The Strange Maid by Tessa Gratton

Author:Tessa Gratton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307977533
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2014-06-09T21:00:00+00:00

I trip and cuss as I make my way through the intense darkness, through mud, for there is no path this way she pointed. I have no idea if she meant it literally, but if not I’ll reach the ocean and be forced to quit. I’ll find the death ships and sleep there, light my own pyre for Unferth. Once I took him there with me, held his shoulder as I climbed atop the prow of the flagship. Sometimes I think I want to remain here forever, I cried up at the windy sky. And Unferth said, You would hate forever.

Cold air chaps my lips, for even so many weeks after Baldur’s Night the island will freeze, but I press on. My boots slip and the hem of my dress grows heavy, despite it being cut just below the knee. My palms are raw from catching myself, and finally I stay where I fall.

The wool soaks up cold water off the hill, freezing my thighs and making my ass numb. I lie back and spread my arms. Unferth’s sword is like an external backbone, an exoskeleton shield for my heart. My fingertips brush baby grass, and sharp rocks cut up into my hips, but I don’t care. My chest heaves.

I stare up at the stars and try to find poetry in them, words to ground myself in, but there’s nothing.

Your heart. Your heart. Your heart.

The rhythm of the words is the rhythm of the distant waves.

Dark figures loom suddenly around me, coalescing out of the moorland. They’re broad and dressed in black coats, weapons strapped to shoulders and hips. Their eyes gleam and every one of them has a slice of darkness cutting down their left cheeks. Berserkers.

I hold my hand out and one takes it in a very firm grasp. He hauls me to my feet. “Hello, pretty Valkyrie,” he says, almost purring. There’s a buzzed line of hair striping down his otherwise bald skull and he smiles a head-swallowing smile. “I’m Sharkman,” he adds. “I saw you as I descended from the heliplanes. Your madness was so raw. It affected me, who is affected by little.”

“You affected all of us,” says the warrior to his right: a berserker with dark braids pulled tightly back from his face and one of those thin Frankish goatees around his solemn mouth. I know his brown eyes. This is the berserker who caught my sword in the fray, who held me back, who said, Balls.

He puts two fingers to his heart and says, “The Mad Eagles salute you, Valkyrie.”

At least seven of them surround me, mostly shadows in the dark. “Thank you,” I say.

“I am Darius Strong, captain of the Mad Eagles.” He covers my hand with his, the warmth of his skin traveling up my arm. “We returned here for you, Valkyrie. Come with us tonight, home to our hall, and drink in honor of our fallen, and yours. We will show you how the Mad God mourns.”

Without hesitation, I say yes.

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