The midnight sun hung low over Vinterhavn, a golden orb that refused to dip below the horizon, casting the fjords in a perpetual amber glow. It was the first week of June, and the endless daylight had already begun to blur the edges of my world, stretching time into something elastic, something I could neither grasp nor escape. I stood at the edge of the cliff overlooking the village, my boots sinking slightly into the moss-covered stone, the wind tugging at the silver beads woven into my braid. The aurora shimmered faintly in the sky, a ribbon of green and violet that pulsed like a living thing, and with it came the whispers—soft, insistent, threading through my mind like a melody I couldn't unhear.
I pressed my scarred palm against the rune-carved rock beside me, the jagged lines cool under my skin. They were my anchors, these runes, etched by Sigrid's trembling hands years ago to keep the spirits at bay. But today, they felt weaker, as if the voices were testing their boundaries, slipping through the cracks. "Eira," one murmured, a woman's voice, fragile as frost. "See us. Help us." I clenched my jaw, forcing my breath to steady. I wouldn't listen. Not yet.
Below, Vinterhavn sprawled like a patchwork quilt against the tundra—wooden houses with sod roofs, fishing boats bobbing in the harbor, and the faint curl of smoke from morning fires. The village was quiet, the kind of quiet that came with a community too small to hide its secrets. They knew about me, of course. The girl who heard the dead. The girl who'd been marked by the aurora since that night ten years ago when the lights had flared so brightly they'd lit the glacial cave where I'd hidden from a storm. My parents had called it a blessing. The village called it a curse. I called it a burden.
I turned from the cliff, my cloak whipping around me as I descended the narrow path toward home. The air smelled of salt and pine, and the distant cry of a gull cut through the stillness. My cottage sat at the village's edge, a squat structure of weathered timber with a single window overlooking the fjords. Inside, the fire crackled in the hearth, casting shadows on the walls where I'd carved more runes—protection wards, mostly, though they did little to silence the whispers when the aurora grew strong.
Sigrid was waiting for me, her frail figure hunched over a table cluttered with bone fragments and ink-stained parchment. Her white hair was pulled into a tight bun, and her gnarled fingers traced the lines of a rune I didn't recognize. She didn't look up as I entered, but her voice rasped through the room like dry leaves. "You've been out there again, girl. Listening."
"I wasn't listening," I lied, shrugging off my cloak and hanging it by the door. "Just checking the wards."
She snorted, a sound that turned into a cough. "Wards don't need checking every dawn. You're drawn to it, Eira. Always have been. And it's going to get you into trouble one day."
I didn't argue. Sigrid had been my guardian since my parents' boat sank in a winter storm five years ago, and her wisdom—however cryptic—was the only thing keeping me sane. She'd taught me the old ways, the runes, the stories of the spirits that lingered in Vinterhavn's shadows. But she didn't understand the weight of the whispers, the way they clawed at my mind until I wanted to scream.
I crossed to the hearth and stirred the embers, adding a log from the pile. "Did you need something, or are you just here to scold me?"
Her eyes, pale blue and sharp as ice, flicked up to meet mine. "There's a stranger coming. I saw it in the bones last night. A man with a shadow on his soul. He'll bring change, Eira. Good or bad, I can't say."
I rolled my eyes, though a shiver traced my spine. Sigrid's bone readings were rarely wrong, but I wasn't in the mood for prophecies. "Another trader, probably. They come through Tromsø every summer. Nothing new."
"Not a trader," she said, her voice dropping. "A seeker. And he's coming for you."
The words hung in the air, heavy as the fog that rolled off the fjords. I wanted to dismiss them, to tell her she was imagining things, but the aurora's whispers grew louder in my head, overlapping now—men, women, children, all pleading, all urgent. I pressed my hands to my ears, but it did no good. The voices weren't outside; they were inside me.
"Enough," I muttered, grabbing my carving knife from the table. "I'm going to the cave. The wards there need strengthening."
Sigrid watched me go, her silence more unsettling than her warnings. I stepped back into the golden light, the knife's handle cool against my palm, and headed toward the glacial cave that had been my refuge since childhood. It lay a half-mile from the village, hidden behind a curtain of ice that glowed faintly blue from within. The entrance was narrow, forcing me to duck as I stepped inside, the air turning sharp and cold against my skin.
The cave was my sanctuary, its walls lined with bioluminescent ice that pulsed like a heartbeat. I'd carved runes here too, deeper and more intricate than those on the cliffs, hoping to create a barrier the spirits couldn't cross. But as I knelt to trace a new ward, the whispers intensified, a cacophony that made my vision blur. "Eira," a man's voice said, clearer than the others. "He's near. The seeker. Find him."
I froze, the knife slipping in my grip. The voice wasn't like the others—desperate or mournful. It was calm, almost commanding. I dropped the knife and stumbled back, my heart pounding. The ice around me seemed to pulse faster, and for a moment, I thought I saw a figure in the glow—a tall man with dark hair and piercing eyes—before it vanished.
Shaken, I fled the cave, emerging into the midnight sun's relentless light. The village was stirring now, fishermen heading to the harbor, children chasing each other through the streets. I scanned the horizon, half-expecting to see Sigrid's stranger, but there was nothing—only the fjords, the tundra, and the aurora's faint shimmer.
Back at the cottage, I found Sigrid gone, a note scratched on parchment: *He's here. Meet me at the market.* My stomach tightened. The market was a weekly affair in the village square, where locals traded fish, furs, and the occasional magical trinket from Tromsø. I grabbed my cloak and hurried there, the whispers still buzzing in my skull.
The square was alive with color—stalls draped in reindeer hides, the scent of smoked salmon thick in the air. Sigrid stood near the edge, her gaze fixed on a man I hadn't noticed before. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with dark auburn hair tied back and a short beard framing a face that looked carved from the cliffs themselves. His blue eyes met mine across the crowd, and for a moment, the whispers stopped.
He stepped forward, his voice low but steady. "You're Eira Solheim."
I tensed, my hand drifting to the knife at my belt. "Who are you?"
"Torin Varg," he said, his gaze unwavering. "I've come for the amulet. And I think you know where it is."
The aurora flared overhead, and the whispers returned, louder than ever. This was him. Sigrid's seeker. And whatever he wanted, it was about to change everything.