Roughly the first half of the next chapter:
Vanora
A scruffy, brown-haired boy with a dagger on his hip ran up and down the lane, yelling, "Cod! Fresh cod! Two pennies a pound, two pennies a pound, fresh cod for sale, two pennies a pound!"
Fisherman's Alley bustled beneath the noonday haze. Despite its name, Fisherman's Alley was more than a mere alley; it was several of them, in fact, two long lanes that spanned the entire western wall, divided by a dozen streets. Every stall, store, and warehouse in the district took its wares from the sea. From the top of the hill whose cobbled street crossed through the center of the Alley, Vanora could see a thousand and more fishing sloops sailing the frigid waters beyond Harbortown, which bordered the Alley. The air was thick with shouting fishermen, ringing bells, singing gulls, the rumbling wash of waves against the shore, the steady murmur of thousands of voices. Everything smelled like fish. The air stank of it; when she swallowed, she could taste it in the back of her mouth.
Vanora was starting to hate fish. Hate the taste, hate the smell. Every once in a while, she wanted to eat suckling pig, or a nice cut of veal – even a rabbit would do. Something that walked on four legs and didn't swim through the fucking ocean. She didn't even like being in the district for the fishy smell, but she and Maeve had just come from visiting the Hagraven's mother, who grew vital herbs in her glass gardens, and had made her home in the hill tower that overlooked Harbortown, along the Street of Mead which cut straight through the Alley.
From Hag's Tower, as it was called, Fisherman's Alley was the fastest way to the Dread Father's shrine, and the underground chambers of the Black Hand, which was in turn the fastest route back to the castle. There were hidden entrances to the chambers hidden all around the city, connected by a warren of dank, dripping tunnels: In the temples that surrounded Seventree Hill, in a choice few slope-roofed homes, in the castle cellars, down on the rocky beaches.
As the girls shouldered their way through the press of bodies, a fishmonger called out to them. "Hey there pretty lassies! I've got good whale meat here, horned, blue, grey, and some already smoked. Come have a taste, free…of…"
Vanora had turned towards him halfway through his pitch. A black hand stood proudly over her heart, embroidered on her satin gown, palm up, fingers spread. The black leather choker about her neck was adorned with a tiny white skull.
"I… you…" His eyes flickered up to her face. At the sight of her near colorless eyes, he became, if anything, more wary. She might have laughed at his caution, if she had been the type to be given to mirth. "Forgive me, Lady Vanora. I meant no offense." There was a false note to his tone; he hated her, she knew, but his fear was much greater.
She could almost hear his frantic thoughts.
Don't summon the Bloodflower upon me. Great Shor, father of all Nords, shield me from Sithis and his vile children.
Maeve, sharp nosed, soft-tongued, and slim as a willow, with eyes the color of burnished brass, said, "Fret not, noble fisherman. I do not believe that my friend took offense. Why, you only offered us a bit of fish!" She snatched up one of the offered slivers of smoked fish and tossed it in her mouth, moaning in delight at the taste.
The fisherman didn't look any more at ease by her declaration. Maeve's eyes were evidence of her Glenmoril blood, and the black gem hanging about her neck most likely contained the soul of some poor, helpless beast or a foolish Northman.
Or maybe it was only a sculpted hunk of obsidian.
Vanora smiled, and the man paled further. "No offense was taken, good man." Her voice was soft as sighing wind, less than a whisper, but somehow still loud enough to be heard over the alley din. "Blessings be upon you."
"Blessings," he echoed hollowly.
Maeve thanked him, grabbed Vanora's hand, and pulled her along further down the alley. Maeve, like Vanora, was one of Hilda's handmaidens, and the daughter of a powerful entity within their culture. Born of the Hagraven and a son of House Darkbrother, Maeve was both Vanora's cousin and a fellow heiress, though not half as reviled. Nords, as a whole, where mistrustful of magic, but none could doubt the benefits of its use. Maeve was only a middling user of magic – most witches were, besides the Hagraven – but she was a highly skilled alchemist, with an expertise that belied her youth, and her potions could cure most any ailment, mend cuts and heal bruises.
Her poisons were likewise coveted.
All the commonfolk feared Vanora's kind, the Darkbrothers, chosen of Sithis, sons and daughters of the abyss. They might have banded together to burn them out if not for the patronage of House Ysmir. Since Vaskr the Valiant himself, who was the first to step upon the western shore those many years ago, and who lay the first stone of their great city, a Darkbrother had remained close to the Dovahkiin, with sons and daughters growing up as brothers and sisters, as treasured companions and trusted servants.
Vanora and Hilda shared such a relationship. As babes, they had drunk milk from the same tit, slept in the same crib, and after being weaned, ate from the same plate. As girls, they had sat the same lessons, until Hilda's thu'um began to manifest, and Vanora discovered that she, like her mother before her, could enter the Void where their Dread Lord dwelled. That only brought them closer, for they had come to share a burden that few others could comprehend. Vanora loved Hilda as much as a person could possibly love another, more than her own kin, more than herself, even.
But lately, that love had begun to sour. It was in no way lessened, but resentment had reared its filthy head, and every day, her resentment grew, and shame too, that she would think ill of her most beloved friend. No one feared Hilda like they feared her, for all that Hilda could break them with mere words. From her golden hair to her dazzling smile, she was everything Vanora wasn't: Tall, statuesque – long-legged and narrow-waisted, with high, full breasts – and unmistakably beautiful, with soulful, slate-blue eyes that were flecked with silver and sparkled like stars, sun-gold hair as soft as down, and a voice sweeter than heaven's nectar. Folks wept joyously to see her smile, and wept ever the more to hear her sing.
Vanora was short, more plain than comely, lithe, but flat-chested, with hair that was dark and coarse, like black-iron wire, and a cruel mouth given to twisted smirks. Her eyes were pale as mist; she had dead eyes, some said, the color of ghosts drifting about a lichyard.
It wasn't for her looks that Vanora resented Hilda, she oft told herself. Hilda had always been beautiful, and Vanora had always been aware of it. It was good that Hilda was so beautiful; her people loved her all the more for it, and foreign folk were utterly smitten by her. When she and Hilda were together, people tended to forget about her, to overlook her, and that suited her perfectly.
People thought Hilda gentle, and only that, as if her beauty somehow put her above darker emotions and motivations. The notion was laughable, in Vanora's mind. Hilda was very loving, true, and she
could be gentle, but there was ruthlessness in her, hidden cruelty, for how else could she command such men and women as Nords? The blood of Ysmir did not suffer soft-hearts. Vanora likened her to a blue steel sword sheathed in gold and jewels, utterly gorgeous to behold, but hiding a sharp edge that could carve through bone like whale butter. Vanora, being what she was, couldn't help but love her, and yet…
In the weeks since the king's decree, time and time again, Hilda asked Vanora to venture into the Void to communicate with her mother and the Bloodflower, knowing how it affected her, how it deadened her. The Void took its toll; it stole slivers of her soul every time she ventured into the black abyss, piece by piece, slice by slice, bite by bite. That was how her mother had become the vile woman that she was; the Void had stolen all of the goodness out of her, giving back only darkness. It would happen to Vanora too, it was inevitable, but she wished it weren't her best friend, her sister, forcing her to it.
Perhaps it is best that it is Hilda, she thought. She couldn't imagine damning herself for anyone else, not Old Vjorn, and certainly not her black hearted mother. Her reasoning did nothing to assuage her feelings, so she ignored them, and there they festered, like an infected wound.
And then, there was the matter of her half-brother, the bastard, whose soul had perhaps been as black as hers. That, more than anything, weighed on her mind, for it meant that perhaps the Void had already stolen more than she realized.
Her ageless mother, Aenora, kept to the Dreadfort when she wasn't traveling between the cities. Vanora had gone to see her, to learn more about the Void, to see if her fears were true, that it was slowly robbing her of her soul, her humanity. She had gone with Hilda's blessing, accompanied by her nephew Rorlund at the behest of her sister, Elnora, who was twenty years her elder. Rorlund, a great warrior and skillful killer, had the same eyes as she, pale as mist, cold as the frozen wastes beyond the Shivering Sea, the same silky, spidery voice. He had spent the last four years fighting in Essos, having only just returned, and regaled her with tales of his numerous travels and scrapes with death while they journeyed.
"When I stand before Shor," she remembered him saying, "I will do so bathed in the blood of a thousand men."
Related by blood, and drawn to each other by that connection, but otherwise strangers, they had come to enjoy one another, and Vanora bestowed upon him the piece of her heart that wasn't already beholden to Hilda.
So they had come to the Dreadfort as companions and lovers, and there she learned that their blood was closer than she had realized. The Lord of the Dreadfort had their eyes as well, pale and cold, and the same whispery voice. Rorlund was not only her nephew, but her half-brother, sired by the same father: Roose Bolton. It seemed fitting that he should be her father; it would have taken a very special sort of man to catch the eye of her mother, and Roose, while average in looks, had a bearing that could not be ignored. He had an air of quiet cruelty to him, a perfect match for Aenora's barbarity and Elnora's wanton wickedness.
The castle had been formidable, but nothing half as great as Sovngarde. A grim place, a dark place; the perfect lair for a creature such as her mother. And it was in that castle that Rorlund nearly fell prey to the same fate as Lord Bolton's trueborn son. Only his paranoia had saved him; like his mother, Rorlund had a penchant for drinking small amounts of poison to immunize himself, so as not to have to rely wholly on the witches when he had no access to their brews. He had lasted just long enough for a potion to be administered, brewed by the Hagraven herself.
Lord Bolton never said that his other bastard was the culprit, but he had implied enough. Even now, she remembered his words, spoken as her as they stood over Rorlund's bed-ridden body. "My son Domeric fell ill to similar sickness. It was his death that led me to call Ramsay to the Dreadfort. Had I known of Rorlund, I might never have done so. I was much fonder of his mother than I was of Ramsay's, and she, at least, was of noble blood."
Ramsay had fancied himself a true son of Bolton, as openly malicious as his father was quietly sinister, a hunter of women and a flayer of men. Vanora had killed him, slowly, drawing his suffering out for weeks. She gave him potions to heal his wounds when she cut too deep or nicked and artery, fed him to keep his strength up so she could bask in his screams. "A flayed man has no secrets," he'd said to her when they first met. After she was done with him, he harbored no secrets as well.
She fed him to his own dogs, piece by piece, made boots and gloves from his skin, and a beautiful cloak that she dyed pink. "A waste of good meat," her mother had said, spinning Namira's ring about her finger. Ramsay's screams had made her blood sing and her heart soar. It wasn't until after the bloodlust was gone and Rorlund was fully recovered that she realized the severity of her depravity. Had that been the Void, acting through her, or had it been her own delight, her own pleasure?
Sovngarde seemed to reflect her dark thoughts. Clouds had moved in from the north, thick and grey, blanketing the sun. The city sprawl was wrought from smooth dark granite, from the cobbled streets to the tallest towers. In the daylight, the sun would catch on the quartz in the stone and make the city glimmer like one great jewel. At night though, the stone seemed as if to absorb the pale glow of the moon, hungry for its light. Black stone walls, black stone buildings, black stone streets. When the sun fell beyond the sea, shadows ruled in Sovngarde.
The streets, cobbled along the flatter sections, and pitched on the slope hills, ran north and south and east and west, orderly and measured, with one road that wound around the city, beneath the inner wall. She and Maeve followed Fisherman's Alley down to the stout gatehouse, past wooden stalls of clams and lobsters and crabs, hanging seal skins and whale leather, shark-toothed combs and necklaces, assortments of pearls, and narwhal horn spears. The numerous guards, familiar with their faces, hardly paid them any attention as the passed through gatehouse and across the bridge Harbortown.
Harbortown was the only district of the city where the buildings were more timber than stone; open to the sea, it was the most vulnerable as well. A wide strand of soft-soiled bog lay between Harbortown and the western wall. The shrubs grew thick and wild; there were blueberries, cranberries, white and pink and yellow orchids, and strange, green shrubs covered in pink-hued bristles. Beneath the stench of fish and the salty smell of the sea, Vanora scented spicy vanilla, sweet lemon, and something delicate and airy, like roses, almost. Maeve picked handfuls of the orchids that grew beneath the bridge, and stuffed the fragrant petals into the leather pouch hanging at her side before continuing on to the docks.
"For a potion?" Vanora asked.
"No. For perfumes. Hilda asked me to make a batch for when we go to Winterfell."
Vanora almost scowled before she stopped herself. There it was, swimming in her chest, an oily ball of resentment and shame, toxic, sickening even, and utterly immovable. She needed to talk to someone, but she hadn't a clue who to go to. Maeve wouldn't understand. Hilda would, but she couldn't bare the thought of revealing her feelings to her, her anger, her bitterness, her shame. Certainly not her mother, nor Rorlund, for that matter; he was a Nord down to the pits of his soul. He had never known any feelings for the Dovahkiin but love and respect. Helsif, maybe? Or her eldest sister, Yanora?
"Is there something ailing you?" said Maeve. The wind coming up off the sea swept her reddish-blond locks across her face. "You seem really pensive lately, ever since you came back from the Dreadfort, really, but it's gotten worse. Are you afraid for Wulfric?"
"I am afraid of nothing."
"It's just… I've never known you to keep your thoughts so guarded. You know the saying just as well as I:
Share your ails and see your heart unburdened. You
can talk to me, you know. I can keep a secret as well as Hilda, if for some reason you don't want to talk to her…"
Vanora shook her head, ignoring the tiny, frail voice that urged her to share her thoughts lest they continue to fester and rot, casting it off into the vast blackness of the Void. "It's nothing."
Maeve didn't seem convinced, but she kept her silence and didn't press.
The buildings here had sloped wooden roofs, all crested with dragon heads, like the bow of a longship. The shrine to Sithis was carved into the sloping rock that evened out into the quay, wedged between a mossy tavern and a timber warehouse and guarded by a latticed black iron gate. The shrine sank deep into the stone, the hollowed out space thick with moss, the air damp and moldy; if one knew where to look, the hollow space cut even deeper into the rock, and to the tunnels they sought.
The effigy of Sithis, a white skull carved from whale bone, its forehead adorned with an obsidian hand, sat atop a short, stout column, staring out with empty eyes. The ground was littered with nightshade petals, like rushes strewn across a room. Vanora stepped up to the skull, and kissed its lipless mouth. There was a faint, grinding sound, and then the face of the column swung open, revealing a narrow set of stairs that spiraled down beneath the rock. The smell of mold thickened.
Maeve called light to her hand and descended first. Vanora followed after her, and the column swung shut with a groaning rattle.
Everything creaked and croaked. Maeve's meager light was little more than a candle flame. There was no wind flowing through the tunnel, but Vanora could still hear it whispering, a gentle, whistling howl that came from nowhere and everywhere all at once. The sound of the waves was louder here, and the stone glistened with slimy wetness. Not a single stretch of rock was dry.
"Ooh!" Maeve exclaimed excitedly, pointing. "Look! The mushrooms are growing nicely. Especially Namira's Rot."
"Have you figured out how to filter out the hallucinogens?"
"… No. Not quite. Gunther asked for a potion after a particularly tough bout against his brother. His bruises healed, but he nearly killed one of the serving girls thinking she was a 'tentacled hell-beast from the shadow planes beyond Sovngarde'."
