Nine months after the revolt, seven children had been born; whether they’d been conceived before or after the women had been unleashed and their emotions hot upon them, Annika never knew. All of the babies had been girls, and it had been considered a sign from the gods that only women should ever populate the village. A community couldn’t continue without children, however, so some women left to lie with men, and returned with a girl—or empty-handed, if the baby had been a boy that they left with his father. Some of the women remained away, choosing to stay with their sons. Others, like Annika’s mother, took in a child stolen from Horde territories or the New World.
It had been Hanna’s idea to use the old legends of the hidden folk to keep outsiders away. Through the years, Hannasvik had remained secret—and all the while, they’d prepared for discovery and to defend themselves. Some, like Källa, were called shieldmaidens, armed and trained to fight, and on whose shoulders the safety of their village rested most heavily. Annika had been taught to drive and maintain one of the trolls that they used to travel long distances and to haul back surturbrand, the brown coal used in their furnaces.
The day Annika had built the fire, she’d only recently returned from one of those exhausting trips. Leaving her troll at the village,
she’d hiked down the rocky hills that shielded Hannasvik from view of the sea, and across the barren flats to a beach not far from the terns’ nesting fields. She’d spent the early afternoon collecting feathers to fill in her troll’s ragged ruff, and when her stomach had begun to growl, kindled a small fire in the shelter of a wind-scraped boulder to cook the fish she’d netted in one of the tidal pools. Belly full, she’d stared out over the sea and begun to daydream. She hadn’t noticed the ship in the distance or twilight falling, turning her small fire into a beacon, until Källa had rushed up and stamped out the flames. Together, they’d hidden as four men rowed to shore and trampled around the beach, discovering the remains. Annika and Källa waited through the night as the men made camp on the rocky flats, not daring to flee lest they lead the strangers back to their village—and not daring to kill them, lest their deaths brought more outsiders to investigate. Annika lived the next day in an agony of unrelenting dread as the men walked near the cliffs of the same hills that concealed Hannasvik; they would only have to climb the peaks to discover it. Källa’s sword had been at ready, and Annika had been preparing to race back to the village to retrieve her troll when the men had decided to abandon their search and return to their ship.
Annika hadn’t immediately known that Källa had taken responsibility for the fire. Such matters were handled among the elders and in privacy. That Källa was a shieldmaiden, whose duty it was to protect, made the punishment more severe—as had Källa’s temper. A terrible argument had erupted between her and the elders, Källa calling them all stupid hags for dreaming that they could continue to hide. The result had been exile.
Källa hadn’t come to Annika after the judgment had been passed; she’d simply gone. By the time Annika had confronted the elders with the truth, Källa had already disappeared.
The entire village had supported Annika’s decision to follow her, bring her back. It wouldn’t have mattered if they hadn’t. Annika would have gone after her sister anyway.
A sister in heart—but closer to David Kentewess in blood. Though Inga Helgasdottor had left their village before Annika had been born, she could easily picture her. The only twins in Hannasvik, Inga and Källa’s mother had looked exactly alike.
For as long as Annika had known her, Hildegard had worried and wondered about Inga’s fate. Those who lay with men didn’t always come back. Some fell to danger, some to love, others bore male children whom they couldn’t bear to leave. The news would hurt, but she knew that Hildegard would be pleased to finally know that her sister’s son had grown into such a fine man, that she’d died protecting him.
And that was the crux of it: Inga was dead. Annika couldn’t help her now, couldn’t help David—and
wouldn’t
risk the lives of everyone in her village.
Not again.
David had said that he’d asked about her schedule, and
Annika quickly discovered that he intended to use that information. She managed to avoid him at breakfast by coming into the wardroom late and taking a seat far away from him, then leaving immediately after eating. She did the same for lunch, but when she dutifully sat for her supper before the second dog watch began, he entered the wardroom—though he was due shortly for dinner in the captain’s cabin.
The seats around the table were almost empty; most of the crew wouldn’t eat until the current watch was over. Elena wasn’t there to help her. The first mate’s “So you’ve got a suitor, eh?” left her stumbling for something to say.
Of course the answer was “no,” but despite everything, she wished that wasn’t so. Annika preferred to think of David Kentewess as a suitor. She still liked him so well, still felt that flush of attraction when he took the seat next to her.
And if he were a suitor, she wouldn’t be feeling so stupid.
With heated cheeks, she stared at her plate. Her instincts when she’d left him on the docks had been right. Why hadn’t she listened to them? He
had
wanted something from her, something other than time in her bed, and she’d been foolish enough to let herself believe otherwise. And then she’d been foolish enough to ask him whether that was his intention, so he
knew
how she’d mistaken his interest for desire.
Perhaps that was why New Worlders were always so damn proper. It saved them from playing the idiot in front of strangers.
From the corner of her eye, she saw him edge closer. He dipped his head toward her. Annika forced herself to remain still. She wouldn’t run.
“You asked why I noticed you at the gates.” He pitched his voice low enough that they wouldn’t be overheard. “Your accent is the same as hers—and you spoke Norse.”
God. Who would have thought a plea for help would have led her to this?
And if her accent had been so easily recognizable, perhaps he’d have known how to find her anyway. She recalled Lucia’s request that Annika make her nephew’s acquaintance. “I suppose your aunt told you I was aboard.”
“No. But she wondered, too.”
And that knowledge now colored every conversation she’d had with the woman. Annika had always thought the physician’s attempts to probe into her past were the same as every other New Worlder’s obsession with a person’s origins, as if an opinion of worth couldn’t be formed without knowing which soil she’d first walked on.
Her throat tightened into a painful lump. She’d have to leave
Phatéon
for certain now. She’d always been careful, had always adhered to the tale she’d constructed about growing up in Norway. But she also hadn’t realized that she had been speaking to a woman
who’d already known someone from Hannasvik. She hadn’t realized that Lucia didn’t just have questions, as everybody did; Lucia knew which questions to ask, which answers might have matched Inga’s. How much had Annika inadvertently given away over the years?
How much had she given away
last night
?
“You hail from Iceland, I think,” he said softly, and she closed her eyes. “And you’ve never mentioned any males in your past, only women. My aunt confirmed the same. You called me a daughter, not a son. So I believe Mr. James stumbled close to the truth when he said that the stories of trolls and witches were spread for a reason. But you’re not from Heimaey. What is the secret? Do they steal children? Seduce men?”
He was too clever by far. Annika shook her head.
“Please don’t pursue this.”
“I must.”
“Didn’t we get along well before this?” In four years, she’d never been so immediately comfortable with a person. Now Annika could hardly bear to look at him, but she did, her chest aching. “Please let it be.”
“I can’t.” The resolve in his tone echoed his statement, but his expression said that he didn’t take any pleasure in forcing the issue. “I won’t hurt you or them, Annika. I swear it.”
Just as he’d promised not to expose her secret—but it wasn’t Annika’s secret to keep.
Telling him the truth would be far more dangerous than lighting a fire. The women of Hannasvik weren’t just stealing babies. They weren’t just seducing men. They no longer worried about the prince’s son they’d killed. They didn’t worry about the children they’d taken, because those children had already been abandoned.
But Annika had seen what would happen to her people if the New World descended on them. She’d seen men hanged for less
than what the women had done for years. She would never expose them to the ugliest part of the New World, the part that transformed love into sickness and sin.
Not everyone in the New World believed the same; perhaps David Kentewess wouldn’t, either. If she told him about the love shared between her mother and his aunt, about so many of the others who’d made their lives together in her village, maybe he wouldn’t show the same disgust. But Annika couldn’t know how he would react. She couldn’t even risk
asking
him without endangering her own position, her own life.
She couldn’t manage more than a whisper. “Please don’t.”
“Annika—”
“I will
hate
you if you pursue this!”
“Fulfilling this promise is more important to me than your good opinion.” As if pained, he closed his eye. His gloved fist tightened. “So you will hate me.”
And so that was it. Annika pushed away her plate, stood. She couldn’t swallow any more, anyway.
David followed her out. “Annika.”
She didn’t answer, increasing her pace. He moved faster. His large frame stopped in front of her. Annika sidestepped. His arm shot up, hand flat against the bulkhead, barring her way.
She could feel him staring down at her. She refused to look up. “Let me pass.”
If he didn’t, she’d kick him. Given the circumstances, Vashon would forgive her for it. The captain never tolerated men who used their strength against women.
“When I was a boy, my mother told me stories about Brunhild. How she was canny to Sigurd’s deception and took her revenge, even though it meant her own death. I imagine you’ve heard the same stories, but I’m not him. I don’t want to deceive you in any way—and I never meant to. I didn’t want you to run from me.”
“I’m not running.” She’d been walking until he blocked her way. “Let me through now.”
He didn’t. “She used to sing to me at night, a lullaby in Norse. I never knew the words, though she told me what they meant—the song was about a girl who held a bird in her hands as it died, and then flew away to the heavens with it. Do you know it?”
Yes. Her mother had sung that lullaby to her, too. Annika would sing it to her daughter, one day. Eyes stinging, she shook her head.
“We were in our home when the explosions started at the mountain. I could see it through the window in my bedroom, lighting up the sky with orange. But I couldn’t hear it. Only her, as she screamed for me to stand away.” He faltered before continuing, the words hoarse. “The shock blast shattered the glass. She caught me, held her hand over my eye and my face, tried to stop the bleeding. And when she saw the mountain fall down on top of us, she covered my body with hers. The beam that crushed my legs cut her in half.”
God. Annika couldn’t bear the raw pain in his voice, the images he painted. Some words were even stronger than a man’s arm, and he used them without mercy. Closing her eyes, she tried to hold back the tears.
“With her last breaths, she told me to be a good man, a strong one, and that she loved me and my father. She asked me to put my blood on her beads and bury them, so she could sit with her mother and sisters in heaven.”
The softness of his tone was more destructive than anger could have been. Annika covered her face. Tears leaked through her fingers, her breath shuddering. She heard someone approach down the passageway. David angled his body as if to shield her from view.
He waited until they were alone again. “Tell me again not to pursue this, Annika.”
“I can’t.” How could she? She’d have done the same as he was. Lifting her head, she swiped at her cheeks. “But I can’t tell you what you want to know, either. I’m sorry.”
His jaw clenched. “I’ll find them, you realize. I’ll search every inch of that island, and everything we find will be documented, published. But if you tell me, I’ll go alone. I’ll keep everyone else away, help you protect them.”
Anger exploded in her, hot and fierce. Annika welcomed it, fed it, let it push away the pain. “You’ll stoop to blackmail? What will you do next, hit me until I tell you? Rape me if I don’t? Surely you won’t stop at threatening the people I love—and the people your mother loved, too. Her sister. Her mothers. Her friends. How easily you toss away their lives. I doubt that’s what she meant by being a good man.”
He recoiled as if struck. He shook his head, opened his mouth to respond. Not caring what he had to say, Annika beat him to it.
“Go on, then. Hunt them down.” She could threaten as well as he. “I’ll let them know you’re coming, and how you intend to expose them. You might find them, yes. But you’ll be dead before you write a word.”
She ducked under his arm and walked away.
“David!” Lucia’s smile quickly changed to concern when
she saw his face. She stepped back into her cabin, pulling him in. “Are you all right?”
No. And David didn’t know when he would be again. “Do you have anything stronger than wine?”
Strong enough to dull this ache.
I doubt that’s what she meant by being a good man.
God, that was true. He’d never been so ashamed.
Lucia opened a cupboard as he sat. Glasses rattled. “What happened?”
“I spoke with Annika Fridasdottor. She knows my mother’s people.”
“I knew it!” With a brown bottle in hand, she joined him at the table. “And what did she say?”
“Nothing.” He downed a short glass of the clear liquid, the alcohol scorching the length of his throat. “I threatened her.”
Lucia froze. “What?”