White Stag (Permafrost #1)(11)
“Janneke?” Soren called. He doesn’t have the right to sound so concerned. Not a soulless creature like him.
“Yes?”
“You have no reason to be afraid.”
3
A HEART FRESHLY BROKEN
THERE WAS NO shrine in the Erlking’s palace. There was nowhere to mourn the dead in privacy. It was probably because goblins didn’t really care much for their dead in the first place. If there’d been one, I’d have been on my knees every day from dawn until dusk, begging for forgiveness for the people who had been slaughtered, for my family who had died by Lydian’s hand while I ran to save myself, for forsaking my father’s teachings about the enemies in the Permafrost. Instead, I was rushing through the dark corridors and naturally carved halls with no idea where I was headed.
The tears were hot, building up behind my eyes. I wouldn’t cry. I couldn’t cry. The last time I’d shed a tear for myself was over a decade ago, and I wouldn’t let the pain get ahold of me again. I couldn’t afford to be weak. I owed that much to them all at least.
I turned the bent nail over and over in my hand. As long as this doesn’t burn me, I’m human. Relief flooded through me like warm sunlight. But if Soren had his way, it wouldn’t be for much longer. The relief died a short, cold death. There was some truth to what he said; I’d adapted to his kind’s ways to survive against the odds. A burning part of me couldn’t stand the idea of dropping dead. I wanted to live. I had to live.
But adapting wasn’t the same as truly becoming like them. It couldn’t be. I wasn’t a monster. I wasn’t about to become a monster with a mind so twisted that emotions were foreign, and bringing pain caused pleasure—all the things my father had taught me to hate since I was the height of his knee.
I hurried through the dark halls of the palace, clutching the nail in my hands, allowing it to dig into my skin, to draw blood from the heel of my palm. I wanted to feel pain; I wanted to know I could still feel pain.
Finally, when one side of the hall dropped into a large chasm and the jagged rocks made it precarious to continue, I collapsed and let myself breathe. Every cell in my body was on fire, but strangely the pain wasn’t physical. I wanted to scream to drown it out, cover my ears so it would stop assaulting me. There was so much pressure inside my chest I was sure it would burst. The worst part was that I knew Soren meant well. He truly thought he was doing me a favor with all of this. Even if I didn’t see it now, soon I would understand that what he was doing was a gift. It would’ve been easier to hate him if there was outright malice to his intentions. Lydian and Soren are two very different creatures. One inspires absolute dread and rage, the other a mix of things I can’t even figure out.
I took a deep breath and then another, forcing my body to become calm.
I stared at the nail in my palm and remembered things I had tried to forget.
A small fishing village close enough to the forest that hunting with a bow was just as widely taught as fishing with a spear; a mother who brushed my hair each night, braiding it with care; a father who took me when he traveled into the snow, taught me the tracks of animals and the calls of birds, and told me how the world was while I sat on his knee; the smiles of my sisters when we played games together, the feeling of their arms surrounding me, pinching my cheeks and giggling at the dirt on them; and a fire that burned so I was warm all the way to the bone.
I turned the nail over, twirling it between my fingers.
“You’re different than the other girls, Janneke,” a broad man said.
Tears rolled down my face. “Why don’t you call me Janneka?”
His beard hung braided down to his chest, making up for the lack of hair on his head. I clung to him the way children clung to their mothers, as he wiped away my tears. “Janneka is a woman’s name. Janneke is masculine.”
New tears replaced the ones he wiped away. I loved the way “Janneka” sounded, loved the way the J sounded like a Y, the way it bubbled on my lips like a stream. “Janneke,” with its harsh J and abrupt ending, could never compare.
“I want to be a woman, not a man. Why can’t I at least be a shieldmaiden?” Shieldmaidens were still considered women, even if they did fight. Not like me, the last-born daughter of a Jarl and his family, most likely the last child my mother would ever have. For that reason, I would be raised as a male heir, unable to acknowledge my womanhood.
My father only shook his head. “You’ll understand someday, Janneke. I promise. For now, use the skills you’ve learned well. Protect those you love. Remember who you are.”
I’m sorry.
I bit my lip. There was nothing I could do about it now. I had to do this hunt. I couldn’t disobey a direct order from Soren.
I’m sorry I disappointed you. My six sisters were as beautiful as the moon and stars before their skin burnt and their bodies became almost unidentifiable from the fire and slaughter that rained down upon them. My mother would sing me to sleep in the language of her mother’s people, tell me I was beautiful despite the hunting leathers and mud. I had her eyes, she would say, smiling down at me. All six sisters took after her, with their skin a few shades lighter, hair not quite brown and not quite red, but I was the only one who had her leaf-colored eyes. Her only flaw was sending me to chop firewood in the middle of the cold night. It was the last time I heard her voice.