Chapter Ten
Sleep still doesn’t come.
I give it every opportunity.
I close my eyes. I open them. I move onto my left side, then my right, then my back, where I discover one of the ceiling beams has a knot shaped vaguely enough to be a duck.
It stops being a duck when I look directly at it.
Unhelpful.
Baldr sleeps behind me with one arm across my waist. His breathing warms the back of my neck. Snowpetal is still pinning his feet, though she has rolled onto her side and pushed all four paws against his ankles.
The stuffed unicorn has lost half the pillow to my head.
Everyone else is doing very well.
I listen to the hall.
No sea. No wheels. No guards changing outside the guest wing. Myrkvier has little sounds instead. A branch brushes the window. Fire settles in the hearth. Snowpetal makes one tiny snort and digs a talon into the blanket.
Baldr’s arm tightens.
I hold still until his hand goes loose again.
The empty chair returns to my head. Then eight missing bars. Then Ketill laughing because I defended Eirik, followed by Asta telling him his aim needed work.
That part was excellent.
The rest refuses to arrange itself.
Eirik wanted Baldr here. Then he ordered a count that will keep us here. He didn’t come to dinner. He prepared rooms, hot food, bathwater, and a healer for the guard Snowpetal bit.
He also left his chair empty.
I turn onto my left side again.
This puts my face too close to Baldr’s.
He looks younger asleep. His hair has fallen over the pale-green eye, and one cheek is creased from the pillow. I move the hair back with one finger.
He doesn’t wake.
Last night, he laughed into my shoulder while Asta knocked on the wall. He held me when the room went dark. Everything with Baldr makes sense while it’s happening.
The silver doesn’t.
His brother doesn’t.
Baldr’s hand slides over my stomach. I wait.
He keeps sleeping.
I could wake him.
I could say, Hello, I know we spent three days on the road and broke several rules involving Asta’s wall, but your brother’s empty chair has become very noisy. Please fix it.
No.
Baldr needs sleep. Tomorrow he can argue about silver until everyone wishes the bars had stayed missing.
I lift his hand.
Slowly.
His fingers catch in the blanket. I free them one at a time and set his hand beside him.
Baldr exhales.
I freeze with one knee off the bed.
He turns onto his back and keeps sleeping.
Excellent.
Snowpetal opens one white eye.
“No.”
Her ear moves.
“You stay. Guard him.”
She puts her chin on Baldr’s ankle.
Good girl.
The floor is cold. I find my shift, pull it over my head, and step into the slippers Asta left beside the bed. My purple cloak hangs by the wardrobe.
It’s far too warm for an indoor walk.
I put it on anyway.
The fleece closes around me. I lift the latch, slide through the door, and shut it before Snowpetal can reconsider her assignment.
The guest passage is empty.
Lamps burn low along the walls. Dark beams cross overhead, and every hinge carries a thin strip of vein-silver. The nearest window shows black pines, white ground, and enough stars to make the snow shine.
I walk toward the stairs.
This is exploring. I’m awake, the hall is beautiful, and nobody’s forbidden it.
Asta would forbid it.
She’s asleep.
The stairs take me to the dining room. Its doors stand open now. The head chair is empty in the dark, one leg still wearing a few strands of Snowpetal’s fur.
I keep walking.
The passage beyond it turns twice and divides around a stone column. I choose the left because the lamp on that side is brighter.
This is how excellent explorers make decisions.
The rooms change past the turn. Smaller doors. Workrooms, perhaps. One smells of leather. Another has narrow shelves visible through the open latch, all of them stacked with folded cloth.
A larger room at the end stands open. Long tables fill it, each covered in ledgers, tally sticks, and cloth bags tied with red cord. Eight missing bars have produced a great deal of paper.
I lean inside.
The nearest ledger is open to rows of figures. I understand none of them from the doorway, though two columns have been checked so hard the writing stick tore the page.
Someone cares about these numbers.
Baldr said Eirik took the longest road to inconvenience. The torn paper suggests another possibility.
I step back before curiosity turns into touching. I know myself.
At the next crossing, I look back.
Both passages appear equally unfamiliar.
Wonderful.
I can retrace my steps. Left, right, stairs, empty chair, guest wing.
Probably.
A low sound comes through the door beside me.
I stop.
Another follows. A woman this time, one breath pulled tight and released.
Someone may be hurt.
That’s the first explanation my head offers, because my head has learned nothing from thin walls.
I move closer.
The door isn’t shut. There’s a gap, a hand’s width, firelight coming through it across the floor. I hear cloth move, then a man’s voice too low for the words to reach me.
The woman answers.
“I want you to feed.”
A low laugh reaches me.
“And I want your hands on me.” She takes a breath. “I know what you offer. I’m not asking you to love me.”
Cloth moves again.
Her next word breaks on a gasp. “Yes.”
Oh.
Nobody is hurt.
I should leave.
The woman makes another sound. Softer. The floorboard beside the door creaks beneath my slipper.
Everything inside the room goes quiet.
Oh, no.
I put my hand flat on the door because apologizing through a gap would be worse.
This isn’t true.
I push it open anyway.
The room is a study. I work that out from the shelves, desk, ledgers, and a cup left half-finished on the corner.
The woman is sitting on the desk.
Her dark dress is open down the front. The skirt has gathered high on her thighs, and a tall man stands between them with one hand beneath the fabric.
His other hand is closed around the back of her neck.
Purple light fills his right eye.
He has long hair braided back from shaved sides. His shirt is on the floor. Lean muscle moves across his back when his fingers shift beneath the woman’s skirt.
She gasps and grips his bare shoulder.
He’s feeding from her.
I’ve never seen an emotion feeder feed. I’ve heard about the peace afterward and the people who return for it, but stories didn’t include this part.
The silver is against her throat.
No teeth. No wound. Silver rests against her skin while his hand holds the base of her neck.
The purple in his eye deepens.
The woman’s fingers tighten on his shoulder. Her back arches, pushing her open dress aside. One breast presses against his chest.
He draws in a slow breath.
Her grip loosens.
The change moves through her by inches. Her shoulders drop. Her head tips back. The lines beside her mouth ease until she’s resting against him with a soft smile.
She asked for this. Asked for his hands too.
Black runes cover the silver. They cross where his mouth should be. Fresh blood sits along the edge where the metal meets his skin.
He lifts his head.
The woman follows his gaze. Her grey eyes find me and hold. Clear. Present.
She looks down at his hand beneath her skirt, then back at me.
“I don’t mind an audience.” Her smile is loose. “Close the door if you stay. It’s cold.”
I don’t close it.
Something moves behind the silver.
I know that eye.
Deep purple. Burning above a silver mask while white cloth turns red.
The dinner.
The man I cried for.
He strokes his thumb across the woman’s neck. Her eyes close, and a shiver runs through her.
His purple gaze stays on me.
“Watching from the doorway is rude.” The purple brightens. “Would you like to join us?”
I press my thighs together.
No.
That didn’t happen.
It absolutely happened.
The woman laughs softly. “I don’t mind sharing.”
Heat reaches my face, ears, throat, and probably my hair.
I let go of the door.
It swings wider.
Of course it does.
His fingers move beneath her skirt again.
She says yes.
I’m still watching.
One second.
Two.
His thumb strokes the side of her neck. The woman’s lips part.
I know what wanting looks like on another person.
I know what it does inside me too.
Baldr’s mouth between my legs. His hands on my thighs. The same ache returns, low and hot, while a stranger watches me understand it.
The purple eye brightens.
I gasp and back into the passage.
My heel catches the edge of my cloak. I hit the wall with one shoulder, grab the nearest lamp bracket, and run.
Left. Right. Stairs. Empty chair.
I miss one of those.
The cloth room appears again.
I turn around.
Nobody follows me.
That’s good.
That should feel good.
I find the dining room on my second attempt, the stairs on my first, and the guest wing after opening one door that contains several mops.
The mop room has seen worse.
Probably.
I miss the latch to our room once because I’m shaking. I catch it and slip inside.
Baldr is still asleep.
Snowpetal raises her head from his feet.
“I know.”
She blinks.
“Exploring went badly.”
I close the door and lean against it.
The man’s purple eye stays behind mine. So does his hand beneath dark fabric. The woman knew what she wanted. She said it clearly. She wanted the feeding. She wanted him touching her. She didn’t mind me seeing.
I minded.
I stayed anyway.
Snowpetal climbs over Baldr’s legs and sits at the edge of the mattress.
“Don’t look at me.”
She yawns.
I remove the cloak and hang it where it was. The purple wool slides through my fingers.
Purple.
Wonderful.
I get back into bed. Baldr turns toward me before I settle and pulls me against his chest.
His skin is warm. Familiar. His mouth touched every part of me in this bed.
The man has one purple eye, a silver mask, sharp braids, and a voice that made my knees unreliable from across a room.
The purple eye belongs to the dinner. I know that much.
I close my eyes.
That eye burns brighter.
Sleep remains unavailable.
By breakfast, I’ve counted every beam in the room and worked out that none is a duck.
Asta looks at me once and pushes the pot of coffee across the table.
“Thank you.”
“You look terrible.”
“I take it back.”
She pours for me anyway.