All Things Devour

twelve

For the next four days, Anton and Gudbrand argued about the Calder problem.

They didn’t argue with raised voices or by shouting; indeed, aside from Gudbrand occasionally punctuating his statements by thumping his chest or a table, they kept themselves at a respectable indoor level. However, that did not change the fact that they were arguing and had come no closer to a solution over the four days they spent debating the issue.

A week had passed since she’d been bitten. She felt the passage of time keenly, like the slow, steady fall of sand slipping through an hourglass.

Sonya, for her part, defaulted to the timeworn tradition of making tea to mitigate tempers or joined Fiske in his traipsing about the islands. The separate landmasses formed a loose crescent around the bay with the main island, called Eihwaz, at its middle. There were numerous islands that Fiske traveled to, always pausing at the head of a bridge or a dock to point out the runes that Sonya had missed in her former inspections. The island Gudbrand lived upon, Dagaz, had its rough symbol that resembled a rudimentary butterfly carved into the lintels and at the top of the plinths.

Not many of the residents of Vidarheim spoke English, and those who did came to assume she was a visitor from the British vampire settlement—Alba. Sonya introduced herself when Fiske would suddenly leave the path and approach a house, knocking on a door. She soon learned he was doing chores of a sort; sometimes those chores involved physical tasks that Sonya would wordlessly assist with, such as serving as a courier or helping weed a garden, but more often than not, Fiske’s main chore was trading.

The draugar economy fascinated Sonya. They didn’t have a traditional currency and instead relied on a kind of bartering system, “ your chicken eggs for my cow’s milk, ” or “ that jar of garlic salt for this bushel of basil leaves .” Some of the draugar lived steeped in modernity—one house had a cable dish on its roof that Sonya gawked at for a good five minutes—and they traded tasks for money, wanting krónas or pounds or even American dollars they could spend outside of Vidarheim. These draugar weren’t in the majority, though, as most residents preferred living a simpler, mixed lifestyle with fewer technological advancements.

The village spread across the islands provided glimpses back in time that Sonya—who’d studied their world through literature—found fascinating. The Viking draugar farmed and fished, tending long fields of dowdy, rain-soaked wheat or wrangling soggy sheep. They prepped hákarl from rotten shark meat, plowed the soil with wooden ards , and discussed the goings-on of the drott , or the local nobility. The Jarl apparently held all power in decision making, which rendered the drott more like celebrities. Rumors flew faster among the draugar than they did in a high school full of teenage girls.

Sonya did not enjoy playing fetch with Fiske when it involved going to the market on Nauthiz, in the shadow of the fjord. There, you could purchase most anything you’d find on a person—clothes, shoes, belts, bundles of cash, jewelry, cellphones wiped blank that couldn’t connect to service but could connect to the internet. The draugar had a set number of engineers and technicians who worked for the Jarl and could manipulate the network into allowing devices to receive data while disallowing any data to be sent out.

“It’s a means of protection,” Anton had clarified as he’d examined the phone Sonya had bought for him, interested in its design. “I haven’t the foggiest how it works, but I imagine it’s limited so information on the device’s location cannot be disseminated, either on purpose or by accident. Anonymity, Sonya, is our bread and butter.”

Still, for all its commodities, Sonya did not like the market; she’d seen the ships come in on occasion from the outside world and knew exactly what dreaded cargo they carried.

“It is not the same as how a human might walk by a butchery,” Gudbrand had told her when he took a break from arguing to sit in his workroom. “You don’t come from a cow, do you? No. There’s a difference between humans and livestock. The draugar know where we came from, no matter how many years pass us by. It’ll bother you less with time, girl, but there is still sanctity to life we don’t appreciate mocking.” Then, in a gruff, unhappy undertone, he’d added, “Unless you’re one of those idiot traditionalists.”

The traditionalists, whose houses Fiske did not visit, who always appeared as if they stepped fresh off a longboat from raiding a coastline, who looked at Sonya with such malicious distaste, she feared for her life if they crossed paths. No, she did not think they would have much regard for humans at all.

Traditionalists aside, the most valuable and desired thing in the Vidarheim trade, Sonya learned, wasn’t money or valuables or goods; it was vouchers.

They appeared as nothing more than little strips of uniform parchment paper with two blank lines and a signature upon them. Sonya thought them quite like cheques.

Anton had explained while they sat together in Gudbrand’s library, “They’re favors from a seidkona or seidmadr. You see the signature? Different seidr users are ascribed a different value, have a different level of skill or talent. So vouchers have value based on who issued them. If I remember correctly, Seidkona Helka—for instance—is far more desirable than Seidmadr Carr, who couldn’t bloody well spell open his trousers with half the buttons already undone.”

Seated by the hearth with his mead, Gudbrand had agreed.

“But what are they for?”

“For favors, as I mentioned. Some things are only possible with seidr, or are simply more convenient. So much in our extended lives can only be accomplished through spellcraft, and it constitutes our realm’s whole security. For example, draugar can’t grow their hair, did you know? One of the quirks of our being. If we have an accident or simply want a change in style, we have to get a voucher for a favor from a seidr user.” Anton had winked at her. “Or you can ask your favorite and most handsome seidmadr in your acquaintance.”

“Hmm. I will have to meet the rest in Vidarheim to make sure that’s still true.”

Anton had pouted at Gudbrand’s chortling.

“ Anyway . There are more sinister reasons to use the vouchers, certain nefarious parties who will do anything you ask of them if you have the right ticket. But ah, not many are like that, and not many have enough control over seidr to give out vouchers in the first place.” He’d sighed then, slouching into the couch cushions like a deflating balloon. “I assume that’s how I’ll have to earn our living now that I’m not a thegn. Unless Gudbrand wants to put us up indefinitely.”

“I’ll keep the girl, but you’ll be out in the cold. At least she’s helpful around here.”

“I’m feeling distinctly under-appreciated….”

Sonya didn’t know what to feel when she heard Anton say ‘ our living ’ as if he fully intended to support Sonya without question. She was frustrated because she’d never accepted such charity before and had always worked very hard to earn her pocket money as a girl and her place as a young woman. Her parents had put some money toward her tuition, but the rest had been all from Sonya’s efforts—either through scholarship or a long line of dull jobs in customer service. She was also flattered because she hadn’t the slightest clue how her life skills would translate in any meaningful way here in Vidarheim. She couldn’t say exactly where she stood with Anton, whether he was sincere in his flirting or only being friendly. She felt somewhat helpless and adrift when she couldn’t plan her future.

A future that was, at the moment, very much in limbo.

As the fruitless arguing unfolded between Anton and Gudbrand about Calder, Sonya began to notice symptoms of her decline. She continued to experience odd dizzy spells and bursts of confusion, and her fingertips began to buzz with encroaching numbness. A chill had come to roost in her bones that she just couldn’t unseat, and every day, an ache resonated in her middle, arching through her chest, growing until it was more and more physical than imagined.

She sometimes paused and rubbed at her sternum, her heart beating too quickly, and the others would watch with inscrutable expressions. She just wanted them to stop arguing. Anton wanted to approach the issue from a position of power, whereas Gudbrand wanted to beseech Calder’s ego. He thought asking a favor would be better than trying to force his hand.

She didn’t care which avenue they chose, so long as they chose soon.

Anton had warned Sonya her situation was not sustainable. There was a reason she had to have Calder’s blood—but the weight of that reality made her hands quiver, and it shook Sonya’s resolve to not be afraid.

With time running out, the decision to request a meeting with Calder Halfdansson was made. It was not a decision Anton liked. At all.

“That we have to deign to request anything from him ,” he growled for the seventieth time as they three stood together outside Gudbrand’s house in the miserable, drizzling rain. The larger draugr’s patience for Anton had clearly dwindled, as he smacked him—hard—on the back in consolation.

“It cost me three vouchers just to get him out here on short notice,” Gudbrand said. “And he’s not going to be pleased to find you with me.”

“As if I care what would please him.”

Gudbrand smacked him again, harder still. “Damn it, boy. This isn’t about you. Don’t make him angry.”

Anton gritted his teeth and rolled his no doubt painful shoulder. “Aye.”

They continued to wait in the shade of the house’s eave, the vestiges of daylight like hazy smudges of highlighter over pencil marks, smearing gray swirls on the sea-clad horizon. Gudbrand had pronounced Calder far too paranoid and wily to come inside, especially once he realized Anton was there, and so they stood outside, watching the bay as the rain formed puddles in the garden.

“You’re not worried?” Sonya asked. “About what’s going to happen? What if he tries to send you back to that place?”

“He doesn’t have a reason to now. Radu, Eerika, and nearly all their supporters are dead. What threat am I?” The bitterness in Anton’s reply stung. “It would cost him too much to shut me away simply because he dislikes me, and I cannot remain hidden forever. I do not want to.”

They kept watch over the water, listening to the babble of waves sloshing against the distant rocks, the loud creak of strained mooring lines. Then, as it grew darker, a different sound became apparent, the flap of broad wings in the air. Anton tensed at the exact moment Sonya did when the gilded hawk crested over the massive boathouse and dove with alarming speed.

Between one breath and the next, the bird gave way to the shape of a cloaked man, and he straightened, an impressive glower on his unhappy face.

Calder was taller than Anton, and larger too, though he still lacked the sheer height and mass of many of the other Norse draugar Sonya had met and seen in Vidarheim. His gold hair fell about his ears in untidy curls, his jaw dusted with light blond stubble. Having learned from Anton such a style had to be intentional because vampires didn’t have five o’clock shadows, Sonya couldn’t help but think him vain.

He still wore the same black cloak that fell nearly to the toes of his boots, and Sonya’s eye fell onto the gold clasp again, her attention always drawn by the one spot of color on his otherwise bleak apparel. Anton had something quite similar on his own furred cloak—as did that one-eyed man Sonya had spotted in the mead hall, the man she assumed to be the Jarl. She took the clasp to mean its wearer was some kind of authority here, or maybe a rank of privilege. Maybe it designated a thegn , as Anton used to be.

Calder surveyed his erstwhile companion with narrowed eyes. “It seems your message was incomplete, Gudbrand,” he sneered. “You forgot to mention your pest infestation .”

Anton didn’t respond. His expression could have broken a blade.

“I had heard rumors of a foreigner on Dagaz. So I should have known the breach wasn’t contained in time.”

“If you were really so unaware, you should probably send someone for Bjarke and Agate. I left them in pieces on my way out, last I checked. They might need a hand.” Anton smiled, and it was the coldest look Sonya had ever seen him wear. “Or leave them to rot, as you’ve left your other brothers to do before.”

“You’re no brother of mine.” The draugr’s attention slid from Anton to Gudbrand—and then to Sonya, smallest of the three, her hands clasped tight to stop their shaking. He blinked without a glimpse of recognition in his eyes. “Why is this human here?”

“ Human . Oh, look at you, the wannabe traditionalist,” Anton said. “You’re even starting to sound like them. Did they find a nasty little convert in you when you got your new job ?”

“And you, spending too much time among the serfs and unwashed herd. You began to stink of filth and rot long before you were displaced. Now, tell me what you so stupidly spent all of Gudbrand’s favors on before I lose my patience.”

Anton sucked in a breath as if he wished to shout, but he didn’t. Instead, he held the breath in his chest and released it in a near-silent gust. “You don’t recognize her?”

Calder stilled and brought his eyes back to Sonya, and again she saw he didn’t know her. She had spotted him the moment she saw him, this man who’d been the cause of her death, but he couldn’t remember her.

Lip curling, Anton brought his hand up and gently tugged down the collar of Sonya’s most recent jumper to reveal the unhealed bite wound. It throbbed under the fresh air.

Calder’s gaze shifted to it, and finally, the pieces appeared to come together, his nose rising into the air as his back stiffened. Something like shock flickered in his face, but Sonya didn’t count herself familiar enough with the draugr to know if it was real, and she didn’t want to look into his eyes. “So. One of the humans survived.”

“Yes. You and your team did a bang-up job on that, didn’t you? One girl bitten and abandoned against protocol—another man left to turn untended! Is the standard of the new Jarl this lacking, or is that just your personal failings? I’m surprised the realm hasn’t sunk into the sea with you at the helm.”

Calder’s nostrils flared—and a hint of embarrassed pink dusted his otherwise pale face. He couldn’t recall Sonya and yet remembered well what lazy mistakes he’d made in the highlands. “ Shut up .”

“Is it too difficult to hear the truth, brother ?”

“Truth? From you? You wouldn’t know truth if it grew wings and flew to you!” He took a step forward and jabbed an accusing finger at Anton. His cloak, despite having been worn each time Sonya saw him, looked pristine, as if he took it off every dawn and pressed the edges. “All these years in the dark, and I had almost hoped you wouldn’t be so stupid if you ever got out. Even in madness, at least you wouldn’t be so blind . Or do you still believe Eerika ever cared at all for you? I warned you, didn’t I? I warned you she’d get what she had coming to her and if you didn’t stand aside—.”

“ Hrafnasueltir! ”

Anton lunged—and got nowhere, Gudbrand’s hand on his chest almost as wide as his torso, holding him back. “ Anton ,” he hissed through the bristles of his beard. Anton glared at him and forced a breath into his lungs, every muscle in his body uncoiling like a riled snake.

“Just do the right thing,” he demanded. “Give Sonya your blood. Complete the transformation you so arrogantly began.”

Calder grimaced in displeasure like an unhappy teenager called to task. It was a strange expression on the face of a man so stern and cold. He studied Sonya as she studied him, and he looked between her and Anton, attention lingering on the hand resting over Sonya’s shoulder. “Fine,” he said coolly. “Stupid human wretch will be better off with me than with you, being spoon-fed nonsense and lies. Give it here, and I will take it.”

Sonya did not want to go with him. Her survival might depend on it, but God help her, she did not want to go with a man who spoke of her like a disposable object or a particularly despised dog.

“I’m not giving her to you, you guileless half-wit!” Anton nearly shouted. “Gods have mercy, who even are you now?” He took another breath, sounding as if every word spoken cost him immeasurable patience. “Give Sonya your blood and begone from here. Then, if we’re lucky, we’ll never need to speak again.”

“No, I don’t think I will.” A frigid, unfeeling smile twisted the draugr’s face—and Sonya was reminded of a ratty scarecrow. For all of Calder’s refined looks and powerful station, he lacked substance . He might as well be stuffed with straw with flax for hair. “Not unless you give it to me. I’ll teach your pet how to heel .”

A black mood descended over Anton. He radiated anger, disgust—and pain, anguish immeasurable and immense that cut through the betrayal with tangible intensity. Sonya couldn’t imagine what it felt like to be stabbed by a loved one—by family —and have them twist the knife.

It happened quickly, much too quickly to know who acted first; an invisible force struck Anton hard enough to throw him into the door at his back, and he flung his fist forward, light flaring like the sun across a knife blade. In an instant, Calder got lifted off his feet and slammed into the ground, rolling once in the mud before he regained his footing. Muck and filth marred his cloak and streaked across his startled, furious face.

The draugr snarled and spat on the earth before he again became the gilded hawk and took to the air, shrieking with rage as he winged away.

“Bastard!” Anton yelled. Without a glance at Sonya or Gudbrand, he flung open the door and retreated indoors, wordless aggravation trailing in his stomping wake.

Sonya remained frozen on the first step. She half-stood in the rain as she watched her salvation retreat into the dismal sky. It felt as if he’d taken her last hope in his talons and had flown off with it.

A low, weary sigh fell from Gudbrand, and he rubbed a calloused hand over his face, tugging on his ginger beard. “Probably should have expected that. He’s always been jealous of Anton,” he muttered. “Of his strength. Aye, the Jarl might have put him up as head seidmadr, but everyone knows Anton had more talent and ability in seidr. Everyone knew the only way to capture him was through deceit. Without honor. Calder could never handle that.”

The hawk was too far away to see now. Sonya lost the stiffness in her spine, her shoulders rounding, and she allowed her tired gaze to land on the impressions of Calder’s body where it’d been dragged through the mud. Part of the gate had been broken, the path ruined.

She had no chance of him ever giving her his blood.

“I’m going to go talk to Anton,” she said in a small voice. “And see if he’s all right.”

“Go on. I’ll tend to the mess out here those idiots made. Give the fool a good slap in the back of the head for me.”

Sonya slipped inside the house, and with the door closed, she could better hear Anton’s cursing. She didn’t recognize the language, but the rapid-fire cadence couldn’t be mistaken no matter the tongue used.

“Anton,” she called.

“That bastard! That—that coward! Miserable, back-stabbing, boot-licking, skreyja, ormstunga —!”

Something broke in the kitchen as he descended into incomprehensible Old Norse again. Sonya started in that direction.

“Anton, if you keep this up, Gudbrand really is going to kick us out of his—.”

Suddenly, the corridor began to swim, and the candles blurred, Sonya gasping as her legs went weak. She clutched at the wall and knocked something off the sideboard, metal clattering, and darkness rose like an oncoming tidal wave—.

She woke on the floor where she had fallen, her head cradled on Anton’s lap. Seeing her awake, he brushed her hair from her face, his touch tender, and cupped her cheek. “Oh, Sonya.”

“Anton?” she said, confused again and unbearably cold. She wiped a shivering hand under her itching nose, and her fingers came back stained with a thick, black substance. Is that…is that my blood ?

Anton wrapped his fingers around hers so she could not see the vile color.

“Everything isn’t going to be all right, is it, Anton?”

“It will ,” he replied, fingers pressing into her skin, fervent and strong. “I promise. I promise I will fix this.”

For the first time, Sonya didn’t believe him.