Tara Runeweaver's Arc

Chapter 9 of 19

Morning broke gray over Cleavepeak. A horn sounded twice from the ridge, and the warband stilled. Tara stepped out beside Bjorn and saw a sled coming down through the snow, drawn by two white wolves in red harness. An old woman sat between carved antlers of bone, wrapped in dark fur. Bjorn set his cup down slowly. "My mother," he said. Tara understood then what he had been waiting for. The old woman did not enter the hall. She had her own house, smaller, older, kept apart. By the time Tara was sent for, she sat already on a heavy carved chair drawn close to her hearth, a dark cloth folded across one arm of it. A low fire burned behind an iron grate. She did not rise. She watched Tara cross the room and stop at the edge of the stones. "Show me your hands," she said. Tara held them out, palms up, the silver wolf turned inward on her thumb. The old woman took them in her own. She turned them over, studied the small burns where runes had cost her, and pressed her thumb once into the center of Tara's right palm. "He waited," she said. "That tells me what he thinks. Now I see what you are." She held on a long time. Tara did not pull back. She did not count. At last the old woman let go and reached into the fur at her throat. She drew out a thin braided cord and laid it in Tara's hand. "Bring him in," she said. "I will tell him myself." Bjorn came when called and stood at the hearth. His mother spoke three words to him that Tara could not hear. He turned to Tara, and the way he stood beside her changed — closer now, settled, as if a held breath had finally gone out of him.