It had been a fitful and restless night following her distressing dream. Amara stirred to the gentle scrapes of feet on the cold ground and the muffled rustle of movement. A faint glow—cool and silvered—spilled through the narrow gaps beneath the animal skins that hung over the doorway, casting pale patterns onto the packed dirt floor. Dawn had arrived, though its light felt thin and reluctant, as if hesitant to trespass upon the lingering grip of the long night. These roles were usually reversed, but her time in the dream-vision, compounded by a lack of restful sleep, had turned Valdrik into the caretaker this morning.
It was Hjol, or the Celebration of the Long Night in the Common Tongue, which marked the longest night of the year and the return of the light the next morning. Valdrik wanted to attend the feasting and the bonfires since before he could even remember, but Amara had always insisted that they spend those nights together, reading from the texts of her people. Perhaps this year would be different.
It wasn’t that the Uppsalan traditions were bad. In fact, Amara had often wondered about the origins of this Uppsalan tradition, noticing similarities and congruencies with some of the yearly holidays the Na’faarim observed. The customs and traditions of her home were all that she had. There was no other birthright or inheritance that she could give Valdrik, especially if she meant to raise Valdrik to know the true gods of creations, the Qav’larim. The holy days of the Na’faarim were small ways to connect Valdrik to a life he had never known.
Only with the benefit of hindsight, could Amara now see that this may have been misguided. As they observed these days, the questions would inevitable follow—the young mind of child desiring to know why. She had always been unsure how to answer his questions, fearing that she might say too much, or reveal too much about Valdrik’s origins.
One thing she had learned early in her life was that information, however innocuous, brought responsibilities and consequences—often unforeseen. She did not know what eyes or ears might glean from even the most innocent of conversations, but she had seen firsthand how loose tongues might wag or wander and The Black Serpent would know things that everyone was reasonably assured had been secret. The price of those consequences was often paid for in blood.
Consequently, Amara had been tremendously cautious about what she allowed Valdrik to know, a thing that often filled her with great sadness. She could see that the unanswered questions made a void, a void that Valdrik would fill with whatever materials he had to hand. In this case, the Uppsalan way of honor, battle, and blood had taken root and grew to fill that void. She feared that without her influence, she might lose him traditions and ideas that would drive him from his destiny. Or worse, his doom.
Unbidden came the images of her dream—the people of Askholm savaged brutally and hung grotesquely upon the tree bearing the name of their home. Hung as foder for ravens. Valdrik was among their number. Her sweet child, the light of her eyes, and breath of her lungs. He had not been spared, the prophecies of his birth and his destiny doing nothing to forestall the doom of the people in the dream. What in the sands did any of it mean? Amara thought to herself. Her dream-vision had been unlike anything she had experienced before. The terror and the heartache had been so real, it had almost overwhelmed her. But she could pursue her understanding of the dream another time.
Turning from her thoughts, Amara looked to the animal skins covering the opening of the hut. She could see the first tendril of lights snaking their way under the skins, signifying that it was actually quite late in the day. During the Uppsalan winters, days averaged five to six hours, at least by Na’faarim reckoning. The Uppsalans did not tell time with hours or minutes; they simply tracked the movement of the sun across the sky, relying on the traditional knowledge of their elders passed down through the centuries, to tell them when light would dawn and when darkness would fall upon the land. Still, the days were short and the nights were very long.
At the sight of the sunlight, Amara rolled onto her side to find Valdrik crouched near the hearth, coaxing embers back to life. His movements were quiet and deliberate. A pot of broth hung from the iron hook, waiting to be warmed by renewed fire. Beside him, a wooden board held a heel of crusty bread and a wedge of firm, aged cheese—plain fare, but comforting in its familiarity.
Amara sat up slowly, the weight of sleep and vision still pressing on her shoulders. Her eyes lingered on the boy—no, the young man—who moved with quiet purpose in the small space they shared. There was a gentleness in him this morning, a reverence to the way he poured the broth into two clay bowls and set the bread between them, breaking it with his hands.
She accepted the bowl he offered without a word. They ate in companionable silence, broken only by the occasional crackle of the fire or the muffled sigh of the wind against the wooden walls. The broth was thin but warm, the bread stale but filling. It was enough.
When they had finished, Valdrik leaned back against the wall, his gaze fixed on the soft light filtering through the skins. “You wanted to speak with me last night,” he said quietly, not looking at her. “I’m sorry I came back so late.”
His voice was steady, but beneath it, she heard something else—a tiredness that matched her own. The grief of the village clung to them both, a shared garment neither had asked to wear.
Amara didn’t answer right away. Her fingers curled around the rim of her bowl as if holding warmth might grant her clarity. The memory of the dream still pulsed faintly behind her eyes, a silent drumbeat. The vision. The burning tree. Valdrik’s broken body. She had wanted to tell him so much. And yet, now that the moment was here, she hesitated.
The silence stretched—fragile, waiting.
Amara set the empty bowl aside and studied Valdrik in the shifting light. He looked older in the hush of morning—his jaw unshaven, the line of his shoulders squared with a quiet strength that hadn’t always been there. Yet still, he was the boy she had raised, the child she had carried across ice and sea, the infant whose cries had echoed through the deep caverns of Asrar al-Azmat.
He noticed her watching and tilted his head. “What was it you wanted to say?” he asked again, more gently this time. “Last night, before I left.”
Amara inhaled slowly. The air in the hut smelled faintly of broth and smoke and wool, but underneath it, she sensed the trace of something older—an ache that had followed her across years and lifetimes. She had thought herself ready for this moment, had rehearsed it in her mind a thousand times. But now, face to face with the boy who bore both her love and her fears, words came hard.
She considered the truth. Not all of it—there wasn’t time for that. But enough. Enough to open the door.
“I’ve carried something for many years,” she said quietly. “Something that belongs to you.”
Valdrik frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll show you,” she said, her voice steadier now. “But first—I need you to trust me. I’ve taught you many things, some of which you’ve kept, others you’ve… set aside.” Her lips curved faintly, not in amusement, but resignation. “You don’t need to believe everything. Not now. But you do need to listen.”
Valdrik nodded slowly, sensing the gravity beneath her words.
Amara rose from the table, brushing crumbs from her tunic, and crossed to the door. “Wait here,” she said. “I won’t be long.”
He watched her go, puzzled, but said nothing.
Outside, the light had brightened, though the sky remained the color of cold slate. Frost clung to the roots beneath her boots as she stepped beyond the hut and made her way toward the gnarled tree at the edge of the clearing—the old hollow that had long kept the secrets she dared not share.
The hush of the forest greeted her return like an old, watchful friend. The hollow tree loomed just beyond the ring of footprints they’d pressed into the snow over the months—ancient, weathered, and split open at the base like a wound that time had failed to close. Moss clung to its bark like memory, and in the early light, its gnarled roots resembled frozen fingers gripping the earth.
Amara knelt before it.
The cold crept through the wool of her skirts as she reached into the narrow hollow. Her hand brushed past worn trinkets wrapped in faded cloth—tokens of a lifelong buried: a fragment of star-glass from the caverns of Asrar al-Azmat, a lock of hair bound in silver thread, the smoothed hilt of a broken pendant that once hung over her heart. None of these she lingered on.
Her fingers found the bundle by touch alone—wrapped in oiled cloth, sealed tight against time and weather. It was a full-length blade, large enough for a man fully grown, but she hardly felt its weight as the hilt settled into her palms like the returned embrace of an old friend.
This was no ordinary blade. Qa’dir had called the blade Hams Al-Nuwr, or Whisper of Light in the Common Tongue. This was one of only a few remaining blades made by the master smiths of Asrar Al-Azmamt. This was hayat’zir, the Song Steel of her people.
The blade sang to her even now, though she had not unsheathed it in many years. There was no voice, no sound—only a hum along the spine of her thoughts, like a memory pressing to be remembered.
She held the bundle to her chest and closed her eyes.
She felt the memory of Qa’dir stir beside her—his voice, his warmth, his certainty. When the time is right, he had said. When the boy chooses the path for himself. Only then.
But Qa’dir had not understood how far from ready Valdrik might be. He had believed—so easily, so foolishly—that blood would call to blood, that truth would rise like heat from the forge. He had expected their son to embrace the Path of the Servant, to take the Dar’Zahir as if it were his birthright and his longing.
But the boy had not been born in the shadow of the High Flame. He had never seen the Temple of Echoes or stood upon the Windward Steps where the Na’faarim sang their dawn prayers to the void. He knew only Uppsala—its feasts, its mourning songs, its mead-halls, and blood soaked gods. And though Amara had taught him all she could—recited the verses, marked the holy days, told the stories beneath starlight—those truths had remained foreign to him, like dreams passed through fog.
She had tried. She had pressed gently, then firmly, then not at all.
And with each passing year, Valdrik had turned further toward the world that lay before him, one where he might find acceptance, a world that praised strength, could come to admire his stubborn courage, and welcome his sword arm.
He doesn’t know, she thought, her fingers tightening around the cloth. He doesn’t know what strength really means.
She stood, slow and deliberate, the frost crunching beneath her boots. Then let the blade be the whisper I cannot give. Let it remind him. Let it wait with him, as I have waited.
With the bundle tucked beneath her arm, she returned to the hut—heart heavy with both hope and grief. The warmth of the hut greeted gently as she stepped back inside, the animal skins swaying slightly. Valdrik looked up from the table, quickly tucking a small blade behind his back.
Halfdan’s seax.
The iron glinted as he tried to tuck it away, guilt flickering across his face like a child caught with forbidden sweets. He opened his mouth to speak, but Amara raised a hand—soft, steady, not scolding.
Amara didn’t react to Valdrik’s nervy reaction to her reemergence. She knew why he thought he might be in trouble and it was precisely that reaction, and the underlying thoughts and feelings, that Amara meant to address today.
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“You don’t have to hide that,” she said, stepping inside and letting the door fall closed behind her. “I know that Halfdan was a good friend to you.”
Valdrik’s shoulders eased, just a little. Still, he looked down at the blade in his lap as though it might accuse him in her place.
Amara crossed the room and sat across from him, placing the oilcloth bundle gently between them on the scarred wooden table. The weight of it was unmistakable.
Valdrik glanced at it, brow furrowed. “What’s that?”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she studied his face—the amber-gold eyes so like Qa’dir’s, the strong lines of his jaw, the questions already rising behind his careful expression. He had learned to keep his wonder hidden, especially when it concerned the things he couldn’t explain.
“I’m sure it’s no surprise to you, but there are things I’ve kept from you,” she said quietly, “not because I wished to deceive you, but because I believed it would keep you safe.”
His eyes flicked from the bundle to her face. “Safe from what?”
“From burdens. From evil. From knowledge that might have broken you before you were ready to carry it,” she said. “From truths that couldn’t be unlearned once spoken aloud.”
He leaned forward, intensity creeping into his voice. “Then tell me now. If they’re mine to carry, I want to know.”
She looked at him for a long moment—truly looked—and then shook her head, not with dismissal, but with something gentler.
“There’s too much to explain, and you deserve more than half-stories and riddles before a festival.” She reached across the table and touched the bundle. “But this—this you are ready for.”
He said nothing, but she could feel his anticipation like a cord pulled taut.
“The past,” she continued, “is important—but it’s behind us. We can only remember it. We can’t live in it. What matters now is who you are becoming… and whether you’ll have the tools to walk that path.”
Valdrik frowned. “What path?”
Amara gave a faint smile—wistful, perhaps even weary. “One that doesn’t begin in Uppsala, though it may pass through it. One that only you can choose.”
He opened his mouth, frustration sharpening in his throat, but she leaned back and folded her hands in her lap.
“Today is Hjol,” she said instead. “The Long Night. A time to celebrate what we still have, even as the light wanes. I had hoped to tell you last night. I realize that I’ve made things more difficult for you, by trying to keep you connected to a life that you’ve never known. A past that was mine, not yours,” Amara continued. She watched Valdrik’s face closely as she spoke. He was a mixture of emotions and feelings, but none more so than bemusement. “I want things to be different. I promise to be more present in this life, in this place. This is our home and you deserve to feel as though you belong. And that begins today, with you.”
Valdrik blinked, caught off guard by the shift. He searched her expression for some hidden meaning but found only sincerity.
She nodded toward the bundle. “Open it.”
Valdrik hesitated. His hands hovered above the bundle, uncertain—like a child poised to unwrap something not meant for him. But Amara gave a single nod, quiet and encouraging.
He untied the cords, fingers working slowly. The oilcloth unfolded in layers, creased with age and wear, revealing a scabbard unlike any he had ever seen.
It was dark as river-stone, inlaid with delicate, winding patterns of silver and copper that shimmered in the light like starlight glimpsed through falling snow. The craftsmanship was excellent—refined, but not decorative; elegant, but purposeful. It breathed with the quiet gravity of something ancient, something sacred.
Valdrik stared, his voice low. “This is… this isn’t Uppsalan work.”
“No,” Amara said softly. “It isn’t.”
He looked to her, eyes wide with wonder, then back to the sword. With a reverent hand, he grasped the hilt and drew the blade.
The steel whispered from its sheath with a sound like wind over glass.
Light caught the blade and danced across its surface, revealing waves of metal flowing like water frozen mid-movement. Lines of pale gold and deep gray curved in patterns too precise to be random, too fluid to be purely forged. The sword was impossibly light in his hand, yet he could feel its strength—the same way one might sense the depth of a still lake by looking into it.
He turned it slowly, awestruck. “It’s like it’s…alive.”
“In a way,” Amara replied.
“What is it?” he asked. “How… how do you have this?”
Amara folded her hands. “The blade is—was called Hams Al-Nuwr, Whisper of Light. The material for the blade is something no one alive in Uppsala has ever seen before—Hayat’zir. Song Steel,” she said.
Valdrik’s ears perked up at the sounds of his mother speaking another language, and one that sounded familiar and comfortable for her. He wanted to hear more of it, but his mother broke the brief silence before he had a chance to ask.
Amara gently touched the scabbard of the blade resting across the table. Her voice was soft, but firm, full of quiet conviction.
“Your father intended this blade to be yours when you were ready for what lies ahead of you. But readiness is elusive—sometimes it comes too late. The Kin will require much of you throughout your life. You’ll see in time that you’ve been called to higher things than gold or glory,” she said watching carefully for any sign of a reaction on Valdrik’s face.
“Perhaps you’ll understand one day what it is to give your heart to another. I gave my heart to your father and he gave me you. Now, you are my heart and my soul. Your path is yours to choose, but I hope you won’t choose a path you’ll regret,” she said with a hint of worry in her voice.
Valdrik listened as his mother expressed her genuine concern. He could feel her love and her desire to see him happy. He trusted that impulse on his mother’s part implicitly. He sat in the silence that continued to grow between the two of them. He studied the sword’s flowing patterns, trying to distance himself from the potent concoction of feelings the sword was bringing to the surface.
The metal was exquisite, a marvel that spoke of strength, craftsmanship, and purpose—qualities he had always imagined in the father he never knew. Yet, beneath the awe was something sharper and colder: an anger he’d never managed to bury entirely.
He exhaled slowly. “You say he left this for me, that he wanted me to have it. But how could he think that something like this—no matter how beautiful or rare—could ever replace him being here?”
Amara’s eyes tightened. She drew a careful breath, measuring her response. “It was never meant as a replacement. It was meant as guidance. An anchor.”
“An anchor?” Valdrik repeated, bitterness flickering across his face. “Anchors hold ships steady in storms. But if the ship never comes home, what good is it?”
Amara reached across, lightly touching his arm. He tensed but didn’t pull away. “Valdrik, your father loves you more deeply than you understand. He left you this blade because he believed in who you might become.”
“He loved an idea of me,” Valdrik countered, meeting her gaze with amber-gold eyes that mirrored his father’s. He was beginning to look so much like his father. “He can’t love me—not truly. He’s never known me. You speak of the things you’ve taught me about the Kin, their plan, paths… but what good are those if the man who should have shown me that path couldn’t even stay?”
Amara drew her hand back, her fingers curling slightly as if holding back an ache. “Your father’s path was and is complicated. He’s had to make choices you haven’t yet had to face. I don’t ask you to forgive his absence, only to see his intent.”
Valdrik lowered his voice, fighting back frustration. “I think his absence makes his intent very clear, moeir. Ragnar’s men returned home—even if they had to be carried back on their shields. They died for something tangible. That’s a virtue I understand, something I can hold onto.”
Amara’s eyes softened with sorrow, her tone almost pleading. “You see honor in death and battle, Valdrik, but not in sacrifice? Your father made choices that cost him dearly. He gave up more than you can ever know—not because he didn’t want to return, but because sometimes the truth requires us to give up things that are most precious in the service of a grander design. He has only ever tried to protect you, and staying away is the best way he can see to keep us safe.”
“Truth kept him from his son?” Valdrik whispered fiercely. “Truth kept him from you? If my father was any kind of man worthy of that title, he would protect us with his presence, not from it.”
“Yes,” she admitted quietly. “A boy brought up in Askholm, a boy who sees heroes in men like Sigmund and Ragnar would think that. I pray that maybe one day, you’ll understand.”
Valdrik’s years-long hurt had made him say too much, speak too rashly. He looked down again, tracing the blade’s swirling patterns with reluctant admiration. It felt strangely comfortable in his grip like a piece of himself he hadn’t realized was missing. Yet, the ache in his chest remained.
He spoke carefully, without accusation, only deep confusion. “I don’t know if I want his truth. I don’t know if I can forgive him—or you—for asking me to accept it.”
Amara held his gaze steadily, sadness and strength in equal measure. “Then don’t accept it yet. Keep it close. Let it remind you that your world isn’t limited to what’s familiar. Your father’s greatest wish was never to compel you; it was only to show you what you might. What you do with that knowledge is yours alone.”
Valdrik remained quiet, conflicted but thoughtful. Amara stood slowly, leaving him with the sword, the choice, and the uncertain weight of the truth she had revealed.
“Valdrik, look. I understand the pain you feel,” she said as she saw Valdrik scoff in disbelief.
“You may not believe it, but I do. Your reaction to this makes perfect sense to me. I’ve felt the sting of your father’s absence these long years. But I’ve had information that you didn’t have: I was there with your father when he left. We—your father and I— made that choice together,” Amara said letting the words settle on Valdrik.
“I hope that you’ll be able to forgive me for keeping you in the dark all this time. I did only what I thought was best, but I see now that I may have made a terrible mistake—”
“So what changed? Why give me this now?” Valdrik interrupted with anger tinging his words.
Because I feel that the time is right,” she said. “Your father wanted me to give you this blade under very different circumstances, but life has a way of making us rip up our most carefully laid plans,” she continued.
Valdrik sat looking at the floor beneath their rough-hewn table, seething and stewing in his feelings. He said nothing.
“Val,” Amara said with all the tenderness she could muster. “You are at an age when you’ll have to decide who you are. And I’ve tried, Valdrik. I’ve tried to teach you, to show you the truth, to preserve the knowledge of a people you’ve never known. But the world you know—the people, the rites, the gods of Uppsala—they speak louder than I do.”
He looked away, anger, hurt, shame, confusion, or some combination of them all knotting in his brow.
Amara’s voice softened. “I don’t blame you. This land is what you know, and I’m grateful to it. You have been safe and mostly happy, I think. And I have no desire to pull you from it. I only ask that when the time comes—when the path ahead grows dark or strange or uncertain—that you remember this blade. That you let it guide you back to what you’ve forgotten.”
Valdrik swallowed, the weight of her words sinking in as surely as the sword’s heft in his hand. “It’s… it’s beautiful.”
She smiled faintly. “It’s strong. Resilient. Flexible. It doesn’t chip. It doesn’t break. The more it is tested, the stronger it becomes.” She reached across the table, fingertips brushing the blade’s edge. “Just like you.”
Valdrik smiled weakly and exhaled slowly, carefully placing the blade on the table before him. The anger that had hardened his features softened now, replaced by quiet uncertainty.
“I didn’t mean—” he began, shaking his head gently. “I know you meant well. I just... I don’t fully understand it yet.”
Amara’s shoulders eased slightly, a subtle relief hidden behind careful eyes. She nodded once, accepting the quiet truce in his voice. “Understanding comes with time, Valdrik. It always does.”
The silence between them lingered, but its edge had dulled, the tension no longer taut as a bowstring. Amara rose slowly, sensing that the conversation had gone as far as it could without risking further hurt.
Pausing near the door, she glanced back toward Valdrik, who was now tracing one finger thoughtfully along the sword’s sheath. Her voice softened as she asked, “Will you join me at the feast tonight? At twilight?”
Valdrik looked up, startled, as if he hadn't heard her correctly. “You’re coming to Hjol?”
She felt a pang at his disbelief but masked it behind a gentle smile. “I’d like to. It matters to you—so it matters to me.”
Valdrik searched her face, confusion blending slowly into warmth. He nodded, still uncertain, but hopeful. “Then yes. Of course.”
Amara’s smile deepened slightly, becoming genuine. “Good.”
She reached for her cloak, drawing it around her shoulders. “But first,” she continued, grabbing her yew bow and turning to the door, “I need to hunt a rabbit—or something suitable for the feast.”
Valdrik gave her a questioning look, suspicion lightly coloring his voice. “Hunting? Now?”
“Now,” she affirmed softly. Her eyes drifted briefly to the forest beyond their hut, the shadows of the trees reminding her vividly of the dream. “It’ll clear my mind. And besides—everyone should bring something to share.”
He said nothing further, but nodded slowly, clearly sensing that more lay beneath her words than she'd chosen to share. Amara paused once more at the threshold, the cool air already whispering against her skin, drawing her toward the forest’s call. She hesitated briefly, then glanced back.
“I won’t be long,” she promised, her voice gentle but firm. “We’ll speak more tonight.”
She stepped outside into the winter sunlight, letting the cold air soothe the unsettled thoughts that swirled within her. Her destination was clear—the place from her vision. The dream from the night before had left her feeling deeply unsettled and something about that place continued to call to her. She believed with increasing certainty that visiting the Hrafnsvithr would clarify some or all of the Kin’s message.
Yet beneath her practical reasons, another urgency tugged at her, hidden among the trees: she needed to know if any messages awaited through the Shir’firah, the Sparrow Network—and perhaps, to send one of her own.
