She dreamed of her grandmother that night.
But not the woman who had stirred tea in silence, whose mouth only opened for prayers and warnings. No, this version sat naked on a stone by the fjord, hair unbound, breasts soft with age, legs wide as if remembering how they once held a man's hunger.
"You've come far, Astrid," she said, plucking cloudberries from a bowl balanced on her thigh.
"I'm not Astrid anymore," she answered.
Her grandmother only smiled.
"Then beg for what you've become."
She woke aching.
There was no word more honest than that. Aching.
For Liv. For more. For the tongue she hadn't tasted yet. The fingers she'd felt only in her dreams. For the promise of being undone, as Liv had said, not like a ribbon, but like a fire consuming its own smoke.
The name Sjøhjerte still buzzed in her veins.
She tasted it in her morning tea. Saw it reflected in the quiet lake water. Heard it murmured when she passed Leif, who now could not meet her eyes without adjusting the weight in his trousers.
But none of it mattered.
She needed her.
Liv didn't come the next day. Nor the next.
And no one spoke of her, as though Liv belonged to some private rhythm of the village. Someone glimpsed her walking the ridge. Another said she swam alone at dawn, past the eastern rocks where seals gathered. Åse only smiled when Astrid asked.
"You don't find Liv," she said, twisting flax into rope. "You wait. And when your mouth is hungry enough to pray without words, she'll hear you."
Astrid gritted her teeth.
She didn't want to be patient.
She wanted to fall to her knees.
On the fourth evening, Ida invited her to the smokehouse. "Not to eat," she said. "To sweat."
It was a small cabin, damp with age, full of low heat and higher sighs. Four women were already inside. One suckled her own breast lazily. Another lay flat, thighs parted, steam rising from her skin like incense.
No one watched with judgment.
And so Astrid, heart thudding, slid her dress over her shoulders and let it fall.
Ida kissed her gently on the temple. "Sit. Burn."
And she did.
Sweat pooled at the curve of her spine. Her lips parted. She closed her eyes and imagined Liv's voice. I want to undo you. She imagined the scrape of teeth. The press of two fingers and no mercy.
Her thighs twitched.
"Don't hold it in," someone whispered beside her.
Astrid gasped, hips rocking slightly. "I'm not."
And when she finally moaned—head tilted, breast arched into air—it wasn't just heat that spilled from her:
It was hunger.
That night, Liv returned.
Not to her doorstep.
But to the water.
Astrid saw her silhouette first—moonlit and still, standing waist-deep in the fjord as if she belonged to it.
Astrid stepped in behind her without speaking, the cold licking her ankles like a dare.
"You came," Liv said.
"I burned."
Liv turned. "Did you beg?"
Astrid's voice caught. "Not yet."
Liv stepped forward, pressing their foreheads together.
"Then kneel."
Astrid sank. Water at her chest. Heart in her mouth. Lips parted.
Liv did not touch her.
Only said, "Ask."
And Astrid whispered, "Take me. Please."
"Louder."
She trembled. "Please—Liv—take me. Undo me."
Then, finally, Liv's fingers were on her face, her mouth claiming Astrid's with a violence that wasn't cruel—but hungry. She tasted like river salt and wild mint. Their bodies collided under the moon, water splashing, tongues clashing, thighs sliding in primal rhythm.
Astrid gasped into Liv's mouth, "More—don't stop—oh, God—"
But Liv gripped her hair, pulled her head back. "No gods here, Sjøhjerte. Just you and your moans."
And when Liv dipped between her thighs, under the water, it wasn't gentle.
It was ruin.
The kind that rebuilds you differently.
Later, on the rock, naked and wet and shivering under stars, Astrid asked, "What happens now?"
Liv looked at her with that storm-cloud stare.
"Now? You learn the difference between lust and offering."
Astrid laughed, breathless. "And the difference is?"
Liv kissed the place just above her navel. "Lust ends. Offering continues."