Darkness carved in bone

Prologue

Helen stood in the forest beyond her village Ejfjordswerf, all alone, in a darkness she had never witnessed before. She had walked out into the night, like no other Sòlung had done before her. Her mother's choking rules had pushed her out into the forbidden and dangerous night. She was no longer allowed to even walk outside Ejfjordswerfs borders. And her mother forced her to learn only the boring stuff about how to tend to a home and a family. All she wanted was to keep on going into the forest with her father. To learn about how to survive in the cold. How to find food and how to find wood and build a fire. But she was not allowed to do that any longer, it was not activities that was deemed appropriate for a young woman who needed to find a suitor.

Tonight, she had snuck out under the cover of night and sleep and walked back into the forest. And for the first time in months she felt truly free. The snow-cowered pine trees stood huddled together, as if they had to find warmth in each other's presence, protecting each other from the eternal and unending cold winter that covered their lands. Her heart beat fast and hard as she pushed her skies to the ground and moved forward in a whirling speed. She felt her lips coil into a smile as she looked up at the dark sky and watched the strangeness of the stars above her. She inhaled the crisp winter night, and she could somehow taste that snow would soon fall from the skies. The harsh coldness of the night penetrated her clothes and bit into her skin, but she did not care as the wild feeling of euphoria filled her, warming her into her very bones. She was finally free again.

Darkness was nothing to fear. Why did they all shun from it? This was wonderful and so free. She felt the world pass by her in a black and white blur of darkness and snow, as she skied faster and faster, and deeper and deeper into the woods. The world was so quiet at this hour, she was the only source of sound as everything and everyone else slept peacefully. It was as if the forest that surrounded her village had accepted that the Sòlangr-people that inhabited Ejfjordswerf did not recognize the night as a part of their life, and then the forest had done the same. That the forest fell into the same slumber that the village fell into each and every night.

A howl in the distance scared her into her very soul, wrecking her image of that peaceful and sleeping forest. She stopped breathing for a moment as she slowed her pace until she stopped and listened after another howl but heard nothing. Her heart beat painfully in her chest as she was reminded of the fact that another people ruled in the night. That the dark people, the people of the night, the Mååningr, could roam these woods when darkness covered the lands. She took a deep breath as she tried to remind herself of the fact that the dark territories lay north, far away from here, that even though she was out during the night, none of the people of the night would be in these parts of the land. She inhaled again, and a strange determination came over her, washing away her terror and fears, as she realized that even though it was partly dangerous to venture out in to the night as she could cross paths with the dangerous people of the night or the animals that awoke when darkness settled, it would still be worth it. That the benefits outweighed the costs. That the feeling of freedom and just simply being allowed to be who she was, was so great that she would face any danger to be able to feel like this for short moments in the night. She let her body be filled with that determination as she skied on, deeper into the darkness and into the night.

She had no goal or nowhere she wanted to reach in this night. All she wanted was to feel free again. And she did. She let out a cry of happiness into the night and pushed on. Her stomach fluttered with the excitement of doing something she was not supposed to do. To finally stand up to her mother and her rules, even though her protest was a silent one, one that her mother would never know of.

She skidded to a halt when she started recognizing her surroundings again, letting her mind clear from the fog of excitement, and realized that she had reached the heart of the forest. It was a dark place where the trees stood so closely that it was difficult for her to navigate through it. This was not a part of the woods that was often visited by her kind. The snow-covered treetops blocked out the moon and made the world almost entirely dark. An eerie feeling of dread spread across her body as she nearly went blind in the darkness. A dim light in the horizon was the only light she could see.