Under old blankets, two wide eyes peered at Nanna.
Even in the weak light of the hearth, she could see their shine. Curiosity, yes. But also that good, small, obedient fear that every decent story knew how to draw out of a child.
She almost laughed.
She could not. Laughing would ruin everything.
The house creaked around them, warmed by the fire. The smell of smoke and tea hung in the air. Outside, the wind prowled along the boards, searching for cracks through which to enter.
"A long... long time ago," Nanna began, gathering on her face the most solemn gravity she could manage, "people were still free to wander. The world was full of life. Ancient forests covered the land. The rivers ran broad. And men did not fear the road before them."
She leaned a little farther toward the sofa.
"But there was, in one corner of the old world, a kingdom ruled by a tyrant king. A man as hated as he was feared. And when old age began to climb through his bones, he came to fear one thing above all others."
Nanna paused.
Hrafn sank even deeper beneath the blanket.
"Death," she whispered. "Because he knew of the judgment it brings."
"Does death judge us, Nanna?"
Now only his face showed.
That filled her with a baseless pride in her own performance. Baseless, but pleasant.
She tilted her head slowly.
"It does. Which is why you must always be a good boy."
She let a wicked smile slip out before going on.
"Knowing how cruel he had been in life, and fearing what awaited him beyond his last breath, the king ordered his counselors, knights, and lackeys to find a way to deceive fate."
The wind struck the wall. The wood groaned.
"Can death be deceived?" Hrafn asked.
Only the tip of his nose was still visible.
Nanna had to smother another smile. There had been a time when she too believed a simple blanket could keep all the world's evils at bay.
"Of course not, little one. And that was exactly what the counselors told the king."
She leaned closer.
"As for the knights... well. They came back from their journeys bearing false saints, useless relics, and empty promises. Each fraud only fed the king's anger. And his desperation with it."
The chair creaked beneath her as she leaned in farther still.
"But one day, one of the lackeys brought something different..."
Nanna let the silence grow.
"A sorcerer," she declared, and the word darkened the corner of the room. "And that sorcerer told the king that yes, there was a way to remain young forever."
Hrafn held his breath.
"Blood," Nanna whispered. "Fresh blood. The blood of innocent youths."
She stretched her hands toward the blanket.
"Young blood, like yours, little one. For old bones..."
She showed her teeth.
"Like mine."
Hrafn flung the blanket into the air and ran through the house screaming. The reaction was so excessive it tore a whole laugh out of Nanna, clean and bright, with no character left inside it.
And then the character died.
The laughter ebbed, and with it came a light but familiar regret.
The story had not ended. It never would.
Some stories were like that.
A sound came from the other side of the house. The smell of wet firewood and street-cold came in with it, and Nanna opened her eyes, sweeping her dream into a corner.
"It's me, Nanna."
Hrafn stood in the doorway, holding the iron lid of the pot he had knocked over on the way in.
"Always this same pot," he muttered, rubbing a finger in his ear. "I swear it thinks. And I'm almost sure it doesn't like me."
"Oh, Hrafn, you're soaked."
Nanna got to her feet. The battered chair creaked loudly, and her bones answered with a music of their own, drier and older.
"Here. Cover yourself before you catch a chill."
She draped the cloth over his shoulders and looked him over at the same time.
No bruises on his face.
No new cuts on his hands.
Good.
Hrafn looked more like his father every day. Broad shoulders. Bronze skin. Dark brown hair. Eyes black and deep as dead coal.
A few more years and it would almost be like seeing her own son standing before her again.
Almost. There was one difference: the smile.
Hrafn's smile never reached his eyes.
"How was work at the docks?" she asked, already knowing.
"It isn't good to leave so much paper near the hearth," he answered, pointing to the books and loose pages scattered about.
Nanna waved the remark away with a grunt.
"Sigrid came to visit us today."
Hrafn picked up a mug, and the tea poured in silence.
"She brought good leaves," Nanna went on, returning to the fire. "And she asked about you."
"The docks were calm today," he replied, as if he had not heard.
He sat near the hearth and held out his hands to the heat.
"She's a good girl," Nanna said.
She prodded the coals with the long rod. The flames rose a little.
"And she likes you. Even a blind man could see that."
Hrafn said nothing.
"At your age, your father was already married."
He let out a short laugh through his nose.
"I remember him telling me how you beat him when you found out about the pregnancy."
Nanna coughed, pretending not to have heard.
"There are more important things this year," he said. "There'll be a selection."
Excuses. Lies. Fear.
She knew all three.
"So you already see yourself elevated? One among a hundred?"
He did not answer.
"I can already picture it," she went on. "A noble and honored voroir. Maybe too important to remember the girl who waited for him at the docks. Maybe too important to come back."
Hrafn tightened his grip on the mug. "It won't happen."
The irritation in his voice pained her.
His parents had died too early. That left a deep emptiness, and emptiness, when it stayed too long inside a young man, began to resemble character.
Nanna knew how to tell the difference.
She herself had buried her son.
Parents should not bury children.
And children should not grow up without parents.
But unlike her, Hrafn still had time. Time to make mistakes, to love, to have stubborn children, to complain about the cold and the rain.
He could still go on.
"How can you know if you never try?"
Nanna sighed.
"I'm not getting any younger, Hrafn. I've been sleeping more. And my sleep keeps growing deeper."
She looked at the fire while she spoke, as if she might see something in it.
"I fear the day when it will stretch on forever."
It was not an old woman's game. She felt it. In the crack of her bones. In the weight of her joints. In the brief tremor that sometimes seized her hands without asking leave. There were dawns when she woke with a start and remained still, listening to the house breathe in the dark, wondering whether it would be the last time she heard the wind against the boards.
"I fear not seeing you happy before then," she said. "With a family. With a life."
Perhaps it was low of her.
Perhaps.
But worse still was watching her grandson walk through the house as if half of him had been buried years ago.
"I am happy, Nanna." He took her hand in both of his. The smile came broad.
But it did not reach his eyes.
"You'll live a long while yet." Hrafn kissed her forehead and rose.
"Thank Sigrid for the tea for me."
"I will."
He lingered another moment beside the fire, as if he wanted to say something else. He did not. Then he went to tend to his own night, and Nanna remained there, watching the flames grow tired.
The wind still wandered outside.
The windows tapped softly.
The tea warmed her from within. Her body grew heavy.
And at last, together with the years, the weariness won.
Little by little, her eyes closed.
And Nanna fell asleep.
* * *
Hrafn had been wrong.
And Nanna right, as always.
She had fallen asleep forever, exactly as she had said.
If he had known that would be their last conversation, perhaps he would have stayed longer by the fire. Perhaps he would have listened to another story. Perhaps he would have paid attention to every word instead of running from them.
But regret was something Nanna despised.
He could almost hear her.
Regret is a cruel little creature, Hrafn. It clings to the heart and squeezes every time you decide to look back.
Then she would sigh in that tired way of hers, half sharp, half affectionate.
Look ahead, child. Ahead.
"I'm sorry, Hrafn. Saga was an exceptional woman. May she rest in peace."
Thrud's voice, Sigrid's mother, tore him out of his thoughts.
She wore white, like the others at the funeral. The pale cloth moved slowly in the cold wind.
"Thank you for coming," Hrafn said.
Even his own voice sounded far away.
He had spent his whole life calling her Nanna. Hearing people say Saga still felt wrong. As if they were speaking of someone else. Not the old woman who cursed pots, lied about her own age, and made tea too strong.
"Hello, Hrafn," Sigrid said, appearing just behind her mother.
She came closer in slow steps, as though afraid of disturbing the silence of the little graveyard.
"My condolences."
Her voice trembled despite the effort she made to keep it steady. Her eyes watched the ground, as if she were looking for something among the small stones and the freshly turned dark earth.
"Thank you for coming," Hrafn said.
Offering a smile even he himself did not believe.
Sigrid tried to smile back. Her eyes were red. Nanna had been a grandmother to her almost as much as she had been to him.
Around them, old gravestones stood crooked, covered in moss. Dark trees circled the ground, and their bare branches shuddered in the wind like impatient fingers.
Other than that, the place remained quiet.
The air smelled of wet earth and old things.
And Nanna's grave looked far too new there.
Sigrid and Thrud had been the last to stay.
Not that there had been so many people to leave.
Saga was an old woman among old women, and most of the people who had shared her life had gone long before she had.
"You should go rest," Thrud said, taking her leave with the softness of a mother.
"I will, in a moment," Hrafn replied, not taking his eyes off the gravestone.
The words carved there read:
Here lies Saga Skovrheim, warrior, loving wife, mother and exemplary grandmother.
Nanna would have approved. Few words, simple, without too much ornament.
Love and example-that was what she had given them.
For it was all they needed.
Sigrid and her mother walked away along the stone path, and the sound of their footsteps was slowly swallowed by the wind. He stayed there.
Hrafn stayed alone.
He remained there until the first drops began to fall, fine at first, timid, as if granting him due time.
Rain.
Nanna used to say rain was the Veil's weeping for the good souls that departed. A lament, yes, but also a joy. A way of welcoming back the light.
He had always heard that the way he heard so many of her stories: with affection, but without faith.
Now, standing before the freshly closed earth and the still-clean wood of the gravestone, the story seemed less like a story.
The water touched his face.
And, for the first time since he was a boy, Hrafn believed.