YAN

  "To victory!" someone shouted, raising yet another toast.

  "To victory!" the others echoed.

  After each toast, the drinkers spilled the last drops from their horns and cups onto the floor, an old tradition, for the fallen. By now, the straw beneath the tables soaked through.

  Breivik, the true jarl of the settlement, wiped foam from his thick red beard and rose, ready to give another toast. With a nod, he signalled for the servers to refill every cup.

  "Brothers," he began, as the froth of fresh ale licked the rim of his horn. "At last, the time for revenge has come. Ari is with us. Our god is with us. And he will lead us to victory."

  The hall erupted in cheers, but Breivik raised a hand, silencing them.

  "Those filthy pigs who call themselves the Faithful have dictated our fate for too long. Their tolls. Their rules. No more. We shall raid whom we wish. Trade with whom we choose. As we did before."

  Another chorus of shouts rose, stifled again by his raised palm.

  "Their god forbids them from drinking ale. From eating pork. Commands them to fast from sunrise to sunset. So disciplined. So obedient. Yet they have the audacity to murder children. To ra..."

  His voice cracked. Tears welled in his eyes.

  To see a man like Breivik, towering, powerful leader, tremble like that in front of his men… it silenced the room more than any gesture could.

  The priest, seated between him and Ari, stood and placed a hand on Breivik’s shoulder. Firm. Commanding. He pressed down, urging the jarl back into his seat.

  "We know what our enemies are capable of," he said. "We haven’t forgotten those we lost. Even in times they dared call peace. But tonight, we celebrate!"

  He raised his horn high, and the crowd mirrored him.

  "To victory!"

  Sienna handed Yanick another cup. He tried to protest, but the beer had already softened his resolve. Besides, she seemed more beautiful with every golden drop he drank. More radiant. More real.

  She climbed into his lap, her face inches from his. Her blouse hung loose, her full breasts threatening to spill free. She smelled like summer. And ale.

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  Her lips moved closer. Yanick shivered.

  “No,” he said, gently pulling away. “I’m sorry.”

  “No,” she replied. “I’m the one who should be sorry.”

  She left quickly. He watched her go, but she vanished fast into the crowd.

  Ari stepped closer. He held a richly decorated horn in his hand, but his breath didn’t smell like beer. Not at all. Despite drinking alongside them all evening.

  “You turned down a girl like that?” he asked.

  Yanick had no answer. He said nothing.

  “Come," Ari ordered. "Walk with me.”

  They stepped outside the longhouse.

  The night air smelled like his homeland. Pine, roasted meat, quiet pride.

  “So, Nemeth’s daughter, huh?” Ari asked as they neared the stables.

  “How do you know?”

  “I am a god, after all. Aren’t I?”

  He looked to the sky. The moon broke through a veil of clouds. Ari laughed bitterly.

  “I might have been a prisoner back there, but I wasn’t alone. There are others in that place, people who think like I do. People too afraid to speak aloud, but not afraid to pass me information. Oh, yes, I knew everything that was happening over there. Everything.”

  “What was that place?” Yanick asked. “Who were these people? The ones who held us… These strange corridors, cells, the capsule… Where this place even was?”

  They reached the stables, large building on the edge of the settlement. No snorting, no hooves tapping coming from the inside. The animals were asleep. Huddled close together. Preparing for war, though they had no stake in it. Yet they, too, would be dragged into it.

  “You’re no fool, boy,” Ari said. “You know I’m no god. You feel it. Deep down. That gods don’t exist.”

  Yanick said nothing. The world spun. Too much ale.

  “I know you have questions,” Ari continued. “But you’ll have to earn your right for the answers.”

  “I think I have earned at least one,” Yanick said, leaning heavily on the railing outside the stable. “I helped you escape, didn’t I?”

  “One answer,” Ari said with a grin.

  “Who are you really? What’s your real name?”

  “That’s two questions. Which one do you want answered?”

  Yanick felt the contents of his stomach clawing their way upward, desperate to escape the same way they had come in. He turned aside, bent at the waist and surrendered to that feeling.

  “I’ll answer you before you leave tomorrow morning,” Ari said.

  “Leave?” Yanick blinked, suddenly a little more sober. “Where? I only just got here.”

  “There’s a war on, and you are my wolf.”

  Yanick doubled over to surrender again. Long and painfully.

  “Parsley’s growing behind the stable,” Ari added casually and walked away. “Eat some before you return to the feast.”

  Yanick stumbled behind the stable, found the herbs by feel. He dropped to his knees, ripped out handfuls, and chewed. The awful taste in his mouth faded

  “I didn’t know divine hounds grazed like cows,” said a voice

  He turned.

  Sienna stood there, moonlight laughing across her freckles. She was laughing too. So was the moon. The moon always laughed at him.

  The world tilted, spun in a crazy dance.

  Yanick stood up and moved toward her, steps unsteady. Just like he’d once moved toward Amaia, back in her inn, the night someone had been celebrating something. He couldn’t remember what. Or who. But there had been music. Dancing. And he’d danced, too. With her. There in the inn, in the room upstairs. And after in the house on the farm. They’ve been dancing almost every day since.

  “I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said.

  “I know,” she replied.

  He surrendered. This time to another feeling. He surrendered to that silent music which turned the whole world spinning, commanding it to dance.

  And Yanick danced with Sienna; a slow and fevered dance on the soft earth behind the stable, where fragrant herbs whispered beneath them and moonlight draped their bodies in silver.