Ingvar and Ylva are chosen to sail toward the Far Isle, where old maps and older warnings point into the fog. On the black fjord, the mists begin to answer back.
Evening came hard over Skjoll, throwing long black shadows against the palisade and turning the fjord to iron. Ingvar, called Raven's Eye, stood with his spear braced at his side and watched the boats rock in the darkening water. He was still young by the reckoning of old warriors, but age had never made courage less sharp, and he had earned his place beside Chief Egill through patience as much as steel.
The square filled as the first fires were lit. Men spoke in low voices, women leaned close to hear, and above them all Ylva's voice cut clear as a blade. She stood with her axe on one shoulder and red hair coiled in a thick braid, grinning as if danger were a feast laid out for her alone. "They say the Far Isle holds gold that even berserkers refuse to claim," she said. A few men laughed. None of them laughed too loudly.
Chief Egill stepped forward then, carrying a map so old the leather had gone the colour of dried bone. He spread it in the firelight and touched a mark near the edge of the fjords. "The route lies through the mists," he said. "Those who sail it must trust more than luck." His gaze moved across the gathered faces before settling on Ingvar and Ylva. "You, and four others I trust, will go."
The sound in the square changed at once. Jests died. Shoulders stiffened. No one called it a fool's errand now.
At dawn they shoved the narrow boat into black water and took up the oars. The fjord opened before them in a pale smear of light, but beyond the headlands a wall of fog waited, thick as wool and still as a held breath. Seagulls cried somewhere above it, then fell silent. A slow pounding drifted from the haze, deep and steady, like drums heard through the earth.
Ingvar tightened his hand around the sword at his belt. Beside him, Ylva lifted her chin toward the sky, where a single raven wheeled once above the boat and vanished into the white. By nightfall the mist had closed around them so completely that even the prow seemed to have been swallowed. Then the hull shuddered as if something vast had brushed beneath the water.
A green light flared at the boat's side. No one spoke. From the fog came a laugh, low and delighted, unlike any human voice Ingvar had ever heard.