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The bow of the ship dipped, and Revni forced her thoughts into a single, focused prayer:

Let me be worthy.

The carved horse’s head rose, riding the wave, and that jagged line of land appeared again. The wind whipped Revni’s long braids and the spraying mist clung to her eyelashes, but she held still, watching the dark cat’s spine in the distance sharpen at every lift into low hills covered in enormous trees, a thin line of storm-gray beaches piping the edge like a seam.

Revni had been on raids before, but not like this. A thrill went up her at the shouts traveling up the keel—someone tacked the sail, another leapt to the stern. At the scuttering of oars and shields from the rim of the long hull where they’d spent most of the journey, Revni finally moved. Her father ducked as she swung her heavy shield over his head.

“Make sure they don’t get my good side, Rev.” He settled his oar into its notch.

Ulf snorted. “You’d have to have a good side first.”

He plunked to his seat in front of Revni, rocking the ship. They were all rocking it, every muscular man and woman shifting oars and rigging, heavy bodies lurching up the length, heavy bottoms plopping onto the wooden chests that served as seats. The old women and the children huddled in the center. A cold sweat was already dampening Revni’s armpits, but she adjusted her stance like she’d practiced, one knee up and one knee down. Her toes cramped in her new boots. She should have stretched them better. Boots or toes, she wasn’t sure. Both maybe.

Revni’s mother tossed a grin as she took position next to her. Someone took Revni’s other side—Aesa—and Revni could hear the rest of the shieldholders clacking into place between the rowers, the off-beat line of shields unfolding like scales on a rippling wooden fish.

A fish would have been better, Revni couldn’t help but think, her eye snatching to the bow again, catching only the rise and fall of a freshly-painted ear. Revni had hoped to make the journey on the Serpent, its carved prow elegant and menacing. That was how she wanted to be in this new place: beautiful and powerful and feared. Instead her parents had chosen the Flyer, a wild-eyed pony, strong and sturdy and the fastest of his breed.

“We’re starting anew, Revni,” her mother had explained when Revni insisted it was an ill-omen to arrive on shore in the weakest ship. “Fast and dependable. These are good omens. Good goals to have.”

Revni glanced briefly behind, but the wall of shields hid the Fang and the Serpent from wherever they followed, and she wouldn’t risk rising from her crouch. That cold sweat was turning swampy.

“Patience, Tuyra.” Ulf teased her with the war goddess’ name, but Revni ignored him, shifting her shield a fraction to steal a glimpse of their target. But the steersman had turned, and now there was nothing but ocean.

Revni licked her cracked lips. She should get water. Probably now, while things were still quiet. Instead, she took her cue from her mother and stayed vigilant, willing her wild heartbeat to calm.

Let me be worthy, Revni repeated, but she was no longer sure to whom she was directing her thoughts. The gods? Her parents? The clan?

The raid was unexpected, but not unwelcome. Ragn had always intended to navigate their ships south, away from the coastal city of Eaborik. Going near the city wasn’t worth the risk—old feuds brought to new lands. No, the clan would make their way to their new home, the settlements in the north, via the long route upriver, slipping behind Eaborik’s skirts.

But then Ragn had realized how far south they were, and he’d hailed the other ships and drawn them all together, shouting messages over the wind. And the gods had calmed the waters to enable them to plan—as calm as they ever got in the Speckled Sea—and a humbling chill had run through Revni’s bones despite the high sun’s heat.

This was no coincidence.

Revni had begged for years to be allowed to join the summer journeys, but A soti, her mother had reassured, isn’t made through attacking foreign shores. Revni had earned her title through the vow, through the slice of a knife to the goat’s throat. She had nothing more to prove. Her father, after more than one raid on other clans, had pulled her by the neck into his barrel chest. A kill is a kill. She had earned the shield in her hand. That should be all that mattered. She had paid two rabbits to the seer, but You cannot ask the gods for what you want, was all he’d said, only trust what they have given.

Ulf had only laughed when she asked him to intervene, and started calling her Tuyra.

But then the spring had come, and her sister Ynge hadn’t shown for the visit they expected. And then the clan had decided to flee, and all the chances Revni thought she’d have faded into preparations for a different life. There would be no riches and glory for her, no soti songs of her great adventures. Revni the Fearless, perhaps, or Revni of the Long Ax. Better to be alive, the leaders had said. Better than being legally in the right, but dead. Revni didn’t know the politics. Only that the descendants of her famous grandfather’s crew were still there, on the land he had negotiated, tilling farms and raising children, and Revni’s clan had hope. A place to go. Her parents had already lost one daughter. What kind of person risked them losing another? Even if it meant all her training had been for nothing. Even if it meant that everything that made them Isfolj—feared, powerful, wealthy, brutal—would have to be left behind. So Revni had swallowed her disappointment and boarded a ship, resigned at only seventeen to spending the rest of her days hearing stories before the fire instead of living them.

But then here the chance was, like the gods had plucked the clan up and set them down before a feast. Here, my child. Go ahead.

A sudden thump made Revni start, but it was only the young boys stomping on a loose plank, seeing if they could make it fly. One of the old women sitting on the mastfish snapped at the children, and they stilled. They would make proud warriors one day, but now, they were too small to be of use and too young to be afraid. Runa’s baby fussed at her breast, her toddler pulling at her shawl, and Revni had a pang of concern. Where would the other settlers go while the warriors raided? Stay on the ships? Revni pushed her nervousness down. Ragn knew what he was doing.

There was a cliff, he had explained, only a little farther south of the Snake. Revni had rolled the new word on her tongue: monastery. Ragn had raided it once before, two years ago. It would only put them out of their way a day, maybe less. At the base of this cliff, there was a long, steep beach—practically a ramp. The ships could slide right in, and the warriors could run to the top before anyone realized they’d arrived. At the peak, a building full of gold and silver, jewels, tapestries threaded in colored silk. Geese, Ragn called the men who lived there. Feathers ready for plucking, and all they did was honk. The last time Ragn had come, he and the others had sailed in and out in a single afternoon, with riches enough to pay in part for the making of the Flyer.

We’ll be farmers soon. It almost sounded like begging, and this more than anything almost lost Ragn support. When will we have another chance like this?

But Revni had closed her eyes and breathed in the sea, afraid to voice the excitement that thrummed in her veins. The whole journey had been blessed so far, a wind at their backs and the sun on their faces, the sky a fortuitous shade of blue, the color of the lapis Jurl Brieg had brought from his southern adventures. Was this not a blessing from the gods as well? A proper battle. A proving of herself, to the gods, to her parents, to the whole of Isfolj spread across the seas: that no matter how much dirt replaced blood under her nails, Revni Hyldyttr had been a true soti, worthy of the name in every way. Instead of sneaking up the Snake, Gon’s descendants could arrive in the style Gon had left—bearing hoards of gold and fresh scars.

The ship lurched. Revni steadied herself with a glance at her mother. The sun had lowered, washing Hyld in gold, and the shape of her face made Revni’s heart clench. Revni resembled her father—broad-shouldered, blond haired. Her mother and Ynge were twins separated by years.

Would Ynge even know they had left?

Who had abandoned who?

Hyld’s lips were a thin line. “Pyir—” The hesitation in her voice got Revni’s father’s attention and whipped Revni back to her post.