Chapter Eleven
Ketill gives me nine steps before he starts.
“What the hell was that?”
Nine may be a record.
I keep walking.
Solveih’s humiliation follows me through the hall. The metal over my face catches the servants, the clerks, Baldr’s anger behind us.
She reaches the west stairs.
Her grief tightens.
Then the guest-room door shuts between us.
“Breakfast,” I tell him. “People eat it most mornings.”
Ketill catches my study door before it closes.
“People generally manage without making a human cry.”
“You’ve had very gentle breakfasts.”
He follows me inside and shuts the door with care. That means he wants to hit me.
Ketill has never needed much encouragement.
The metal holds the rest to a murmur.
Annoyance below us. Concern from the kitchens. Six mine clerks trying to stay awake. Baldr coming after me until Asta says something that stops him near the dining room.
Ketill’s walls disappear.
There.
Disgust. Anger. Concern he has no intention of making easier for either of us.
Last night’s cup sits by the ledger.
“If you’re going to shout, do it quickly. Halla has three reserve books waiting to disappoint you.”
“I don’t need to shout.”
“Then this should be brief.”
He plants both hands on my desk. The burn scars across his knuckles pale under the pressure.
“She opened the wrong door.”
I reach for last night’s cup. “Yes.”
He leans in. “She froze.”
I drink what’s left of it, cold. “For some time.”
Ketill stares at me.
I sit and pull the ledger closer.
Eight bars still refuse to appear because he’s offended on behalf of a woman he met yesterday.
“You felt her in the passage.”
I find the last physical count.
“I feel everyone in the passage.”
“You felt her before Thora reached your room.”
The figure in front of me remains eight.
Ketill waits.
He is very good at that. Centuries of practice have made him unbearable.
“She was awake,” I say.
“Solveih.”
“I know which woman you mean.”
“Do you?”
I look up.
Ketill doesn’t move.
He knows what I can reach through walls. He doesn’t know how far she reaches into me. No one does.
Solveih had been awake while Baldr slept with one arm around her. Restless first. Then curious. By the time she left the guest wing, Thora was back in my study. The first feed had worn through inside the hour, the way it always does, and I’d sent for her again.
She wanted to be sent for.
I wanted silence.
Both of us knew the terms.
The sex came after I felt soft slippers turn toward the work passage.
I asked Thora what else she wanted.
She told me.
I asked again with my hand under her skirt.
She told me louder.
By then Solveih stood outside the door.
“Thora chose every part of last night,” I say.
“I know.”
“Then choose another subject.”
“Her consent isn’t the subject.”
Of course it isn’t.
Ketill leans closer. “Why did Solveih need to hear it?”
“She didn’t.”
“You could have stopped.”
“So could she.”
His anger sharpens.
I lower my eyes to the ledger.
Ketill takes it away.
I let him keep the book because killing the mine overseer during a recount would slow matters further.
“She was supposed to turn around,” I tell him.
He puts the ledger on the far side of the desk. “She was supposed to see you with another woman.”
“The door was closed…mostly.”
“You made certain she knew what was behind it.”
“She opened it.”
“And when that failed, you finished the work at breakfast.”
I lean back.
“You objected to breakfast?”
“I objected to you informing your brother that the woman beside him wanted you.”
“She did.”
“Baldr was sitting there.”
“He stood soon after.”
Ketill hits the desk hard enough to rattle the cup beside my hand.
He catches it before it falls.
“You spat on my plate,” I remind him.
“You earned worse.”
“You wasted coffee.”
“I heard the stupidest sentence you’ve produced in six hundred years. My mouth defended itself.”
That nearly gets me.
I turn it into a cough.
Ketill isn’t fooled. He puts the cup farther from me.
“What did you expect her to do?” he asks.
“Leave.”
“Myrkvier?”
“Preferably.”
“You stopped the release that brought them here.”
“The reserve is short.”
“You had the west rooms heated before the carriage reached the gate.”
“They’re guest rooms. Their function is narrow.” My thumb taps the desk.
“And the hot water?”
“They smelled of the road.”
Ketill’s amusement appears inside the anger. Unwelcome and very brief.
“There he is.”
“Who?”
“No one.”
He knows better than to say whatever came next.
Upstairs, Solveih tries to stop crying.
It lasts two breaths.
The third breaks worse.
I reach for last night’s cup. Empty.
“I was drunk.”
Ketill looks at the cup.
“You were drunk when you put Thora on the desk. You were sober when you used her to shame Solveih.”
“Thank you. I had misplaced the sequence.”
“Why?”
“You’ve asked.”
“You’ve avoided.”
“Another talent.”
His mouth flattens.
I rub two fingers against my temple. The feeding took the edge off for less than an hour. Thora’s grief settled inside me, heavy and dull, while Solveih’s pleasure in Baldr’s bed kept coming through bright enough to make thought useless.
Then Solveih found me.
She wanted me.
It should have solved the problem. One look at the mask, the woman, the feeding, and every story she heard as a child should have taken care of the rest.
Instead she stayed.
I asked her to join us.
She should have shut the door.
Desire hit the bond instead, clean and hot enough to cut through Thora beneath my hands.
Then I sat across from her and proved the stories right myself.
Efficient.
“She came here with Baldr,” I say.
“I noticed him.”
“She is in his bed.”
“I heard the wall.”
I look at him.
“Everyone heard the wall.”
Lovely.
“Then explain which part remains unclear.”
Ketill folds his arms. “The part where any of that required cruelty.”
“He’s what she wants.”
“He is one thing she wants.”
“A useful distinction.”
“She remains a person when she climbs into his bed.”
The ledger waits beyond my reach.
I don’t ask for it again.
“Baldr can give her everything she expects,” I say.
“Warm rooms. Cut meat. His hand under the table.”
I stare at him.
“She spoke at dinner.”
“You listened from upstairs.”
“The floor is thin.”
“Of course.” Ketill’s amusement has returned. He’s enjoying this now, which proves his concern has limits.
“What does she expect from you?” he asks.
“Nothing after breakfast.”
“You may have achieved one goal.”
“Nothing requires cruelty. That’s why it remains so useful.”
“You’re doing badly.”
“At cruelty?”
“At indifference.”
I hold his gaze.
Ketill’s walls stay down. No fear. No victory.
He can’t see through me.
He keeps looking anyway.
Someone knocks.
Neither of us answers.
The door opens.
Her grey eyes move from Ketill to the mask.
She has braided her hair. One side is coming loose.
The grief I took from her hasn’t returned. Everything around it remains. Relief. Embarrassment. A quiet hope she’s trying not to press too hard.
She has come to me twice before.
The first time was the night her sister died. Thora sat in this chair until dawn and told me what the fever had done while I took enough grief for her to breathe.
The second time, she said nothing.
Neither visit put her on my desk.
Ketill raises his walls.
I don’t put mine down.
Her hand stays on the door. “I can come back.”
“No,” I say.
Hope warms.
“There’s no reason to.”
It goes out.
Ketill turns his head toward me.
Thora grips the edge of one sleeve. “I only wanted to see whether you were well.”
“You’ve seen.”
Her eyes touch the blood at the edge of the silver. It was against her throat last night, and she knows what it costs. She’s never asked what’s under it. Twice in this chair, and she’s never asked.
“May I sit?”
“Why?”
The word comes out harder than I intended.
No.
Exactly as hard.
She looks at the chair across from me. “I thought we could speak.”
“We spoke last night.”
She tucks the loose strand behind her ear. “We did other things last night.”
Ketill studies the wall.
Thora takes one step toward the chair. “I know what you offer. I told you that.”
“Twice.”
Color reaches her cheeks. “I’m not confused about this.”
“Good,” I say.
“I didn’t come asking for promises.”
“You told me that too.”
“Because you kept asking,” she says.
I did.
Before I touched her. Before I fed. Again when the sound of Solveih’s slippers stopped outside the door.
Thora had every chance to refuse me.
I had every chance to stop using her answer against Solveih.
I kept going.
“Then what are you asking for?”
She looks at me.
There’s no performance in her. She knows I’d taste it before the first word.
“A little time,” she says. “The grief is quiet. I don’t want to be alone before it comes back.”
Ten minutes would cost me nothing.
I could let her sit. Pour coffee.
I could give her the small kindness she asked for after she trusted me with her body and the worst thing she carried.
Solveih stops crying upstairs.
Baldr’s warmth reaches her soon after.
I feel her settle into it.
“No,” I say.
Thora’s fingers release her sleeve.
“Last night is finished.”
Her face holds.
The hurt underneath doesn’t.
“Of course, my Dróttin.”
The title is punishment.
She has never used it alone with me.
She bows.
I could stop her before she turns.
I don’t.
Thora closes the door behind her. Her first tear comes in the passage. The second follows before she reaches the turn.
Then she runs.
Ketill waits until her footsteps fade.
“She asked for ten minutes.”
“I heard her.”
“She knew you didn’t love her.”
“Everyone in Myrkvier knows.”
“That wasn’t what she wanted.”
“Then she can recover quickly.”
His disgust comes back sharp enough to cut through the rest of the hall.
Good.
That one belongs here.
Ketill retrieves the ledger and drops it in front of me.
“You used her.”
“She received what she asked for.”
“And gave what you asked for.”
I open the ledger.
The eight bars are still missing.
“Was there anything else?”
Ketill rests one hand on the book, covering the figures.
“You can’t make Solveih hate you by punishing everyone who gets near the problem.”
My fingers stop against the page.
Too close.
He has no idea how close.
“Remove your hand.”
He does.
Not from fear. Ketill has never had enough of that.
He reaches the door and looks back. “The reserve crews need another day.”
“They have it.”
“Baldr won’t enjoy that.”
“Baldr has survived disappointment.”
“Solveih will still be here.”
“So will the eight missing bars.”
Ketill opens the door. “Those may be easier to find.”
He leaves before I choose which answer would make him regret that.
The study goes quiet.
Not quiet enough.