Lydia Wolfdottir, who is amazing. She’s a wolf guard from the Valkyrie of the Prairie’s retinue, which means she has a full-face tattoo of a wolf mask and she knows the prairie best. She saved her Valkyrie from an assassin a few years ago. And last night she ripped this douchey camera guy a second bellybutton just for using the wrong terminology for her tattoo. Not to mention she has piles of amazing black hair and skin so pale, she might as well be sculpted from mother-of-pearl. There has to be something supernatural in her face cream that’s keeping her from the ragging sunburn peeling the flesh off my own nose.
Visby Larue, which is the most made-up-sounding name I have ever heard in my life, and I grew up in a Lokiskin caravan. He’s a couple years older than me, and everyone is saying he single-handedly saved his town in Dakota from a pack of sun-crazed prairie trolls during the worst of the Stone Plague Summer. He is unbearably good-looking in that dirty cowboy kind of way; he wears his jeans, his hat, his leather world-snake necklace, and nothing else all day long; but even though you think he should put on some daddy-ragging shoes or maybe a shirt, you’re mostly glad he doesn’t. His family line must be old First Peoples because of that sword-straight black hair and trademark copper skin. A Skraling—but we’re not supposed to call them that anymore, I think. Then there’s the smoke always hanging unlit from his lips, like he just wants to draw your attention there.
Soren Bearstar. This remains a rumor, but one I’ll treat as fact until forced otherwise. I haven’t seen Soren in a year and a half, not since Baldur’s Day two autumns ago, when I was invited as Baldur’s own guest to witness his annual death and light the pyre. Soren was there, too, since he’s dedicated to Baldur now, the only berserker warrior in forever to dedicate to a god other than Odin Alfather. Soren and Baldur have this intense romance going on, to the point where plenty of folks speculate it’s more than platonic. Those are the assholes who don’t know how Soren looks at Idun, the goddess of youth, who he is infatuated with. I don’t like to think about it, or about how he told me, as I stood next to him and watched Baldur’s body burn, But you’re a berserker now, Vider, as if he meant You’re untrustworthy.
Me. The first female berserker since Luta Bearsdottir was killed at Sanctus Helen’s about thirty years ago. I’m seventeen, the tiniest ragging berserker you will ever see in your life. Two years into it, at least I can say I’ve replaced my kitten grace and size with the solid muscle of a pit bull. A pit bull with madness spinning around in her chest that she can unleash at any moment to destroy her enemies. I’m here because of all that, and also because Soren and I rescued Baldur the Beautiful, when the entire country thought he’d been devoured by the Fenris Wolf and it was the beginning of Ragnarok.
So that’s it. The six of us—Sean, Sune, Lydia, Visby, Soren, and me—are here to find and kill this dragon, if it exists. Under the loving gaze of the entire country, reality-television style. The only good news, other than getting to see Soren, is that nobody forced me to sign the waiver, so the cameras can’t get in my face and I can make them erase anything that has to do with me and my interests. I’ll bet hotpigs and silver dollars Soren won’t sign it either, and the only reason Lydia Wolfdottir and Sune Rask signed is because they’re here under orders. Sean Hardy is used to the spotlight, and it’s possible he needs to do this because his revenue’s down; it’s been more than eight years since the last dragon. He should have joined a Stoneball team or something. Run for Congress or a kingseat. I don’t know if Visby Larue signed anything, but it’s hard to imagine a guy who won’t put on a shirt not signing a waiver to have his ripped chest and fine, fine shoulders plastered on televisions across New Asgard.
The camp is sectioned into three areas, much like a Lokiskin caravan, with the most important stuff—us and our parties—in the center, then a U-shaped area hugging ours for journalists and television crews and support staff, and then the outer ring, for the public. All in all, I estimate about three hundred people are here, and I’ve heard the nearest town is full to the feathers.
My tent is in the central cluster, bigger than I need, because unlike the others I don’t have an entourage with me. I didn’t exactly leave the Devil Bears berserker band under the best circumstances, so I’m alone. My training mentor, Henry Halson, would’ve come with me, but our captain said it was too soon for me to be away from the band, that I’d lose all the progress I’d made working in a unit; when I told him the invitation came to me, not him, and he could shove his progress up his ass, he sedated me and threw me in the brig. I lasted about five minutes before picking the lock and slipping out.
They all forget that before I was a berserker, I was a Lokiskin orphan. Sure, another berserker would try to use force to smash out of that hole, but I’m not just any berserker. I called Henry from Sun Valley City, Alisonak kingstate, and he brought me some of my things. He told me I was mad to run off like this. Said I’d be declared wulfheart, which is basically a traitor, and I said Odin was a god of betrayal, so it really seemed ridiculous to take my deserting so seriously. He tried to flare up my frenzy, to prove I needed to stay, but it didn’t work. Like Captain Storm said, I’ve made progress. Henry dropped his old black cowboy hat on my head, the one with the sign of the Lone Star Henrys, and told me to bring back some dragon scales at least, to mollify Storm and the Bears.
Now here I am in my tent, four days later, practically naked and using that hat to fan myself.
The hunt starts tomorrow, and I’d like to remain just here until the morning, hopefully as cool as possible. It’s unusually hot for this early in the summer, they’re saying, but it’s not the heat that’s unbearable. I lived in the desert last summer, and in Tejas with the Henrys in the autumn, and I think heat and I entered into a common marriage. It’s the humidity, which I didn’t know was a factor on the prairie. My caravan stuck to the dry plains of Lakota and Cheyenne kingstates most years, and when we did venture south, it was in the winter. The years I lived with my dad we were in Colorada, which gets so dry, your nose will spontaneously bleed.
A scrape against dirt sounds outside my tent, a little too soft to be purposeful, and I toss the cowboy hat aside and roll off the metal cot and onto my bare feet. Since I’m in my underpants and sports bra, I grab the thin, ultra-dry towel laid over the folding stool and wrap it around my waist as I consider and discard the idea of picking up a hand axe. Might sound too cautious, but I spent two years living with overaggressive men resentful of a pair of titties that weren’t there for their pleasure.
In a swift move, I loose the ties and fling back the tent flap.
It’s Visby Larue, the First Peoples cowboy, startling back with a hand slapped to his naked chest in exaggerated surprise. “Hey there, sweet thing, where’s the fire?”
“You can call me Vider or nothing,” I say.
His smile seems familiar to me, the way it curves up slowly, but probably that’s because it’s so calculated. There’s a thin scar under his nose, marring the edge of his upper lip. “Vider,” he says.
“What do you want?”
Sliding his thumbs into the pockets of his low-slung jeans—and dragging my attention to his hipbones, curse him—he says, “Sean Hardy wants to talk to all of us in the tac tent.”
“Now?”
“Yep.” He waits, hips slightly thrust forward, shoulders straight, black hair braided half-back. He gives the impression of being tall, but now that he’s right in front of me and I come up to his nose, I realize that’s only because he’s so slender.
“I’ll be there,” I say, raising my eyebrows.
“I’ll wait.” To prove his point, he turns away from me and pulls a cigarette from his pocket. He pinches it in his mouth without lighting it.
I snap the tent flap shut and go to my duffel to dig out clean clothes. There’s a fancy bra-vest combo that Henry helped me design for Yule, and I’ve been intending to save it for the start of the hunt, but it occurs to me that if Sean Hardy is calling us together, Soren arrived when I didn’t notice
. The first time he sees me in eighteen months, I want him to see me. He might disagree vehemently with my choice to become a berserker, but it was my choice, and I don’t regret it. I have to make him respect that.
The vest is simple and black, just like standard berserker uniforms, but there’s a reinforced band that hugs my ribs and laces up the front to hold my fortunately small breasts in place, like a decent sports bra. The vest flares a little over my hips and falls to mid-thigh. It’s great for heat, despite being black, because it cuts down on layers. First I put on black lightweight-canvas pants that tie shut around my ankles and fit into the heavy leather of my combat boots. I whip my colorless hair up into a spiky tail at the back of my skull and catch the wisps and tendrils with pins, so it looks disastrous but is out of my face. I should shave it all off again, like I did a year ago. But the sunburns were atrocious to deal with, and nothing is worse than melted sunscreen dripping into your eyes along with your sweat.
Last thing I grab is my iron collar to hook around my neck. I’m not supposed to take it off, not since I was put into the Devil Bears for training, but the thing is hot and heavy and I hate everything it stands for. Namely, being owned.
Visby Larue is still standing there when I emerge, positioned so that the brim of his cowboy hat casts his eyes and nose in shadow but sunlight burns across his mouth and the thin black cigarette.
He doesn’t move, as if lost in thought, contemplating the beauty of the slow evening, but hot-cursed-dillie, I’m sure he’s posing. I can’t help but smile. “You are something amazing,” I say.
“Oh?” Larue plucks the cigarette off his lip and glances three-quarters toward me.
I snort. “Your grandmama teach you how to do that?”
He laughs, brief enough I think I knocked a real one loose. “Rolled her own, actually,” he says.
Since it seems I can’t shake him without being flat skit, I start walking. He easily keeps up, and I glance down to see he’s managed to find some boots. “What kind of name is Visby Larue?” I ask as we head past the other inner tents toward the long tac tent.
“Visby’s one of the oldest cities in Gotland, one of the holiest,” he says, as if he’s reminding me of a thing I should’ve known. “Larue is a name my grandmama,” he winks at me, “got from her grandmama’s owners, before the Thralls’ War down in Mizizibi. Some family lore about all us native slaves being kept on one side of the street and the slaves from old Africa on the other. Called us La Rue and them La Terre.”
If that’s supposed to make me feel something, he miscalculated. “Why do you use it if it’s got such a skit history?”
“It’s my name, kitten.”
I immediately thrust my foot in between his, and with his next step, he tangles up around my ankle. An easy shove at his elbow, and he’s overbalanced, falls to the ground with a grunt. His hat rolls away.
With my boot, I nudge him over and flatten the sole on his bare chest. The leather thong that holds his world-snake charm cuts across his throat like a hanging scar. “Vider or nothing,” I say firmly.
His hair’s sprawled around him and the sun slashes his eyes as he glares up at me. One hand goes to my ankle and I keep loose, ready for him to try and turn the tables. Inside my chest, the frenzy stirs, tiny brittle fingers of glass poking under my ribs. My breath comes a little faster for it, but I keep my eyes hard on his.
“And Vider,” he says casually, “is such a name to be proud of? What is your surname? I heard you gave it up very easily. Lokisdottir to Bearskin? One orphan name to another.”
I jerk my boot off him and point a finger at his necklace. “You should know, Lokiskin, there’s no shame in being an orphan, nor in choosing a new path.”
Larue spreads his hands out. “Truth, Vider, truth. I’ll stop teasing you.”
“You do what you want,” I say, giving him my back. I walk on, pausing to snatch up his cowboy hat. With a little spin, I bow at him, sweeping the hat in an arc and up onto my head. His surprised laugh tugs at my own, though my mirth is tinged hot by the frenzy slicing up my heart.
The final yards to the tac tent I spend calming the berserker madness. She’s a fickle beast, never easily tamed. It’s been two years since she was born inside me, since the Alfather leaned his mouth to my ear and whispered, If you become a berserker, little girl, the heat of that madness will scorch your womb, it will strip motherhood from you entirely, forever. That is your sacrifice.
I gave up Loki’s greatest joy for the Alfather’s darkest danger, and I do not regret it.
Soren called his an iron star, cutting at his ribs.
But my frenzy is alive, a bright, fire-breathing creature.
She is fire and scales and the wings of a dragon beating inside me. A thin wyrm coiling around my spine, clicking her teeth against my sternum, squeezing my lungs and liver, licking blood from the lining of my heart.
She is why I’ve come here to find the prairie dragon. This frenzy that is a dangerous creature inside me. When I received my invitation, stamped with a bright sun seal, and saw the words written in fine calligraphy, my inner dragon shrugged her wings in curiosity.
We invite Vider, Daughter of Berserkers, Hangatyr’s Own
To join in a hunting spectacle in the Great Flint Hills of Kansa
After a King of Dragons
The date and arrival information hardly registered in the moment, as I recalled the reports we’d heard of the airplane witnesses, the rumors of missing cattle, and realized that I was the one of all the Devil Bears—of all the berserkers I’d lived with for two years, most of whom thought I was small and useless and not a team player—I was the one to be called.
Nothing could keep me away, not when I know my heart is a dragon and here is likely my only chance to see one, to look him in the eye and know if maybe, possibly, there is some kinship between my frenzy, my pain, and such a legendary beast.
A crowd presses at the flagged rope separating this inner circle of tents from the journalists’ circle, and I lift onto my tiptoes to see. It’s obvious somebody is shoving through, drawing all the attention. I can’t make out the questions the reporters are asking, yelling, but I catch a glimpse of a dark head and stop, hoping and hoping, and there, yes, there is Soren Bearstar, shouldering gently through the throng. He grabs the rope and jerks it up to duck beneath, backs up a few steps, probably saying something too softly for any of the journalists to hear.
I take a moment to breathe deep and admire the huge cut of his shoulders under a tight yellow T-shirt and think of when I saw him the very first time: sweating at the edge of the Half Serpent caravan circle, one hand on the fence holding the goats and pygmy horses in their pen. He frowned as if he knew some heavy thing the rest of us did not, and I fixated on his bottom lip, full and slightly pinker than the rest of his dark face. It surprised me by stretching into a bowed smile, with a flash of white teeth, when he stepped forward to catch little Sam as the kid climbed over the fence. The smile stayed pinned in place like a mask, and when Soren turned, I saw the berserker spear tattoo bisecting his left cheek.
Everything I knew back then about berserkers made me consider them dangerous, wild, and a little bit mad—the fiercest warriors, said to be the least trustworthy, because that is how Odin Alfather made them. They band together and rarely wander apart from the flock. But that one, that young, handsome boy with desert-colored skin and the tightest buzz of black hair and warm eyes shaped like half moons, stood alone and laughing at the antics of a Lokiskin boy. He was wearing jeans and a T-tee shirt like any teenager, with a massive sword strapped to his back.
With him was Baldur the Beautiful, the god of hope and joy, and there was such ease and friendship and obvious trust between them. Love and trust between a man and a god was a thing I’d stopped believing in the moment Loki Changer—my friend, who I had loved—did not come when I needed him most.
How could I blame myself for chasing Soren half across the country, for kissing him and wanting to be like him?
For begging the Alfather to make me a strong berserker in return for my part in saving Baldur’s life?
Soren blames me, though.
He turns away from the crowd of media, and because he thinks there is nobody behind him, I catch the subtle grimace in the corner of his mouth.
“Soren!” I cry with all the gladness I feel, because here is the person who saved me.
His eyes widen, and the unguarded first expression when he recognizes me is gladness, too. Relief gives fire to my heels, and I rush at him, arms up. Soren catches me with a grunt as I throw my arms around him and hug tight, Visby Larue’s hat crushed against his shoulder.
I don’t push my luck by hugging too long, and nudge away so Soren drops me onto my feet again.
“It’s good to see you,” he says, and my dragon reaches for his iron star. I don’t stop it. I want this. I don’t expect him to allow me in.
Soren’s expression darkens, but he doesn’t close off his frenzy. When the spiky energies meet, I lick my bottom lip and look away, holding still. This is a berserker embrace, two wolves circling, reaching out to communicate with burning energy instead of scent or teeth.
I’ve never felt his frenzy before, not as a berserker myself, and it is unlike the Devil Bears’ or Henry Halson’s. Soren’s churns like gears, intricate, solid, crushing like the guts of a clock tower. I can tell things about him now that I could not before: He is predictable and dependable, slow to change but always moving, always ready, never sleeping. His frenzy does not hibernate, as mine seems to.