Sitting in a dark corner, close to the opening in the pitched ceiling, were two ravens.
Larger than any other birds Maude had ever seen, these two seemed to stare at her as she stood before Odin. For one long, punishing moment, the ravens' golden irises seemed to look into her soul before they took to the skies again. As soon as they disappeared from her sight, the energy that had been pulsing beneath her touch disappeared as well.
"Aeric, you have been hiding from me for too long," an old woman's voice rang out in the temple, pulling her from what she had just witnessed. "What brings you back all these years later?"
Maude turned to find her father standing in the center of the temple with a hunched, hooded figure who stood a few heads shorter than him. Navy robes billowed out around her, the ends seeming to flow with an invisible wind that onlyshe could feel. The woman speaking to her father reached forward to grab his arm as he reached for hers; her knobby hands were aged and withered but strong as they grasped her father's forearm.
"Hildr, it's good to see you again," her father said warmly as he smiled one of his rare grins.
"Charm will get you nowhere, Elven King, so don't try it on me," Hildr said, smacking a hand lightly on her father's arm. "Why are you here?"
Aeric sighed and waved Maude and Herrick over. She moved woodenly towards the center of the temple, her bare feet padding on the floorboards quietly while her wet footprints stained the wood.
"Hildr, this is my daughter, Maude," he said, pride leaking into his voice, forcing Maude's chest to tighten unbearably. This male was proud to call her his kin while she had been struggling to accept him as her father. She was undeserving of him. "And this is her partner, Herrick."
If Herrick was surprised at the proclamation her father made, he did a fantastic job of swallowing it. Not like Maude— she managed to trip on her own feet when she was standing still, forcing her father and Herrick to both reach for her so she didn't fall flat on her face.
When Maude was returned to her feet, Herrick wrapped an arm around her waist to steady her. She tried to push out of his grip, his words still echoing in her mind from last night, but found she would need his support when the woman named Hildr turned to face her. The hood concealing her features was now lowered to her shoulders, exposing the truth.
Her ancient face had deep grooves that showed the years that had passed this woman by, her skin somehow still luminous inside the temple. Silver hair was braided into neat rows down her scalp and met at the back of her head to hang in surprisingly long curls. Like the other seers Maude had seen, this woman had the same blank paint under her eyes and her mouth. Also, like the other seers, this woman's eyes had been stitched shut.
Gods above, that is eerie, Maude thought.
"Maude, Herrick, this is Hildr," Aeric said, his voice sounding far away as Hildr reached for Maude's face, tracing her features as well as the scar that trailed down the side of her face, through her eyebrow and ending at the corner of her mouth.
When the woman's exploration led further south to her throat and then her chest, Maude started to protest, but her father's words cut through the panic. "Hildr is the Grand Soothsayer."
As soon as the words were out, the Grand Soothsayer's searching fingers paused on her fatemark.
All sound was sucked from the room as the gods seemed to listen in on the next words that would be uttered by the woman in front of her. Before she spoke, however, Hildr brought her other hand to Herrick's face and conducted the same search. She traced his facial features, mapping out how he must look, and then followed an invisible path down to his chest, her fingers tripping on the iron band around his throat before stopping on his fatemark, thevegvisir.
Others from their group had joined them at some point, but Maude was completely enraptured with the seer in front of her, dreading her next words.
"I remember you," the Grand Soothsayer whispered, her fingers tapping against their marks at the same time. "I remember your fate tellings."
Herrick stiffened beside her. Maude might know of the runes that had been pulled for her fate telling, but he remained ignorant of his fate telling. A stout believer in his destiny, he would not want to hear what this seer foretold all those years ago. The truth slammed into Maude as the Soothsayer still held her palms to their fatemarks—the onessheplaced all those years ago.
"There is much for us to discuss," Hildr said as she snatched her hands back and pulled her hood up again.
Herrick and Maude exchanged glances, hesitating about whether they should follow the Soothsayer. Her father answered the unspoken question and gestured to follow. Soon, he and their friends were close behind them as they trailed the woman who would hopefully have the answers they sought.
28
In a small cabin behind the temple, Maude moved stiffly as the Grand Soothsayer hastened them all to sit on the cushions splayed out on the floor surrounding the crackling hearth in the center of the room. She placed her and Herrick next to her, with Aeric on her other side. The rest of their friends filled in the cramped space, accepting the mead the Soothsayer poured for them.
Bryn tried to catch her attention, but Maude was frozen in her shock, so she took in the movements of her friends and filed them away to think of later.
Liv sat next to Bryn before whispering something to her while Dahlia was redressing Gunnar's wound again. At the door, Hakon eyed the Soothsayer with distrust heavy in his gaze. The looks didn't last long because as soon as Hildr reached him, she placed a horn of mead in his hand and said harshly,
"Best you sit yourself down on the cushions, Heir of Rivers, before the mead overtakes your remaining good sense. I have no patience for drunken fools, and if you're going to devolve into a stupor, I'd rather you already be seated so our conversation will not be interrupted by your mindlessness. Your grief for your lost love can either strengthen you or destroy you; just don't make it everyone else's problem while you decide which man you want to be."
Hakon's ears turned red as his mouth dropped open before he shut it again, the muscle in his jaw flickering as he stared down the Soothsayer. After a few tense moments, his anger dissolved into shame as he crumpled into the cushion behind everyone else, his nose deep in his cup by the time everyone had settled.
An ominous silence fell over their group as they waited with bated breath to hear what the Grand Soothsayer would say next once she reached the head of their circle. Outside, through the cracks in the roughly constructed walls of her small cabin, Maude could see that the sun was beginning to set on this strange day. The groups of humans and Elven who had been camped up the pathway leading to the temple had quieted down a bit as they all feasted on their prepared meals, the herbs of their spices mixing with the grease of the dead animal's flesh caused Maude's stomach to turn rather than pang with hunger.
Time seemed to slow and speed up as darkness fell while they all sipped on their strong mead, the bitter honey and earth taste of the dry wine causing Maude's head to spin as the Soothsayer's incense burned at the hearth in front of her.
They were far from the comfortable lodgings of Logi and Veter in this northern mountainside, closer to the gods than their enemies. Thrown back into a more primitive time than Maude was accustomed to, she struggled to remain silent as she became quickly overwhelmed by her roaring senses. Before, she would have escaped to the fresh air or rooftops of Logi to cool her skin and calm her racing heart. But in this environment, where stimuli would overwhelm her at every turn, whether it be the smells of cookfires, the densely packed worshippers squatting in this holy ground looking for salvation, or the cacophony of sounds from the forest that lived around them being drowned out by prayers.
