Darkness carved in bone

Chapter 37

Helen

They kept on riding in the dark until the dim aura that she had seen in the horizon became a visible construction. From afar Njordsaltvy looked like a dark mass that consumed light instead of giving it off. But everywhere in that dark city there were small dots of pale light that shone to her, sending bolts of hope into her heart. Njordsaltvy might be the dark city, but there was light even there. It served as another reminder of how foolish the queens plans were. Even the Mååningr couldn't truly survive without light.

To the left of the city there was a snow covered and vast field, but then the world suddenly seemed to halt. Helen's eyes widened as she tried to figure out why the earth stopped where the cliff ended. The horse moved them just a bit closer to the city, which made what was beyond the cliff visible to her. Beyond the cliff the world turned into a strange and slimy darkness unlike anything she had ever seen before. A tinge of salt hit her nose as a biting wind blew past them. She inhaled the air and realized that the air seemed somehow damper than what she was used to. The cold air bit into her skin and it was unlike anything she had felt before. It was as if the damp that lingered in this air stuck to your skin in an attempt to turn into ice on your skin. Helen fought the urge to put her hands up to her face to massage out the cold that felt like it had permanently taken a hold of her, as she knew it would only result in another vile chuckle from the man behind her.

As they closed up on Njordsaltvy, Helen truly saw the city for the first time. Saw what a city was, what it looked like. A tall stone wall seemed to encircle the city, obscuring what lay directly beyond. Towers and houses rose above the wall in tier after tier. Everywhere, there were houses built in darkened, thick wood. Helen noticed that the houses in Njordsaltvy and Vanirweg had a different style than the ones she was accustomed to. The houses in Mååningr seemed sharper and pointier for some reason, and they seemed older than the sturdy cottages and lodges most of her people resided in. And there were plenty houses with more than one level. One thing stood out in clear contrast and that was the fact that unlike the Sòlangr homes, there was no snow atop these rooftops. Instead the roofs were clad in black, sharp stone tiles, creating what looked like a dark cap over the entire city. For every tier you got higher, the houses and estates became more luxurious and lavish. At the very top, at the highest tier, stood a wooden palace, which had to be the dark palace. It was an equally pointed building as the rest of this city's buildings with a sharp roof, dark pointy window frames and spires with flags waving in the wind. The palace looked like it was guarded by four stone towers and another wall connected by the towers that encircled the palace.

As they came even closer to the city everything became obscured by the looming wall. Mørk made some silent signal to the horse, which made the horse nearly leap towards the walls. She didn't know why he suddenly seemed to be in such a hurry to get to the city. Perhaps he only did it to intimidate her further. It certainly worked, as her heart began thundering in her chest, matching the rhythm of the frantic hooves that beat the ground in a fast and steady rhythm. The horse suddenly wrenched and rose, standing just on its back legs for a moment, before the city wall, whining into the night. Mørk cursed at the horse and wrangled it back down and gained control over the animal again. It was not the horses violent and abrupt motions that made her heart cease, but the sight of the tree that stood guard against the city gate.

Helen had never seen anything like it before, and even though she saw that the tree was dying, she wasn't entirely sure that she had ever seen anything so beautiful before.

The bark of the tree was nearly pearly white, so pure against the dirty snow on the ground around it, and a strong contrast to the dark city wall it stood before. The pearly white was only obscured by small dots and splotches of dark across the trunk of the tree. It was the sight of the branches that truly made an impact on her, making her heart both flutter and break at the same time. The branches sagged to the ground, as if they had sighed their last breath and now only hung until the wind would come and claim them and spread them across the world. However, there were still leaves that clung to the branches all over the tree, but they looked nothing like the traveler girl or Ten had said they would look like. Instead they looked exactly like the ones she had seen on the dead branch she had once seen; brown, dry and crumpling. They were dying, the tree was dying, if it wasn't dead already. A droplet of silver appeared in the corner of her eye as she drew her breath and gave the once mighty tree a silent bow of her head. A heavy feeling settled in her chest at the sight of the dying tree.