Erin Simpson

Chapter One: Nadya

It was the screaming that was the problem.

Unwarranted. It wasn’t a deep bite; it would barely even scar. Nadya had gotten worse wounds liberating eggs from beneath broody hens. Really it was mostly sleeve. Anyone else would have considered themselves fortunate; Nadya’s cousin had lost an entire finger that way. And that was ignoring the blatant fact that the incident had been entirely avoidable. From the time they could toddle along clutching their mother’s coat hem, it was the first thing children were taught: never touch a racing creature. They weren’t pets. They weren’t tame. They weren’t stupid.

Maybe this man had no mother. Maybe he was just an idiot. Either way, he’d placed his hand—uninvited—on the chest of Nadya’s creature and he’d paid the price. If he hadn’t been so dramatic about a tiny nip or, better, had minded his own business from the start, he wouldn’t have started the dogs to howling, which wouldn’t have spooked the wagon ponies and they, in turn, wouldn’t have trampled their way through five market stalls and a pastry cart.

That’s what she told the politet, anyway.

Had Nadya heard the whisper of air crossing Kanin’s mouth­­, caught the tip of her ears that indicated she was angry and about to do something about it? Maybe she had.

Not that it mattered. The idiot, it turned out, was a member of the racing commission and that mattered a lot more than whether it was his fault. In the end, Nadya was ordered to pay damages—not only to the stall owners for those goods that couldn’t be salvaged, which was bad enough—but, and this was what really rankled her, to fix the idiot’s coat sleeve as well. His foolishness was to cost him nothing? Where was the justice in that?

“I won’t,” she said, crossing her arms like a protective gate between her and them. The room was too warm—heated by an over-fed stove filled by men who didn’t pay for the coal—and she regretted not removing her coat before the proceedings had begun. It was too late now; she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing they’d made her uncomfortable.

“It’s against the rules to leave a reinsdyr tied in the street during the festival,” the idiot protested. The frayed threads of what had been his sleeve cuff waved like spider legs as he jabbed a sausage-like finger in her direction. “And this is exactly why. There’s been too many accidents.”

That was true. Most racing deer were crossbreeds, their blood mingled with the Hiiden Hirvi that used to roam the tundra. They were but the feeling that something was missing from them. Souls, some said. In the early days of the world, so went the stories, when Hiisi had crafted them from the forests and fields, he’d left the creatures empty inside.

The presence of this wild blood made Hiiden- deer light over the snow and inexhaustibly fast. It could also make them unpredictable and sometimes downright vicious, but that wasn’t the case here.

“She wasn’t tied. And she wasn’t unattended. We were minding our own business waiting for the registration to open. You came up to us.” Of course Kanin had snapped at him; Nadya would have snapped at him too if he’d put his fat fingers in her face.

“I was paying your creature a compliment,” he said tightly. “You should have been grateful for it.”

“Touching someone without their consent isn’t a compliment.” Any woman knew that. “And when it’s a racing deer, it’s stupid.”

He sniffed. “It seems your creature isn’t the only one with a volatile temperament.”

“Volatile.” Nadya’s face flamed hot, nothing to do with the temperature of the stove. “The only—”

“Enough,” the magistrate interrupted, thumping his hand on the heavy tabletop. “Ms. Rike,” he said, addressing Nadya, “my judgement stands. You are, of course, entitled to challenge.”

Nadya snorted. Oh yes, she could challenge and spend the next twenty-four hours in legal proceedings and hearings that would ultimately go nowhere while she missed the start of the race. Already, it was growing late. She was cornered and every single person in that room knew it.

The men watched through pale, smug smiles as she opened her purse. She slammed the coins down on the table with enough force to cause most of them to roll off the edge and clatter away over the floor. Good. She hoped they fell through the cracks of the floorboards.

Outside, Kanin stood restlessly in the pen adjacent to the city hall. She wasn’t used to being tied and the iron in the posts made her nervous. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and back again. Her fine silver-gray hair, pale as winter moss, ruffled softly in the wind, making her look as though she were floating; a wisp of fog waiting to be burned away by the sun. Nadya untied her, with a pat of apology, and the young politet assigned to keep guard opened the gate with an enthusiastic flourish that made it clear he was happy to see them go.

Kanin drew her lips back as she passed him, exposing her pointed eye-teeth, and he stepped back in a hurry, tripping over his boots.

It was pushing midday by the time she and Kanin set off back through the snowy streets in the direction of the racing registration, and Laholm was bathed in the perpetual twilight blue of arctic winter. It had been forty-five days since the sun had risen.

Every village north of the circle celebrated the Rising, but nowhere was it celebrated like in Laholm. For seven days prior to the first sunrise of the new year, Laholm played host to the hundreds of visitors flocking to her streets to participate in the spectacle. Colorful stalls, draped with embroidered bunads and glittering jewelry lined the street, with the wares of still more packed into wagons and carts, waiting for display. This time tomorrow, the streets would be packed with sellers hawking brightly-dyed mittens alongside rows of glittering preserves and piles of sugar-dusted festival cakes. Everywhere, windows were bright with lamplight and glowing hearths. Burnished lanterns hung in the narrow spaces between buildings, waiting to light the city like the northern lights lit the sky. The Døgn Tavern and Lodging, forever impatient, had its lanterns already burning.

During the dark months, time couldn’t very well be measured by days and nights—there being so little difference between them—but was marked instead by the time spanning from one midnight to another: the døgn. The concept suited this establishment, which seemed to care little for the hour; only here, instead of unending dark and sleep, it was perpetually awake.

Its upper floors housed those well-moneyed visitors who could afford the rooms, while the main level was divided into a high-ceilinged celebration hall and a dimly-lit tavern. For three weeks of the year, it served as headquarters for all things related to the Blinder.

Nadya fingered the thin purse in her coat pocket, feeling the outline of the coins through the leather. After settling the judgement, she had just enough to pay the registration fee with precious little left over. Barely enough for feed and nothing for supplies. And now, on top of everything else, she was late. She tipped a copper coin—one more missed meal on the trail— to a boy in the street to hold Kanin’s bridle while she went inside. He happily accepted the coin and, less happily, the bridle. He stood as far removed as possible, looking terrified. Good. Fear was what kept you careful. If Nadya was lucky, she would be in and out in fifteen minutes and there wouldn’t be time for any trouble to find them.

She knew immediately upon entering the Døgn that she was not lucky. The room was packed. Men stood shoulder to shoulder from one wall to the other. It was a time-honored tradition among riders of The Blinder to follow their registration with a large mug of the house specialty sahti, and there were at least a dozen men enthusiastically engaged in it. A dozen more were lined up in front of the bar, waiting to put down their coin in exchange for a chance at fame and fortune.

As each rider paid his fee and accepted the token that identified a Blinder contestant, the man behind the counter added his name to the growing list tacked on the wall. There were no less than thirty names already and the line of prospective entrants stretched nearly to the door with more men arriving every minute. Some of them, drunk on festivities, here on a whim or to impress a woman, would never ride, but the field was still larger than she had expected. Her stomach gave a little twist.

When her turn came, she edged up to the counter. She wasn’t a tall girl, and it reached nearly to her chest. She had to crane her neck to look at the man behind it.

He barely glanced at her. “Registration for the Kort are in the back hall.”

“I’m not here for the Kort.” Nadya had no interest in the short races that took place alongside the Blinder, even if the odds were better. The prizes were too small.

“What’s that?” he asked, peering down from a great distance. “Speak up.”

“I’m not here for the Kort,” she repeated, louder.

“You need a room, then? Because we’re full up. Try down the street.” Impatiently, he tapped his fist on the counter and motioned for the next boy in line.

“I want to register for the Blinder,” Nadya said.