Chapter Fourteen #2
Slower works better. Slower, and my hand, and paying attention to which things make the sound happen—that works best of all, and I’m keeping track. I’m keeping very careful track.
His hand finds the post behind me.
Not my hair. Not my head. The post.
Because of course he won’t put a hand on me while I’m doing this.
I reach up, take his wrist, and put it in my hair myself.
“Sól.”
“Hold on to something that isn’t wood.”
A horse shifts in its stall and blows out a long breath.
I check on Snowpetal exactly once, because I’m me. She’s asleep in the hay with the rope under her chin.
Good. Everyone’s having a lovely evening.
Baldr’s fingers close in my hair and he isn’t steering. He’s holding on. His other hand is flat on the post, and his head has gone back, and the whole enormous careful man of him is coming apart above me in a barn—quietly, because the door doesn’t lock.
I did that.
I’m going to think about that for the rest of my life.
His thigh goes hard under my palm.
“Sól. Move.”
I don’t move.
“Sól—”
Nope.
He says something under his breath in Old Norse that I understand perfectly and am not going to repeat. His hand closes in my hair—not pulling me off, not pushing—and then he’s coming in my mouth, and there is a great deal more of it than I was ready for.
I am not ready for any of it.
I come off him coughing, which helps nothing, and it goes on my chin and down my front and the noise I make is not a good one.
Above me Baldr says my name, wrecked.
Then his hand opens and he slides down the post and lands in the straw on his knees in front of me, breathing like he’s the one who ran through the snow.
He takes the hem of his shirt and cleans my chin, and then my front, unhurried.
“I tried to warn you, love.” He’s laughing. Quietly, but he’s laughing.
“You said one word.”
“I said move.”
“That’s one word.”
He presses his forehead to mine, takes a deep breath.
I push both hands into his hair and keep him there. “Better?”
Baldr doesn’t answer.
“That’s an answer.”
“Give me a moment.”
“Take two.”
“You planned that.”
“I came to talk.” I keep my face solemn.
He laughs into my shoulder. It goes on a while.
“Upstairs,” he says.
“That’s what I said.”
“No. I mean I’m going to take you upstairs and—”
“I know what you mean.”
“Upstairs.”
“Yes.”
Baldr stands and takes me with him. I wrap both legs around his waist.
“Snowpetal.”
He looks toward the hay.
Only her tail is visible.
The club strikes the floor once.
“She’s chosen the stable.”
“She may eat it.”
“Then Eirik can replace it.”
Fair.
Baldr carries me to the door.
The storm tries to remove both of us the instant he opens it. I bury my face against his neck. Snow hits the back of his shirt, melts beneath my hands, and runs warm over his skin.
“Still want me upstairs?”
“Very.”
He puts one arm over my hood and runs.
I contribute by holding on.
We reach the hall without dying.
Baldr doesn’t put me down. He carries me past the hearth, up the west stairs, and into his room. Nobody speaks to us.
Everyone knows.
Again.
His door closes behind my back. There is straw in my hair. I find it much later, on the pillow, and decide not to mention it.
Baldr hangs our wet things by the fire, brings the extra blanket from the chair, and gets into bed. I settle against his chest. His fingers move through my hair while the storm covers the windows a little higher.
I wait until he looks close to sleep.
“Were you and Eirik ever close?”
Baldr’s fingers stop.
That answers part of it.
“You chose now?”
“You said ask again later.”
“That was about whether I was angry.”
“Are you?”
“Less.”
“Good. Were you?”
His chest rises beneath my cheek. “Why are you asking me about my brother in my bed?”
Oh.
When he says it that way, this doesn’t sound excellent.
I push myself onto one elbow. “I’m not asking because something’s wrong.”
“A comfort.”
“I want to know your history.”
Baldr looks toward the window.
“He’s part of it,” I say.
“Eirik would object to being called part of anything.”
“He objects to Snowpetal. His judgment is poor.”
That gets a small smile.
I touch the pale-green eye with one fingertip. “You have the same face. The same eye. Today you stood together, and I realized I know why you’re different now. I don’t know how you became that way.”
“We were born irritating.”
“Both of you?”
“He worked harder.”
I wait.
Baldr’s fingers return to my hair.
“We were close before our hungers showed,” he says. “We shared a room. Lessons. Punishments. He broke things and let our parents decide it was me.”
“Did that work?”
“Often.”
“You have an honest face.”
“So does he.”
I try to put a face under the silver and can’t.
The woman on his desk returns too.
That’s not helpful.
“Then our bloodlines emerged,” Baldr continues. “Strength was useful. Simple. My father understood weapons and walls. He understood a son who could lift both.”
“And Eirik?”
“Eirik heard every fear in the house before he knew how to keep it out. He knew when people lied to him. He knew our mother wished his hunger had chosen anything else.”
My hand goes still on Baldr’s chest.
“Did she say that?”
“She didn’t need to. He could feel it.”
Right.
“They found me teachers. Swords, command, languages, law. Eirik received enough instruction to keep him from hurting anyone important.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Yes.”
The word stays plain. No joke to make it easier.
“I tried to share the lessons. He let me show him one sword grip and broke my nose.”
I draw one finger over an old pale line beneath Baldr’s collarbone. “Did Eirik want you to teach him?”
“No.”
“But you tried.”
“That was the problem.”
I look up.
“He didn’t want whatever our parents gave me after I finished with it. He wanted them to look at him and think he was worth the effort himself.”
That makes terrible sense.
“Did they?”
“No.”
Baldr’s arm tightens around me.
“I argued. I refused lessons. I brought Eirik into rooms where they didn’t want him and made enough trouble that they had to deal with both of us.”
“Did it help?”
“Sometimes. Usually it gave him another reason to be angry.”
“At you?”
“At everyone.”
“When I finally had enough standing to force the issue, he no longer needed anything I could force them to give.” Baldr rubs his thumb over my shoulder.
“He had his own teachers. His own people. Then he became the strongest emotion feeder alive, took Myrkvier, and made weakness a word nobody used near him twice.”
I think of the scale yard. One order from Eirik changed three releases, six riders, and every clerk touching them.
“He’s good at being Dróttin,” I say.
“Yes.”
“You said that quickly.”
His shoulders give a small shrug. “It’s true.”
No resentment. No hesitation.
“Do you love him?”
Baldr meets my eyes.
“He is my brother.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
His mouth presses against my hair.
“Yes.”
“Does he know?”
“He knows everything people don’t want him to know.”
I tuck the blanket beneath my chin. “Do you think he loves you?”
Baldr is quiet long enough that the fire makes three little cracks near the hearth.
“I think he did once.”
My throat tightens.
“And now?”
“Now he makes certain my silver arrives eventually, insults my court, and finds a way to turn every conversation into a fight.”
“That doesn’t sound close.”
“No.”
“Was it the dinner?”
Baldr’s arm goes still around me.
“That wasn’t the beginning,” he says. “It ended what remained.”
I see white cloth turn red again. Blood over Baldr’s hands while he pressed them against a wound no one could survive.
“Did you ask him why?”
“Once.”
“What did he say?”
“That I had already chosen what to believe.”
“Had you?”
Baldr looks at the fire.
“She left him. Came to Sólvik. Sat beside me at the table. Everyone thought he killed her because he couldn’t bear that.”
“Did you?”
“I didn’t know what else to think.”
The mask. The purple eye. Eirik looking at Baldr before he looked at the woman in his hand.
“Do you think that now?”
“I don’t know.” Baldr’s fingers move once against my shoulder. “I can give you my side, Sól. Eirik has never let me far enough into his.”
“That’s lonely.”
“It’s easier than fighting him for an answer he won’t give.”
“Do you want it to be?”
His fingers stop again.
Baldr looks at the ceiling. “You’ve become difficult since meeting him.”
“I was difficult before.”
“True.”
I put my chin on his chest. “Do you?”
His amber eye closes. The pale-green one stays on me.
“Yes.”
There.
No pride. Just a man who misses his brother, and has missed him longer than my whole family has been alive.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Telling me.”
Baldr kisses the top of my head. “You wanted my history.”
“I do.”
“Even the broken nose.”
“Especially that.”
“Cruel woman.”
The storm keeps pushing at the shutters.
Snowpetal scratches once at the door.
I sit up.
Baldr catches my waist before I can step into the blanket and carries me across the room.
“I had that.”
“Completely.”
He opens the door.
Snowpetal comes in covered in hay, snow, and one short piece of rope. She drops the rope on the floor, jumps onto the bed, and curls in my warm place.
The guard listened for biting.
“Aww. She missed us.”
“She stole your side.”
“Affection can be complicated.”
His gaze returns to me.
We get back into bed around her. Baldr pulls me close. Snowpetal puts her club-tail over both our ankles and begins to purr.
For the first time since breakfast, Eirik makes a little sense.