Page 26 of His Human Believer

“No.”

He doesn’t elaborate.

Hmm. Fortunately, the universal translator in my brain allows me to not only understand and speak the Hyrrokin language, but I can read it too. So I read while Vidar works his way down the equipment line. And I look up more than I should, because he’s shirtless the way every male on this planet is shirtless. But the burner light does something to the muscles that ripple across his back when he crouches. And jeez, his ass and thighs are utter perfection. I shift in my seat again, trying to get relief from this constant ache. I swear my clit is throbbing for attention. I’m trying to refrain from masturbating though, because I guess I’ve decided to join Vidar’s vow in solidarity, which is really difficult.

About a third of the way into the second book, I discover an interesting drawing.

Hand-rendered and faded, with the ink gone brown at the edges. A figure stands upright and long-limbed, drawn beside a Hyrrokin male for scale, and it’s got a head and a half on him. Long claws.

“Vidar, there’s a drawing in here of the Skyggjar, exactly how Dagr and the kids described. The eyes are gold. If you think that the Skyggjar isn’t real how is it possible that Dagr described a creature only seen in drawings that aren’t easily accessible?”

“That book is hundreds of years old. The plate is a copy of an earlier plate.”

“Well, how does a fourteen-year-old describe it?”

“The same way six other offspring did.” He doesn’t look up from the equipment. “The description is in the story which includes gold eyes. Every grandmother on this half of the continent has told it that way for hundreds of years, and the artist who made that plate had heard the same story. The drawing is not evidence of the creature. It is evidence of the description.”

“Okay.” I set the book down. “That’s a good answer. Can I ask you something else?”

He chuckles. “You will regardless.”

“Was it a mistake? Not moving Halloween.”

He stops what he’s doing.

I bite at my lip. “There are going to be almost a hundred kids walking about at night, lots of them will be very close to that wall.”

“Ninety-four,” he says. “I counted.”

I roll my eyes. “Of course you did.”

“Ninety-four offspring, forty-one of whom are of an age to have come into their firestarting within the last three years.” He sets a tablet down. “That is the population the folklore specifies. I am aware of the number. I have been aware of it since the Board voted.”

“So, was it a mistake?”

“No.” He looks at me. “Because there is nothing in that preserve, and if I behave as though there is, I have done the exact damage I came here to undo.”

“The three who went in with weapons,” I say quietly.

“Yes.”

“And the landowner with the fire beast.”

“That one was a calf. I did not tell you that part. He was entirely certain he had seen a Skyggjar and what he killed was a calf, and he wept at the hearing, and I sat nearby and could not tell him anything that would help.”

Oh.

“So you are worried.”

“I am worried that a hundred beings will be outdoors in the dark on the one night the story names, and that somebody will see something ordinary and be certain.” His jaw works. “That is what frightens me, Margaret. Not the preserve. The community.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way.

“And there are households in this region where offspring are not permitted outdoors on an alignment night at all. A four-year-old comes into her first flame, which is the proudest diurnal of her small life, and some being tells her it makes her prey.”

I don’t say anything, because I’m thinking about Mitry.

“That is the harm,” he says. “And it’s not hypothetical harm. The poachers might be the worst part of all of this.”