Iron Seas 03 - Riveted

Annika had grown up with tales of Valdís’s adventures…and had been as terrified of the woman as she had been fascinated. One look into the woman’s steely eyes, and it had been all too easy to imagine her striding across the deck of a storm-tossed ship, dagger clenched between her teeth and blood staining her sword. It had been easy to imagine her hunting down the marauders who’d murdered the father of her sons, ripping their tongues from their mouths while they pled for their lives. It was easy to imagine her seducing a Horde governor, and laughing as she sailed away with the treasures he’d bestowed upon her.
    It wouldn’t have surprised anyone who knew Annika that whenever she and Källa had reenacted those adventures as children, Källa had been Valdís, and Annika the cowardly foe.
    After four years away and meeting with Valdís on every visit to Smoke Cove, however, Annika was more terrified by the woman’s thinning frame, and by the cough that had settled into her chest the previous winter and never completely left. Valdís still had fire in her, and plenty of it—but Annika wished that she had more than two hours to spend.
    She left her cart at the door and entered the store. The warm, familiar odor of surturbrand squeezed at her heart. The fibrous brown coal produced more smoke than the black, but the woody scent reminded her of home.
    Smiling, Annika unbuckled her jacket. Two women examined the case of books on the back wall. Like the harbor and the streets, the general store wasn’t as busy as Annika expected—and to hersurprise, the shelves were almost empty, too. Valdís stood behind her counter, her iron-gray braid dangling over her shoulder, wearing the bright green tunic and trousers that Annika had sewn for her.
    Annika opened her mouth to call out a greeting when the identity of those two women struck her. Long blond braids. Homespun trousers. A lavender blue tunic that she’d sent to Hannasvik last spring, because it had matched her friend’s eyes.
    “Lisbet?”
    Lisbet whipped around, her blue eyes widening. Orange freckles dotted her pale cheeks, and had once been scattered across her nose until she’d lost it in a wild dog attack. Now a silver nose covered the cavity, finely shaped by Lisbet’s blacksmith mother.
    Laughing, Annika raced across the store and jumped into Lisbet’s arms. Her best friend, the closest she’d ever come to having a lover—until they’d both realized that they’d drifted into a pair because it was easy rather than because they wanted each other. Still, the kissing had been nice while it lasted.
    In any case, Lisbet had fallen in love with someone else. She drew back, happiness lighting her entire face. “Any news of Källa?”
    “No. I’m sorry.” Annika couldn’t bear the way her expression fell. She looked to Lisbet’s mother, Camille—the elder whom Källa had fought with before her exile. In appearance, she was a softer, shorter version of her daughter. “Greetings, Aunt.”
    Camille enfolded Annika in a hug that brought a lump to her throat. Unlike Lisbet’s wild embrace, which had squeezed the breath out of her, Camille’s was strong and comforting.
    God, but Annika missed her mother.
    Camille held her face between her hands. “Annika. It is so wonderful to see you here. How are you?”
    “Well.” She pulled off her scarf and hat, still grinning. “Very well!”
    “Your hair!” Lisbet exclaimed, aghast. “That wasn’t a joke? Those children stole it?”
    “They did.” But Annika couldn’t laugh at herself for long. The implications of their presence here intruded. “Why are you in Smoke Cove during the winter? Is everything all right at home?”
    “Yes,” Camille said, then glanced at the door when a fisherman came in.
    Valdís joined them, spoke in Norse. “Up to the table, set it for supper. I’ll join you after graybeard has gone.”
    Annika followed the others up the narrow stairs, then sat huddled near the stove in the chilly hearth room. These tin-roofed buildings didn’t retain heat nearly as well as the earth-covered homes in Hannasvik. Even the colorful, thick fabrics Valdís had hung around the walls did little to insulate it from the cold outside.
    Camille and Lisbet must have been staying here a while. They moved about the room with ease, retrieving a pot, stoking the fire. The visit was obviously soon coming to an end, though: their packs leaned against the far wall, stuffed full.
    “We were supposed