What Njorun had added to my grandmother"s map was a single tower, almost featureless, tucked among the mountains. My grandmother had added few details to this part of the map, just the slopes of the mountains themselves. There were no clues as to who might dwell there, or what monsters we might encounter.
It was deceptive. It looked like a straight shot. It looked like we"d be there in just a few days of hard hiking.
But the first thing Thorfinna did after we had loaded up the wagons—and said farewell to Yngvildr and Nilda, who were on foot for their journey south—was to tell me to put the map away and not take it out again.
"This is the north," she had told me and Kara. "It has its own rules."
I didn"t get the rules at all. To me, it felt like we were just wandering about, choosing di
