Chapter Thirteen
Snowpetal disappears before I finish saying her name.
One second she’s a white blur on the dark path. The next, everything beyond my boots is white and moving sideways.
“Snowpetal!”
I run after her.
Asta catches the back of my cloak and nearly pulls my feet out from under me. “No.”
“She went that way.”
“So did the storm.”
Wind drives snow beneath my hood. It gets into my eyes, my mouth, and the paper bag of seed cakes tucked under my arm. I turn my face toward Asta’s shoulder and blink until I can see again.
The path behind us is already gone.
People run between the workshops and the hall with their heads down. Two workers drag a heavy cloth over a wagon in the market clearing. Somebody shouts from the watch platform. Another horn answers from deeper in the trees.
“Snowpetal!”
A white shape bursts out of the nearest drift.
There she is.
Snowpetal leaps straight up, catches a mouthful of falling snow, and lands on her back. All four paws kick at the air. Her club-tail strikes the ground and throws more snow over her belly.
She’s purring.
“Inside,” I tell her.
She rolls over and runs at another drift.
“She can survive this better than we can.” Asta pulls me toward the hall.
“She’s a baby.”
“She’s a Sanguir.”
“Both.”
My left boot slides. Asta catches my arm, keeps pulling, and gets us to the steps without either of us falling.
This is mostly her achievement.
The hall doors stand open while guards carry in crates from the yard. Firelight reaches the top step. Warmth doesn’t.
I dig one seed cake out of the bag.
Half of it has become paste.
“Snowpetal! I have cake.”
Her white head appears above a bank near the path.
Both ears lift.
Good.
I hold up the cake. “Come get it.”
She charges toward me.
“See?”
Snowpetal reaches the steps, snatches the cake from my fingers, and turns around.
“Excuse me.”
She runs back into the snow.
Asta puts both hands over her face.
I take another cake from the bag.
It folds over my fingers.
The filling has escaped through one side, the top is stuck to the paper, and three seeds cling to my glove.
“I have another one,” I call.
Snowpetal dives headfirst into a bank and leaves only her tail outside.
The club swings twice.
Then it disappears too.
“She’s made her decision,” Asta says.
“She’s too young to make weather decisions.”
“You climbed a three-story granary at sixteen.”
“Two-story roof.”
“Inside.”
One of the guards at the door is laughing. He hides it poorly when I look at him.
“Leave the door open for her.”
He looks past me at the storm. “My lady, we need to close it.”
“Then open it when she asks.”
“How will she ask?”
Asta takes my elbow. “She’ll bite the wood.”
That’s fair.
The guard nods. “I will listen for biting.”
“Thank you.”
Asta pulls me inside.
The doors shut behind us, and the wind becomes a deep shove against the wood. Snow slides from my hood onto the floor. More falls from Asta’s braid when she twists it over one shoulder.
The great hall has become very busy since we left the market.
Servants latch the narrow shutters and carry extra wood to the central hearth. Guards cross the room with coils of rope, lanterns, and armfuls of heavy wool. A woman near the kitchens is counting jars into a cart while three children count with her and disagree about every number.
Nobody looks surprised.
Myrkvier has done this before.
I turn toward the doors again.
“Sól.”
Baldr comes through the passage beside the dining room.
His coat is half fastened. Snow has melted across one shoulder, and his hair is loose around his face. The line between his brows deepens when he sees us.
“Where were you?”
“The market.”
“In that?”
“It began on the way back.”
He reaches me and pushes the wet hood from my head. His hands move over my shoulders, arms, and face.
“I’m not hurt.”
“You’re soaked.”
“Asta caught me.”
His eyes go to her.
“Twice,” she says.
“Three times if we count the steps.”
“We’re counting the steps.”
Baldr exhales and cups one warm hand around the back of my neck. “Where’s Snowpetal?”
I look toward the doors.
He follows my eyes.
“Outside?”
“She likes the snow.”
“The storm is burying the lower path.”
“I explained that.”
“Did she listen?”
The doors shake.
“She had cake.”
Baldr closes both eyes.
Asta starts unfastening my cloak. “The guard is listening for biting.”
His eyes open.
“It made sense at the time,” I tell him.
Boots cross the stone behind Baldr.
I know Eirik is there before I turn.
That has nothing to do with emotion feeding. The nearest servants have gone quiet, and one of the children beside the jar cart has started counting in a whisper.
Eirik stops at the end of the hearth. His black coat is dry. The silver mask covers his face, and the purple eye finds mine before it goes to Baldr.
Ketill stands beside him with a rolled map under one arm.
“The recount is finished,” Eirik says. “Your allotment agrees at every scale. The first wagon is ready.”
Baldr’s hand drops from my neck. “Good. We leave at once.”
“No.”
The wind slams into the shutters.
Baldr turns fully toward him.
Eirik takes the map from Ketill and lays it on the end of the nearest table. “The ridge road closed twelve minutes ago. The lower road will be gone before a wagon reaches the first marker.”
“Then we use the north track.”
“The north track closed first.”
Baldr stares at him.
“The ore is ready,” Eirik continues. “You are not leaving with it until the watch clears a road.”
Ketill puts the rolled map beside Eirik’s hand. “The physical count is clean. Every reserve, every release, every bar.”
“And the eastern receipt?” Baldr asks.
“Still missing.”
Baldr gives one short laugh. “Then the problem that started this hasn’t been solved.”
Eirik’s gloved finger rests on the ridge line. “The metal is present. The paper is not.”
“You kept us four days to find a page.”
“I kept the metal from leaving until I knew it hadn’t left already.”
“You knew this was coming.”
Eirik rests one gloved hand on the map. “Snow. In Myrkvier. A shocking development.”
Baldr gets in his face so quickly that my wet cloak slips from Asta’s hands.
They have the same face.
I knew that. I’ve seen them in the same room. It still catches me when they stand this close: Baldr open and furious, Eirik hidden behind silver, pale-green left eyes fixed on each other.
“You had a watch report the day we arrived,” Baldr says. “You knew the last clear day was yesterday.”
“The report advised no travel restriction.”
“It gave you the storm.”
“It gave me a chance of snow on the fourth day. Winter has produced one.”
Baldr’s hands close at his sides. “And you opened every seal in the north room.”
“Eight bars were missing.”
“From the eastern reserve.”
“Missing silver has an irritating habit of becoming relevant.”
“My allotment had cleared three counts.”
“Now it has cleared four.”
Baldr takes another step.
Eirik doesn’t give him one.
The whole hall has found work that requires silence.
“You planned this,” Baldr says.
“I planned the sky, yes. The effort has left me exhausted.”
“It’s not like he can control the weather, Baldr.”
Both of them look at me.
Oh.
That was out loud.
I hold my wet cloak against my stomach. “He can be awful and still not control a storm.”
Eirik’s purple eye warms.
“Do not enjoy that,” I point my finger at him.
It doesn’t help.
Baldr rubs one hand over his face. “Sól, he knew.”
“He knew snow might come. You said the road was clear yesterday.”
“It was.”
“And the count was not finished.”
Baldr’s voice drops. “Because he stopped it.”
“Because the reserve was short.”
“My reserve was not.”
“If he had released yours and the eight bars never appeared, we would be asking whether they left in your wagons.”
The words come faster as Baldr’s face tightens.
I’m defending Eirik.
At breakfast he told an entire table that I wanted him. The other day he called Snowpetal’s rabbit a threat and then arranged blood for her because she needed it. Today he has trapped us in his hall after withholding a weather report.
He still didn’t make the storm.
Baldr looks past me to Asta.
She lifts both hands. “I have attempted to stop her several times today. My success has been limited.”
“This is not about stopping her.”
“Good,” I say.
Baldr’s fists open. He turns back to me.
“I know he didn’t make the storm. He chose the delay that left us here for it.”
“You could have left without the silver,” Eirik says.
Baldr rounds on him. “Sólvik needs that silver.”
“Then Sólvik may wait until the road opens.”
Baldr throws both hands into the air.
He turns before I can catch his sleeve and heads toward the passage beside the hearth.
“Where are you going?”
“To see whether the stable roof is secure.”
“Baldr.”
He stops.
For one second I think he will turn around.
“I need to be useful somewhere,” he says.
Then he walks away.
The passage takes him from sight.
I stare after him.
Baldr came here because storehouse roofs need braces and the harbor needs a chain that will survive another winter. He spent four days watching other people count metal his territory should already have.
He has every right to be angry.
Eirik had eight missing bars and a late receipt. He checked the seals because every missing piece becomes somebody else’s broken roof.
That part still makes sense.
I would prefer one of them to be wrong about everything. It would make choosing who to argue with much easier.
Eirik folds the map once. “He’ll argue with the roof. The roof will remain unconvinced.”
Asta takes my cloak from my hands. “It has the advantage of not having to listen to you.”
Ketill coughs into his fist.
Eirik looks at her.
Asta looks back while she spreads my cloak over the end of a bench. “Was that unclear?”
His gaze narrows.
“I should go talk to Baldr.” I step toward the passage.
“Of course.” Eirik says it softly.
I turn.
“What does that mean?”
“My brother throws a temper, and you follow. It saves him the trouble of asking.”
My face gets hot.
“He is upset.”
His brow lifts, unbothered. “A rare condition. You should hurry.”
“You were the one who upset him.”
“Then perhaps you should thank me. He enjoys being comforted.”
Asta’s fingers close around the edge of my cloak on the bench.
I look at the passage again.
Baldr held me while I cried after breakfast. He never asked me to explain the tears before deciding they mattered. Now he’s somewhere near the stables, angry and wet, fixing a roof because he doesn’t know what else to do.
I’m going after him because I want to.
Eirik knows that.
The map folds again beneath his fingers.
“You’re a horrible man,” I say.
“Breakfast covered this.”
The outer doors open.
Wind throws snow halfway across the floor. Two guards stumble inside carrying a wooden chest between them.
Snowpetal walks in behind them.
She’s covered from nose to club-tail. Little clumps of snow hang beneath her belly and between her horns. She stops just inside the doors, shakes once, and coats every boot nearby.
Then she sees me.
Her purr starts.
“There you are.”
Snowpetal trots across the hall and rubs her wet side against my ankle.
Eirik looks down at the white streak she leaves on the stone. “Take your mutt with you.”
I stop.
Snowpetal sits on my boot.
“Snowpetal’s not a mutt.”
“She’s wet, destructive, and refuses basic—“
“You haven’t once said her name.”
He stops.
His eyes narrow. “The situation hasn’t required it.”
“It’s three syllables. Say it.” I step in on him. “Snow-pe-tal. Go on.”
“No.”
“She’s the size of a loaf of bread and you won’t say her name.” I poke him. “Unbelievable.”
“She bit a guard,” he says.
“Who grabbed her. She also wrecked a cushion nobody moved. Your whole hall treats her like a wet rug.” Poke. “Because you do.”
“She left a rabbit’s head in my scale yard.”
“She brought you a present and you’ve been sulking about it ever since.”
Snowpetal comes around my skirts and sits on his boot.
“See.” I don’t even point. “She’s braver than you and she weighs as much as a mitten.”
Eirik sighs.
Oh no. He did not just sigh at me.
Alright, he asked for it. Now he gets a list.
“Rudeness. Name-withholding. Being frightened of a mitten.” I count them off on the sore finger, up on my toes, almost hopping. “I can keep going.”
“I’ve no doubt.”
I cross my arms and puff up. “Then apologize. By name. You can do it kneeling, I’m not fussy.”
He looks from her to me.
Both his hands are still raised. He keeps stepping back. I keep coming.
Good.
“...She’s not a mutt,” he says.
“And?”
“That concludes my statement.”
“That wasn’t an apology.”
“It’s the one you have.”
I open my mouth for the rest of it—
Asta touches my shoulder. “Sól. Baldr.”
Right.
Baldr.
I point one final finger at Eirik.”This isn’t finished.”
“I live in fear.” His eyes crinkle at the corners, and the silver mask creases with them.
The bastard.
“Good.” I nod once, hard. That’s what he gets.
I turn toward the passage.
Snowpetal leaves Eirik’s boot and trots after me, tail club bouncing above the floor.
Behind us, Ketill starts cackling.
A heavy thump follows.
The cackling gets louder.