Chapter Eight
The light’s going by the time Baldr’s party clears the lower road.
I’ve had her all day regardless. Everything she felt, hour by hour.
This afternoon it turned sharp. Fear first—hers, not mine, though it never feels like the difference—enough that I cracked the cup in my hand before it passed.
Then anger. Then the flat refusal she’s had since she was small and someone told her no.
By the time it eased she was so pleased with herself I wanted to break something larger.
Whatever she’d done, I had the feeling of it and not one scrap of the why.
Baldr sent no rider.
I’ve checked the road from my study window once.
Ketill claims seven.
I run my thumb across the backs of my knuckles. The skin’s new there, still raw.
“Ozur’s fire went out this morning,” Ketill says. “Burned the full three days.”
I keep my eyes on the road.
“You keep losing your place.” He taps the open ledger between us.
“Then stop talking.”
“I stopped twice. You looked out the window both times.”
“The yard requires supervision.”
The yard contains four stable hands who’ve unloaded royal parties without killing one since before either of us took our current offices. It’ll survive.
Ketill knows this. His amusement’s been pressing at the inside of my mask since the outer watch signaled Baldr’s party on the lower road.
He turns the ledger around and points to the bottom figure. “North reserve.”
I add the column in my head. “Correct.”
“I’m relieved. It’d be awkward to replace you this late in the day.”
“You’d need to find someone willing to tolerate you.”
“That does narrow the field.”
Wheels grind beyond the inner gate.
Ketill looks at me.
I read the same line again.
“The yard,” he says.
“What about it?”
“Needs supervision.”
I rise because throwing him through the window would damage the latch.
Baldr rides in beside the first carriage. Snow streaks his coat and the shoulders of his horse. He swings down before the wheels stop, hands the reins to a waiting boy, and goes straight to the carriage door.
He’s had three days beside her. I had every part of what he stirred in her—the ease, the comfort, that soft settling she keeps for him.
There’s been worse.
The carriage door opens.
Purple appears first. A heavy cloak, too large at the shoulders, followed by one small gloved hand gripping Baldr’s. Solveih steps into the snow beneath my window.
For years, she has been nine years old in my memory.
That child is gone.
What steps down instead is small enough that Baldr bends to hear her, and soft, and round-faced in a way that’ll have strangers calling her a girl for years yet.
All that pale hair, half of it shaken loose and stuck to her cheeks in the cold.
Pink at the nose, and not minding. The feeling’s had no face.
Now it has one, and it’s going to be a great deal harder to bury.
She says something that makes Baldr laugh. I get none of it through the glass—only her, the way I always get her.
Her worry reaches me first—tight until she acts, then doubling back to wonder whether she was rude. So does the easy comfort my brother fills her with.
Comfort. I’ll be generous and call it comfort. The bond’s never spared me the rest.
None of it tells me what to do with the sight of her.
Then a white head pushes through the front of her cloak.
Ketill comes to the window. “Is that—”
The nearest guard steps forward to take a trunk from the driver.
White fur shoots across the space between them.
The creature catches his boot with both front paws, climbs to his knee, and buries its teeth above the leather.
The guard howls.
Every Skorvaer in the yard goes rigid. Their fear comes through the glass anyway and up under my mask, sharp. The guard has a sword. His hand won’t go near it.
The Sanguir hangs from his leg and growls around a mouthful of him.
Ketill exhales through his nose. “That answers that.”
“Did the horns leave you uncertain?”
“I was hoping it was an ugly cat.”
The guard tries to shake it loose.
This proves unwise.
Six small spikes swing at the end of its club-tail and strike his other boot hard enough to turn him sideways. He hits the snow on one knee. The Sanguir keeps its teeth where it put them.
Solveih drops the edge of her cloak and runs after it.
She makes it two steps before her left boot slides.
Baldr catches her around the waist.
Naturally.
He puts her back on her feet, and she’s moving before his hands leave her.
“Snowpetal!”
Snowpetal.
The Sanguir’s growl deepens.
“No. Absolutely not.” Solveih kneels beside the guard and reaches for the animal. “He was helping us. You can’t eat people who carry the bags.”
The guard looks at her.
Ketill looks at me.
I give him nothing.
“Teeth out,” she tells it. “All of them.”
The Sanguir closes its eyes.
It’s refusing her.
I’ve watched generals attempt the same maneuver. They were less convincing.
Solveih braces one hand beneath its chest and cups the other around its jaw. “Snowpetal.”
The teeth release.
The guard crawls backward before standing. Blood darkens the top of his boot. Solveih gathers the Sanguir against her chest, checks his leg, apologizes three times, and scolds the creature between every apology.
“She’s never done that before,” she says.
Baldr looks at the white animal in her arms. “You’ve known her for three hours.”
“They were peaceful hours.”
The guard attempts to assure her he will live. He directs the words toward Baldr, which is easier than turning his back on the Sanguir.
Solveih shifts the creature higher. “I’m sorry. Snowpetal, you’re sorry too.”
Snowpetal yawns.
Snowpetal plants both paws against her collarbone and tracks the guard across the yard.
The bone club rests across Solveih’s arm. Its six spikes are clean and quite capable of ruining the next person who comes close. The guard notices this too. He chooses a wide path toward the infirmary.
“She brought a Sanguir into your hall,” Ketill says.
“The Sanguir hasn’t reached the hall.”
“A reassuring distinction.”
Below us, Solveih turns toward Baldr. Her hood has fallen back. She lifts her face, and I see the eyes.
Those survived the years.
Pale blue. Clear. The same eyes that found me through a wall of frightened adults while blood ran off my hand.
She’s laughing now.
I step away from the window.
Ketill doesn’t.
“Go receive them.”
“You could come with me.”
“I could also take an ear.”
Ketill doesn’t move. “You’d only spoil a matched set.”
“Then keep them matched. Go.”
Ketill collects his coat from the chair. His emotional walls stay low. He lets me have the concern under his amusement, open and steady, because he has never learned when privacy would improve him.
“West rooms?” he asks.
“They were prepared for Baldr.”
“There are more guests than Baldr.”
“You do understand how adjoining rooms work.”
“The human women, then. Hot water, food, every comfort?”
“They crossed a winter road. Yes.”
“And Snowpetal?”
“Keep her away from the staff.”
He opens the door.
“Ketill.”
He glances back.
“Send a healer to the guard.”
His concern disappears under a warm flare that irritates me more.
“I assumed you meant to let him bleed for educational purposes.”
“Lose the ear.”
He leaves before I decide to help him with that.
Voices rise through the floor as Ketill reaches the hall. Baldr asks after the guard before his own room. Ketill answers. My brother thanks the stable boy by name. He doesn’t pause to hunt for it.
Solveih says something too quick, then laughs at herself.
Her ease comes with it, bright through the bond. It fits around my brother as if he’s done nothing more difficult than hold out his hand. Baldr doesn’t even have the decency to sound false.
The black bottle stands behind the east ledger.
I pour.
The rim meets the rune over my mouth. The silver lets the ale through, and nothing else.
No Dróttin before me cut that rune. They took the mask off in private for a cup, bled for it, sealed it back—a fair trade, for a man who stops at one.
I haven’t stopped at one since the dinner.
The first cup is gone when someone knocks.
“Enter.”
A travel-worn soldier steps inside. Melted snow darkens his collar, and the red cord at his shoulder marks the eastern companies. He bows with a sealed letter held against his chest.
“My Dróttin. General Varrik requests a private audience concerning the winter levies. He asks leave to present himself within the week.”
“No.”
Solveih’s pleasure brushes hot beneath my ribs. Baldr’s voice follows from below, patient as daylight.
I set two fingers against my temple and press. It changes nothing. She doesn’t live in the skull.
The soldier still hasn’t moved.
I wave him toward the door. “Was there a second request hidden behind you?”
“The general said the matter shouldn’t be written.” He offers the letter. Varrik’s black seal catches the lamplight. “He instructed me to place this in your hand.”
“Then you’ve discovered the limit of his reach.”
The man lowers the letter. “What answer shall I return?”
“No.”
His jaw sets. He shuts his mouth.
“The lower barracks have beds,” I say. “Eat, sleep, and leave after breakfast. I won’t have you freeze to death before you disappoint him.”
“Thank you, my Dróttin.”
“Thank the cook. I’ve contributed a door.”
He bows and leaves with Varrik’s seal unbroken.
Thora waits in the passage. She steps around him and shuts the study door behind her.
She’s wearing the green dress tonight, the one with the narrow sleeves. Her hair’s been pinned twice. She takes the chair beneath the west lamp without asking. It’s been hers often enough.
“You’ve started without me,” she says.
I fill the cup again.
“I saw Dróttin Baldr arrive.” Her gaze moves over the desk, the fire, the closed inner door. “The pale woman with him is human.”
“A triumph of observation.” I drink. Half the cup, in no hurry.
“She looked welcome.”
I turn the cup once against the desk.
“She held his arm,” Thora says. “Will she stay?”
“He can spare one.”
“He brought her openly.”
“You’ve mistaken me for my brother’s calendar.”