Chapter Nineteen #2
His other hand reaches for my wrist. Purple flashes beyond his shoulder.
Gone.
The silver-eyed man jerks backward. His hand leaves mine.
So does the rest of him.
One instant he’s in front of me. The next, the dark between the benches has swallowed his braid, boots, and unfinished sentence. A heavy impact shakes the nearest cups, and I blink at the empty floor.
“All right.”
The lyre keeps going. So do I.
I sing the next line louder. It’s the wrong line.
The grey-eyed woman finds my horn and gives it back. “You’re alone.”
“Everyone keeps leaving.”
She glances into the dark beyond me.
“Yes.”
“Is it the singing?”
“It may be.”
I sing louder. That solves nothing.
The next verse turns slow. The drum quiets. The lyre carries a low run beneath a voice near the hearth. I know this song too. Everybody in Gullither knows it, though our version leaves out the part where the woman cuts off her own hair and uses it to bind her husband’s body to the mast.
The Skorvaer version keeps it.
I know the words. My mouth doesn’t want them.
Pathetic.
The fire grows too hot. Smoke reaches my eyes.
That’s why they sting.
I put the horn to my mouth. Empty.
The singer reaches the line where the ship goes under. My chest pulls tight.
No. Not here.
I set the horn on the nearest table, miss the edge, and catch it before it hits the floor.
The doors are beyond the hearth and I walk toward them.
The hall tilts once. A bench catches my thigh and sends me sideways. I put both hands on the table until the floor returns to its duties. Nobody stops me.
Good.
The outer doors fight back. I get one open far enough to slip through and close it with my bottom.
Music disappears. The storm takes everything else.
Snow turns through the yard under a sky I can’t see. Wind catches my skirt and fills it. The cold reaches my face, throat, and the wet places under my eyes.
Better.
I take three steps. The third step has no ground beneath it.
I land on my back, and snow closes around both shoulders. For a minute, I consider getting up.
No. The view is too good.
Clouds tear above the pines in dark strips. Snow races between them, white against black, then drops toward me in slow pieces once it passes the roofline.
One lands on my mouth. I eat it.
Not much flavor.
Another reaches my eyelashes. I leave it there.
The door opens. Warm light spreads across the snow, then disappears when the door shuts. Boots come toward me.
Large boots.
Baldr’s face appears over the sky.
“Sól.”
“Hello.”
He crouches and puts one hand beneath my shoulder. “Get up.”
“No.”
“You’re lying in a drift.”
“I found it first.”
“You’re not dressed for this.”
I look down. Blue dress. Stockings. One boot already full of snow.
“I have both boots.”
He tries to lift me. I spread both arms, and snow goes into my sleeves.
This was a poor strategy. It still works.
Baldr stops before he has to drag me. “You’ll freeze.”
“I’m warm.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Also warm.”
His hands drop to his knees. The storm turns above his head. Snow catches in his light-brown hair and stays there.
“Come inside,” he says.
“Dance with me.”
The words are out before I mean them. Baldr’s face closes.
He looks away.
There it is. The hot place behind my eyes opens again.
“I don’t want to fight.”
“Neither do I.”
“Good.”
“Sól.”
“The snow is beautiful.”
Baldr follows my eyes toward the sky. He doesn’t lie down. He’s not going to.
“Where’s Asta?” he asks.
“Ketill stole her.”
His eyebrows rise.
“She went willingly,” I add. “Angrily.”
Baldr presses his palm over his mouth.
“I’ll find her.”
“Good.”
“You stay here.”
I move both arms through the snow.
“I have made very little progress.”
His eyes close. Then he stands. “I’m coming back.”
“Bring my cloak.”
“I’m bringing you inside.”
“That too.”
He heads toward the hall. The door opens and closes, and quiet comes back.
Snow fills the place where his knees were. I breathe.
The cold should hurt more. It doesn’t.
Something drops into the drift beside me. I turn my head.
Eirik lies on his back one arm away, black coat open beneath the snow, silver mask pointed at the same storm.
I blink. He remains.
“Did you fall?”
“I was overcome by your excellent judgment.”
His voice has none of the blade from the training ground. I look up again.
“It’s beautiful.”
Eirik goes quiet. Snow lands on the silver and disappears along one purple line.
“The storm,” I explain.
“I understood.”
“You looked confused.”
His pale-green eye turns toward me. “Most people use other words.”
“Which ones?”
“Closed. Murderous. Inconvenient.”
“Those aren’t wrong.”
“Generous.”
“It can be all of them.”
He looks at the sky again. The purple eye has gone very still.
“It makes everything soft,” I say. “Even the roofs. Even the fence. Your trees hold all of it without breaking.”
“Several have broken.”
“You know what I mean.”
“A dangerous assumption.”
“Your home is beautiful, Eirik.”
His next breath doesn’t leave for several seconds. I watch the snow gather along the edge of his mask.
He turns his head toward me. His hand rises.
Bare fingers move one wet curl from my cheek and tuck it behind my ear. They stay there for one breath.
Then he sits up.
“Roll over.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve accepted that you intend to freeze out here, and I’d prefer you do it on wool.”
He takes off the black coat. Under it, he wears a dark shirt with the sleeves fastened at the wrists. Snow catches in his braids when he spreads the coat over the drift.
“On it.”
I roll. My left arm gets trapped beneath me. One knee catches in my skirt. I free the arm, lose the knee, and turn too far until Eirik’s hand closes around my shoulder. He stops me before my face reaches the snow.
One small crease appears beside his pale-green eye. Then he looks back at the storm.
He gets me onto the coat. The wool scratches my cheek.
It’s warm from him.
I put both hands beneath my face and look up. Eirik lies down again beside the coat.
No coat. In a storm.
“You’ll freeze.”
“I’m Skorvaer.”
“Baldr said that about you.”
His eyes close.
“He remains a well of useful observations.”
Snowpetal appears over his shoulder. No door. No footsteps. One white head rises from the drift, covered in snow and carrying a strip of somebody’s tablecloth.
“There you are.”
She drops the cloth, steps onto Eirik’s stomach, and walks across him. He looks down at the white paws.
Snowpetal reaches me, turns twice on the coat, and falls against my side. Her purr starts beneath my ribs.
For a little while, the three of us watch the storm.
My eyes keep closing. I open them.
“How much did you drink?” Eirik asks.
“Less than the hall.”
“The hall is made of timber.”
“Then more.”
His eyes stay on the snow.
“Everybody kept leaving me.”
“A mystery.”
“The singing was bad.”
“I heard.”
“From where?”
He doesn’t answer.
Purple in the dark. Men looking over my shoulder. The silver-eyed man losing the rest of his sentence.
I turn my face toward him.
“Did you make them go?”
“They discovered other obligations.”
“Inside the wall?”
“Urgent ones.”
I think about this until thinking becomes too heavy.
“You do that.”
His gaze reaches me. “Do what?”
“Make people go away.”
The purple eye narrows.
“You do.” I push one finger into the scratchy wool. “You make them go first, so you can say it was your idea.”
He stops breathing. I know because I’m close enough to hear the absence.
“Then you sit outside when they’re gone.”
Snow lands between us.
“It’s a very bad system.”
Eirik looks back at the sky. His face is silver, pale skin, and two eyes that have stopped giving me anything easy.
Still, he doesn’t put the sharp part back.
“You’re drunk,” he says.
“Yes.”
“Very.” His eye’s crinkle.
“I’m still angry with you.”
“You should be.”
That opens my eyes. He means it.
The answer hurts less than an apology would.
“Good.”
Snowpetal pushes closer. Her horns rest against my arm. Eirik lifts one hand and brushes snow from my eyelashes with his thumb.
“Sleep.”
“I’m watching.”
“Your eyes are closed.”
“I can do both.”
“A rare skill.”
The storm turns above us. His coat scratches my cheek. Snowpetal purrs against my ribs. Eirik’s hand stays in my hair.
Warm. My eyes close again.
After that, I keep only pieces.
The storm. Black wool beneath my face. One arm sliding under my knees. The ground falling away.
Then warmth. Safe.
Gone.