55

Aina

The head of the beautiful snow witch falls from her shoulders. Siiri stands over her, V?in?moinen’s sword in hand, looking down at her body. The few remaining wolves howl as they tuck their tails and run back to the safety of the forest. As the witch’s body falls forward, Siiri lowers her sword.

With a desperate sigh of relief, I drop my bow and run. “Siiri! Are you all right?”

Slowly, Siiri turns. Her eyes still glow with the light of V?in?moinen’s spirit.

I take a hesitant step back. “Siiri, your eyes...”

She blinks, taking a few deep breaths. The light fades until her blue eyes meet my green ones.

“What happened?” I whisper, glancing to the shaman in the snow. “Is hegone?”

Siiri shakes her head. “No, it’s not... Ahh—” She grips my arm for support, her head tipping back as her body tenses. “Oh gods—he’s here with me,” she pants. “He’s inside. It feels so strange. I suddenly feel as if I’ve lived two lives. Everything that was me—my life, my stories—and everything that was him. They’re both mine now. I feel his memories like I made them.”

“Oh gods... the battle with Iku-Turso? Ilmarinen and the forging of the Sampo? Antero Vipunen?”

Siiri’s face is a riot of expressions as she feels it all, lost in a sea of memories. “Everything,” she whispers after a moment. “Everything.”

“Oh, Siiri.” I run my hand down her arm, avoiding the deep cut that still bleeds.

Siiri drops to her knees at the shaman’s side, letting her heavy sword fall away. She lifts his tattooed hands and folds them over his chest. Her fingers brush over one of the runes on his hand, and she sobs.

I place a hand on her shoulder. “What is it?”

She touches the mark again. “It’s me. I’m the girl who rides the bear north in search of a lost shaman.”

“We should close his eyes.”

Leaning over his body, Siiri closes the shaman’s lifeless blue eyes. “I killed him,” she whispers. “I killed V?in?moinen.”

“Why did you do it?”

“To take his magic. To keep it safe from Lumifrom anyone who sought to break Tuonetar’s curse. He wanted me to have it. He was planning it all along. Crazy old man,” she mutters. “Tuonela was a test. If I returned with you, he was going to give it to me.”

“But why would he want so badly to die? He was immortal.”

Siiri glances over her shoulder at me, giving me a soft smile. “The goddess of righteous death should understand his reasoning better than anyone. Tuonetar took away his choice to die. He wanted to choose who would kill him and claim his magic. He chose me. I am V?in?moinen now.”

I hug myself tight inside his large coat. “What are we going to do?”

Siiri looks around the clearing, dotted with the corpses of Lumi’s wolves and V?in?moinen’s dogs. The hut and the barn are little more than embers at this point. The snow runs red with spilled blood. “First, I’ll build a pyre for V?in?moinen,” she replies. “We’ll return him to his mother in the sky.”

“And then?”

Slowly, she gets to her feet, wincing with pain and fatigue. Reaching out, she cups my cheek and smiles. “And then we return south, my queen.” I roll my eyes at her, and she grins. “You are a queen, are you not?”

I raise a hand to touch the crown still balanced on my head. “Can I call myself the queen of a realm I no longer inhabit?”

She grows thoughtful, her eyes flickering with the light of the shaman’s magic. “Perhaps this realm could use a queen.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I certainly can’t do it,” she says with a shrug. “I’ll be far too busy returning the wisdom of the ages to our people. But it will be no easy task, uniting the Finns and pushing back the Swedish invaders. A queen might be useful for the people to rally behind.”

“I’ve had enough of crowns at the moment.”

“We don’t have to decide anything right now. Tonight, we return the shaman to his mother. Tomorrow, we’ll make our plans.”

I nod.

“All that matters in the end is that we’re together, yes? Come kings and queens, shamans and gods, witches and wolves, Siiri and Aina will always find their way back to each other.”

I smile, nodding again. “Yes. Always.”

We work together to prepare a pyre for V?in?moinen. I’m tired and cold, heartsick and hungry, but still, I don’t stop. With her axe, Siiri fells a tree and cuts off the branches. We put Lumi’s body beneath the pyre, along with her magical staff. Siiri slips a pair of silver bracelets off the witch’s wrists and puts them on her own wrists.

“What are you doing?”

“These were my mummi’s,” she replies, showing them to me. I recognize the woven-braid pattern. “Lumi stole them. I intend to see them safely returned.”

The last thing Siiri does is place the shaman’s drum atop his chest and put his mallet in his cold hand. She’d explained that the drum would never work properly for another shaman. It deserved to return with him to the All-Mother.

Siiri lights the pyre and steps back, returning to my side. Taking my hand, she begins to hum. The song is low and deep in her chest. It has no words, but she pours all she’s feeling into each sound—her pain, her loss, her love for the man she burns, her tender hope for a brighter future. I wait at her side as Siiri sings out her grief, a last song for V?in?moinen, greatest hero of the ages.

We stand in the clearing until his body is gone and all that remains of the pyre are embers. Siiri drops my hand and turns away, but motion in the darkness has me grabbing her arm. “Siirilook.”

Siiri turns around, following the direction I point. One hand is already at the scabbard on her hip, ready to draw her sword. She places an arm before me, her eyes glowing as she mutters under her breath.

A figure emerges from the darkness, walking towards us across the snow. She wears robes the color of an aurora. Her skin is milky white, her long black hair flowing unbound down her back. The wind whips at it, pulling tendrils across her face.

With a chuckle, Siiri drops her hand away from her sword.

Stepping around the remains of the pyre, the woman stops before us. She has slender, long-fingered hands that bear no tattoos. Her eyes are bright and clear, almost white. She looks unmistakably like a young Loviatar.

“Oh,” I say on a breath.

“Now you arrive,” Siiri chastises, even as she smiles. “The fighting is over and now you bother to show a little interest?”

The goddess ignores her cheek. “Hello, dear ones.” Her voice dances across the clearing with the grace of a bell.

“Toivotar,” I whisper, taking a step forward.

The goddess of hope inclines her head in greeting.

I feel overcome with relief. My hand comes to my abdomen as tears slip down my cheeks. “Your mother saved us, Toivotar. She freed us from Tuonela.”

“Yes, I see that,” she replies.

“She was so brave. And she loves you so much. She did everything—” I choke back my words, too overcome to speak.

Toivotar simply smiles, glancing between Siiri and me. “I see I am indeed a little late... but you clearly didn’t need too much of my help.” She turns to Siiri. “Hope is a fickle thing, isn’t it? We find it in the oddest of places. You found it in a lost and lonely bear. You got more than you bargained for, didn’t you, Siiri V?in?moinentytt?r?”

Siiri glares at the goddess. “I loved him,” she says defensively. “I was as much a daughter to him as you ever were. I set him free. I’ve earned the magic and the name.”

“You did well,” the goddess replies gently. “It was always meant to be yours. ‘Suns will rise and set in Finland, rise and set for generations,’” she intones, speaking the words of V?in?moinen’s last song. “‘Until the north learns my teachings... hungry for the true religion.’ You fulfilled his last prophecy, Siiri. You are now the light that was promised. You must return to Kalevala.”

“I know,” says Siiri.

“The work ahead will be tireless,” the goddess warns. “And I fear rather thankless.”

“I know that too,” Siiri replies solemnly.

“But the fate of Finland hangs in the balance,” Toivotar goes on. “Our blessed Finland is under attack. Religious zealots seek to claim this land and her people. The tide will be unyielding. The snow will run red with our blood. There will be days when you feel certain that the true religion is lost, sunk to the depths of the blackest sea. Do not give up, Siiri V?in?moinentytt?r. You are the light. You are the hope.”

Siiri swallows, giving the goddess a curt nod.

Then Toivotar turns her smiling face to me. She glances up at my crown. “And you, Ainatar, Queen of Tuonela? What hope did you cling to in the dark months of your capture?”

Closing my eyes, I reach out for the invisible threads binding me to Tuoni. They’re weaker now, but still there. He keeps the door wide open. I can’t feel his thoughts and emotions as clearly as I could in Tuonela, but I catch glimmers of him, like the reflection of moonlight as water ripples in a dark pool. I open my eyes, looking to the goddess. “That I was strong enough to survive,” I whisper. “That Tuoni would love me enough to let me go.”

Toivotar smiles. “He loves you, aunt. Never doubt it. He always knew his happiness would come at a price. He knew he couldn’t keep you. His happiness would be fleeting, like a glimpse of the sun on a cloudy day, gone too soon. Your child belongs in the land of the living... as does his mother.”

I nod, sharing a look with Siiri.

Toivotar slips her hand inside her robes and steps forward. “On the night I left, he gave me something. He said that when the time came, I should give it to his son.”

The goddess places something on my palms. I look down, tears welling, at a small wooden carving of a raven.

“A sielulintu,” the goddess says. “So your son always knows the way back to his father.”

I close my fingers around it.

“I know what we must do,” Siiri says. “And I know what it will take to do it, but we need your help once more. Please, Toivotar. We are tired and wounded. We have nothing—no food, no supplies. And this winter will only deepen before it eases. Grant us your favor once more, goddess.”

“I hear your plea, and I grant you favor.” She waves a hand over the snow.

I look around, surprised to see a homestead appear. All remnants of the battle with Lumi and her wolves are washed clean. No blood mars the white winter landscape. A fresh powder of snow blankets the clearing. Smoke rises from the chimney of the cabin, with a barn looming behind.

“A gift for you both,” she says. “The shaman and the queen. May this restore your hope and bring you both some much needed rest. You must do all you can to prepare for the fight to come.” Before either of us have a chance to thank her, the goddess disappears, floating away with the winter wind, her last words drifting through the air.