They came for her at dawn.
Not with drums. Not with fire. Not even words.
Just three women — Ida, Åse, and Margit — standing outside Astrid's door barefoot, silent, hands clasped in front of them.
The kind of silence that wasn't empty.The kind that came with decision.
Astrid stepped out, the hem of her nightdress brushing the stone steps.
Åse didn't speak until they were halfway to the fjord.
"You've been chosen."
Astrid blinked. "For what?"
Margit looked at her, eyes shadowed with something deeper than memory.
"To lead the Binding."
Astrid didn't protest.
Not aloud.
But something tightened in her chest — not fear, but a shift.As if every desire she had given and received in the village had been quietly collecting, waiting to become responsibility.
At the village circle, Elinor was already there.
Her arms folded, her jaw clenched.
She didn't speak to Astrid, but her eyes said it all:
It should have been me.
The preparations began.
Not with decorations, but offerings.
The villagers brought tokens to the shore:A carved comb.A stone still wet from a remembered kiss.A child's tooth, wrapped in red thread.
Each item was laid out on the Binding table, a slab of driftwood the length of a bed and twice as old.
No one explained their choices.
The fjord didn't require explanations.
Only intent.
That night, under the low-hung moon, Astrid went to the water alone.
Not to practice.
To listen.
She knelt at the edge. Dipped her fingers in.
The current was stronger than usual.
Insistent.
And in the wind, something new:
A whisper.A name.
Not hers.
Emil.
The next morning, Kari was at the dock.Eyes wild.Hair unbraided.Dress soaked.
"He's gone," she said, her voice too calm.
Astrid stared.
"He went swimming before dawn," Kari continued. "He said he wanted to offer himself early. But… he didn't come back."
The village froze.
The fjord was searched.
By boat. By swimmers.Even the widow Åse waded waist-deep, her white dress spreading like milk in the water.
But Emil was gone.
No body.
No blood.
Just a ripple in the story.
Some said he drowned.
Some said he was claimed.
Some said the Binding had already begun — and the fjord had chosen its own first participant.
That evening, Astrid found Kari at the greenhouse.
She wasn't crying.
She was harvesting.
Tomatoes. With her bare hands. Juice dripping like blood down her wrists.
"He knew," Kari said. "He always said the fjord would ask for something."
Astrid stepped close.
"And you let him go?"
Kari met her gaze.
"No. I joined him."
She opened her hand — and there, half-smashed, was a red tomato. Inside it, a silver chain.
Emil's.
Still wet.
Astrid touched Kari's wrist.
"What do we do now?"
Kari said:
"You lead.And you make it mean something."
That night, the fjord was louder than ever. The waves didn't crash — they spoke. And Astrid dreamt of standing on the water, arms wide, as every villager laid their body at her feet.
But when she woke—
She was already wet.
The red book lay open.
The ink had shifted.
And scrawled across the top of the page, in handwriting not hers:
"The first to go must be the one who cannot lie."
She read it three times.
And whispered to herself:
"Who is next?"