“Mira, let me finish some?—”
“You are a murderer?”
“Yes.”His face was solid.No wince.No shame.Just acceptance.
“Why?”My voice cracked.“Why would you do something like that?”And why would you wait until I was vaneurigk to tell me about it?
“Mira, I will get to that if you just… come back.”
I remained sitting rigidly, so after a moment, Fell sat up too, beginning to wrap me in the furs we had abandoned.I raised my hand to stop him.
He started smiling because he always smiled when I was cross with him.“My mother wassoten, like you were, from the same country even.My father was Norsern like me.I have told you he was not a good father.”
He hadn’t told me that.Not so directly at least.
“He was not a good guardian to her.He hurt her often.He forced her to do labour.He told her many times he would never name her Norsen.I think she knew what she was going to do for a long time.I think she waited until I was big enough to live without her.But the day she chose to leave life… it had been an especially bad day.He… well, it does not matter what he did?—”
“It does,” I said.
Fell’s eyes wandered to the clouds in the distance as he said the next part, his voice getting quieter with each word.“He poured boiling water on her.On her face and one shoulder… There were many burns, and her hair was stuck in the burns, I remember.That was the day she chose to die—I am not angry with her for it.I worry she might think I would be angry, but I understand.Still, I hated that her life had been how it had been.There are many stories I could tell about her suffering, but after she died, I was less confused about my father.He was how he was, but he also taught me to fish; he loved watching me spar with other children.He would cheer for me.He left seeds out for all the squirrels… I always felt like I was betraying my mother whenever I accepted his kindness.But like I said… I was less confused after she died.I knew I could not kill my father in a fair fight.I waited until he slept.”
I felt like gagging, like I might open my mouth and the cry of a gull, or some other scratchy, screechy sound might come out.Our child kicked me so hard I felt nauseous.
“Of course, I was not clever about it and did not hide the proof of it well.I was to be put to death, but Arik came by, perfectly timed, moments before my end.He asked what crime a child could possibly have committed, and when he was told, he pardoned me.Took me with him.Tried to teach me things.Corrected a lot that had gone wrong in me.”Fell laughed softly.“I did not make it easy for him.I remember screaming at him, ‘You are not my father!’and him saying, ‘I would not want to be!’When I was grown, he brought me back to Gittenurg, to the spot we first met and left me there.”
He shrugged again, but I could tell he didn’t feel like shrugging.
Any anger that had been building within me washed away with the sound of the waves nearby.I knew what the Norsern said when someone told stories from their childhood—especially sad stories.“Yorunn listens to all that happens inside homes.”I did not believe in the Norsern goddess of hearth and home, witness to those who suffer at the hands of family members or hunger or illness, witness to the secret beauties of familial kindness and love, but I knew Fell did.“You must be so angry,” I said.
He pushed his lips to the side.“I have been angry about it enough.In truth, I do not think on it much, but I have been thinking of being a father, so I have been thinking of fathers?—”
I crept closer to him, shifting my swelling stomach as I straddled him, bending my neck so our faces could be close together, even though our child kept our chests apart.“You will be a good father.”
“But how would I know if I was not?My father… I do not think he considered himself terrible.We are different men, but part of him is in me…”
“I will tell you if you are doing poorly.Arik definitely will tell you?—”
He laughed and then grew solemn again, wrapping his arms around me, adding to the awful squishing I felt internally from the opening door pushing everything inside up, cramping my lungs.
“I knowskaelisskael, but I would like my child to be happy,” Fell whispered.
“He will be,” I said.
“You keep sayinghe, but you cannot know?—”
“Well, this will tell us if he is obedient or not right from the first,” I said.“If he listens to me, he will be a boy.”
Fell’s laugh was so deep, I felt the buzz in my body.
Thirty-Seven
Autumn coated the world in gold, then winter dyed it silver.And still no ships came from the Isle to do battle.
Just as it had the previous winter, the cold horrified me, swallowed me, turned me into a warmth-gobbling creature.There are many lovely stories from this time, endless mornings where I insisted it was too cold for Fell to leave bed, as many snowball fights as you could imagine King Arik’s court holding, the magic of the world glittering around me, Faller fighting a blacksmith on behalf of Rowan, earning Rowan’s begrudging respect… but one night stands so stark against the rest, I must rush toward it in my tale.
It was in the night, deep into winter, that Fell’s hands woke me up, running along my cheeks.
“Shh,” he said.
