agreed (with a sour look on her face, no doubt) to train.

And so, every day for two hours in the evening while Halvar slept in his basket nearby, Mira practised what she secretly called “the vulgar arts.” Fell taught her first of the shield, how to hold it and move it and which parts of the body were most important to protect. The thing felt heavy in her hands, and he would let her use only one arm to hold it up. To make it worse, it was her weaker arm that she had to use.

“My right is much stronger,” she protested.

Fell laughed. “That is why we must save it for a blade.”

He would swing a wooden sword at her, and she would protect herself, and always her arm was sore from this. He taught her to watch his feet and his posture, to try to guess his next move.

As she got faster and stronger, he swung harder.

“You need to know how to roll the weight of a weapon,” he said, showing her how to angle the shield so that the person swinging was forced to lean one way or another.

When she was acceptably good with this (by no means great), the worst lesson came. Fell would have her stand against a tree and throw his axe or shoot arrows at her.

“If you do not move, I will not hit you.” He laughed. “You must know how to be calm. If you focus on the relief of the arrow that missed, you will not be paying attention to the one that will hit.”

Mira hated this. Sometimes, in her fear, she would quarrel with him. She would shout and swear never to partake in the lessons again using the four or five mean words in Norsern that she knew. Then, in the evening, when they were wrapped up in furs beneath the stars, Fell would say something like, “It is important to me.” So Mira continued her lessons.

She did improve and eventually found herself calmed enough that she could pay more attention. She knew whether the arrow or axe would land close to her or far away by the sound and the angle of Fell’sFell’s arm.

When the day finally came that she could hold a sparring sword and a shield together properly, he taught her how to move her shield while swinging. She was especially good at doing two different things with her hands, likely as playing the harp required the same coordination, and Fell and Rowan and Fyrrah were impressed by how quickly she picked up the skill.

In the bigger towns, Arik would take her with him to meet the Aems. These were people, mostly men, who led the different raiding parties in the town. Some towns had many ships and therefore many captains, so Aems were each given up to ten ships to organize. They were usually older and wealthy—great captains once upon a time or people who had done great service to Arik. There was a man who had taken an arrow in the cheek to protect the king and so had a gnarly, puckered scar that moved grotesquely when he spoke and a woman who laughed constantly and referred to Arik’sArik’s prick as if it were another being separate from the king (she was happy to see the prick, not so much the man).

Arik always asked Mira to play the harp for the Aems, and then he would tell them the story of Halvar and how he came from the storm, though he told the tale with so much exuberance that Mira felt him dishonest. According to Arik, Halvar was born during the greatest storm in the last hundred years, and each of the gods had sent an omen to show their attendance at the birth. Hanya made flowers grow from within the snow so that the child would see beauty and become beautiful; Yorunn grew the hearth so large that no one dared go near the flame, and even though it was not fed all night, it thrived. Even a spider of Tova arrived to make Halvar virile and fill his spirit with appetite.

There was one day when many were feeling the wine from the night before (including Fell), when Mira and Arik spent the whole day together, speaking and tending to Halvar. At first, she teased him for how he spoke of her son.

“You make his story bigger than it is.”

Arik laughed at this. “I do not. This is how stories are told!”

Mira frowned a little, and the king continued.

“Maybe I exaggerate the moments in the story, but this is only to better capture the feeling. It is the feeling I wish to express truthfully and so, in a way, I am more honest than if I spoke of the events plainly.”

Mira shook her head and laughed.

Arik asked Jorn if Mira could borrow his stones, as the king wished for her to read in his presence.

“I do not believe in it,” Mira said. “Anyone can make up a story using their images.”

“But I would like to hear the story you make up, my lady.”

Mira sighed and scattered a few bone chips but warned Arik before reading them.

“I have only done this once before,” she said. “And I was a heathen most of my life, so I may be very bad at it.”

Arik laughed. “You will need to improve your opening words if you wish to make coin from this!””

Mira laughed too, but when she looked down to where the stones had landed, her heart sank for the man. “Someone is to disappoint you,” she began. “Someone you did not expect to fail you… this will hurt your plans a little and your heart a lot.” She did not speak of his heart breaking, but that is what she saw.

“This is the way of being king.” He shrugged. “What else?”

“You aim high, higher than any before you. So high that most will not be able to see the target and will have to help with faith alone. Not all will be able to do this.”

“This also I have heard before.” Arik smiled, though Mira sensed he was not entirely comfortable. “Do they tell you what I plan to do?”

“Not with words,” Mira said. “But with feeling. You wish to be larger than other men… than the kings who came before you, maybe?” She looked up to Arik and judged by the brightness of his eyes that she was correct. “So you will do what no one before you has thought to do.” Mira stopped there. The stones said no more about it, but Mira’s stomach had a few ideas. She knew Northerners did not take land as the lords in her country did, but she wondered if Arik sought to change this.

“You have not read this one.” Arik pointed to Mira’s least favourite stone, the crossed-out diamond.

“This one I have trouble with.” Mira thought this was true as she spoke, but the moment the words were out of her mouth, they became lies. Whatever the meaning of the symbol was, in Arik’s reading, the crossed-out diamond was Mira. She was a part of his aims. The stone seemed to be vibrating with silent laughter, which Mira didn’t like at all.

Arik asked her to cast again, looking far into the future, looking at his life as a whole.

“Fine, but again I must warn you, I’ve never tried this….”

That reading was more difficult as each stone meant many things, and Mira was not sure how to interpret it.

She laughed awkwardly. “It makes no sense.”

“Maybe not to you, but maybe to me it will. Read.”

“Your life is really five lives. There was the first life, which was over when you became king. A new life began sometime after that; something else happened, you did not expect it. This is the life you are in now, your second life as king. It will be your second favourite of your lives….” Mira looked up, confused but saw that Arik was still with emotion.

He said, “I know the meaning of this.”

“This life will end soon. You will lose something, but part of it is a trick—you will be looking for the wrong thing.” As the words came out of her mouth, Mira’s heart fluttered. Speaking to a king in such a way—emphasizing his mistakes—that was a frightening thing to her. She looked back up to Arik.

His brow furrowed as he thought her words over. “Continue.”

“Your fourth life, the searching one, lasts… I don’t know how long it lasts, but it ends when you find what you seek. Not what was actually lost, but what you were searching for. This will be your least favourite life. The fifth life is the last one; here you will know what was truly gone, and there will be regret, but also there will be… I don’t think you have this word in the North… how do you say when you repair something? Not a ship or a building, but when you have done a wrong to a person, and you find a way to repair it?”

“I know your meaning,” Arik said. “But there is not a word for this. We say repair in both cases.”

“There will be a way for this.”

“And my death?” Arik’s eyes shone playfully.

Mira could see that too, only she did not want to speak of it to the king.

His voice grew stern and hard. “Tell me.”

“It will be small in all the ways you wanted it to be big, but it will be grand in a way you had not thought to want. You will be pleased with it.” Mira saved the good news for the end of the reading. “The last life will be your favourite.”

The king was quiet for a long time, so long that Mira wondered if she should stand and leave. Finally, a chuckle bubbled up from the back of his throat, a quiet hum growing louder until he was laughing with his whole body, until he ran out of air and wheezed.

“The best and worst still ahead? I like this, and I have come to like you.” His laughter went on and on, making the man seem deranged.

“Many great performances, eh?” Arik turned to Jorn when he said this, and Mira knew that just like Egil’s tallest son, Jorn had seen grand performances in her palm and told Arik of it.