Steiner slipped through the stable door and found an empty stall. Kristofine had prepared in advance; two stools with a lantern and two tankards awaited them. An old horse blanket had been laid over the straw. She snuck into the stall behind him with a clay jug of mead and a mischievous smile.
‘I notice there are two tankards,’ said Steiner.
‘It’s a bad habit to drink alone,’ she replied, nestling on the blanket.
Steiner looked at her. ‘Why do you care? Why do all this for me?’
‘All that time we had at school and I was too shy to talk to you. As we got older I worried about what the other girls would say.’
‘Because I can’t read,’ said Steiner, feeling the old shame.
Kristofine shook her head and ignored his interruption. ‘Now you’re going, and I realize I should never have let shyness or people or anything else stop me from talking to you.’
‘But tonight? And me with witchsign and all.’
‘What’s it like?’
‘What is what like?’ Steiner frowned.
‘The witchsign, of course. What powers do you have?’
Steiner gave a resigned chuckle and pressed a callused palm to his forehead. For a moment he thought he might give in to despairing tears. He closed his eyes tight to spare himself crying in front of Kristofine. He felt her warm hand on his, slowly prising his fingers away from his face.
‘Fewer questions, more drinking,’ she said and began to pour.
‘I don’t have the witchsign, I promise you. It’s that damned Hierarch and—’ But anything else he wanted to say was silenced as she pressed her lips to his.
‘I believe you,’ she said when the kiss was done. Steiner put aside all thoughts of Vladibogdan, the Synod and the Empire, determined he should have this last night for himself.
Though there is still much we do not understand, it has been documented that witchsign results in powers belonging to four schools, each with a ruling element. Telepathy and prescience are derived from those born with the element of wind, for example.
– From the field notes of Hierarch Khigir, Vigilant of the Imperial Synod.
Steiner’s departure marked the beginning of yet another long silence, a silence that Kjellrunn longed to shatter. She stood at the double doors to the smithy wanting to scream. She wanted the whole town to know of her frustration. She wanted to scream loud enough so the dead might hear her in Hel. She wanted to scream that Steiner come back and scream for the witchsign be taken away.
Her eye rested on the few lanterns in the harbour, bobbing gently with the tide, revealing the location of the frigate, but not the form. She could feel the way sea swirled against the hull, just as she could feel the cold wind on her skin. Come the morning the blood-red ship would spirit Steiner away and there was nothing she could do about it.
‘Come in from the cold,’ said Marek, laying a hand on her shoulder and pulling her into a rough embrace. She let his arms enfold her with reluctance, feeling an icy fury for the man who had suspected her of witchsign and said nothing.
‘I take after her, do I?’ There was no wistfulness in her voice, only a resentment that he’d not told her sooner. Discovering tiny truths about her mother should have been a happy event tinged with tears, not a revelation on Steiner’s last night in Cinderfell.
‘You have her eyes, and her hair too if you’d ever care to pull a brush through it.’
‘And where is she now?’
‘The Empire took her,’ said Marek. He stepped away, not meeting her eyes, gazing into the darkness outside their door. ‘We had a handful of happy years together, and two beautiful children, but she was always looking over her shoulder, waiting, waiting.’
‘Waiting for the Vigilants to find her,’ said Kjellrunn.
‘They can track anyone down given enough time.’ Marek prodded the anvil with his boot. ‘In the end she went of her own accord. Better that way.’
‘The Empire doesn’t know she had children?’
‘Of course not.’ He pushed the door closed and set the latch in place, locking the night outside. ‘They’d have killed you to make an example to the others.’
‘What others?’
He ignored that question and provided one of his own. ‘How are you …’ He frowned and tried again. ‘How are your powers?’
‘Powers?’ She gave a lop-sided smile, filling the word with disdain. ‘I don’t feel very powerful. I don’t feel powerful at all. They’re just sensations really. I know when it will rain, and what tide it is.’
‘That’s it?’ said Marek, and Kjellrunn felt a sting of shame.
‘Were you expecting some great sorcerer?’
‘Sorry, Kjell. I don’t know how it works and I forgot that you’ve not been trained.’
‘And that I’m just sixteen. You forgot that too.’
‘Yes, sorry, Kjell.’ Marek pressed his fingertips into the corners of his eyes and she could almost see the wave of tiredness wash over him. ‘So just senses then?’
‘I’m happiest when I’m in the forest; it feels more natural there. I imagine I can feel the animals moving around in their lairs and sets under the earth.’
‘You may not be imagining that so much as feeling it.’ He fixed her with a long appraising look, then gestured that she follow him into the kitchen.
Verner sat at the table, cleaning his nails with a small knife. He looked up at Kjellrunn but no expression crossed his face. The way Steiner told it, Kjellrunn was Verner’s favourite out of the two of them. She didn’t care. To her mind Steiner had long been their father’s favourite so it was almost fair, inasmuch as families are ever fair.
‘Don’t worry, Uncle, I’ll not call a storm down on your little boat next time you sail.’
Verner didn’t smile, simply put away his knife and stared into the fireplace where the embers glowed orange.
‘You shouldn’t joke about such things. People have died for the power you hold, died and suffered for it.’
‘You think I’m not suffering?’ she replied, her tone as cold and unforgiving as the Sommerende Ocean. ‘My only brother has no choice but to go to the island to be killed.’
‘We don’t know for sure he’ll be killed,’ replied Verner, getting to his feet. ‘And he may learn something useful if he keeps his wits about him.’
‘You can’t send him to the island.’ She gazed up into the fisherman’s eyes. ‘I won’t let you.’
Marek and Verner exchanged a glance and both turned to her with wary expressions on their faces.
‘Kjell, it’s not up to us. If there was a way to stop the Empire I would, but …’ Marek held out a placating hand to her but she had no mind to take it, no mind to be held by him when he had held back so