Read By the Mountain Bound for Free Online

sister. Half sister. As old as I am, in a world too young. She is my sister, and she obeys me.
    Hunger would not kill her. Nothing can kill her. Starvation is her plate, and famine her knife.
    But how can I leave her to suffer?
    She steps closer, velvet black fur slicked with gleams. The moon is setting: some of that light shines from me. She comes like a gnat into a candleflame, her red mouth an open gash in her face, showing teeth pointed as thorns. She mews, hungry. Always hungry.
    I open the collar of my shirt, the heat in my center cresting, flaring, burning under my heart. My fingers brush the too-tight silken ribbon clinching my throat. Droplets of pale light leak. I touch the knot that cannot be loosened, brush tender bruises where I strained against the fetter when I lay down for Strifbjorn.
    I bare my breast to the demoness.
    “Feed, then. I shall be a feast for thee tonight.”
    Her nostrils flare as she leans forward, ducking her head to taste my skin. Her tongue rasps a little, softer and wetter than the tongue of a cat. Her wings fold around us, a shelter or a cage: I pinion her wrists gently, protecting my shirt and my flesh from her small, sharp claws.
    She finds a place over my heart and leans into me, breathand feathers tickling as she nurses like a babe, straining for a moment against my grip, claws flexing.
    Relief. All the grief, the sorrow of the night and all the nights before, flows into her, drawn from my body like a stain. I straighten, will and strength returning, release her right hand from my left and stroke her head. Copper sweetness—my own blood—fills my mouth; the scabs have broken. I raise my eyes to the sky, bask in the light of the stars. False dawn glows on the horizon. Her claws scratch as she lays the hand against my chest, but—settled now and feeding—she restrains herself, dainty as a sparrow, and does no harm.
    When I can bear the grief again, and I am staggering with tiredness, I whisper, “Enough.” The Imogen raises her head with a faint high whine.
    Still hungry.
    Always hungry, but if I permit it she will eat me to a husk, and then fill me up with sorrow again. She is a weapon—born and bred for nothing else.
    She is my sister, after all.
     
    A fter the Imogen leaves me on the mountainside, I find my way back to the wolf-lair at the copper beech. They have not returned from their run. But though the carcass of the foolish young buck is much gnawed, there will be enough for tomorrow. They are not hunting, merely running for the sheer joy of it. I am about to climb into my favored perch when I notice something odd at the margin of the clearing: straggly wildflowers, tied with a red ribbon, set beside a checked cloth bundle.
    I crouch and touch the bundle haltingly with a fingertip. A scent of spices arises. I unwrap it.
    Gingerbread, with cloves and cinnamon laced through it, redolent of molasses and brown wheat flour. A rich gift.
    There is a trace on the red ribbon other than the flowers—the girl in the russet cloak.
    An offering? Or simply thanks? And who tracked the wolves to our lair? The girl? Perhaps.
    Unlikely.
    The pack returns, surrounding me, snarling at the reek of woodsmoke and ambergris clinging to my cloak. The red bitch rubs against me, at last, coating me with her scent; her mate, dark as old bronze and dusted with silver across the hackles, soon follows. I laugh as they take my forearms in wolf-gentle mouths, press me down, wrestling and yipping and marking me their subject, their pack, theirs.
    Later, I try to share the spice cake with them, but only the red bitch and a ghost-pale two-year-old will touch it.
    The Historian
    T he mead-hall blazed with torches when I returned from weeping in the wood, picking my way barefoot across the turf. Herfjotur’s steed raised one of his heads to watch me. He half-unfurled snow-white wings in greeting, and then lowered the antlered head again to crop the summer’s last long grass.
    The great doors stood open,