All Things Devour

seventeen

Slowly, Sonya opened her eyes to the harsh light of day.

The afternoon had waned as she laid on the couch in Gudbrand’s den, tucked under a blanket with a fire banked in the hearth. She had been there ever since Anton found her out of bed, wandering aimless toward the sea, seemingly ready to walk into the tide and drown herself. She shivered at the memory—or lack thereof.

Anton had brought her back into the house and had helped her wash and change into another nightdress. He’d remained with her until she’d fallen asleep again, watching as if afraid she might turn to dust before his very eyes.

Sonya’s thoughts remained muddled and her mind uncooperative. The sunlight came creeping in through a thin gap in the shutters, too far from Sonya to do any damage but close enough for its presence to be felt. She stared at the light, trying to recall when she had seen it last.

The storm had eased.

A shuffling noise brought her wandering attention to the coffee table between her couch and the hearth, to where Fiske sat fiddling with one of Gudbrand’s woodworking tools. He held a small piece of basswood in his hand and used the tool to scratch off bits and shavings, creating something indecipherable. Sonya studied his face, forever frozen in youth, his dark eyes veiled in mist-like silver. Leaves had again snuck into his untidy, dark blond hair.

Sonya sat up, wincing at the pounding in her head. “Fiske,” she said.

Fiske didn’t answer or didn’t hear.

Watching the boy, she rubbed her temples to ease the ache—right over the spots where Fiske’s seidr had pooled through her and had literally shocked the sense back into Sonya. She remembered a passing comment given by Anton and, after a pause, said, “Vidar.”

Fiske’s head whipped around to look at her. Sonya smiled.

“That’s your real name, isn’t it?” He nodded, head bobbing, and Sonya’s smile took on a softer, more rueful bearing. “Anton told me this place—this realm—was named after you. I thought he was being cheeky at the time.”

Fiske shrugged and fiddled with the piece of basswood, seemingly distracted. Sonya pondered what went through his mind and wondered how old he was—how old any of the draugar were. Anton was keen not to mention his age or to have it cruelly tossed in his face. Twice he’d answered Sonya’s inquiries with, “ Older than you but younger than the sun. ”

Who was Fiske, really? A boy changed too young, left on his own in a strange place? Maybe a child named after the myth, later to assume the myth himself? The son of a god, born of ash and elm, progenitor of his race?

Maybe none of the above. Perhaps his nonverbal state and age lent an air of mystery the draugar ascribed legend to, but her time in Vidarheim had shown Sonya that improbable did not mean impossible . The only one who knew the truth wasn’t telling.

“Do you believe in the gods, Vidar?”

He nodded again, indifferent to her questioning as he maneuvered the tool in his hand.

“Does your father answer prayers?” she asked softly, thinking of the altar in the woods and the missing sacrifices, the memory of Anton’s hands and mouth tinging her cheeks pink. “Do you think he’ll answer mine?”

Anton had screamed her name when she didn’t remember his. He’d carried her home despite the rocks cutting his own bare feet and pleaded, voice overflowing with grief and despondency, for her to look at him. Sonya was worried about her possible—maybe even probable —fate, but Anton’s reaction made it all the worse. She felt like one of his people—like Gudbrand or Fiske—like she’d somehow slipped into an unoccupied space under his arm, and when Anton blinked to find her there, he’d simply wrapped the arm more securely over her shoulders and laughed.

If she had to…leave, if she had to say goodbye to this second-life, she didn’t want Anton to despair. She found it more frightening to think of what might happen when she was gone than to consider actually dying.

Quick as a flash, Fiske was on his feet and out of the room, leaving Sonya confused and thinking she might have insulted him—but soon, he returned, holding a stoneware cup. The cup was placed in Sonya’s hands with some insistence, and she didn’t need to glimpse the inside to know what it was.

She could already smell the blood.

Fiske sat at her feet, looking up at the woman with wide, inquiring eyes. Sonya did not want to drink. She didn’t want to consider the poor person whose life had been so tragically cut short—didn’t want to wander into the moral quandary of arguing if certain humans deserved life while others didn’t. Sonya simply didn’t wish to know a human being had to die for her to survive.

But she needed the strength. Anton needed her strength. Even by the best his best estimate, she only had a few scant weeks left. She might only have days if she deteriorated further.

So, she raised the cup to her lips, sent a silent prayer to whoever would listen to ridiculous English girls doomed to lose their humanity, and drank.

Fiske smiled. His sharp teeth gleamed in the light.

When the cup was empty and the boy had gone, Sonya sat with her mouth tasting of copper, and Gudbrand paused in the doorway. He went to gather the objects Fiske left behind. “Don’t use that name outside of this house.”

She turned to him, wiping her eyes. “Why not?”

“Because it has been used against him in the past. He was not always in my care; he was taken in by others before who held him as a status symbol, paraded him about when it suited their purposes, and locked him away otherwise. Anton removed him from his prior home and brought him to me. It is why I alone survived the purging of Eerika’s followers.” Gudbrand’s eyes were hard, his face like stone. “It does not matter if he is Loki’s son or not; he is just a boy, and he always will be. His name is Fiske.”

Sonya nodded, wiping her eyes again, new tears shed for an odd but wonderful child instead of for herself. “Okay,” she agreed. “Fiske, then.”

Gudbrand’s expression mellowed, and his beard twitched as he smiled. “Thank you, Sonya.”

The dock creaked and groaned under her feet as Sonya walked with Anton toward the waiting boat. He kept tilting his head back to glance upward and narrow his eyes at the sky. Sonya did as well, taken with the stark, wild beauty of the heavens where it showed like skin under the shifting cloth of the clouds. Starlight streamed onto the water below, and the air felt softer than it had since Sonya first arrived in Vidarheim.

“He’s not angry,” she commented, and their gazes trailed unbidden from the moon to the islands that lurked in the low, clinging mist. Sonya turned to Anton, and he kept a wary eye on the horizon, a frown at his lips.

“I’m sure Asger has chastised him,” he said. “It reflects poorly on the Jarl if his head seidmadr is being a sodding moron.”

At the end of the dock, a draugr sat on a stool with a cell phone, making good use of the temperate weather and uninterrupted signal. He lowered the phone when he heard them approach.

“Where are you headed?” he asked in a thick French accent.

“Gebo.”

The man grimaced as he pocketed his phone. “What do you ‘ave for the boat?”

Anton retrieved his coin purse from a pocket inside his cloak and shifted through the contents—a motley collection of different currencies, old vouchers from less powerful seidr users, and tradeable odds and ends. “I have ten pounds sterling. I need it just for the night.”

The man’s gimlet eyes locked onto the purse. “‘Ow about twenty?”

“How about I give you five and you count yourself lucky I don’t throw you from the dock and steal the boat, Jean. Gods have mercy on your greedy arse.”

Jean grumbled and complained in harsh, unfriendly French, but money exchanged hands all the same, and Anton helped Sonya step into the boat. It was a bigger vessel than the others they’d—borrowed. Better for crossing the waters into Gebo, Anton had said. He passed his glowing palm over the ship’s prow, and it eased into motion, leaving an unhappy Jean behind.

Anton kept her hand enfolded in his. Sonya fancied she could tell his mood from the tension in his fingers; if it was playful, he brushed her skin more, and if it was introspective, he laced their fingers together. Now, he squeezed with a fair amount of pressure, making his upset and anxiety clear.

“Are you worried about what Gudbrand said?” she asked him as the quiet water sloshed and curled against the boat’s sides. “About this Ylva woman?”

The fingers flexed as Anton hesitated. “Maybe,” he decided upon. “There is a measure of truth to what Gudbrand said about Ylva’s past interest in the head seidmadr. She made it a point to get along with Radu, though I heard her speak of him negatively more than once when in private.”

Sonya pursed her lips, unsure of what to say. She instead watched the water, breathed in the salt air.It reminded her of earlier that morning when she wandered unknowingly out onto the jetty. “Anton?”

“Yes, dear?”

“I—.” She stopped and played with his fingers in her own, stroking along the slim lines, the stronger bones by his knuckles. “This morning frightened me. I don’t…want to forget like that again. If something happens—.”

“It won’t,” he said, squeezing. “It won’t .”

Sonya sighed. “Anton, please—.”

“ Sonya .” There again he spoke as he had before, her name a subtle forbearance, warning her to stop, look, pay attention. It bled desperation, a plea for the subject to pass, and Sonya allowed it to drop for Anton’s benefit. He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it.

“If we had met by other means, I would have done things properly,” he said, eyes on the sea. “Do you know how the Vikings courted?”

“I do,” Sonya told him. “History tells us they exchanged tokens for fidelity, and respect. Usually gifts like rings, or bracelets—or even swords.”

“Aye,” Anton agreed, a small smile touching his mouth. “I would have seen you at a moot , and I would have been stricken because you would have been the most beautiful woman there.”

Sonya sniffed and poked his side. “Ridiculous.”

“I would have dazzled you with my magical prowess.”

She laughed. “You wouldn’t have!”

“I would have a made a gift of my best sword.” When he wagged his brows, Sonya playfully booed. “No? A challenge then. I will have to consider what I would have given my Sonya.”

She rested her head on his shoulder, smiling. She allowed herself to dream of what could have been, even as she acknowledged it probably wouldn’t ever be.

Gebo lurked apart from the greater bulk of Vidarheim, a rock on the fringes, enclosed on all sides by the wild, open sea. “They have to send someone regularly to the main island,” Anton said when the towering, bleak cliffs came into view. “For—sustenance. Otherwise, the seidr masters are content to remain here, away from the mundane draugar, as they call them. They can conjure their own squalls separate from the one Calder controls when they’re feeling inhospitable.”

Sonya glanced at the sky, smattered with clouds but mostly free of coverage. “And you said your old teacher is expecting us?”

“I sent a messenger,” he replied, which wasn’t quite an answer, and Sonya pointed that out to him. “Ylva does things her own way. I didn’t expect a response, but she’ll know we’re coming. I was clear on the matter.”

The waves before the shores of Gebo rose sharp and breaking, calmed by Anton’s raised hand—though a rogue wave or two fought his influence and smacked the boat’s hull. There was no dock, only a sandy shore where the cliffs split into a jagged, shadowed canyon leading deeper into the island’s depths. Anton hopped into the water and secured the boat on the beach, then took Sonya by the hand to help her jump down to the wet sand.

“All right?” he asked, tucking the stray hairs that escaped her plait back behind her ears. He cupped her face. She felt apprehensive and not incredibly hopeful, but Sonya forced a smile and nodded.

They started walking. Voices careened in the wind, the words too soft for Sonya to understand, but she could hear them. She looked to Anton, and he patted her arm, giving her a small, reassuring smile.

Stones and boulders littered the path through the narrow canyon, and though Sonya picked her way with care around the obstacles, twice she felt as if invisible hands had tugged or pushed upon her and she nearly fell. She again looked to Anton and, finding him unencumbered, tightened her fists and mentally told the unseen presence to bugger off . Whether or not it worked, Sonya didn’t trip again.

A great house skulked beyond the canyon’s end, situated in a valley depressed between the high, arching walls of the cliffs around them. There was a garden there, full of green plants that shouldn’t thrive in the harsh climate—and where the garden ended, nature rallied, massive ridges of gorse and brambles and untended trees framing the pretty area in a treacherous wreath. The house itself was of a southern style—English perhaps, or even Spanish, though Sonya couldn’t tell in the dark. All she could see was the leering eyes of glass windows reflecting the moonlight and the flickering torches that framed the black front door.

Anton led her past a large, shallow reflection pool in the courtyard. She glimpsed the surface and quickly turned away, unnerved by the mirrored image of her own unmoving face.

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Sonya muttered, cautious of how her voice might carry. She kept reflecting on what Gudbrand had said, thinking about that draugr she saw in the marketplace snarling about there being no more seidmenn on the island. It made her stomach ill. “The…feeling here….”

“It is all right,” Anton said with his hand still holding hers. “We won’t need to stay for long.”

He knocked upon the black door. A moment passed, and it opened, revealing a woman in the foyer beyond.

“Anton!” she greeted, not at all surprised by his appearance on her front step, though she affected a look of pleasant astonishment. She stood taller than the pair of them, garbed in a navy velvet dress that complemented the slick highlights of blue in her incredibly dark hair. Sonya thought her very pretty—and very intimidating, what with her mouth full of razor-sharp teeth she displayed in her smile, and her pointed nails painted a dubious indigo.

“How nice to see you again, dear! You’ve been away for so long!”

Sonya caught the first flicker of annoyance touching Anton’s face when the woman referenced his incarceration. The people of Vidarheim did not like to mention what had happened to him; they always referred to his time underground as if he had simply gone on holiday or had just recently moved back into the area, and it irritated Anton.

The woman glanced toward Sonya. “And you brought a friend!”

Sonya smiled because she was English, and she’d been brought up to be unflinchingly polite even in the most uncomfortable of situations. A distant part of her mind, however, noted how odd it was to hear herself referred to as a friend when so many of the draugar called her Anton’s wife.

“Hello, Ylva,” Anton answered. “May we come in?”

“Oh, of course, of course.”

The woman—Ylva—allowed them entry, the door snapping shut at Sonya’s heels of its own accord. The house’s beauty couldn’t be denied, and yet Sonya thought it rather ostentatious and off-putting. Not a single sound moved through the halls adjoined to the foyer, nor from the mezzanine, stairs, or grand arch leading into the indoor conservatory. Moreover, none of the electrical lights—if the house indeed had them—had been turned on, leaving only a few candles on brackets or tables to light the way.

“We were just about to have dinner. You have excellent timing as ever, Anton.”

He quirked a brow at their impromptu hostess. “Dear me, it wouldn’t be because you were expecting us, would it?”

“To say such a thing!” She touched her cheek and fluttered her eyelashes. “Of course not.”

Sonya observed the rooms they passed, and the feeling of indolent eyes locked onto her back drew her spine straight. No one was there, she knew. Still, her hand tightened around Anton’s.

“Does your companion know much of us here at Gebo?”

“No, not much—unless Sonya’s heard more around Vidarheim?” When Sonya shook her head in negation, he continued. “Gudbrand has had his word in, of course.”

“Ah, Gudbrand. The horrid brute,” she tutted.

They entered a dining room, more candles lit here than anywhere else, great mounds of wax curling around the arms of the chandelier from where dozens of candles had burned to nothing over the years. Two women sat at the antique table and had, clearly, been waiting for their arrival. Both were blonde, but the first was thin and fine-boned, the other more strongly built with a black tattoo ringed about her wrist.

“Sonya, this is Eydis and Dagmar,” Anton said when Ylva made no move to introduce them. “I don’t believe Dagmar speaks English.”

When their names were spoken, both women turned their heads, Eydis saying “Hello,” in a short, clipped greeting, Dagmar saying nothing at all. Their expressions were stiff, their postures off-putting. After what little she’d heard concerning Ylva, Sonya hadn’t expected a warm welcome, but sitting there made her feel like a rat pinned under a cat’s paw.

Ylva waved her manicured hand, and suddenly there was food on the table—cups, silverware, plates, and accompanying chargers appearing from nowhere, bringing with them the smell of cooked meat and heady wines. Sonya saw Anton’s brow furrow as if puzzled, then it smoothed out.

“We’re not going to stay long, Ylva,” Anton said as he pulled out a chair for Sonya, his tone firm.

“Why? Frightened you might wish to remain a little longer than you should?” Ylva asked, finding her place at the table’s head. She pushed her hair from her shoulder, letting it slip and curl like black water against her back. Without question, Sonya knew her to be beautiful, just as she’d thought at the door when she first saw the woman, but something of the current situation didn’t sit right. Sonya couldn’t put her finger on it. She pondered why Gudbrand had been so adamant about calling her a hag .

Eydis and Dagmar had not looked at Sonya once.

“I know why you’re here, Anton.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Rumor travels far, even as far as Gebo.” Ylva’s mouth formed a pleased smirk.

“If you’re so well informed, why is it I don’t see Calder at the table, ready to open a vein?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to be presumptuous ….”

Anton’s hand found Sonya’s again and tried to ease her fingers from the stiff hold she had on the armrest. The stillness of the manor house played against her senses like callous hands with damp, sticky palms on her skin, and it comforted her to see Anton’s gaze slide from Ylva to Eydis and Dagmar, a shadow of apprehension in his attention as well.

“You know I wish to have you call Calder forward and tell him to take responsibility for Sonya’s change?”

“Yes.” Ylva reached for her goblet. The other two seidkonur began to eat without interest in the conversation. Sonya wondered where the other seidr users were, if there were others, and if not, why these three needed a house so large and sprawling for only themselves.

It began to rain again, the light dance of drops against the tiled roof sounding like impatient fingers. Tap-tap, tap-tap.

“ And ?” Anton asked.

“And I might be willing to assist. Oh, Calder’s a good boy, but he does get so hung up on his petty squabbles with you.”

Petty squabble . Sonya didn’t consider her own life to be a petty matter in the slightest, but perhaps to the draugar it was not such a pressing issue. In the abstract, were she to step outside of herself and pretend she understood Calder’s frame of mind, Sonya could imagine why he might not wish to take on a ward. How the draugar spoke of the bond sounded analogous with having a child of sorts, and Sonya could—peripherally—understand why Calder wouldn’t wish to have the bond thrust upon him.

But it’s too late, Sonya said to herself, eyes on the plate before her. Anton was not being callous when he said there are repercussions for not doing a proper job. If he had wanted me dead, he should have seen to it.

Another horrid thought occurred to her.

Maybe he will.

“Come now, Anton. You visit after all these years, and you speak only of business. Enjoy your food!”

“Yes, my apologies for not visiting,” he replied with a smile that could cut a weaker-willed person to ribbons. “I was detained . Funny, I don’t think it ever occurred to you to come visit , my dear old teacher.”

Of his entire statement, the word old seemed to rankle Ylva the most. “You know how the Jarl’s prison is, dear boy.”

“Yes. Intimately.”

Sonya eyed the food offered her and prodded the charred meat with a discreet poke of her fork. She thought it might be pork. Something, perhaps an instinct brought on by her unfortunate change or a more profound impulse thrumming in her lizard brain, told Sonya not to eat the food , and so her hand retreated, laying the fork down. Something smelled odd. She sniffed once or twice but couldn’t figure out what it was.

Dagmar addressed Anton, her voice gruff, her thirst for the blood in her goblet voracious. Already Sonya had seen her swill three cupfuls, the pitcher moving on its own to offer refills, a nauseating feeling squirming in Sonya’s middle as the woman sucked down someone’s lifeblood like cheap fizzy drink. Anton did not reply nor look at Dagmar, the woman scoffing. Eydis, in her airy, indifferent manner of speaking, said, “She is implying Anton is weak, if the human is looking for context.”

The human . I’ve heard that tone before.

The hair on the back of Sonya’s neck stood on end.

Still, Anton ignored the pair. “What is it you want, Ylva, to talk to Calder? To convince him?” He blinked and heaved a weary sigh. “Do you want me to be head seidmadr?”

Ylva tossed her head back and laughed. “Oh goodness no, dear Anton,” she said when she recovered. “That is the very last thing I want. Come now, enjoy yourself. That is the price of my counsel, old friend.”

Anton settled into his chair with confused resignation, and he did make a concerted effort to relax as Ylva spoke to him of people Sonya did not know and events that had occurred while he was detained. At one point, Sonya’s dry throat urged her to reach for her water glass, wanting something to ease her thirst—when suddenly, the glass carafe of red liquid placed so odiously close to her setting toppled and sloshed blood over her plate and into her lap. Eydis and Dagmar cackled.

“Oh dear ,” Ylva drawled as Sonya sat frozen, feeling the mess seep through her tunic and trousers. Anton waved a hand, and much of the blood vanished from the table, but it seemed his trick couldn’t remove it from where it clung to her skin. “What an unfortunate accident….”

It didn’t feel unfortunate to Sonya, more like a calculated jab, but she wasn’t gauche enough to play into whatever nasty game the seidkonur had decided they wished to indulge. Instead, she simply patted Anton’s hand and stood, turning to Ylva. “May I use your lavatory?”

“Of course. It’s down the hall and across the gallery on the left. Do you need assistance?”

“No, thank you, ma’am.”

Sonya departed the dining chamber and made for the bathroom at Ylva’s instruction, finding it and the loo after trying several doors in the aforementioned gallery. The blood would not come out of the tunic, the trousers, or the knickers underneath that it had sunken into, but Sonya did manage to wash it from her body, scowling all the while. She hoped Ylva and her rude acolytes were fond of the flannels now stained red and pink. It would serve them right.

Sonya took the opportunity to check her appearance in the mirror and took a long, calming breath, willing herself to get through this encounter. She had met others like them in Vidarheim already— traditionalists . It radiated from their bearing, their snide glances or blatant inattention to her presence at Anton’s side. Sonya thought it peculiar Anton didn’t seem to notice, but he’d lived in draugr society for much his life. Detecting and defining the eccentricities of people he knew might be more difficult for him than one would expect.

After rewashing her hands, she departed the bathroom and made for the hall—but Sonya paused when she inhaled and smelled again that curious scent she’d first noticed at the table. Her nose took her from the gallery to another passage off its western side, Sonya’s feet barely making a sound as she walked. The rain splattered against the windows here, mixed with the watery sheen of moonlight that glowed upon her stained clothes.

A door waited at the passage’s end, partially open with torchlight burnishing the floor in a golden strip. The smell became thicker, the name of it just on the tip of Sonya’s tongue as she reached out and gave the door a slight push.

The sight inside caused her to shriek and fall in horror.

It was a larder of sorts. A nude man—a human —had been hung by his ankles above a large vat, drained like a hunter might drain a deer carcass. He was missing…pieces. Sonya thought she might be ill.

The door slammed shut, sealing away the gruesome scene.

“Nasty little aptrganga should know better than to stick their noses into other people’s business,” Ylva sneered as she looked down at Sonya. Shaken, Sonya scrambled to her feet, and when Ylva took a measured step closer, she threw herself back, colliding with the wall. Her hands shook, and her heart beat too loud and fast in her chest.

“You’re sick,” she managed to say.

“No,” Ylva disagreed, taking another step nearer. “I’m not sick. It’s people like you and poor, soft-headed Anton who seem to forget we are draugar , and what that means. We do not simper and sip; we feast upon the living, and their sole purpose on this earth is to feed us.”

“Is that how you justify that ?!” Sonya cried, pointing an unsteady finger at the closed door.

“Be happy it wasn’t on the table when you walked in.”

“That’s perverse. Your whole understanding of your own nature and position in the organic hierarchy is perverse .”

The seidkona’s eyes gleamed harsh and wicked, the lines of her face like crude slashes on a painted canvas, and Sonya had had enough. “Anton!” she yelled. “An—!”

Ylva closed her fist—and all the air in Sonya’s lungs vanished, her body collapsing as she grabbed at her throat and gasped for a breath that wouldn’t come. She struggled, and Ylva stood at her side to watch as if Sonya was an interesting bug she’d pinned by the leg, thrashing for its life.

“What a gift wasted on one like you. It has been near a century since I’ve seen a maiden changed with a bite,” she observed, loosening her fist. Sonya sucked in air and tried to scream—only for Ylva to close the fist again, ruthless in her intent. “When the draugar rode with the vikingar , we took little girls like you and taught them their place.” She laughed at Sonya’s furious, anguished expression. “But it’s not too late for you, I assume. If you were in the care of someone better suited to mind that tongue of yours.”

As if summoned by her voice, the shadows feathering Sonya’s vision seemed to twist—and Calder approached from the darkness, seeming to belong there with his black cloak swathed about his body, his hair wet from the rain. She could hear the thunder again as his eyes met hers, something like grief lingering there—grief and maybe cold, unfeeling victory.

“Take it from here, as we agreed,” Ylva instructed him, allowing Sonya a final, withering look. “And I will ensure Anton knows his place.”

Anton!

Sonya fought the hand that reached for her, kicked and struggled even as her lungs burned for air and her blows landed with feeble thumps. Calder snagged both her wrists in one large hand and yanked her upright, holding her close to his chest. He lowered his mouth to her ear, his teeth threatening to bite, and said a single word; “ Sleep .”

Just as when Anton had said the same in that stodgy old inn weeks ago, a sudden lassitude came over Sonya, and she stopped fighting. Her body slumped into Calder’s, and the last thing she saw was Ylva’s satisfied expression.