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think of Hilda and feel like crying again, but no tears come. It is odd that she came to mean so much to me in so little time. I know I took to Hilda in an unusual way, but I’ll miss looking after her. I won’t ever milk her again. She won’t ever rub up against my skirts, letting me know she wants her ears scratched. And I won’t help her settle down to sleep outside my bedcloset anymore. I feel empty.
     
    I close my eyes, and now the tears do come. I squeeze them out and they roll down my cheeks. I sniff and cover my face with my hands. I am nothing.
     
    I discover that I have fallen asleep when I wake and see it is dark outside. I know I should go back to the steading, but Idon’t want to. I don’t want to face any of them, even though I feel bad for what I said to Per. He is nothing like the berserkers. But why can’t I stay here? It is warm, and small, and safe, and it doesn’t matter that I am only Solveig the plain, second daughter, friend of goats.
     
    I close my eyes and slip back down the dreamroads.
     
    I am standing at the cliff watching enemy ships sail up the fjord below,
drekars
with leering mastheads and shields down their lengths. They bristle with spears and swords; the warriors on deck rattle their weapons and scream battle cries. The wind carries their vulgar threats up to my ears, and my body recoils.
     
    I flee to the safety of the steading walls, but find the gate broken wide. The yard is littered with the pale bodies of the berserkers. Their mouths hang open, their tongues loll, and their eyes dry in the air for raven food. None show any sign of hurt or wound, as though they simply fell where they stood by some witchcraft. In the sky above the steading, a cloud leers in the shape of a wolf’s head, a maw opening over us with dagger-teeth.
     
    The enemy’s cries are closer. Somehow I know their ships have landed; they are climbing up to the steading. I dart into the hall, close and bar the doors. I struggle to catch my breath, my eyes darting around the room. Asa clutches Harald in a far corner, her eyes wild with the panic of a wounded deer. Haraldcries for the mother he never knew and I barely remember. He is no warrior now. He is a frightened boy.
     
    At the cold hearth, Bera stirs a wooden paddle inside an empty kettle, her face blank. “Your father knows my cooking,” she says. “I have a reputation to uphold.”
     
    Raudi sits on the ground next to her, staring at me with eyes like the burning timbers of a funeral pyre. “This is your fault,” he says. “We are all dead because of you.”
     
    “No,” I say. “Where is Per? Per will save us.”
     
    Asa pulls Harald closer. “Per is gone,” she says.
     
    And it feels as though the ground has collapsed beneath me, and the fire is not in Raudi’s eyes, but every where. The walls burn around us, the pillars blacken, the carvings of vines and animals twist in the blaze. The heat scorches my cheeks, and the smoke chokes the air from my lungs. Then I hear a deafening crack and the sound of a thousand waves crashing on the shore. The glacier has finally heaved its bulk down the mountain. I feel the ground shake with its rush toward our steading. In a moment it will fall on us and smother the flames, smash the hall, crush our bodies, and drive the splinters into the sea.
     
    Yellow light flickers off the cave walls. I blink away the dream and realize the cave is not on fire. Torches move outside, then voices. One of them is close, and I recognize it to be Ole. The others are more distant, their words sounding as if they range across the ravine. I think about calling out to Oleto let him know I am here, but before I do, he sticks the torch into the cave and pokes his head in after it.
     
    “There you are,” he says, grunting as he climbs into the chamber.
     
    “You found me,” I say.
     
    He nods once, a quick jerk, and crosses the room toward me. I think he is going to help me up, but he doesn’t. He stands over me,