East of the Sun: A Fairytale Fantasy Adventure

By A.E. Becker

A curse from long ago. An ancient lineage of kings. And three teenagers who are about to find out that fairy tales are more than just stories…

Saedis and Sola grew up in the shadow of the White Mountain, surrounded by stories of magical animals and wicked trolls. Saedis never once thought they were real—until a beast out of legend took her younger sister…

Ash wants nothing more than to be a storyteller, living a life of adventure like the heroes in his tales. Unfortunately, what he’s got are no prospects, a bad reputation, and no direction. Until he meets a girl who tells him the stories are real…

Now Sola is trapped in a magical world outside of their own, entangled in an ancient curse that seems to have lain in wait just for her. When bear kings and trolls vie for power and magic can take on a life of its own, danger lurks in every shadow. Somehow, Saedis, Sola, and Ash must find each other before the bright lands claim their freedom—or their lives…

East of the Sun is book one in the saga of the Bear Kings, an epic fairy tale adventure set in a world based on Norwegian folklore.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Valemon Creative
• Release date: Dec 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781960517029

Book preview

East of the Sun

The Bear Kings - Book One

A.E. Becker

Valemon Creative

Copyright ©2023 by A.E. Becker

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

ISBN: 978-1-960517-02-9

Cover art by www.ravven.com

Contents

Dedication

1.Water Under the Sea

2.Full of Stories

3.From the Dawn of the World

4.Talking to the Wind

5.No Part of Your World

6.To Speak of Shadows

7.Plenty of Oddities

8.A Dead Place

9.How It Really Is

10.To Fall Between the Worlds

11.Wolf Water

12.Between Places

13.To Serve a Story

14.Judgement

15.Between Life and Death

16.Not Missed

17.A Cultured People

18.A Way Through

19.Troll-Bane

20.Strength of the Bear Kings

21.Complicated Magic

22.The Kingdoms Below

23.A Cruelty to It

24.Mightily Changed

25.Dark and Light Intermixed

26.Terrible to See

27.Key to the Underways

28.The Outer Boundary

29.Hole in the World

30.Author’s Note

Mailing List Story Offer

About the Author

For my mom, who always believed I'd get published someday—even if she didn't know exactly when I'd get around to it!

Thank you so much for your love and support over the years.

Chapter one

Water Under the Sea

When our Ancestors first came into this world, they came in out of the dark.

Three kings and three queens led them: the Lord of the Green, the Maker, and the Cold Man; the Songbird, the Owl, and the Raven. Together, they called forth the sea and the inlets, the rivers and the mountains. Grasses and trees clawed their way upward. Stars sprang out of the darkened sky, and snow began to fall for the first time.

The sun and the moon were curious and came to visit. The kings bespoke the sun, and the queens beguiled the moon, and so they stayed. Seasons came to be in the new world.

The great winds came to visit also, but were suspicious, and never truly bound.

Over many lifetimes, the people spread over the face of the world, even so far as the ice sheets of the far north and the fierce white sands of the southern desert. But there are still questions never answered, save in stories.

What did they leave behind them, back there in the dark?

— Commentary on the Exodus: Church Records of Antiquity

***

Saedis hit a patch of ice. For a dizzy moment, she slid, flailing, until she threw her arms around a frozen maple. Snow slid off the branches above her and showered her head and shoulders with icy clumps.

When I find them, by all the ancestors, I am going to punch them. Both of them. Even if Will is half a head taller than me.

Saedis pushed herself away from the tree. The mountainside lay flattened beneath a sheet of snow, but the crust here was thin. Her snowshoes broke through every second or third step. Her thighs burned, and her teeth hurt from grinding them. She scanned the snow in front of her and to either side as she went. Her breath puffed out in clouds.

She struggled upward along a buried road. It was little more than a trail, really, because they got so few visitors. Those who came did so only on foot or horseback, because a wagon on this trail would have been challenged, and a coach, impossible. The path zigged and zagged up the pass, to Aslo town.

A snow-buried bramble caught her shoe. Saedis danced a step or two, trying to pull her way out of it, and still fell, right onto her face. Her arms punched into the snow all the way up to her shoulders. The tip of her nose hit the snow, and instantly froze.

"Oh, Maker’s breath. Can it all just stop." She was so tired. Tired of walking, of fighting the winter, of being responsible for everyone. Mother should be out here, Father should. Yet here I am, again.

The idea of pushing herself up the mountain seemed impossible. It would be easier to trust a fox with an open henhouse.

Overhead, a wave of wind rolled and rattled over frozen branches. Saedis closed her eyes and set her jaw. No one else will do it. They need you. Go!

She rolled over, untangled her shoe and struggled to her feet. All around her, the pines and blue-hued spruce sat hunched, needles coated with ice. Intermixed were the gray-barked red maples, some of the latter with leaves still clinging, surprised, to their branches. The winter had come early and it had come hard.

Saedis! I found tracks! Shhhhhh came the sound from her left, and snow spumed up in a shower. Saedis threw up her arm to shield her face—too late.

Sola stood there, her younger sister, graceful atop her skis. Like Saedis, she wore a thick cloak over a shirt and vest, several layers of heavy winter skirts, and woven leggings. The colorless sky dulled the brilliant red of her hair almost to auburn, in contrast to Saedis’s own dark tangle of locks. Sola was two years younger than Saedis, having seen fifteen summers. Will had been born between them. Tor had come five years after Sola, a surprise child, and then, this year, when Tor had turned ten, there had been the twins.

Only one twin, now, Saedis thought, and fought off a wave of foreboding, sudden and inexplicable.

Sola said, At this pace we’ll never find them! You’re slower than an old bear in the cold.

Saedis shook herself like a dog shedding water and spat out gritty snow. I wish they’d both get eaten, she said. By wolves. Or trolls, if they existed.

They aren’t far off the path. Stop frowning! Your face will stick like that and you’ll end up looking like a troll hag yourself.

If it meant I could turn them both into frogs, it’d be worth it. Go on, keep going.

But her sister paused. Father should be here, Sola said.

That brought a stab of anxiety. Saedis fought it off and pressed her lips together. Well, he’s not. I’m the one left to worry about finding them.

You, huh? What am I?

I wish you’d stayed home.

You can’t do everything! Sola rolled her eyes. Wasted breath. I’m going on ahead. She pushed off and angled between the groups of trees. Her voice floated back. The tracks are up this way.

Saedis broke from the path to follow. I’m coming! she shouted.

There was no response from Sola, who was skilled and much faster on her skis, even uphill. Though born in the valley, Saedis had never been near as good on the skis. The wide-stepping, slow and steady gait of the snowshoes was more to her liking. It should have given her an advantage in seeing details a skier might have missed, but then Sola was exceptional. She always had been, and Saedis, though the elder, had the vague feeling that ever since Sola’s birth she’d been struggling to catch up to her younger sister.

To catch up, or to measure up? Some days, either felt impossible.

The wind traced a chill hand up the back of her neck, and she glanced back over her shoulder. Behind her, lead-colored clouds rose across the valley in a towering wall, massing over Kyvel's gigantic peak. The stories said that monsters and spirits lived up on the white mountain. Wicked trolls. Cursed princes. White bears big as houses.

Saedis shivered and pushed forward. Brothers, she muttered. The frozen crust crunched under her snowshoes.

It felt like her family was pulling apart. She couldn’t put her finger on anything specific. Just a sense of unease, that things were sliding out of control in some subtle way. Like water moving under the sea.

They had lost one of the new twins at the first breath of winter, just a few weeks past. There was no sign of a cause, but the effect had been stark. Father had grown distant, hardly speaking to any of them, dulled by grief. Her mother held on with fanatical strength to the remaining baby, and to Will, her eldest son, her darling. Will hated it and escaped whenever he could, and ten-year-old Tor seemed like he just didn’t fit anywhere. Mora Drana, her father’s mother, had been the peacemaker for a long time, but now her health was failing. Mora didn’t have the energy to smooth things out anymore. Not between the children and each other, nor their mother.

The boys had left this morning and had not come home.

Saedis gained the top of a small ridge. She saw Sola’s tracks, but no sign of her sister. Sola? she called. And, for good measure, Will! Tor!

The freshening breeze snatched her words away and lost them against the mountainside.

A sense came upon her, all at once, like nothing she had ever felt. It was as if the cold in the air flooded in through her nostrils and sent a freezing bolt through her insides. Her vision fuzzed, and her mouth flooded with a salty, metallic tang. Saedis stumbled, gagging. Then it slammed into her—the feeling that there were things happening at this moment that were out of her reach. Things that she couldn’t stop. It held her in its grip, frozen, for several long moments.

Up ahead and over the trees, a cry rose into the air, wavering, then falling. The bottom felt like it dropped out of her gut. Queen of Mercy, who was that? Sola?

Saedis shook herself free of the dread, and started to run.

***

A silver grouse exploded from the hollow in front of Sola and rose, beating its wings, white bird from white snow against silver-gray sky. Did something startle it?

She let herself drift to a stop. Will? she called softly. Tor?

No response. She slid forward, pushing outward with her ski tips.

Sola stood alone atop a small ridge. Behind her, through a gap in the pines, she could see the land falling away, patched with dark swaths of forest in mottled gray and dark green. The course of the river cut through the valley below. In the spring, it would rush and live. Now there was just the glint where it hid under the ice. Tucked into one curve, she could see a thin curl of smoke rising into the dull sky. That would be home. No sign of Saedis yet.

Sola had worked to get well out in front of Saedis. Her elder sister had been in charge of her ever since she could remember. Their mother, emotionally unpredictable at the best of times, seemed most preoccupied with Will, her darling boy. It left the girls to run the house, and Saedis, in particular, to run everyone else. Sola was old enough now to wish for more freedom and less older-sister bossiness. She enjoyed her time apart when she could get it, which was rarely; but now, she began to regret it.

A crunch and snap echoed in the chill air.

Sola froze in place.

The silence came down like a hand over a cup. She listened for voices, for the crunch of snowshoes. But there was nothing.

Twigs were brittle in the cold. It could be something small. Harmless.

No further sound. Did I imagine it?

She drew in a breath, and with fumbling fingers she pulled her sling from her belt and palmed a stone from her pocket. Little that would do, if it were something like a wolf. I wish I had a bow.

The wind sprang up afresh. Back across the valley, Kyvel’s crown vanished into clouds and a white fog of blown snow.

The ridge didn’t hold much covering; pale grass poked through the snow. Ahead was a stand of tall pines. Sola straightened and pushed herself forward.

Within the trees, she found more of the boys’ tracks, protected from the wind.

They were not the only marks. A cold, leaden feeling crept up and sat in the pit of her stomach.

Slowly, she crouched. The other tracks were crisp and recent. Trembling, she spread her fingers wide and placed her hands side by side in the clearest print, where it partially obliterated one of Will’s. It took four of her hands to measure the width of it. Toes—or claws—had scored long, jagged marks in the snow.

Something had been watching her, after all.

Behind her, she thought she heard Saedis’s voice, faint, calling. She turned.

It was then that a flash of white caught her eye. A tuft of fur, caught on a bramble. It moved in the rising wind. She reached out to snag it and brought it close to her face. Coarse and thick. It stank of heavy musk, and something else.

Above the wind, an eerie cry rose from somewhere higher up on the mountainside.

Tor? Sola breathed.

Thoughts of waiting for Saedis dropped right out of her mind. She lunged upright, dug her poles into the snow, and leaped forward.

***

He could smell his prey, and it made his blood hum in his veins. Soon, very soon now, he would achieve his goal, and get out from under the curse.

The curse. The thought of it sent a ripple of tension and fear through his body. He pushed forward through the deep snow, using the physical effort to drive the cowardly feelings away.

His lineage weren’t supposed to feel fear. His lineage were supposed to be brave, stalwart, fierce, unstoppable.

He bared his teeth. He had fierce, at least.

And now, soon, he would have the girl.

He’d felt her birth, as he could feel the ripples of magic through all the land around their domain. Even here, in the borderlands near his home, which were technically part of the mortal realm—even here, the magic leaked through, just a little. And he could sense it.

Many winters past, it had been. A long, long wait.

And he had been impatient. Made mistakes. Told himself that it could be other girls. But things hadn’t worked the way they were supposed to, and now he was convinced he’d been wrong. It was her.

He’d seen her once, when she was younger, and even as a child she stood out. But he wouldn’t be the only one who’d noticed. Her family doted on her. He’d come in disguise, once, to deal with her father, to see what sort of bargain he might strike. There was something familiar about the man, which was odd; he didn’t usually remember humans. In any case, the father seemed too fond of his children to be manipulated.

So he would need to be pushed, pushed to the point of breaking.

A flash of color appeared through the trees ahead, and he slowed. They were up the opposite mountain now, and his magic was fainter here. He had to reach deep, feeling his way into the earth beneath his paws.

The beast inhaled, and into him rushed power. The sharp taste of snowflakes and meltwater burst upon his tongue, underlaid by the smell of the earth beneath its frozen coat, loam fixed by ice crystals, and the sharp mineral scent of buried stones.

He exhaled, then, a single word: Mist.

From between his jaws a white fog rolled, billowing. In the space of a few breaths it covered him entirely, thickest all around him, trailing off the further it got from him.

It wasn’t his strongest magic. He preferred it more visceral, more physical. Magic with edges. But just this once, he needed subtlety. It would do.

He pushed forward, but watched his steps; it wouldn’t do to make too much noise. The mist would muffle some sound, but he had already made one mistake earlier, when he’d been watching. This was too important. He had to go carefully.

It was difficult, when he could feel impatience building like a pressure in his chest. He’d always been like this. His father had scolded him for it, endlessly: a Valemon must have control. A Valemon must not allow his emotions to rule him. It can lead to catastrophe.

He realized that he was snarling, and tucked his lips back down over his canines. Well, father, you certainly learned how catastrophic it could be.

The wind came from behind him, but humans’ senses were so dull he didn’t have to worry.

He could see them now. Two boys.

One small, still a child. He had been quite a bit behind the other, and now he was striving to catch up.

The other one was tall, slim, almost a man. Somewhat like he himself had been; but this would not save him. This boy was used to being the strongest of them. Today, he would learn what it was to be weak.

But wait—what was this?

The small boy’s voice carried, raised against the rising wind. Will! There’s going to be a storm! We won't—

The tall boy turned toward the smaller, with coldness in his eyes. The smaller boy stopped, shrunk back. His older brother threw something, flashing through the air. The younger boy cried out, and fled.

A fight, he thought. A fight between children. How amusing. How differently you would act right now, man-child, if you knew I was watching. You wouldn’t have thrown away a weapon.

He watched the older boy go to a tree and pull his knife out of it. Then he set off after his younger brother.

What silly things mortals are. He cared nothing about what happened to either of them, except for the very near future. It was time to get on with it.

The smaller boy dove into a thicket, fighting his way through the brambles. His calmer elder brother went around.

He gave them a count of twenty breaths. And then, finally, he gave rein to the impatience that had been building in him every day, every month, over years. Eagerness and excitement swept through him; the fur prickled up and down his back.

Now. NOW IS THE TIME.

He exploded into a run, fog rippling around him like banners as it shredded and then disintegrated. He surged past trees, striking out at them in his blind eagerness. Bloodlust rose behind his tongue, but he fought it down—barely. His purpose was not to kill. Not quite.

Every father had a weak spot for his eldest son. And sometimes, that weak spot could come back to bite you, like a serpent in the dark.

He bared his teeth, in a feral, bitter grin, and then he charged.

***

Saedis stumbled to a halt. Ahead of her, something had churned up the snow, confusing the trail of skis and her brothers’ tracks.

She would have to call them prints, but she had never seen the like. The marks were too round for snowshoes, and too wide apart. The front edge of each print was jagged. Broad furrows plowed ahead where the thing had pushed through drifts.

Saedis fumbled at her belt for her knife. Every sound and sensation seemed suddenly sharper. The shusssh and crunch of her snowshoes. The sting as she bit her lower lip. She passed a young maple tree, leaning as if it were drunk. A row of deep cuts exposed its heartwood. Ahead—what was that shadow on the snow?

Sola? she whispered. Will? Tor?

A thicket had stood here, but something had rammed it like a fox into a flock of chickens and, like the chickens, the brush had not stood for it. First she saw the thick old oak, and then she saw Sola, bending over a shape at the foot of it.

Will!

She stumbled up to her brother, and Sola fell back. Will didn’t move. Saedis became aware of her own breath, of the brown husks of leaves clinging to the shrubbery. Of the mass of dark crimson that was her brother's belly. Her stomach churned and her throat spasmed at the sight. She swallowed hard.

Something moved in fast from her left, and she barely stayed her hand. Tor’s hair was plastered to his head on one side. He stumbled to her, threw his arms around her waist.

Saedis forced herself to breathe. What happened?

Tor raised his head, but the form under the tree moved.

Arm shaking, Will raised one blood-spattered finger toward Tor and hissed a pained breath. No. The arm fell back to his side. I'll…tell her. His gray eyes had gone bright, glassy with pain.

Tor's face closed up as if shutters had been drawn over it.

Tor! she said, but he turned away from all of them.

Saedis rounded on her older brother, but his eyes had closed. Now she could see that he breathed, but they were shallow, painful breaths. Move, she thought. Do something. It could hear, whatever it was. It could come back.

She dropped to one knee and untied her snowshoes. I’ll need skis.

Over. Left. Will’s voice was a croak. Tossed mine.

Saedis looked and found a mangled pack with the skis strapped on. One was broken, but she thought she could make do. The wind keened through the naked branches of the oak. She looked up, and met her sister’s worried eyes. Sola—

I’m off, I’m the fastest. I’ll tell Mother and Father.

Tell Mora Drana. We’ll need something for pain, and stitching—

I know, Saedis! I’m no fool! You never trust me to handle anything myself! Sola took off downhill.

…be careful, Saedis added, belatedly. Then, Tor, take his snowshoes off. Gently! Cut two of the lashes, and we'll tie them together with mine.

She was good with wood and leather, her father's daughter. Saedis worked quickly, fingers numbing in the cold, until they'd fashioned a sled of sorts. Frozen branches, broken from the smaller trees nearby, were used to hold the shoes stable all in a line and serve as runners.

When they moved him onto it, Will's face went white as new snow, and his hand gripped her wrist hard enough to bruise.

She sent Tor off. Get your skis. Make it as fast as you can to the steading. Please be careful. Go!

Will’s belt was broken, cut clean through. By a claw, or tooth? It must have been sharp as a knife. She pulled the belt free gently and tied it to her own. The other end went to the sled.

We're moving, she warned her brother, but there was no reply. Worry tightened her jaw. There were many times she had not particularly liked Will, but he was her brother. Family. She swallowed hard, then reached back down to pat him, awkwardly, on one boot.

Balancing on one ski, Saedis began to pull the sled through the snow. The wind cut at her face. She prayed to the ancestors, prayed as hard as she ever had as she began the downhill run.

It shouldn't be long. It can’t be long.

Please let us not lose anyone else.

Chapter two

Full of Stories

Ash walked his father’s horse through the streets of Aslo town. The street was slick with puddled ice, the light was fading in the lateness of the day, and he knew he had to get home. But he wasn’t really worrying about of any of those things.

Ash’s head was full of stories.

Master Belak’s family lived out at the edge of town, and he paid Ash a few pennies here and there to help with heavier work around the steading. They came out of Volskan, far to the east of where they lived here in Osgard. Belak’s sons were grown and gone, and only his daughter lived with him. It didn’t hurt that Tarya was a very pretty girl, but Ash would have to admit that he came out to help mostly to hear the stories, all so different from the ones he’d grown up with.

Now they rolled around in his head. Firebirds, with their tails full of gems that shone like embers. Princes in splendid costumes of silk and furs, mounted on magical chargers swifter than the wind! How good it would be, to see some of the places from those stories.

If only—

Ice and pain exploded against his cheek. OW! Hey! Ash flailed his arms to keep his balance on the frozen street. The horse half-reared, then slipped on the ice, and fell in a tangle of legs. No! Whoa, boy! He jumped back from the lashing hooves. Easy, come on. Shhhhh. He bent to the bay’s head. You’re all right, old boy. There. The shaken horse scrambled to its feet.

Another pale missile sailed out of the dim light of the evening. This one he saw coming and turned to take it on his shoulder.

Enough! Some pity on the horse, if you please! He scanned the close-standing homes across the way. Show yourself!

Show yourself! the voice mocked him.

He thought he recognized it. The realization came with a sinking feeling in his middle.

Hanna, he said. It is you, isn’t it?

The shape of the girl emerged from a shadowy gap across the way. She dressed in dark overclothes for out-of-doors, and a kerchief-hood hid her fair hair. He could not see her face clearly in the dim light, but her mittened hands were balled into fists. He took a cautious step back toward the bay as she moved forward.

You! She almost spat the word. Dallying out northeast of town, then? You’ve dropped me for an outlands girl? The Volskani?

A twinge of unease rose in his chest. What? No. Of course not, Hanna. I don’t care anything for her.

Oh? Like you don’t care anything for Janne or Karin or Sissel, either?

Ancestors’ earlobes. How did she find out about all that?

Ash opened his mouth—to say what, he had no idea—and then had to shut it and throw up his arm as she pelted him with another ball of ice-packed snow from close range.

Don’t even try, Ash Eliasen. We’ve had enough. We’ve talked about you, all the girls of this town! We’ll not having anything to do with your games anymore. We’re done with you!

But I—

Done! She whirled on him, all fury. You think you can kiss me out behind the tinker’s shed one day and tell me I’m beautiful? And then walk out by the river with Brinna on the next? And then meet Helge under the tree in the stable field on a third, and never tell the others? And think that we’ll never TALK to each other?

Ah. Ummm. Heat flushed into his cheeks.

You did think that. Well, you’ve lost that bet. I hope you enjoy your sudden lack of—of friends! She spun away and stomped off down the street.

Hanna! He couldn’t think of what to say. But you ARE beautiful.

Well, that probably wasn’t the best thing.

Feh! She dug a last snowball out of her pocket, spun, and shot it straight and true. It smashed itself to bits against his chest. Ash flinched. Take your flattery and we’ll see where it gets you. Your father can’t send you away from this town fast enough.

Ash felt a ripple of panic vibrate through his chest. Wait, what? What do you mean, send me away?

No answer came. Hanna’s silhouette turned the corner and was gone.

Fates and thunders. Women! No, not women. Girls. Girls are bad enough. He snagged the bay’s bridle and pulled him toward home, as quickly as he could go.

Father had sent his sons away before. Two of his three older brothers had been sent to the coast, one to apprentice to a shipwright and the other to a tanner. The other had been shoved off into the clergy. None of them had ever come home to visit.

Ash had been too young for anyone to talk to him honestly about it, but he remembered the tension in the house before they’d left, the looming thunder that might at any moment explode into yelling or worse. When he’d been a kid, he’d hidden under the bed, or if it was good weather he’d go out to build a tiny campfire in the stable yard. The warmth and crackle of the flames had made the tightness in his chest ease, and distracted his mind.

Now there were three left. Ash was the last one of six, not counting baby Hans who’d been born and died before Ash had come into the world. Prospects weren’t very good for youngest sons, especially youngest sons who’d not apprenticed or learned much of a craft. His brothers were apprenticed, though still living at home. But not Ash.

Ash had never breathed a word of what he would choose to do, if only he could find a way. I wish, he whispered to the horse, that a man could travel the world on stories.

It was then he noticed that the bay limped on its left front leg. Oh, Queen of Mercy. Not this! He bent to look at the leg, pulled his mitten off with his teeth and lifted the horse’s foot, but the light was terrible. He couldn’t make anything out.

Ash! Ash, is that you?

A tall, puffing shape turned the corner ahead and came toward him at a jog, resolving at close range into his older brother Joachim.

Joa was the oldest still at home, apprenticed to the town baker. His face was round and usually cheerful under a curly thatch of ruddy brown hair. He looked a lot like Mother, whereas Ash’s hair was like his father’s, black as burnt coals.

Ash saw worry in the line of his brother’s mouth. Ash! Oh, by all that’s holy. What have you done to Father’s horse?

Nothing! He slipped.

Joa bent to look. I can’t see a thing. We need to get him home to look. Why do you do these things?

I was just out to visit Master Belak—

And his daughter, I suppose. Joa threw his hands in the air. You will do any number of stupid things when you like a girl, Ash.

Shut up and help me.

The boys hurried through the dark. Snow started to fall, spiraling in fat flakes. In the tall houses they passed, lit candles sprung to life in windows, and a lamp here and there on a porch stoop. Families would be heading home from evening services.

Including his father.

Hurry, hurry. We’re almost there! Ash patted the laboring bay. Just a little longer.

They came into the yard, with the tall house on the left and the stables on the right.

Shhh, Joa hissed, but the distressed bay whinnied to its stable mates.

Ash reached for the horse’s head but even as he did the house door opened, spilling a long lance of light out onto the snow. The boys froze, illuminated.

Their father Elias stepped out onto the stair. He was a big man, well-dressed in his white tunic with the decorated vest he wore to services buttoned neatly up the front. Only the large, raw hands and bristling black beard did not fit the picture of the civilized town headsman.

Hello, Joachim. The voice was soft, but Ash could hear the edge in it. Are you bringing back my stolen property?

Two other shapes appeared behind his father. One was short and soft-featured, with Joa’s ruddy brown hair picking up fire from the interior lamps. His mother. The other was thin, short-bearded, dressed in a long, embroidered tunic and traveling cloak. Parson Sten had apparently accompanied his family home from services.

Ash would rather have had all the girls of the town lined up atop the fence to witness his shame than those two people.

I didn’t steal anything, Ash said.

When I want you to speak, I’ll ask you a question. His father’s voice snapped like a riding crop against saddle leather. Joachim—leave us. Go see what you can help with in the kitchen.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ash saw Joa’s face fall. This was punishment, to be sent to mind the cookpots like a servant.

It’s not any of Joa’s fault! he said.

Elias’s hands flexed. You. I don’t want to hear any of your stories. He stepped forward. Fear rose up in Ash’s gut, ingrained over the course of every one of his sixteen years. He fought an internal battle to hold his ground. The hands flexed again. No son of mine would be irresponsible enough to steal my animal. Yet here you are, caught in the act, and you’ve brought back damaged goods. Through carelessness, no doubt.

I would never—

ENOUGH! Shouting, and in front of the parson. Ash felt sweat spring up on the back of his neck. His father strode up to him and now Ash did fall back a step. Next to him, the bay shuddered, but stood. I should sell you to the tannery. How would you like to work over vats of acid and piss all day?

In the doorway, his mother gasped and stepped forward. The parson put out his hand to restrain her. Ash, looking at his father, saw a fleet smile slip across the older man’s face, and hated him for it.