Astrid watched from the shadows near the house as her father and Sigmund stacked the wood for the bonfire. Aelric’s chain flashed in the fire light of the torch she held. Ljót was at his side, her arms snaked around his waist. Astrid smiled to herself. It was a good match. He would be happy with her. She watched the dancing and the fiddling from the darkness, just like when her eldest brother was chained, and just like that night, she also watched her cousin Lodvik peel away from the festivities. She moved behind him, quiet as the night, catching him just as he was stepping into the lane at the front of the farmhouse.

               “Going back to your woman?” she asked. Eylaug had delivered the twin girls. They were not thriving. Hrist had mixed several medicines for them, but nothing seemed to help. Eylaug did not have enough milk.

               Lodvik spun on his heel, his surprise at being addressed evident on his face. But he frowned when he saw it was her. She felt her frown deepening too. “I don’t know. It’s not like I want to be there either,” he said.

               “Why has she not chained you?” Astrid asked.

               Lodvik looked at her like he couldn’t believe that she didn’t know the answer already. “Don’t you witches know everything?”

               She had decided not to correct anyone when they called her witch. They would call her one behind her back anyway. “Because you didn’t give her boys?”

               He shrugged. “It is not a happy match, Astrid. I do not care.”

               She let her revulsion settle before she spoke again. “You should have come to me first Lodvik.”

               “I know,” Lodvik said.

               “Remember that, cousin,” she said, “And next time, trust me.”

               He looked at his feet, his expression darkening. She nearly choked on the shame he felt. “I will trust you, Astrid,” he managed to say.

               In the distance, she could feel Edda, full of power, full of love for Hrothgar. Astrid wondered if the other Bairns could feel her love for her brothers and her cousins through the wild magic. It had never occurred to her to ask until she had felt Edda’s love sliding towards her on the waves of the power.

               She turned her attention back to Lodvik. “Ask Helga to help Eylaug,” she said.

               He sneered, but at her stern frown, he softened. “Will it help?”

               Astrid laughed. “Did you not know that Helga nurses babies for women who have trouble?”

               Lodvik’s jaw dropped. “She does?!”

               Astrid nodded. “Strip away all the wild magic, Lodvik, and we are just ordinary women,” she said.

               “Ordinary women,” he echoed. Then he laughed. “Goodnight, Astrid,” he said.

               She watched him walk down the hill, his form melding into the night. But the fear he had felt just a moment before was gone. It had been replaced with hope. It called back to her as he moved away. She smiled to herself and went back to Aelric’s celebration. 

               When Astrid woke, she was in the grove. Her body was cool and stiff. She sat up, trailing her hand across the dew gathered on her skirt. Mist rolled over the ground. The Skuld was not with her.

               She had come to the grove after Lodvik stormed away from her. It pulled her in, the spirits calling and chattering. She didn’t try to sort out their bickering. She followed the threads of the wild magic. It was a beacon summoning her. She never asked why, she simply obeyed.

               In the grove, she and the Skuld had read the bones late into the night. The spirits had argued, screaming about boys and men, screaming about new Bairns, screaming for the sake of screaming. The bones told stories of what might be, stories of what could be, stories of what would be if all the right choices were made. Some of the futures did not please her. Some delighted her. Not a single one did not fill her with dread.

               Everything would change. Everything. And soon.

               “The woman that Freya has been watching,” the Skuld began.

               “Edda,” Astrid said, looking out across the bones that foretold change and upheaval.

               “She is ready,” the Skuld said.

               “She has a man,” Astrid said. “It’s always harder when they have a man.”

               The Skuld smiled. “He will not keep her from us,” she said.

               Astrid looked out across the bones. She realized the Skuld was right. She had not seen it before. “Good,” she said. “I think we need her. We need her almost as much as we need boys.”

               The Skuld took her hands in her own, staring deep into her eyes. “And those boys will need you, Astrid.”

               Astrid nodded, thinking of the name on her white stone. Her true name. “I had thought I knew what my true name was when it was given to me,” she said. “But now I see that it goes deeper than what I thought.”

               “What divides our people has never been about whether we are men or women. It has always been about power, and who can wield it.”

               “Men like my brother Aelric know that there is too much that is out of balance,” she said. “And women like Freya like it that way.”

               “That is why we need women like you. Women like Edda, who want to make this world better for our men,” the Skuld said. Astrid squeezed her hands hard, hoping to keep her in the world longer, coveting her wisdom. She tasted further revelation in the air, but the Skuld was already fading. “I must go,” the Skuld said. “I have work to do.”

               Astrid watched her fade from the world, melting into the ground like water. Her anticipation fizzled. She was too tired to return home. She picked a spot under one of the trees and laid her head in a pile of fallen needles strewn with old leaves. She was asleep as soon as her head touched the ground.

               Astrid hugged her knees to herself, remembering the previous night, the bones, Lodvik’s anger. She shook her head, still appalled. A girl of fifteen should not be a mother. Neither the Bairns nor the Skuld would have ever instructed such a thing. But could she blame him, now that she had heard his reasoning? She brushed the dead needles from her hair, deciding she could not. He had done it out of fear.

               Protect the boys! The spirit’s voice cut through the chatter. She stood, shaking out her skirts, wondering at the Skuld’s words. How could they ever make this world better for their men if the spirits were so set against them? She began her trek back through the forest, and her thoughts drifted to Asmund. Would there ever be a world where he could use the wild magic?

               When she emerged from the woods, she stopped for a moment to sense where the wild magic was gathering. She could feel it swirling around someone. She watched a black bird sail overhead, dipping to alight in the open field before her. It was a graveyard, she always thought. Rows of empty houses, old and dangerously disrepaired, each site a tombstone for those who had lived there. Her eyes went to one house among the rows, the place where Lodvik said Eylaug had taken him. Astrid began to walk stiffly towards it, pulled by whoever was in that place.

               When she pushed open the door, she saw Ama, Freya and Sif standing in a circle around Eylaug, who was sitting on the floor with her eyes closed. All four turned their attention to her, but then turned away without greeting. Ama and Freya shifted, making a space for her in the circle. They waited. The wild magic curled around her. She watched Eylaug, listening to the spirits calls. They were angry with Eylaug, just as the Bairns were. Not long after, Helga came through the open door as well. Without prompting, she joined the circle.

               Astrid did not know what they were doing. From past experiences, she knew that no one would tell her until after it was done.

               Fear. That’s primarily what she felt through the currents of the wild magic. Eylaug’s fear. She reached for Freya’s hand, compelled by the power stirring in the room. Freya took hold of her, and the power within her doubled. Freya’s body glowed. At her other side, Ama grasped for her. She took hold of Ama’s hand and nearly lost herself in the current that surged through her. She begged the spirits not to carry her off. She was holding entirely too much. Fear. Her fear, now. It tightened her throat.

               Let go. It was Ama, speaking to her across the flow of the wild magic. She loosened every muscle, and felt the embrace of the power. Then she understood what was happening.

               In the center, she saw Eylaug, translucent as glass, and within her, three bright red beating hearts. One was her own, near her chest. The other two were much lower, in her abdomen. One had an orangish hue. The other one was almost pink. Two babies. She looked harder, at the blood, at the runes it carried. All the same. Every rune identical. Two babies. Two girls.

               She fell out of consciousness for a moment, drifting in the power, there was a light coming for her, and they were calling her name. Their voices were rough, like gravel. You don’t know what it is you’re doing to us, Astrid! You should not listen to the Skuld. In the distance, watery and ethereal, she heard the other spirit that had been calling to her for days. Protect the boys! She swallowed hard, her mouth like sand. She could taste the age of the earth on her breath.

               She blinked and she was on the ground. She felt cold, but she was covered in sweat. Someone nearby was groaning. Freya was angry. She could hear the heat of her fire.

               “This is why we’ve been told not to do this,” she said. A hand pressed against her forehead, and then her head was being gently lifted, laid in the skirts of someone’s lap. She opened her eyes, though the effort made her swoon. Freya’s dark hair enveloped her vision. “Stay with me, Astrid,” she said, pleadingly.

               Someone else began rubbing her legs. The groaning on the other side of the circle continued. “Eylaug?” she asked.

               “Helga is attending her,” Freya said crossly. Astrid’s eyes floated shut again but Freya snapped at her. “Keep your eyes on me, Astrid!” Fear. Freya’s fear had her heart racing. The rubbing continued, the hands moving up her body. She opened her eyes as wide as she could, though they were now stinging with tears as the hands worked. The cold faded from her, replaced with a shuddering nausea. “Keep working, Sif!” Freya called.

               “Freya, I’m sick,” Astrid whined. She tried to roll off Freya’s lap, but Freya held her tightly in place. She gagged, then wretched, the bile and sick bubbling from her mouth. Freya allowed her to tilt her head, and she spat on the floor of the house. She recognized now it was Sif who was massaging her, working her arms now, and her neck. Sif’s face was red and slicked with sweat. Freya wiped the edge of her dress across her mouth.

               The vomiting had taken away the nausea, and whatever Sif had done to her had worked to bring her more solidly back to the world. The spirits were now just a faint chatter, as they typically were. She sat up slowly, expecting to be dizzy, but she was only fatigued, like the first day up from a sick bed. “What happened?” she asked. She eyed Eylaug, who was still prone. She was crying noiselessly. Ama whispered in her ear.

               “Something that we aren’t supposed to do,” she said. “You were almost carried off because of it.” Freya’s words were icy.

               “I had to know,” Ama said. “She is my blood sister.”

               “And it nearly cost you the life of another of your sisters!” Freya hissed.

               Sif’s face looked like ashes, like a clouded sky before the rain. “It was too close,” she murmured, sitting back on her heels and hugging her knees. She wiped a tear from her face, shuddering.

               Astrid knew Sif’s greatest fear was being carried off. Her blood sister had chosen it freely, and she had been forced to watch it happen, helpless to stop it. The scar broke open sometimes. Astrid reached for her hand. “I’m safe, Sif. You brought me back.”

               Sif wiped another tear from her face. Her color returned. “We can’t do this again. It’s too dangerous. It costs too much.”

               All four of her sisters carried their weariness in plain sight, in the way they slumped their shoulders and breathed heavily. Astrid wanted nothing but sleep. “What exactly did we do?” she asked.

               Ama and Helga had Eylaug on her feet now, all three straining from the effort, leaning into one another to keep themselves aloft. “You saw, didn’t you?” Ama asked.

               She had seen. She had seen the runes in the blood of the babes that Eylaug carried. The runes that marked them as girls. “But why take the risk?” she asked, anger lighting her words. “What good is it to know before the birth?”

               “Because I wanted to know if this house is what they say it is,” Helga said.

               Astrid drew back in surprise. She did not think of Helga as a risk taker. “Why?” she asked.

               “To see if it could solve our problems,” she said.

               Freya was steaming beside her, and Sif looked like she would fall over at any second. Astrid itched for the wild magic, her palms tingling. Unconsciously she reached for the rune stones, but Freya stayed her hand. Astrid swallowed down the craving, letting go a long sigh. She looked from Sif to Ama and Helga. All three of them were like stalks in a stiff breeze—swaying, bending, bowing. She felt the idea bubbling up from her depths before she had time to think about what she said. “Destroy the house,” she said. The wild magic swayed, swirling around her, but she ignored it. She looked from one sister to the next, and then to Eylaug, who was staring at her in disbelief. “There is no magic here that can make boys. It is worthless to have it tempt others to try.”

               The spirits were pleased with her. She drunk in their delight.

               Freya was the first to speak. “We should do as she says,” she said. She felt Freya pulling her to her feet, and she in turn reached for Sif. The three stood uneasily. The weariness was set deep inside her. She was not sure they should use the wild magic at all in their current state.

               Freya and Sif were stronger than her though, and they led the way out of the house, Ama and Helga trailing, supporting Eylaug. They set Eylaug gently on the ground outside, then the five Bairns gathered in a line about the house. It was the only one in the row that had not caved or collapsed yet. Freya called the wild magic first, then Sif. Astrid was the last to call, afraid of what it would do it her. But she found it gave her some strength and eased the desperate heaviness in her chest.

               Freya pushed the room of the house in, and Sif kept the dust from blowing over them. Helga pushed in the south wall, and Ama the north wall. Astrid scattered the timber away from them, across the field. When they were finished, it looked as if the house had exploded from within. She drained herself of the wild magic, then, overcome with fatigue again, sat down on the ground and closed her eyes.

               It was night when she awoke. She rolled over in the grass, finding that Helga was asleep next to her. Her breathing was steady and even, and Astrid felt no fear for her. She sat up slowly. She was still tired, but not in the deadly way she had been before. Ama and Eylaug were nowhere in sight, neither was Sif. But Freya was standing watch over them, a statuesque protector.

               “Freya,” Astrid croaked, and Freya reached for her, helped her stand. Their eyes met and she found herself wrapping her arms around Freya’s neck, hugging her close. Freya embraced her, her touch an anchor to the world. Her hair smelled like smoke and earth and rain. Astrid rested the weight of her head against Freya’s shoulder.

               Freya released her, and gently rubbing her hands down her arms said, “Go home, Astrid. I will wait with Helga.” Astrid nodded and pulled herself away from the wreck of the house, from the scene that had almost been her death. She went slowly, moving at a snail’s pace through the town, then up the hill to her family’s farm. Each step she took grew heavier as she walked, her muscles aching as she neared the top of the hill. She could see the house and barn, their silhouettes dark against the night sky and the shining moon. One more step, she repeated to herself. Her stomach growled. She had not had any food since yesterday.

               She opened the farmhouse door, surprising her mother, father, Aelric, Sigmund and Magnhild, who were all still sitting at the kitchen table drinking ale and playing cards. The fire in the hearth was burning, logs freshly stacked. The smell of fresh bread hung in the air. She leaned against the doorpost, too tired to go any further.

               “Astrid!” Sigmund gasped, jumping up and racing to her aid.

               “I need food,” she said weakly, as Sigmund walked her to a chair. “And a drink. I’m so thirsty, Sigmund.”

               Her mother and Magnhild were moving almost as soon as she had requested sustenance. Soon there was a plate of buttered bread and bacon in front of her, along with a bowl of stewed vegetables and beans. Magnhild brought her a mug and a jar of honey. She thanked them softly and began to eat. The food gave her energy almost immediately, and then she was devouring the meal like a ravenous hound. The family said nothing as she ate. She could feel their confusion and awe through the wild magic. And their fear. Always there was fear.

               “Where have you been?” Sigmund asked. Aelric huffed under his breath, and her father turned his eyes away from her.

               “I’ve been doing my work,” she said, purposefully cryptic. “And it takes a great effort sometimes.” She began to cry then, which she had not expected at all. “I was almost carried off,” she said. She wiped the heel of her hand across her eyes, shuddering.

               None of them moved to comfort her. They did not know how. She finished the stew by tipping the bowl, the broth sliding straight into her mouth. She blotted her lips on her sleeve, and smiled when the garment did not stain. She used the sleeve to dry her face as well, still wet from the tears she had shed. “Thank you,” she said, pushing the bowl and plate away from her. Then she left the table.

               No one called goodnight to her as she ascended the stairs.

               Astrid watched the crowd from afar, mingling and celebrating with Sigmund and Magnhild on the green beside the goat pen and the barn. When her mother had come home from her talks with Ranog a week ago, her father had wasted no time before he visited the black smith. The chain Leif had made for Sigmund was gold. Magnhild had slipped it over his head tenderly, but Astrid couldn’t help thinking it was a brand. The delicate chain links glittered in the light of the bonfire, burning as the sun set. The celebration would go long into the night. She watched her brother dancing with his woman as their father and their uncle played their strings. The accompanying clapping and drumming floated to her hidden perch in the shadows.

               A man peeled away from the crowd, meandering towards the house where she stood under the eaves. She trailed him with her eyes. In the fading daylight, she couldn’t make out his features until he was within earshot of her call. “Lodvik,” she said.

               Her cousin was approaching his 20^th year. There were at least four women trying to chain him, but none of their mothers approved. Though he was handsome and kind, he was also a braggart, and had an incredible temper. Admittedly, some of the women who wanted him were young, but there was at least one that would have been an acceptable age. It was not the one whom he had put a child in.

               Lodvik started, looking for a moment like he would run from her, but then smiled warmly at her, placing a hand over his thudding heart. “Astrid,” he said, laughing to himself. “I thought you were a Bairn.”

               “I am a Bairn,” Astrid said smoothly.

               “Yes. I meant one of the other Bairns,” Lodvik said, waving a hand as if to dismiss his silliness. “Why aren’t you at the party?” he asked, moving a few steps towards her.

               Her eyes went to the bonfire, now burning fully against the rapidly darkening sky. “Don’t feel too cheery tonight,” she said, thinking of her strange conversation with the Skuld, and the equally as strange conversation with Ama about boys. She watched as her mother ushered Ulfarr, Josurr and Asmund away from the dancing.

               “Me either,” Lodvik sighed.

               “Because of Eylaug?” she asked, a dare. Lodvik screwed up his face in a grimace. “What’s that look for?”

               “I suppose you know all about Eylaug,” Lodvik said.

               “I know what Ama told me. That you put a babe in her belly. That she is trying to be a mother so she won’t be a Bairn.”

               “What?!” Lodvik’s outburst was nearly a roar, but her mother was approaching with the children, so he stifled it.

               “Goodnight, Madir,” Astrid said as they came forward slowly. Her mother was eyeing the two of them, watching their expressions. Astrid put on a sweet smile, though she was feeling cross. “Did you have fun?” she asked her brothers.

               Ulfarr shrugged and Josurr merely looked at the dirt, but Asmund’s eyes were bright. “The chain that Magnhild put around Sigmund was so lovely! Don’t you think so, Astrid?”

               Lodvik stiffened, and Ulfarr and Josurr tried, but failed, to hide their surprise. “Being chained isn’t…”Lodvik started, but at Asmund’s perfectly innocent expression, he dropped the end of what he was going to say. “Bah!” he said instead. “I suppose it was a lovely trinket.”

               “A lovely shackle,” Ulfarr said.

               “Hush!” their mother said, giving the three boys a push forward into the house. “Go on to bed. Stop dismissing the things you don’t understand.” She pushed past Astrid and Lodvik, the boys going before her into the doorway.

               “I wonder where he got that idea?” Lodvik asked. He sounded amused. Pleased, almost.

               “From Aelric and my father,” she said. She eyed him suspiciously, like he was snake. “Maybe from you, too.”

               “I never put ideas like that into his head!” he replied, wagging a finger in her face.

               Astrid took hold of his hand, pushing it slowly down and away from her. “Don’t do that,” she instructed.

               Lodvik paled. “Sorry,” he muttered. “It’s just…Eylaug…”

               “Why did you do it?” she asked, crossing her arms and giving him a baleful stare.  

               “She made me!” he yelled. His cheeks were growing hot; she could see the color even in the dark.

               “She made you?” Her words dripped with her skepticism.

               “She took me to that… that place! She said the wild magic was thick there. Said it could make boys!” Astrid raised her eyebrow. “What was I supposed to do?! I thought she was like you! I thought she had gone to the Skuld and asked!”

               He was too loud. The boys and her mother would hear. “Walk with me,” she said, before she quickly trotted away, heading towards the street. She heard his exasperated sigh, and then some muttering, and then his footsteps as he trailed after her. She moved more slowly, waiting for him to catch her, then walked side by side with him down the dirt road towards the rows of houses that sat empty, separating her family’s farm from the main residences of Soledge.

               “Where are we going?” he asked.

               “Away from where they can hear your temper,” she said. She had crossed her arms. The wild magic was moving. She itched to catch it.

               “I don’t understand why you’re angry,” Lodvik said. She gave him a withering sneer. “Look, a woman came to me and said she could use the wild magic to make a boy. What was I supposed to do, Astrid? Say no?”

               “She’s fifteen, Lodvik!” Astrid countered, knowing this should have been enough of an argument.

               But it only inflamed him. “I know!” he yelled, throwing his hands up. He stopped, placed his hands on his hips and stared up at the stars. She could feel him calming, his slow steady breaths bringing his racing heart to a level pace. “I know,” he said again, quietly. “But you and the Bairns tell us to do all sorts of things that none of us would think of on our own.”

               “She’s not a Bairn…” she tried to argue.

               “I didn’t know!” he said. “I didn’t!” She heard the truth in his words, felt the crystal ring of them through the threads of the wild magic. “I had no idea what to think. She could have been called. She could have been doing it because of what someone else told her to do.” His eyes had gone wide. “You witches are unpredictable!”

               “I am not a witch,” she spat.

               He recovered quickly, ignoring her anger, and the wild magic that danced between them as she began to let it fill her. “Well maybe not,” he said. “But you’re an iron rod, Astrid, beating us all into submission. Not giving any of us a choice!”

               “You have plenty of choice, Lodvik. There are always too many women and girls…”

               “What if I don’t want a woman, Astrid?” he asked. “Huh? Do you think of that?” She drew back from him, confused about what he was saying. “What if I don’t want my whole life to be about being chained and trying to make boys?”

               The spirits stirred and she heard the same voice from before calling to her. Protect the boys! The arguing had grown worse. She shook her head, dismissing the hissing calls. “Nobody says you have to have a woman, Lodvik,” she said.

               “You know that’s not true. You know Freya would haul me off to whatever woman would have me if she knew I could make boys.” His anger was crisp, tart, fresh.

               “You can make boys too?” she asked. He nodded, casting his eyes to the ground. “Who told you?”

               “Ama,” he said heavily. “Eylaug made me ask her to read the runes.”

               Astrid’s palms itched, the stones calling to be cast. “Let me do a reading for you Lodvik,” she asked, hiding her urgency from him.

               “What?” he asked. “No.”

               “Please?” she pressed.

               He shrugged, then crossed his arms again, nodding his consent.

               Astrid drew the rune stones from the pouch one by one until they were all heavy in her hand. She called to the wild magic, and it filled her, transformed her into a vessel for its power. She was only mildly aware of her hair flying about her, and her robes rippling as she pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. She cast the stones to the dirt. She smelled the burning, saw the flash of fire through her closed eyelids. She opened her eyes to view the casting. The hole. The cloud. The man. The ring.

               She nearly hissed as the spirits chattered to her. He can make them, but he won’t. She raised her eyes to him, and he knew from her expression that the reading was not favorable. She was hesitating, anticipating the questions he might ask, but she was taking too long. She felt his anxiety brewing.

               “What do they say?” he asked, and she could taste his fear.

               “You can make boys, Lodvik,” she said. “But you won’t.”

               “I won’t?” he asked. He frowned and his fear boiled to anger. “What do you mean I won’t? Is something going to happen to me?”

               “I don’t know, Lodvik,” she answered truthfully.

               “What about Eylaug? What about the baby in her belly? Is it not a boy?” he asked.

               “The runes don’t lie,” she offered, feeling small under his wrath.

               “Well…will the baby die, then? Will Eylaug? Come on, Astrid, that can’t be all to the reading!”

               “I’m sorry, Lodvik,” she said, but he interrupted.

               “Or maybe I’ll try and I’ll only make girls? That happens too, right? You say to a man ‘you can make boys’, but then he never does.”

               “I don’t know, Lodvik!” she yelled at him. He quieted, the fear slithering back into him at her ire. “I don’t know,” she said again, more tenderly.

               “Then what good are you?” he asked. It was unfair, but she didn’t argue with him. She watched him walk down the hill alone, his back as stiff as a rod, his footsteps as heavy as iron. 

Sigmund watched the flowing water of the stream, thinking only of Magnhild’s revelation to him. Freya—the Bairn who scared him most—had done a reading for her. She would mother three boys. They would be his boys, he knew. When he asked Astrid to read the runes for him two nights ago, he had had Magnhild in mind. He wanted a reason for her to choose him, to mark him with a silver chain. It would keep other women away from him if she claimed him. He didn’t want any of the other women.

               “You’re moody today,” his brother, Aelric said, tossing a stalk of grass into the stream. The sparking water carried it away from the place where they stood on the bank. Behind them the goats were grazing, but the sun was descending, and they would need to move towards home soon.

               “Astrid read the runestones for me,” he said, watching his brother’s face.

               Aelric raised an eyebrow at his admission. “Did you ask her? Or did she use her witch magic on you without your consent?”

               “She’s not a witch, Aelric,” Sigmund said. Aelric and their father did not approve of Astrid’s choice. Sigmund knew better. He knew Astrid did not have a choice in the matter once the spirits decided they wanted her.

               “Oh, I know she’s not a witch,” Aelric sighed. “But she’s not a woman either.” Sigmund eyed him scornfully. “She’ll be like Freya and Sif, don’t you think?”

               “She’ll never be like that, Aelric. It’s Astrid! She’s not cunning and dark and proud.”

               Aelric pulled another stalk from the ground, twirled it between his fingers before tossing it into the stream too. “I supposed you’re right,” he said begrudgingly. “So, why did you ask?” he said, turning his gaze on his brother.

               “I asked because I wanted to know,” Sigmund said. He studied Aelric’s face, watching his doubts dance in his eyes. “Don’t you?”

               “It doesn’t matter,” he said definitively. He crossed his arms. “Boys or girls, it makes no difference. Someday some woman will hang a chain around my neck either way.”

               Sigmund narrowed his eyes. There was something Aelric wasn’t saying. “But if you knew you could make boys, then you could have whatever woman you wanted. They’d all be after you. You could have your pick.”

               Aelric’s eyes grew even harder, his frown deepening. The goats bleated but neither of the men turned to look at the heard. Sigmund put his hands on his hips, lifting his chin in a defiant posture as he waited for Aelric’s argument.

               “You know why they all want boys so bad?” Aelric asked, and when Sigmund didn’t reply, he continued. “They want boys so they can keep making girls. So they can keep turning girls into witches.”

               “They aren’t witches!” Sigmund snapped.

               The goats were moving further from the stream. The sound of their bleating grew softer. “Come on,” said Sigmund, hastening to catch up with the herd.

               The brothers moved across the fields, skirting the woods and the long-abandoned houses that that been stripped of every useful item when the survivors of the Freezing had emerged from the long winter of the disaster. Few were stable, and more collapsed every year. There was one in particular that drew Sigmund’s eye as they moved past. It was the place where young women sometimes brought a young man to see if she could get a boy from him before she hung her chain around his neck. Magnhild had wanted to take him there. She said the wild magic that inhabited the walls of the old house could make boys. Sigmund declined, not wanting to go anywhere near the wild magic. He said he would ask his sister about it instead. And she had told him exactly what he had hoped to hear.

               He and Astrid had gone out of the house, walking up to the hill that overlooked the goat pen and the barn. The moon was full. She lost the color in her eyes and her hair as she cast the rune stones into the grass. The wild magic tingled around him, like static pricking his every part. The hair on his arms and legs stood, and a shiver went through him as he watched the wild magic burn the runes on the stones. The runes glowed red hot before cooling to the deepest black. He recognized one, but not the other three. Other men, older men, had told him of the rune—the man. It was the important one to look for in a casting, they said. If you could make boys, it would show up on one of the stones.

               He wet his lips, waiting for Astrid’s reading. She smiled briefly, but it seemed a sad smile. “You can make boys, Sigmund,” she said heavily.

               His brother’s question drew him out of his memories. “Did you know Lodvik went there, with his woman?” Aelric said, nodding in the direction of the house.

               “Which one?” Sigmund asked. Their cousin had several women who wished to put a chain around his neck, but they were all young, and their mothers had not consented.

               “Eylaug,” Aelric said. His voice was cold.

               Eylaug’s sister, Ama, was a Bairn. Everyone was always wary of a younger sister, waiting for her to be called as well. “Are you sure?” Sigmund asked. “She’s only fifteen years.” Sigmund shrugged. “Did it work?”

               “He said she has a babe in her belly,” Aelric said.

               A cold dread crept up from his stomach. “That seems…”

               “Wrong?” Aelric interrupted. “These women…they don’t care! They only care about boys, and who can make them. If it turns out that Lodvik didn’t make a boy, you think she’ll want him then?”

               Sigmund shook his head, not wanting Aelric’s sourness about women to infect him. “It won’t matter. There are so many others. Someone will chain him,” he said.

               Aelric scoffed, but didn’t say any more. Sigmund wondered why he’d become this jaded, this disinterested and dismissive. “It’s not the women who do this, Aelric,” he reminded his brother. “It’s the spirits.”

               Aelric ground his teeth, grimacing at his brother’s words. “The spirits are women, Sigmund. Didn’t Astrid tell you that?”

               They walked the goats back to the pen in silence.

               In the house, Astrid was spooning soup from the pot into bowls and passing them to Asmund and Ulfarr, the two youngest brothers. Josurr, the middle brother, was pouring ale into the mugs laid out for each family member. Their father, Karl, was already seated at the table. Their mother was nowhere to be seen.

               “Where’s Madir?” Sigmund asked, his thoughts drifting to Magnhild.

               His father lifted his eyes, a lazy smile parting his lips as he gazed at his oldest son. “She’s with Ranog,” he said. The smile grew wider. “Negotiating.”

               Sigmund’s heart fluttered and his eyes went to the gold chain hanging from his father’s neck. He reasoned that Magnhild must have told her mother about him.

               Aelric punched him playfully on the arm. “You think you’ll get what you want?” He was jovial, but given his earlier surliness over the same topic, Sigmund imagined he was putting on an act for their father.

               Astrid came to the table with the final two bowls. “I did not expect her to be this long,” she said.

               Her comment made Karl frown. The boys all took seats at the table silently, sensing his displeasure. Astrid did not sit. Sigmund watched the color melt from her hair as it began to dance. The fear that always crept over him when Astrid used the wild magic made a slow crawl through his gut. His fingers tingled.

               “None of your witchcraft in my house!” Karl scolded, looking momentarily stern. It soon faded into an ashy gray fear as he realized what he had done.

               But Astrid was not like the other Bairns. She did not hold herself higher than any man, least of all her father. Yet, she did not let go of the wild magic either. “You should ask Leif to make a new chain, Padir.” Her voice was deep, like roots, like a well. “You will need it.” She sat, and the color came back into her hair and her eyes. She lifted her bowl to her lips, sipping the broth.

               Sigmund ate slowly, thinking about Magnhild. Thinking about their boys.

Astrid stirred her finger around the pool that the rain had left in the road. The water swirled with dirt as her finger glided through it. Her youngest brother, Asmund, watched her closely. He dipped his finger into the pool as well, imitating her movements. Astrid smiled at him, but thought it best not to encourage him any further. “You won’t be able to use the wild magic, Asmund. For you, it’s just dirt and water.”

               “Why?” Asmund asked. He was the youngest of the family, the youngest of six children. Astrid was the oldest child of the family, and the only girl. Since becoming a Bairn, she had been trying to discover why that was.

               “The spirits keep the wild magic to themselves. They only share it with girls,” she said.

               “That’s not fair,” Asmund said.

               “It’s not,” she agreed. The spirits did not like men and boys. They made that clear to her too frequently. But Astrid had spent her life caring for boys, watching her mother be overcome with joy each time she birthed another boy. She had wanted a sister so badly, but brothers were not all bad. They were loud, and they were rough, and they could be impossibly hard and sometimes cruel. But so could girls. Astrid shivered as she felt Freya’s energy swirl to her through the stream of wild magic that connected them. Freya was just as impossible as any man.

               “What is the pool telling you?” Asmund asked, withdrawing his finger from the water.

               “If the rain will come again soon, or if this is the last for the season.” It was early for the rains to dry up, but it had been a dry season. Their gardens were withering. The winter would be sparse.

               “And?” Asmund prompted.

               “It will rain again, Asmund,” she said, smiling. “We should leave the fruits on the vine a little longer.”

               “And the wood sorrel? The sea-kelp? The watercress?” Asmund asked, naming the greens their family cultivated in their gardens. “Harvest or let it grow?”

               Astrid let her heart swell with love for her brother, for his simplicity, for his devotion to her judgment. “Let it grow for now, Asmund. Madir and Patir will know when to harvest.”

               Asmund drug a foot through the dirt, waiting for further instructions from her, but Astrid’s attention focused on Freya’s movements. She was coming and she was holding the wild magic. Astrid rose from her crouch, and gently ushered Asmund back towards the house. “Go inside, dumpling,” she said, steering him away from Freya’s approach.

               Asmund obeyed without complaint, shutting the door of the house tightly behind him. Children, and especially boy children, learned early to do as the Bairns commanded.

               Freya turned the corner, coming up the row of houses towards where Astrid stood in the road. The sun highlighted her dark hair, silken like a raven wing, shining like a beetle shell. Freya’s eyes were white with magic, the edges of her robes billowing with its power. As she approached, the color faded from her hair. Astrid was drawn to her, like a fish on a hook. She took a step forward, unable to resist Freya’s pull.

               Freya did not speak until she was two steps from Astrid. “Your brother can make boys,” she said.

               Astrid knew which one. She had read his runes as his request. “Sigmund,” she said.

               Freya was pleased. Her smile blossomed slowly like an unfolding rose. “He knows this?”

               Astrid nodded. “He came to me two nights ago, Freya. Asking what all boys ask of us.” She crossed her arms. “How did you learn of it?”

               “Magnhild,” she said.

               Astrid needed no further explanation. A woman asked. A woman got an answer. “And you came to see if I had told him already?” she guessed.

               Freya nodded slowly, her smile drooping slightly.

               Sigmund, her oldest brother, was in his 19^th year. She had anticipated this conversation with him for at least two years. It didn’t mean her stomach wasn’t in knots.

               Freya sensed her nerves. “A man who can make boys shouldn’t wait to try, Astrid,” Freya reminded her. “We need new boys.”

               There had been no newborn boys in the last year. Only girls. Five baby girls. “I know.”

               Freya’s smile grew conspiratorial. “Did he like the news?” she said. “Almost all of them do.”

               Astrid laughed despite her anxieties. Sigmund had almost cried with relief at her reading. “But just because he can, doesn’t mean he will. You know it doesn’t work that way.”

“When I read the runes for Magnhild, she asked if I knew how many boys she would have,” Freya said. Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “The runes showed me three.”

“Three boys,” she whispered. Her fingers itched, the rune stones nearly vibrating in their pouch, wanting to be cast. She ignored the urge, wiping her suddenly sweating palms on her white skirt. “And you’re sure that Magnhild will ask to chain Sigmund?”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Freya asked. Her tone was incredulous. “She asked me if her man can make boys, and now she knows she will have three of them. She will put the two pieces together, won’t she?”

Freya thought all men were toys, means to an end, pieces on the board to use as she pleased. But this was her brother they were talking about. “I want him to be happy, Freya,” she said.

Freya’s look grew taunting, almost sneering. “He will be happy if he makes boys, Astrid.”

Astrid sighed, knowing the truth in Freya’s words. He would be happy with Magnhild or anyone else—it wouldn’t matter, not if he could make boys. Making boys was more important than anything else.

               “I can taste your fear,” Freya said tenderly, taking her hand.

               Astrid squeezed her sister’s hand before pulling it away. Freya released her as tenderly as she had grasped her. “When I became a Bairn, I didn’t realize it would involve match making for my brothers.”

               Freya raised an eyebrow. “You’ve read the runes for all of them?”

               Astrid shook her head. “No, but I’ve read the runes for myself,” she explained.

               Freya released some of the wild magic she was holding, letting it dance around them. She sighed, emptying herself until her eyes were dark and her hair was coal black again. Her cloak ceased its rippling. “What did the runes say?” she asked.

               Her purpose was written on her white stone, the one with her true name, but she wouldn’t speak the name aloud. If she did it would lose its power. “It’s me who will make sure the boys are born. I’ll make the matches. I’ll find the mothers. I’ll witness the births. I’ll read the runes for anyone who needs help. This is why the spirits chose me.”

               Freya nodded. “It seems fitting for you,” she said.

               Astrid’s eyes wandered to Freya’s dark expression. “Why do you think this?” she asked.

               Freya gave a half-shrug, then scrunched up her nose, sniffing the air. “All the men that surround you,” she said.

               Astrid stared at her, an attempt to coax more of Freya’s thoughts to the surface through her silence. Freya did not look away, nor did she expound. Astrid nodded slowly, one bob of the head to indicate that line of the conversation was finished. She thought of her five brothers, and the seven boy cousins from her father’s two brothers—a dozen men to pair off, a dozen of men to doubt her sight.

               “You don’t believe they will trust you?” Freya asked.

               Astrid glanced towards the house, her eyes settling on the window of the room where Asmund slept. “Not that,” she said. “They all would trust me to do it right.”

               Freya sniffed again, then smiled. “Oh, I see it now,” she said, almost happily. “The fear is that you will do it wrong.”

               Astrid wanted to grind her teeth but fought the urge. “You see much, don’t you?” she asked instead, tasting the sarcasm.

               Freya leaned closer to her, her breath falling on Astrid’s cheek. “I see you, Astrid. You are my sister.” Her words were honeyed with affection, though Astrid wasn’t in the mood for the sweetness of the gift. Yet, she didn’t pull away, not even a hairsbreadth. Freya felt her refusal of the compliment, nonetheless. She withdrew.

               Astrid’s tension melted, and she let a long sigh escape. “It wearies me,” she admitted. “The women expect boys from a man who comes with the right blood.” She paused, knowing she didn’t need to speak the next words. Freya knew well enough the struggles of Soledge.

               Freya sucked her teeth, and Astrid could feel her unease over how to reply. “The right blood is perhaps not all there is,” she said. “But the runes are never wrong.”

               “Three boys,” she said, thinking of what Sigmund would say when Magnhild placed her chain around his neck, marking him as hers, claiming him and the runes in his blood for her own. She wondered if the spirits would ask for him to make boys with other mothers. It would be trouble between them. Magnhild did not strike Astrid as gracious or willing to share anything that was hers.

               “Three,” Freya repeated.

               Astrid nodded. Her fingers itched. She looked down to the dirt where Asmund had crouched. The imprint of his shoes was still there in the street. “Asmund tries to learn the wild magic,” she said, not looking up.

               Freya’s demeanor grew cold. It nearly made Astrid shiver, though the morning sunshine was bright around them. “The wild magic does not take boys,” she sneered.

               “I know this, as does he,” she said. “But it does not keep him from asking questions.”

               “Then you must keep him from asking questions,” Freya said.

               Astrid’s ire rose, coloring her cheeks. “It is easy for you and Sif to hate men,” she snapped. “It is not as easy for the rest of us.”

               Freya drew back from her, as if the words had burned her. “Hate men?” she asked. “Why would you ever think I hate men?”

               “They are useless to you,” she said. “To us! To the Bairns!” she exhaled heavily, an attempt to release her anger. “I see you too, Freya,” she said. “You think men are nothing.”

               Freya was shaking her head, denying the words even though there was a sparkle in her eye that suggested Astrid was right. “Oh no, Astrid,” she said. “Men are not nothing,” she said. “Men are everything. Without men, do you think we’d have any baby girls at all?” She smiled sweetly, the way her madir would if she was pleased with the biscuits she had baked.

               Astrid grumbled something unintelligible, even to herself. “Tell anyone who asks not to pick any fruits yet,” she said, glancing back down at the puddle, then lifting her eyes to the sky. “It will rain tomorrow. After that would be the best time.”

               Freya nodded to her, then softly swept past, trailing her perfectly white dress in the dirt behind her. It didn’t collect any of the dust.