Chapter 3
Svanhild arrived late to the hall that morning, rushing back from a morning swim around the edges of the fasthold's palisade, and so she found herself at the only free loom - between Margit and Katrina. No wonder all the other women avoided this space. They sat in awkward silence, Svanhild not quite daring to look to either side. She focused on the fabric in front of her, quietly wishing that women were allowed to do anything except weave cloth and twist rope. At least that would provide an excuse to be somewhere else. The enmity leaking from the two women either side of her practically turned the water black.
A loud noise cut through the silence of the hall - a clang of metal, only partly muffled by the seawater, and then the sound of men shouting, both physically and mentally. Svanhild shot up, swooping down the length of the hall and out of the door before Margit had time to forbid her.
Busy men and their loud voices filled the square outside, clustering around the door to Klaus's strongroom, a small building set apart from the hall.
“What's happening?” Svanhild asked Aleksander, drifting up beside him, close enough to communicate privately, but not so close that they were touching. Uncertainty still interfered with her trust for him.
“Klaus found the old crown,” Aleksander said, not bothering to make his words entirely private. “It appears that it was lost, not destroyed when your father died. Klaus intends to offer it as a sacrifice at the full moon.”
Svanhild cut him off there, shooting through the crowd to confront her uncle.
“You intend to destroy the crown, uncle? When you've only just found it?”
“Destroy is rather a strong word for a sacrifice,” Klaus said soothingly, his most patronising expression firmly in place. “This is what your father would have wanted. Such a crown has no place in our time. It is better off dedicated to the spirits and bringing us all good fortune.”
What her father would have wanted? That was the biggest lie he'd told so far. Svanhild's father had dreamed of one day seeing a new king wearing the crown and uniting the warring tribes into one kingdom again.
There and then, staring into her uncle's eyes, Svanhild made a decision. She would save that crown from destruction before the full moon, in just two days time. And she wouldn't stop there. Avenging her father wasn't enough. She would build a legacy for him, using that crown to rally the selkie lords together. That kingdom her father had dreamed of would be reborn, or she would die trying.
As Klaus smiled gently and turned away, dismissing her, Svanhild realised that she needed help. Determination alone would not get her into Klaus's strongroom, not with all the magical ropes bound across the door and the constant rotation of guards.
She looked sidelong at Aleksander.
“No,” he said immediately, speaking silently this time. “I know what you're going to ask, and I won't help you to steal that crown from your uncle.”
“Come with me,” Svanhild told him. “I need to talk to you.”
She drifted across the square and around the side of the hall, where a small overgrown seaweed garden sat almost forgotten. Half-hidden among the deepest fronds of seaweed, she waited.
Aleksander came a few moments after her, his expression alert and his body tense. At least it didn't look as if anyone had followed him. He spotted her instantly and followed her into the darkness of the seaweed cloud. They both moved deeper into the foliage, away from prying eyes. He came a little too close and it took Svanhild a moment before she could breathe normally.
“I don't know what you want, but this has to stop,” Aleksander said, his voice low and dangerous inside her head. “I can't keep risking my position with Klaus just because you're bored and spoiled.”
Svanhild swung her hand to slap him, but he moved too fast, ducking out of reach.
“This isn't about me,” she told him, letting the anger radiate from her thoughts. “Klaus killed my father. Or did you already know that?”
The shock on his face told her straightaway not to worry. He hadn't known.
“Are you sure?” he asked. His thoughts had a rough edge to them.
“He admitted it himself. He just didn't realise I was listening.”
Aleksander shook his head, his eyes distant, dark seaweed fronds stroking against his cheek.
“How could I have not known? I knew that Klaus was capable of terrible things - but I didn't imagine this.”
“He's kept it a close secret. I only found out through luck. Or perhaps the spirits guided me. It doesn't matter. I want revenge.”
Aleksander’s expression was cold and hard.
“I'll help you. I imagine that you intend to start with that crown?”
Svanhild nodded.
“We steal it tonight.”
At last, her father's dream could be realised. He might never see it himself, but perhaps his spirit might still wander the selkie lands and see his people united once more.
What was now dozens of fragmented, ever-shifting tribal lands had once been a single kingdom, united and powerful. Its capital, far to the west, had ruled over an empire half of the land and half of the sea, selkies living peacefully alongside other shifters and creatures of both earth and water. But the city had been destroyed, by earth, water, and fire, and its people had scattered. The great empire had collapsed, as people gathered around their own leaders and stopped trusting their neighbours.
For some people, like Klaus, the ancient empire represented a threat. An overlord would take power away from the petty lords who now governed each province like kings. But as far as Svanhild could see, unity meant strength. And she wanted that for her people.
She and Aleksander met in the garden again at dusk, their plans all in place.
“We need to begin with the ropes,” Aleksander said. “Did you find a way to get past them?”
Svanhild nodded, her guilt turning to a sick feeling. “I stole Margit's shears. They can open any rope in the fastness.”
“Good.”
Aleksander didn't seem to have time for guilt.
Everyone had left the square between the safehouse and the hall, its darkness lying empty. Svanhild didn't ask how Aleksander had managed that. She cut through the ropes quickly and efficiently, the magical shears slicing easily through the fibres, as they were intended to do. Margit would be heartbroken when she learnt that Svanhild had betrayed her.
Aleksander picked the lock just as quickly, then shouldered the door open. It juddered slightly on the threshold, making a little more noise than Svanhild would have liked, but no movement came from the hall.
“I'll keep watch,” Aleksander said. Svanhild hesitated. This was the moment she had to decide whether to trust him.
She nodded sharply and slipped into the room, the bubbles of her breath rippling through the still, dark water. She scanned around quickly, casting out a faint thread of magic to feel her way in the darkness.
There it was. A heavy metal chest, larger than anything Klaus kept in the strongroom usually. She illuminated it with a soft flash of magic, casting a green glow around the room. Shark decorations, Klaus's favourite symbol, curved around the chest, ropes tying it shut. Svanhild touched one gently and smiled at the familiar texture. Margit's ropes. The shears would slice through them even more easily than the ones outside.
She made quick work of the ropes, leaving them floating loosely in the water, and pulled the chest open, grabbing at the crown inside.
A blaring, howling magic burst into her brain, so loud that she collapsed to the floor, the crown wrapped in her arms.
“Get up!” Aleksander shouted at her. “We have to go!”
She weakly swam upwards, trying to block out the chaos inside her head, fumbling for the door. Damn Klaus. He must have attached some kind of curse to the crown. Could everyone else hear?
“Aleksander,” she began to ask, but he grabbed her arm and pushed her through the door before she could finish.
“It's an alarm,” he told her tersely. “We have to get out of here.”
Hardly able to think through the noise in her head, she nodded and headed towards the edge of the compound, away from the hall.
“Stop! Thief!”
Someone had heard the alarm. Too late. Svanhild span round, ready to fight with all the magic she had, but she moved too slowly. Blood streamed through the water, bright red, curling around the gently floating body of a selkie warrior. Aleksander tucked his knife back into his belt, his face expressionless.
“We need to leave,” he told her again.
She nodded, the noise in her head almost overwhelmed by the pounding of her heartbeat and the panicked roaring of her lungs. He was right. She made for her gap in the fasthold netting, Aleksander close behind her. They flew past the defences in moments, both changing into their seal forms as they went. Sleek and fast, they sped through the kelp forest that carpeted the depths west of the Icy Shores. Svanhild didn't know this forest, which would have terrified her at any other time, but the excitement and adrenalin flowing through her veins left her close to laughing for joy.
After a few moments, Aleksander slowed down, and Svanhild followed suit. It didn't seem as if anyone had followed them. Had they made it? She changed back into her human form, pulling the crown off her arm, where it had awkwardly balanced. Here, in the soft light of a breaking dawn, it looked tarnished and old.
Seal-Aleksander, his tool belt still around his waist, shifted back as well. Their loose-fitting clothes, tied on with the traditional ropes, still hung in loose drapes around them, but Svanhild blushed as she rearranged hers slightly. She had never shifted in front of a man before.
“We should find somewhere to hide,” Aleksander said softly. “It isn't safe here.”
“Perhaps a cave,” Svanhild began, and froze. Ripples spread through the kelp, far stronger than any natural wave in the water. They were not alone.
Aleksander saw them at the same time she did. He frantically gestured her down, and they both sank onto their bellies, covered by the kelp. Where were the ripples coming from? Svanhild shivered with tension.
And then they came, pushing through the kelp. Heavy figures, tattooed in red, almost like selkies, but subtly different. Knives hung at their belts, while gold ringed their arms and glinted in their braided hair as it flew out behind them. Svanhild shrank back even further as the group passed, so close that she could have reached out to touch their bare feet through the undergrowth.
Then they vanished as suddenly as they had come, the last of the ripples fading behind them.
“Twenty Wildlings,” Aleksander said, his face grim. “They've not come this close to the Icy Shores in decades.”
The Wildlings hadn't terrorised these waters since before Svanhild was born. Some people said they were extinct. Clearly, they were wrong.
“Should we warn the others?”
Aleksander hesitated.
“They can defend themselves. We need to find somewhere sheltered for the night. I'm worried that a storm's drawing in.”
Much as she hated to abandon the Icy Shores to defend itself, Svanhild knew he spoke the truth.
“Do you know of anywhere we could go, Aleksander?”
“There's a place not too far from here that might do. And you can call me Aleks.”
He held out a hand to her and she took it gingerly, letting him guide her through the kelp forest as she clutched the crown in her other hand.
They drifted at last into a small clearing, where blocks of carved stone protruded through the weeds.
“This bit is still enough of a shelter,” Aleks said, tugging her into a small room built halfway into the rocky hillside. Its paved floor was cracked and worn, but Svanhild could still see colourful patterns sprinkled across the slabs.
“What is this place?” she asked. Aleks just shrugged.
“No idea. Just try to get some sleep.”
She would have to trust him that this place was safe. Hesitantly, she curled up beside him, feeling her body gently settle down to the floor, the weight of the water warm around her, Aleks almost close enough to touch.
She had the crown. But what good could it do here, out in the wilderness? The Wildlings had wiped out entire selkie tribes before. How could she protect the Icy Shores from hiding?