Age of Myth (The Legends of the First Empire #1)

Spring was dragging its feet, leaving a colorless world of matted grass, leafless trees, and gray skies, but the people of Dahl Rhen weren’t waiting. Everyone was more than tired of the long winter, and with the first mild day of the year, the inhabitants of the dahl were out working. The Killian boys, wellsprings of pent-up energy even in midsummer, were up on the sagging cone-shaped roof of their family’s home. They were tying in new sheaves of thatch to replace the ones winter had ripped away. Bergin the Brewer was splitting wood and feeding the fire under boiling vats of sap he’d gathered. Others were prepping the communal garden, which at that time of year was nothing more than a miserable patch of bare mud where last autumn’s stubble remained like sun-bleached bones.

Cobb returned to his perch on the wall, and Persephone led Suri up the gravel path to the large lodge in the center of the dahl. The almost forgotten song of birds was back, and Persephone spotted yellow and blue wildflowers on the sunny side of the well. Winter was over, according to the stars, birds, and flowers, but snow remained in the shady places. Persephone pulled her mourning shawl tight. Spring was being selective that year. It hadn’t come for everyone.

Persephone paused in the open common before the lodge’s steps and bowed to the stone statue of the goddess Mari. Suri watched with curious interest, then followed. The big doors to the lodge stood open, casting sunshine into the Hall of Reglan, which had been a smoky wooden cave since autumn. Illuminated by firelight in the dark of winter, the twelve pillars holding up the roof always appeared golden, but in harsh sunlight they were revealed as old and weathered. The bright light exposed more reality than just the pillars: discarded shoes, a cloak hanging from the antlers of a deer’s head, and a ram’s-horn goblet in the corner where Oswald had thrown it at Sackett months before. The raised wooden floor surrounding the smoldering fire pit was coated with dirt and ash. Sunlight had a way of showing the realities that shadows born of firelight hid.

The eternal fire burned low in the central pit, and Habet, whose job was to keep it stoked, was missing. Persephone added a split of wood, and the room brightened a little. Crossing to the pair of chairs near the far wall—the only chairs in the room—Persephone sat in the one on the right.

Suri had stopped at the door. She peered at the rafters of the peaked roof, where shields of past chieftains hung along with trophy heads of stags, wolves, and bears. She grimaced, then looked across the room toward Persephone, eyeing the floor as if it were a deep lake and she unable to swim. Then, with effort, the girl and the wolf entered.

“How old are you, Suri?” Persephone asked as the girl made her way across the hall.

“Don’t know—maybe fourteen.” The girl spoke absently, her attention still on the rafters.

“Maybe?”

“That’s my best guess. Might be more. Might be less.”

“You don’t know?”

“Depends on how long I spent with the crimbals. Tura was fairly certain I’m a malkin.”

“A—a what? A malkin?”

Suri nodded. “When a crimbal steals—you know what a crimbal is, ma’am?”

Persephone shook her head.

Suri sucked in a breath, glancing at the wolf beside her as if the two shared a secret, then explained. “Well, a crimbal is a creature of the forest. They don’t actually live there, just come and go, you see? They’re common in the Crescent, lots of doorways because of all the trees. They dwell in Nog, a place deep underground where they have grand halls and banquets. They dance and make merry in ways you can only imagine. Anyway, when a crimbal steals a baby, they—”

“They steal babies?”

“Oh, Grand Mother of All, yes. All the time. No one knows why. Just a thing with them, I suppose. Anyway, when they steal one, they take it back to Nog, where who knows what happens. On rare occasions, one sneaks out. They’re called malkins and aren’t quite right again because anyone spending time in Nog is forever changed. Now, usually a malkin is older, like ten or twelve, but somehow I managed to get out before my first year. That’s when Tura found me.”

“How did you get out before you could walk?”

Suri, who by then had completed the bulk of her journey, looked at Persephone as if she’d said the craziest thing. “How should I know, ma’am? I was just a baby.”

Persephone arched her brows and nodded. “I see,” she said, but what she actually saw was how even an innocuous question such as How old are you? wasn’t a simple matter for a girl with a belt of teeth and a pet wolf. Best to keep matters simple. “All right, Suri, what is it you need?”

“Need, ma’am?” the girl asked.

“Why are you here?”

“Oh—I came to tell the chieftain we’re going to die.” The girl said it quickly and with the same casual indifference as if she were announcing that the sun sets in the evening.

Persephone narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me? What did you say? Who’s going to die?”

“All of us.”

“All of whom?”

“Us.” The girl looked puzzled, but this time Persephone wasn’t certain if it was the tattoos or not.

“You and I?”

Suri sighed. “Yes—you, me, the funny man with the horn at the gate, everyone.”

“Everyone in Dahl Rhen?”

The girl sighed again. “Not just Dahl Rhen—everywhere.”

Persephone laughed. “Are you saying all living things are going to die? Because that’s not exactly news.”

Suri looked to Minna, a pleading in her eyes as if the wolf might help explain. “Not all living things, just people—people like you and me.”

“You mean Rhunes? All the Rhunes are going to die?”

Suri shrugged. “I suppose.”

“I think perhaps you should back up. Start with when and how this will happen.”

“Don’t know how…soon, though. Should start before high summer, I suspect. Definitely before winter.” She paused, thought, and then nodded. “Yes, definitely before the snows come, and by this time next year we’ll be in the worst of it. That will be the edge of the knife, the peak of the storm.”

“So it’s a storm that’s coming?”

The girl blinked, furrowed her brow, scowled, and shook her head. “Not an actual storm, just a bad thing, although…” She shrugged. “It could be a storm, I suppose.”

“And you have no idea what is going to cause this or why such a terrible thing will happen?”

“No—not at all,” the mystic said as if such things held no importance.

Persephone leaned back in her chair and studied the girl. She was a sad case, an orphan alone and scared. “Why are you really here, Suri? Are you hungry? Lonely now that Tura is dead?”

Suri looked confused.

“It’s okay. I’ll ask someone to find you a place to sleep. Get you some bread, too. Would you like some bread?”

The mystic thought a moment. “Bread would be nice.”

“And would you like to live here? Here on the dahl?”

Suri’s eyes grew wide, and she took a fearful step back, glancing once more at the rafters. Her head shook. “No, ma’am. I could never live here. I only came because Tura told me it’s what I should do if I ever discovered such a thing. ‘Go to the hill in the big field at the crux of the forest and ask to speak to the chieftain.’ That’s what she said. Not that there’s anything to do about it right now. Need to talk to the trees. They could tell us more, but they’re still asleep.”

Persephone sighed. This wasn’t like talking to Tura, who’d had her own eccentricities.

I can leave this for Reglan. Maybe he can make sense of her.

“Well, thank you.” Persephone stood and offered the girl a smile. “I’ll see that you get the bread I mentioned, and you can take this up with my husband when he returns. If you’d like, you can wait in here.” Seeing the girl take another step backward, Persephone added, “Or out on the steps if you prefer.”

Suri nodded, pivoted, and walked away, the wolf following at her heels.

So thin.

Persephone was certain the prophecy was a ruse. Clever, but the girl had overdone it. She should have kept it simple, like predicting a poor harvest, approaching fevers, or a drought. She was just young and hadn’t thought things through. With Tura dead, she didn’t have a hope of surviving alone in the forest.

“Suri?” Persephone stopped her. “I wouldn’t tell anyone else about what you told me. You know, about the deaths.”

The girl turned around, a hand resting against the nearest of the three winter pillars. “Why?”

“Because they won’t understand. They’ll think you’re lying.”

“I’m not.”