Above the fjord, frost creaked like old parchment. Smoke with the taste of juniper drifted from the roof of jarl Bjorn's long house, and the waves rolled over the stones with a bang, pulling strands of seaweed behind them. That morning, the wind carried no smell of storm or wet wool, but something new - metal that had lain too long in salt water. Astrid stood on the shore, clenching her fingers on the railing of the smeared boat. She was a carpenter's daughter and a navigator who could read the sky when even the clouds didn't feel like talking. Beside her, Leif - tall, impatient, with a voice that could calm the rumble of fire - turned a sunstone in his hands until its milky interior sang a bright blue. Eir, a soothsayer with eyes the colour of fresh ice, touched in turn the wet wood of the box that the fishermen had pulled from the net at dawn like an unfortunate catch. The chest was heavy, bound with iron as dark as dried seaweed blood. Grooves ran across the lid, but not the kind Astrid had seen on oars or coat clips - the marks seemed older, as if someone had written with them before the sea had learned to roar. As Leif squatted the stone, the depressions trembled with barely visible light. - 'It must not be opened here,' Eir said, and the sound of the words stuck to the inside of the long house as she uttered them under the roof. - If the sea has brought it, the sea will know where to carry it. And it had better be somewhere far from our children's dreams. Jarl Bjorn, with his wolf fur thrown over his shoulders, scratched his chin. He had a nose like an axe blade, and his gaze was as stern as the morning after a drunken feast. - You will set out at dusk. You will take the Wave Wolf, Astrid. You, Leif, will keep your eyes on the sky. Eir... - hesitated only for a blink - ...you will tell us when we need to turn back. In the bay, the boat wheezed like a horse as they pushed it into the cold water. A sunlit stone shone by Leif's waist, but lost its colour as he looked north. The wind swirled restlessly, as if searching for words. Astrid wrapped her hand around the rudder and felt the air bellows in her chest tune to the rhythm of the waves. They sailed along the bands of grey. Above them hovered the birds, waiting for someone else's courage, and below them the sea, which grew quieter with every mile, as if it had not yet decided what it thought of them. As the sun moved away behind the clouds, the first signs appeared: the water beneath the chest thickened, as if the boat was cutting through not liquid but blurred parchment, and the air carried a singing so low that it could not be heard, only felt in the bones. - Can you hear? - Leif asked, but Astrid was already nodding. She had heard it for a long time. It was a sound that reminded her of ancient ice mills. They saw the rocks before they felt them. Black, as long as the teeth of giants, they stood up out of the water to form a circle. In the middle of the circle stood stones taller than the mast, arranged in figures that made their eyes dizzy. The sunny stone had died down completely, and yet there was light in the air, as if the sky had remembered a long unpaid debt. - 'The rocks of the Sleepers,' whispered Eir. - 'Don't step on the shadow that looks like it wants to be stepped on. They descended to the pebble bank, leaving Wave Wolf on a short rope that seemed like a thread suspended over the precipice. The wave went back and forth faster than sound tidal mathematics dictated. With each step, the crate, carried by the two men, pulsed with warmth until Astrid felt like she was holding a delivery of air in her hands. The stones in the middle of the circle, however, were not smooth. Each had cracks on it where dry snow lay, although the sky was without precipitation. On the tallest of them, something like a trail of runes glowed so discreetly that it could have been considered a joke of light. Eir reached out, without touching, and closed her eyes. - One more step,' she said. - One more and we will no longer be alone. Leif drew in air as if he was about to give it up to the last drop. Astrid put her hand on the lid of the chest. The iron was warm, not at all after the winter. Somewhere behind their backs something splashed - not like a fish. Like a hand testing the tension of a rope. - 'Now,' whispered Eir. As Astrid moved the bolt, the ground beneath their feet played deep, like a drum made of night. The crack in the topmost stone spread, and a warmth that had nothing to do with fire blew from between the dark edges. The air thickened and the light beneath Astrid's fingers oozed like water. Something heavy moved on the other side, so slowly that time itself began to rasp. And then she heard someone say her name - not the way the people in the fjord say it, but as if they remembered it before they all did.