Jangling, pounding music.
“Shhhh,” I hissed. They were all wrapped up in each other’s arms. “Do you hear that?”
“No,” Finnur said, but Asbera tilted her head like she was listening.
“Yeah,” she said. “I hear it.” She pulled away from Finnur. “The Nalendan.”
The name sent a chill down my spine.
“Protecting us from the – you know.” Her face was pale in the starlight. “They never march this late, do they, Finnur?”
“We don’t usually have this much to worry about.” Finnur’s voice was throaty, bitter. He must have had a lot to drink, if he was acknowledging the threat outright. I shivered. “It was your captain who brought them here, wasn’t it?”
“Shush,” said Asbera. “No human can control the Mists. You know that.”
We pressed together, swaying in the middle of the road. A pinpoint of blue light appeared in the distance. The music rose and fell with the wind.
Coldness prickled at the back of my throat.
“Maybe we aren’t supposed to be here,” I said.
“Nonsense,” said Asbera. “We just need to find some snowflowers to throw at them.” She pulled away from Finnur and me and stumbled over to the grocer’s across from the mead hall. It was closed for the night, the curtain pinned shut, no light spilling out around it. She rang the bell.
“They’re closed.” Finnur chased after her. The light at the end of the road grew bigger, wreathed in a shimmering halo of magic.
“I really don’t think we’re supposed to be here,” I whispered.
I glanced over at Finnur and Asbera and found them kissing each other, like they’d forgotten where we were. “Hey!” I shouted. “Pay attention! We need to go home.”
They pulled apart and both turned to me, their faces pale in the moonlight. “Don’t be silly,” said Asbera. “It’s good luck to see the Nalendan.”
It didn’t feel like good luck, being out here alone in the dark. I looked back at the light. The Nalendan grew closer. Their singing was stronger, louder. I ran over to Finnur and Asbera and we stood in a line, waiting. My heart pounded in my chest. My thoughts were dizzy with drink. I didn’t feel like I was part of this world.
My bracelet. I’d forgotten I was wearing my bracelet.
I touched it and the vines were cold. My heart skipped a beat. No, I told myself. Of course they’re cold, it’s cold out here.
The singing was louder now, louder than it ought to be. Finnur and Asbera both grinned wildly, like children waiting for gifts on midsummer. I pressed closer to them, still touching my bracelet. The wind lifted, rustled my hair. It blew in from the north and smelled of flowers. It was so soft against my skin it almost felt like protective magic.
For a split second I felt that presence I had known when I was aboard the Penelope. But then it was gone.
“Here they coooome,” Finnur said, under his breath.
In the dark, all I could see were shadows: the silhouette of a man-sized pine, the shaggy hulk of a yak’s-head mask, the twist of goat’s horns, the straw-man shaped like star. I trembled. I held my breath. Closer. Closer.
The music buzzed. It didn’t sound right. I told myself it sounded that way because of the drink, that the ale had made me paranoid. I gripped my bracelet tighter, and it was so cold that it seared into my fingers.
“Something’s wrong,” I whispered. Finnur and Asbera didn’t hear me; they stood transfixed, staring at the costumed men. “The music – that isn’t right–”
“It’s the Tuljan dialect,” Asbera said, but her voice was slurred, and she sounded distant, not part of herself.
“No, that isn’t it.” The wind blew harder and amplified the singing. Clarified it. The words were sharp and unfamiliar. “I don’t think that’s the ancient language at all.”
But Finnur and Asbera weren’t paying any attention to me. They moved forward, toward the costumed men, drawn on some invisible wire.
“Stop!” I shrieked. “This isn’t supposed to happen.” I grabbed at both of their arms, yanking them back.
The costumed men halted. They’d never done that before. Their singing died away and their heads turned, in unison, and they bore down on the three of us.
A tree, a goat, a straw man, a yak. I felt suddenly diminished.
Asbera and Finnur pulled away from my grip and moved toward the costumed men. The tree smiled, his teeth bright in the moonlight.
“No!” I screamed, and I tackled Asbera and dragged her to the ground.
“What are you doing?” she asked, spitting out muddy snow. Her voice didn’t sound so curiously flat. “What’s wrong with you–?”
She stopped. Finnur was almost to the costumed men. The goat lifted his great shaggy arms as if to envelop him.
“This isn’t right,” Asbera said.
“I’ve been saying that!” I scrambled to my feet. The goat drew Finnur into an embrace. His eyes glittered behind his mask. Gray. His eyes were gray.
All of them, their eyes – they were all gray.
The Mists.
The air slammed out of me.
“No,” Asbera whispered, low and fluttery. “No no no no.”
The yak stepped forward. The mask was carved from wood and painted in dull brownish-gray. The mouth was fixed in a permanent snarl.
“Friend of Kolur.” Its mouth didn’t move as it spoke. Asbera let out a strangled squawk and grabbed my hand. The goat pulled Finnur closer, wrapping its furred arm around Finnur’s neck. Finnur was so pale, his skin looked like snow.
“Stop it!” I shouted. “Let him go!”
“Friends of Kolur,” the monster said.
“No!” I cried. “Just me. They’ve never met him. Please, let Finnur go.”
All the stories about the Mists flooded through my head. You couldn’t outsmart them; you couldn’t undo their magic. And that was terrifying, because dressed in the costume of the Nalendan, they had undone Tuljan magic. They had turned the protection spell into a weapon.
“Let him go!” I shrieked.
The straw man hissed.
I didn’t stop to let myself think, because thinking only reminded me of all the horrors I could face. I just launched myself forward and grabbed Finnur’s hand and tried to wrench him free from the goat. Asbera screamed behind me, but then she was at my side, pulling too. Finnur stared numbly at both of us.
The costumed men didn’t do anything to stop us, although they didn’t let go of Finnur either. The goat didn’t struggle, just held him tight, and the other three stood in a circle, watching.
“Curious,” said the straw man with a dry, crackling hiss.
“Yes,” said the tree. “Most curious.”
“Come back to me, Finnur!” Asbera cried. “Please. Remember. Our little sea-house. Come on, darling–”
We pulled harder, and then, without any warning at all, the goat dropped him.
All three of us fell backward onto the cold, hard ground.
“Friend of Kolur,” said the tree, and all four of the costumed men turned toward me. I froze in place while Asbera and Finnur crawled away.
“Friend of Isolfr,” said the monster.
Asbera cried out, her voice strangled. I tried to twist around to look at her, but I couldn’t move. I was bolted to the ground. The costumed men crowded in close.
“What do you want?” I screamed.
The wind gusted. Through the cloud of my fear, I thought I might be able to conjure the south wind, to pull out enough magic that Finnur and Asbera and I could escape. It probably wouldn’t work, not against Mists magic. But I could try.
“Our lord does not appreciate what you’ve been doing,” said the straw man.
“No,” said the goat. “Not at all.”
“He’s sent us to make you stop,” said the tree.
“You and Kolur and Isolfr,” said the yak.
“I don’t even sail with Kolur anymore.” I concentrated hard on the wind. It was cold and d
amp and blew my hair straight away from my face. The costumed men’s gray eyes glittered at me from behind their masks. “I haven’t seen him for days. I can’t help you.”
Magic coursed through the wind, fine and gossamer like lace. It tingled against my skin. Concentrate. Concentrate.
The costumed men looked at one another.
“Of course you can help us,” said the goat.
“Friend of Kolur,” said the tree.
“Friend of Isolfr,” said the yak.
I started to cry. The wind pummeled against my body, and my hair blew straight out behind me–
And then my hair tumbled into my face.
The wind had shifted. I could taste the south on it, mangos and warmth and the distant brightness of spice. With the southerly wind, the magic didn’t feel like lace; it felt like sunlight, like ocean water, like air. It was everywhere, and all I had to do was reach out and harvest it.
I squeezed my eyes shut. The magic flowed through me, changing inside my bloodstream. I whispered an incantation in the old tongue, and I told myself it would work, it would have to work–
The paralysis lifted.
My eyes flew open, and I jumped to my feet. The wind swirled around us, looping around the costumed men like a rope. I stumbled away from them, gasping with the effort. Asbera and Finnur lay tangled up against each other, their eyes closed.
The tree broke free of my chains.
“Friend of Kolur. You cannot stop us.”
I strengthened the magic, and the wind knocked him away. He landed on his back, shedding pine needles in the moonlight. I knelt beside Asbera and Finnur and sent the magic flowing through them. Their veins glowed golden beneath their skin.
“Wake up,” I whispered in the ancient tongue. “Wake up, wake up, wake up.”
Asbera’s eyes opened first. She stared at me like I was a wild animal.
“Hanna!” she gasped.
“You must move.” I said this in the ancient tongue, too. Asbera’s eyes widened and her arms jerked and the wind dragged her body up until she was standing. Then it dragged Finnur up. His eyes fluttered.
“Run!” I screamed at them, still in the ancient tongue. “Run! Run home!”
The costumed men wailed over the roaring of the wind. I couldn’t tell which direction it blew; it seemed to come from everywhere, north and south, east and west. Asbera and Finnur raced away, their movements jerky and awkward and not entirely their own.
I whirled around to face the costumed men. The thread of magic had tightened around them. I stared; I hadn’t tightened it. I’d been tending to Finnur and Asbera, and doing so had sapped me of my strength.
The rioting wind howled and howled, drowning out the cries from the costumed men. It howled so much that it became a voice, sharp and shining and cold like ice. I wasn’t sure if I imagined it or not.
It spoke the ancient tongue.
Run, it said. Run. Run away.
And I did.
CHAPTER 11
Somehow, I made it back to the boarding-boats. The wind faded the farther I got from the costumed men, and by the time I was back on the docks, it was a gentle breeze, strong enough to rock the boarding-boat sign back and forth on its post but nothing more. I leaned up against the signpost. My legs trembled and my lungs burned and every muscle in my body ached. I prayed to all the gods and ancestors I knew that the costumed men – the Mists men – wouldn’t come for me. I had no more strength left to fight them.
“Hanna?”
Asbera’s voice trembled from out of the thick night. It sounded small and afraid. She stood at the end of the dock, a magic-cast lantern hanging from one hand. “Hanna – what happened–”
She moved toward me, although her steps were slow and unsteady. She must have been weak, too. The lantern swayed, the blue light gliding across the docks. As she drew closer, I saw the streaks of tears on her face.
“Finnur?” I asked.
“He’s alive.” She hung the lantern from a hook on the sign. For a moment, we stared at each other. Then she flung her arms around my shoulders and buried her face in my neck. “Oh, thank you, Hanna, we would’ve – I don’t even want to think what would have happened if you hadn’t been there.”
I hugged back as best I could. My thoughts were clouded with exhaustion.
Asbera pulled away and smiled through her tears. “You were so brave. I can’t believe they – that was the Mists, wasn’t it? They desecrated the Nalendan.” She looked ill. “How is that even possible?”
“I don’t know.” I stood there, wobbling in place.
“We have to tell the priests,” Asbera babbled. “We have to warn them. I just don’t know how this could have happened.”
“They were trying to find me.” I stared blankly ahead. “The Mists. It’s my fault you were hurt.”
“We weren’t hurt.” Asbera grabbed my hand. “We weren’t hurt, because you saved us.”
I shook my head. Asbera pulled me into a hug, almost knocking me off balance, and I could smell the smoky-sweet scent of magic on her, and the sharp tang of old fear.
“Thank you,” she said when she let me go.
It felt wrong, taking her thanks. Humans weren’t able to defeat Mists magic; everyone knew that. And certainly not humans like me, some fisherman’s apprentice who could control the winds for ships and not much else. Someone must have helped me.
Kolur. Kolur had dragged us away from the Mists before. And that fierce northern wind – Frida, maybe, helping him.
“You can stay with us tonight,” Asbera said. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable letting you go back to the Cornflower alone.”
I nodded, feeling numb. Asbera rowed us back to the Crocus, and the slap of the oars against the water kept time with the beat of my heart. She took me down below, past the rustling plants and dried-out vines. Finnur was stretched out on a cot beside the hearth, liquid bubbling in a cauldron on the fire. It released peppery-scented steam into the air, and the magic tingled across my skin like an ointment.
Asbera knelt beside him and pushed his hair off his forehead. Her eyes shimmered.
“Is he going to be all right?” I asked.
She didn’t answer right away, just kept stroking his hair and staring down at him. “Yes. We got away just in time.” She stood up and wiped at her eyes. “Can I get you something to drink? Or eat? You must be exhausted, all that magic–”
I nodded. Yes. Food. Food was necessary to rebuild your strength. I sat down at the table and watched Finnur as Asbera rummaged around in the storage barrels. He shifted, stirred, rolled over in his sleep. Seeing that movement gave me a rush of relief.
For the first time since we’d left the mead hall, my heart began to slow.
That night, I slept on a hammock in the corner of the Crocus hearthroom and woke to find Asbera feeding breakfast to Finnur.
“He’s doing so much better,” she said when I knelt down at her side.
“Thank you,” Finnur added. His voice was scratchy and thin. “That was – well, I don’t want to go through it again.” He started to cough, and Asbera dropped his breakfast to the side and tilted a cup of water to his lips. “I’m fine,” he said, batting her hand away. He did look better. There was more color in his skin, and his eyes were no longer glassy and blank.
“Would you like something to eat?” Asbera asked, turning to me.
“Thank you, and thank you for letting me sleep here, but I need to go–”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Asbera said, and Finnur coughed in protest.
“It’s fine, really,” I said. “I need to speak with – with someone. My old captain. I’ll be back aboard the Cornflower, so–”
“This is no time to be alone,” Asbera said.
“I agree,” Finnur said.
I forced myself to stay patient. I really was grateful that I didn’t have to spend the night by myself. But I needed to speak with Kolur. He’d likely saved me last night, and Mama and Papa had taught me well enough that
I knew I should thank him. But I also knew the only reason the Mists were still here was because the Penelope II hadn’t moved on yet. I wanted to know what sort of repairs they were doing and how long those repairs would take.
Asbera sighed, her brow creased with concern. “At least stay for breakfast,” she said. “Make sure you have all your strength.”
I hesitated. As anxious as I was to get to the Penelope II, I had to admit that Finnur’s breakfast porridge, flecked with sweet flowers and dried ice-berries, looked nourishing and warm.
“Fine,” I said. “But just breakfast.”
Asbera scooped me up a bowl of porridge. I ate it mostly in silence, trying hard not to think of last night. When I finished, Asbera walked me up to the deck.
“Come back straight away,” she said. “And take a bit of protection vine. It’s good luck.”
It was more than good luck, even I knew that, but in the morning’s bright glare, Asbera wasn’t willing to talk about the threat of the Mists outright.
So I snapped off a bit of vine. The magic shuddered through me at the moment of breakage, a magic far more powerful than any in my bracelet.
“Thank you,” I told her. “I won’t be gone long.”
“Wait.” She put one hand on my arm. “We have to report what happened to the priests. If the Nalendan can be violated–” She covered her heart like the thought pained her. “When you come back, we can make the trip together.”
“Of course,” I said. “I won’t be gone long.”
And with that, I was on my way to the Penelope II.
The sun was out, and the air was cold and brittle. People milled around on the docks, hawking cheap, weak-looking protection charms along with the usual salted cod and fishing supplies. I shivered every time I passed one of the charm merchants.
As I walked, I thought about Kolur. That was powerful magic, to stop the Mists the way he did. I wondered what other secrets he’d kept from me and Mama and the rest of the village.
The Penelope II was moored in its usual place. The gangplank was down, so I climbed aboard as if we were back on Kjora. I peeked my head over the railing but didn’t see anyone.
“Hello!” I shouted. “Kolur? I need to speak with you.”