The Warning of the Land

I. OATH
It was evening when the cart turned off the Pilgrim’s Trail and onto the hard-packed mud and wooden slats. This was a dangerous path through the swamp that lead to his home. His uncle, Seaver, did as all good naga must do when they travel, and dozed on the other side of the wagon from him.

Left to his own thoughts, Veikko felt a profound sadness in his heart.

It was a combination of many things. He reflected on the vision that the Kallavesi had shared of Alof Bearning saying his farewell to Kings, taking the wisdom of Tekupala. They spoke so confidently in the vision. Veikko had often thought if he could be half the mystic that Tekupala had been, he would be able to achieve much, much more for the Empire.

The memory brought his hand to his neck, reaching for an amulet that was no longer there. Tekupala themself had made the amulet, and given it to Inga Tarn, beseeching her to ‘heed the warning of the land.’ But a season ago, when Raewyn Eternal had been broken and shaken and in need of support, he had slipped the amulet around her neck and said those very same words to her and told her only to return the amulet to him when she no longer needed it.

He’d earned his name this season, gifted by one of the Hall’s newly sworn-in scops, Sigvar. Bondforger, they called him – fittingly after he’d lead all the hall in reswearing the Oath of Sigehold. Veikko Bondforger. A hero has a name, and he never thought he would earn one quite so grand. It was, they said, for his continued works in forming bonds in the Empire. With Dawn, with Highguard, with Urizen, with Navaar.

Yet, he had voted against taking the fight to the Vallorn in the Synod. Despite every oath he had made with the Navaar and the promises he had made other survivors of Return.

He could tell himself that it was no small thing that had caused him to change his stance. As his Thane had put it to him, once the Jotun had taken Summersuaq, and they would take Summersuaq, they would turn their attention to Kallavesa.

He glanced over the side of the cart, looking at the low-hanging mist weaving through the thin trees and stirring reeds protruding from the swamp of his ancestral home. He had seen first-hand the terrors of Yaw'nagra’s tampering with the Vallorn. Fleeing from the hordes of husks from Therunin, desperate and hungry and afflicted with green lung, had earned him the scars that marked his face. He had no doubt in his mind that the Vallorn were the greatest spiritual threat to the Empire.

Thoughts of Return turned his mind to Hazel. What would she think of him if she knew? How could he so confidently tell her that her own Chapter was unfitting for her? She had looked to him with such love and trust when she spoke to him about wanting to walk the Trods against the Vallorn.

It was a cruel thing, to be forced to choose between oath and home. But there was so much here he had to protect. Would Tekupala have made the same choice? Would they have been so wise as to have avoided having to make it?

II. CHAIN
He could imagine Jared’s response to all that he dwelt on.

‘Loyalty is knowing what you are most Loyalty to in your heart. You must trust that others will remain Loyal to you, even if you cannot work with them. Trust in the bonds you have forged with the friends you have made, and trust that they will survive the test of the hard times to come.’

Jared had urged a testimony be put on his soul this season. The same as other Cardinals before him, supposedly – Oathsworn Loyalty. Three of his Assembly had conducted the deed – his gatekeeper, Tess of the Marches, Longfang, who had died heroically in Summersuaq not a day later, and Lady Tamain Sepulcher.

Once more, his hand came to his neck, feeling where the Thule chains weren’t. Out of all the chains he wore, the Thule chains were the ones he had worn for the longest time, when Skarsind was taken. Another promise broken, he thought darkly, remembering that he bolted from the Senate building despite telling Eska that he would hold right of witness over the Thule peace treaty negotiations. He had never seen the Thule in Anvil before. But seeing them sat there, his former slavemasters, filled him with an urge to leap onto the Senate floor and drive his bootknife into their neck.

Jared had found him. Of course he had. He had beenquick to comfort him and remind him that they were chains worn willingly, and that was something they could never take from him. His Thane had been there too and said that he would happily slit one of them open if seeing their insides would help him remember they were just flesh and blood.

The Thule chains, he had entrusted to Tamain. He had once girded her with a golden rose, a token that suited her. However, he had found that bedecking her in chains before she went through the gate felt much more fitting. She had remarked this time that she was not going to his homeland, so what was the significance?

‘For your protection,’ he had said.

‘Because I survived my worst days wearing these,’ he hadn’t said, ‘and I need you to survive your worst day. I need you to come home.’

He had later called House Sepulcher his guardians, and he meant it. Their Earl had put it better than he ever could: A chain created and should calamity give cause, cry out and it will be as clarion call to bring us close. It would be to them he turned if ever a crisis befell him.

Tamain had returned from Spiral exhausted and distant. He had extended an arm to her to embrace her and welcome her back, and she did not step to him. He remembered the same from Asenath last season; only then, he had been broken, and she had not known how to comfort him.

Tamain kept the chains he had girded her with, the Thule chains that had incarcerated him. Not forgotten, for they were clutched in her hands, like a misplaced treasure. They had been a symbol for him of survival and liberation. It was funny, that he felt so vulnerable without them. But he had entrusted her to mark his soul – he could entrust her with his chain. Whatever they meant to her, she clearly needed them now more than he did.

III. LOVE
They were not long from his home when he thought about love.

It had played so heavy a part to the Summer. No more so than with Lissa Sigeing, the frayed woman of his hall. He had declared her frayed and been serving as the Crow on her shoulder for many months now. Long had he dwelt on how to repair the damage she had done to the weave of her skein.

She had given up a secret to be forgotten, Cast Off the Chain of Memory – and torn backwards into her Skien, forgetting Elsa the Fury, a woman who had informed all decisions she had made. Because Lissa loved Elsa, and Elsa did not love her back.

This had lead to a dark road. It had lead them both to Krampus, who had placed their hands against Lissa’s skull and filled her with a heartbreak she would always felt and would never comprehend. It had brought them to the Night Garden of Lashonar the Loquacious One, whose jittery Herald had told them something impossible – that the memory could be restored. And then, in the bottom of a well, Lissa and those she trusted bartered with Sovereigns that dwelt in the gloom and the shadows.

He watched one of his own halls have her heartbreak returned to her. She collapsed in a fit of sobs against the dank stone, over and over again saying ‘I did tell her, I did tell her.’ And much like a healing wound, he had to let her hurt. Such was the weave of a skein restored.

Love was a heavy thing, he thought. Just this season he had seen Rane, his closest friend, brought to grim stupor because of love, and had not been able to bring her out of it. He had tried to fight his protective instincts, tried to remain Cardinal and Crow, when he had ended up face-to-face with the one that had broken Rane’s heart and heard her talk about the weight from her shoulders. He had failed in that regard and spoke words that he hoped hurt her to hear. He struggled to feel bad about that.

But then, Lyla. His Egregore. He thought of what she had said about love, and how it had lead to nothing but betrayal and death and hurt her in ways that showed no scars. And he thought about the last thing she told him, as boldly stated as a cut from a knife. She had changed and could not feel love anymore – and that knowledge still twisted within him.

He thought of the other conversation he had, just this very season. An urge to not let things be left unspoken, said to someone whose conclusion was that such things were secondary to the protection of their kin. He could not respect that mentality. He knew too well that sometimes these things would only be spurred into the open by tragedy, and that made for a bleak backdrop.

Veikko had been spurred by the death of his Thane to confess his own feelings of love to Ylmisckha Ferbow. She, too, was one who had been hurt by it, one sworn never to love again. He had confided in Sessi, who now lay dead in Summersuaq, and he had guided him through the cold of her heart.

She had, slowly, let him in to his life. They had been wed. He had stood there glowing with pride as she earned her scop name, and in the letters they had written to one another he had started to call her by it – His Crowcaller. A few months ago, he had left the holdings of Sigehold to move into her home in Kallavesa.

She was with child. The runes said it would be a girl. They decided to call her Inga Crowsdottir.

VI. HOME
When they arrived home, he didn’t realise anything was wrong.

He climbed down from the wagon, the small of his back aching, and decided against unloading just yet. His uncle registered his discomfort.

‘Go,’ Seaver said, ‘go. I will unpack – go and see to your wife, and my grand-niece!’

He trudged down the part-submerged path to the door, wondering what first to tell her. In truth, he didn’t want to tell her much, not yet. He just wanted to embrace her.

He thought nothing of it, when he opened the door and she was not immediately in sight.

When she didn’t reply, he assumed that she would just be asleep.

It was only when he stepped into their bedroom he realised.

They were gone.