The Second Blind Son by Amy Harmon

26

SOLDIERS

The ship was sinking, and secrets were oozing through the widening cracks in the bow like terrified rats. Ghisla’s own secrets trembled on her lips, but she clenched her teeth and bit them back, willing the rodents to swim.

Ghost had been careless. She should have kept her head down. Instead, she’d stood among the keepers on the temple steps, and the North King had seen her. Banruud had seen her. He’d seen her, and he’d known her. She would not be able to hide from him any longer.

Odin help them all.

Ghisla could feel the listing of the ground beneath her feet, and she clearly was not the only one. Ghost must have fainted or swayed, because Dagmar had swooped her up into his arms and was carrying her into the temple. Ghisla and her sisters hurried after him, and Master Ivo wasn’t far behind, his scepter clacking against the stones.

“Are you unwell, Ghost?” Elayne asked, hovering at Dagmar’s side. She passed a gentle hand over Ghost’s brow. Ghost shook her head in shame.

“I’m a fool, Elayne. I was afraid, and I forgot to draw sufficient breath. I’m fine. See to the others. You were all so brave . . . and I am so proud.”

“Go, Elayne,” Dagmar urged kindly, laying Ghost on a cool bench in the sanctum. “See to the others. I’ll look after Ghost.”

Elayne hesitated and looked at her sisters.

“Do not send us away,” Juliah said. “Tell us what is happening.”

“We deserve to know what is happening,” Bashti agreed.

Ghisla already knew what was happening.

She knew, and her heart raged in her chest. She needed to find Hod, but she didn’t move. None of them moved.

Dagmar seemed at a loss, and Ghost stared up at him, her terror evident.

“What are we going to do?” Ghost whispered, but Dagmar rose from her side and stepped away, turning as Ivo entered the sanctum, his black robes melding with the shadows that jumped from stone to stone in the flickering light.

Ghisla pulled her sisters back, retreating to the shadows, but they did not leave.

Ivo did not sit upon the dais, and he did not ask Ghisla and her sisters to go. Ghisla wasn’t even sure he noticed they were still in the sanctum. Instead he stopped in front of Ghost, his hands wrapped on the ball of his scepter, his chin resting on his hands. Ghost tried to rise, but her strength seemed to fail her.

“Why does Banruud fear you, Ghost?” he whispered.

“He does not fear me,” Ghost choked.

But he did. Ghisla knew he did.

“Banruud will give the princess to the North King to stop their advance into Saylok, and young Bayr can do nothing to stop it,” Master Ivo said, staring down at Ghost.

“I will go with her,” Ghost panted.

Elayne moaned softly and Juliah took a step toward her, but Ghisla laid a hand on her shoulder, restraining her, afraid they would be asked to go. Dagmar, Ivo, and Ghost were oblivious to them.

“You are a keeper—you will not,” Dagmar shot back, incredulous. “You’ve been entrusted with the knowledge of the runes. And that knowledge stays here, in the temple.”

“I gave my word to the princess,” she ground out, her jaw locked.

“You gave your word to me,” Ivo hissed. “To Dagmar. To Saylok.”

“I care nothing for Saylok,” she cried. “I care nothing for the bloody runes. What good are the runes if they can’t protect us? If they cannot right these wrongs?”

Ivo swayed as though he too had lost the strength to stand, and he turned away from her and walked up the long aisle to the dais, his head bowed, his shoulders stooped, and Ghost rose and followed him, Dagmar beside her, as if unable to resist the pull of his displeasure.

“Bayr is going to Alba,” Ivo said, sinking down into his chair. “Even now. And you say nothing.” Ivo raised his black gaze to Dagmar. “Have you not seen the way they look at each other?”

Dagmar flinched as though he’d been struck, and Ghost moaned.

“These secrets have been kept too long, and this one will destroy them, Dagmar. And still . . . you . . . say . . . nothing,” Ivo marveled.

Ghisla’s guilt sprouted like green vines, winding their way up her throat. She too had said nothing. They had all said nothing for far too long.

Tears had begun to course down Ghost’s cheeks.

“Bayr and Alba do not understand that the connection they feel is a connection of the blood, of the heart, but it can never be a connection of the body,” Master Ivo admonished.

“It is . . . not . . . a connection of the blood,” Ghost wept, the words so faint Ghisla wasn’t sure she’d even said them.

But she had. She’d finally said the words aloud. Dagmar turned shattered eyes to her, and Ivo beckoned her forward, curling his fingers toward his palm.

“Tell me!” Master Ivo bellowed.

“Alba is not Banruud’s daughter,” Ghost shouted back. “She was not Alannah’s daughter. She is not a daughter of Saylok at all. She is the daughter of a slave.”

“What are you saying?” Ivo whispered.

“Banruud took her from her mother only days after she was born,” Ghost panted, as if the words were a torrent she could no longer contain. “And you made him king,” she mourned. “You made him king. You made her a princess. And I could not take that away from her.”

“But . . . in my vision . . . I saw . . . her mother’s . . . joy,” Ivo stammered. “Alannah gave birth to a child. I saw it.”

“And I saw . . . her mother’s pain,” Dagmar whispered, as though he finally understood. “You are the slave girl, Ghost. You are Alba’s mother.”

“Odin help us,” Elayne whispered, the words so faint only Ghisla and her sisters could hear. Ghisla feared Odin had abandoned Saylok long ago.

“Yes. I am Alba’s mother,” Ghost breathed. “I am Alba’s mother.” She told the truth like it was precious, too sacred for sound, and when she said the words again—“I am Alba’s mother”—they were hardly more than a whisper.

“Tell me everything,” Master Ivo demanded, harsh, exacting, and Ghost submitted, spilling the story with the relief of the long damned.

“My masters . . . a farmer and his wife . . . brought the babe to the Chieftain of Berne. They told me it was custom—law—and that they would return with the child and a piece of gold. I waited for hours. I worried. I needed to feed her. I went to the chieftain’s keep and watched them come out. They didn’t have my daughter. They said . . . they said the chieftain wanted to bring her to the Keepers of Saylok to determine whether she was a changeling . . . a monster . . . or a blessing.”

Dagmar cursed, but Ghost continued.

“I watched her—I am called Ghost for my skin and my hair. But I have become one. I have learned how to blend in, to disappear, to be invisible. I waited and I watched. I planned. And then one day, I got my opportunity. But I couldn’t do it. As much as I hated the king for what he’d done, what he’d taken from me. I could not hate the queen, a woman who so obviously loved and cared for my daughter. She held her so gently. She was so patient . . . and kind. And she was able to give her a life . . . that I could never give her.”

Ghost raised her eyes to Dagmar and then to the Highest Keeper, pleading for them to understand. She didn’t look toward Ghisla and her sisters. They did not exist. In that moment, it was only Ghost and her confession, and the daughters witnessed it in silence.

“My daughter was a princess. And I was a ghost. I could not take her from the people who loved her so perfectly. There would have been nowhere I could go, no place to take her where I wouldn’t have been hunted down. In this world, in this temple . . . she had a protector.”

“Bayr,” Dagmar supplied.

“Yes. And all of you.”

“That is why you are here. That is why Banruud dreamed of pale wraiths who came to take his child. Today the king . . . has seen his ghost,” Master Ivo said, sinking back into his chair, his staff clattering to the floor.

“He thought I was dead. He sent men to kill me then. He will send them to kill me again.”

“What have you done?” Ivo moaned.

“I have watched my daughter grow,” Ghost shot back, defensive. “I have seen her raised as a princess of Saylok. She is loved. She is protected. She is safe.” The final words rang false, and Ghost closed her eyes as if to hide her doubt.

“She isn’t safe, Ghost. You aren’t safe! Banruud saw you, and Alba is about to become queen of the Northlands,” Dagmar lamented.

“Better queen of the Northlands than the daughter of a ghost,” she retorted, wounded, and Dagmar touched her hand as though he’d forgotten all of them observed. But the Highest Keeper was already speaking, his voice a weary wail.

“We made Banruud king. We made him king. And the curse upon the clans continues. We have failed the people. Bayr was our salvation. And I knew it. I did not listen to the gods. Now it is too late.”

“You m-made Banruud king,” Ghost stammered. “You gave him his power. Can you not . . . take it away?”

“How?” Master Ivo asked, raising his clawed hands to the heavens. “We are a temple of aging keepers and hunted women. We have no power to remove Banruud. Should we seek to remove him by the sword? We have lost the faith of the people and the support of the chieftains. You heard the crowd today. The keepers have failed them. The Northmen are at our door, the king conspires to sell our daughters, and the temple—even Saylok—hangs in the balance.”

“Surely . . . surely the runes . . . ,” Ghost stammered.

“The runes are only as powerful—and as righteous—as the blood of the men and women who wield them. And we have tried every rune, beseeched every god, and bled into the soil of every clan,” Master Ivo said. “The keepers have failed. I have failed. And Saylok will fall.”

The mount was crowded and Hod’s senses reeled. He was no good in a crush—not to himself or anyone else. One heartbeat reverberated into another, and he climbed from the wagon of provisions and, using his staff and his general ability to repulse, moved among the masses.

He tracked the dulcet tones of Ghisla’s heart and the butterfly wings of her indrawn breath. She was still among the keepers; they’d withdrawn from the steps after Gudrun’s inspection, and twenty-six soldiers now guarded the temple doors. The North King’s arrival had struck terror into every breast: the chieftains, the princess, the keepers, the citizenry. And Bayr. Bayr was not supposed to be on the mount.

He left the courtyard and drew a pail of water from the well and took the stairs to his room, addressing the servants who bustled in and out of the yard with a terse “good day.” The king’s return had sent them all into a frenzy. He washed the dust from the journey off his skin and patted himself dry. Ghisla’s scent still lingered on his bed and in the towel beside the basin. He tracked her heart again, unable to help himself.

“Hody, Hody, Hody.” She was singing his name. It wafted in on the breeze, and as he listened, she grew closer.

She was trying to find him. Or mayhaps . . . she already knew where he was.

He heard her climb the steps, her treads soft but hurried, like she dashed to avoid detection.

He turned and strode to his door, pulling it open as she reached the corridor. She tumbled into his arms a moment later.

“I knew you would hear me, and I prayed you would be here,” she cried.

“You could have been seen,” he chided, shoving the door closed behind her, but he was too glad to see her, too eager to greet her, and he kissed her, allowing himself a brief respite from his crippling concern.

She smelled of rosewater and incense, of panic and tears, and he lapped at the salt of her mouth and shuddered beneath the clutch of her hands. Her breasts were pebbled against his chest, and her limbs were trembling with need. It was not anticipation or desire, though he felt that too.

She was afraid.

“Ghisla,” he soothed, stroking her silken cheek as he softened his kiss, but she shook her head, resisting his comfort and seeking her own. Her hands dug into his hips, urging him to her. And he understood. He gathered her skirts in his hands and found the slick heat of her body beneath them. She shuddered against his mouth, and he urged her onto his bed, freed himself from his breeches, and sank inside her without another word.

She quaked against him, her mouth on his mouth, her chest to his chest, her legs cradling his hips, and for a brief, mindless moment, unparalleled pleasure drenched a month of unbearable strain.

Then the present returned, the tower bells tolled, and their pleasure fled in the face of their fear.

Hod smoothed Ghisla’s skirts and gathered her into his arms. Her heartbeat made love to his, though their time together was gone.

“You must go, my love,” he urged.

“I know.”

“You must gather the daughters and the keepers, bar the temple doors, and leave through the tunnels. You must get off the mount tonight.”

“What of Alba?”

“Ghost must decide if she wants to keep her secret or save her daughter.”

“She told Master Ivo. She told Dagmar. Just now, in the sanctum. Her secret is out. Banruud saw her. She has haunted him all these years. I think he convinced himself she wasn’t . . . real.”

Hod had heard the exchange on the temple steps. He’d heard Banruud’s gasp and smelled the terror that rose on his skin, but he had not known how to interpret it. “He’s shaken. But it will only harden his resolve. He will announce the betrothal tonight, and there will be a wedding in the morning. He thinks the Northmen will leave and his troubles will be averted.”

Ghisla groaned with such pain that he tightened his arms, as if he could protect her from it all. He couldn’t.

“Alba and Bayr . . . He is in love with her. She’s in love with him. They’ve tried to keep it hidden, but . . . I know it’s true.”

“Oh no,” Hod rasped. “This cannot be.”

“The betrothal will destroy them both. She cannot marry the North King.”

“We will get her off the mount. She must go with the daughters,” Hod said, scrambling to process the unraveling of his plans.

“But Hod, what of Bayr? If the Northmen attack, he will fight! He will fight for the mount. He is a chieftain of Saylok. He will fight.”

“I will take care of Bayr,” he vowed, though he didn’t know how. Bayr should be in Dolphys. In ten years he had not come to the mount! “I will protect Bayr. I will guard him with my life.”

“And who will guard you?” Ghisla wailed, her hands clutching his face. For a moment he gave her his mouth, pressing his entreaties into her lips and her skin.

“You must not give up,” he whispered, and her tears began to fall. “Shh. Ghisla. You promised you would not give up on me.”

She groaned again, her teeth grinding, her fists clenched against his chest.

“I will do . . . whatever . . . you say,” she bit out, “but you promise me that I will not have to live without you again.”

He wrapped his hands around hers and drew them to his lips, trying to control the quaking in his chest.

“If you fall . . . I will follow. Do you understand me?” she cried, fierce even as her tears fell unchecked.

“I understand you,” he whispered.

He rose and pulled her from his bed, kissing her mouth and her eyes and wiping her tears. She pushed him away like she could not bear the agony of parting one more time, and when the coast was clear, she fled his room as quickly as she’d come.

“Do not fall, Hod,” she whispered as she ran. “Do not fall.”

He did not fear a fall. He could endure that. He could endure the end. But he could not fail.