Chapter Twenty
The performance is ready before she wakes.
It requires no words.
Dawn has put a grey edge around the shutters. The storm keeps working at them, one hard breath after another, while Solveih sleeps in my bed across the room.
She’s stolen most of the furs.
Snowpetal’s taken the rest.
The Sanguir lies across Solveih’s feet with her white belly turned toward the ceiling, both horns buried in black wool. One rear paw twitches whenever the wind hits the glass. Her club-tail hangs over the side of the bed and has struck the frame every few minutes since she arrived.
I’ve stopped considering murder.
The creature has decided that I’m safe. She climbed across my shoulders in the kitchen, slept against me in the snow, and came into my quarters sometime after midnight without bothering with an invitation.
Now she owns the bed.
Progress comes quickly when nobody opposes her.
Solveih turns her face deeper into my pillow.
Pale hair covers one cheek. Her curls dried badly near the hearth and have spent the night expanding. One has reached her mouth. She breathes it in, pushes it out, and doesn’t wake.
I could move it.
I stay at the window.
The mask catches the Hall at a low murmur. Servants in the lower passage. Two guards changing at the west door. A woman near the kitchens who saw Snowpetal cross the gallery and has decided breakfast can wait until the creature chooses another floor.
Old fear. Clean and sour under the silver.
My people can face failures in the mines, armed borders, and days of a storm trying to remove every roof I own. One white animal walking through the Hall has made half of them reconsider their duties.
I should deal with that.
I should’ve dealt with several things last night.
The west rooms were warm. Solveih’s bed stood empty. Baldr’s was beside it, and at the turn toward that door I kept walking.
There were reasons.
She was wet. The west stairs were crowded. My quarters were closer. Baldr had gone to find Asta. Solveih had fallen asleep in my arms and moving her farther would’ve served no useful purpose.
All excellent.
None survive the fact that I couldn’t put her in my brother’s bed.
I carried her here.
I took off her boots, put her beneath my furs, and sat down with every intention of leaving once she settled.
Then she found my hand in her sleep.
Her fingers are still curled near her mouth where mine had been.
Tedious.
Snowpetal opens both white eyes.
She lifts her head and looks at me.
“Do not.”
Her purr starts.
Solveih stirs.
The wall comes up before her eyes open. Every part of last night goes behind it—the storm, her cheek against my coat, the quiet answer she pulled from me, my hand in her hair while she slept.
The Dróttin remains at the window.
Nothing else was here.
Pain reaches the bond first. A hard throb behind her eyes, then a mouth dry enough to make swallowing difficult. Confusion follows when she notices the mattress beneath her.
Snowpetal rolls onto her stomach.
Solveih opens one eye.
It closes again.
“No.”
Her voice is rough against the pillow.
I wait.
The eye opens a second time. Then the other.
She looks at the furs. The dark wall. Snowpetal. Me.
Confusion clears enough to make room for alarm.
“Where am I?”
“An ambitious question before sunrise.”
She pushes herself upright.
This takes two attempts.
Snowpetal rides the movement to her lap and sits there, purring.
Solveih presses both hands against her temples. “This is your room.”
“Your powers recover.”
She looks down at herself.
Blue dress. Stockings. Her boots are off. The hem is dry now, though salt from the snow has left a pale line across it. Every fastening remains where it was.
Her attention moves to the chair.
My coat hangs over the back. Her boots sit beneath it.
Fragments return through the bond. Snow above her. Black wool beneath her cheek. My arm under her knees.
Warm.
Safe.
The feelings get through before I can close against them.
My hand tightens behind my back.
Solveih looks at me again. “You carried me.”
“You had abandoned walking.”
“I remember the snow.”
“It was difficult to miss.”
“You laid down beside me.”
I give her nothing.
She rubs one eye with the heel of her hand. “I told you your home was beautiful.”
The exact words return with her voice.
Your home is beautiful, Eirik.
I keep my face still above the silver.
“You told several people several things.”
Her hand drops.
“You made a public project of every man who offered you a hand. I assume I was the last one available.”
The line reaches her.
Her brows pull together. Irritation, then the small, flat refusal underneath it. I’ve watched grown men fold in front of that look.
“I danced. I didn’t make a project of anyone.”
Snowpetal puts one paw on her chest.
Solveih steadies the animal without looking away from me.
“Did anything happen?”
I could end the morning with one word.
That would be clean.
I have already decided against clean.
“You slept.”
“That’s all?”
“You were hardly equipped for a demanding night.”
She checks the bond without knowing there’s a bond to check. I feel her work through the scraps she kept, the missing hours, the room, my coat. Her breathing eases.
She looks down at Snowpetal.
“Nothing happened.”
She’s decided it.
I turn toward the window.
“You have a generous view of my character.”
“No.” Her fingers move through Snowpetal’s fur. “I know.”
That’s worse.
She knows nothing about me.
She knows enough to sit in my bed with a ruined head and no memory, take one look at the man from every childhood warning, and trust what her own instincts tell her.
She should be afraid of me. Instead she’s sure.
I should correct it.
The cruelty is ready.
Solveih moves her legs toward the side of the bed. Snowpetal refuses to move with them. Both nearly reach the floor before Solveih catches the animal.
“You’re not helping.”
Snowpetal climbs into her arms.
Solveih stands.
The room tips.
She catches the bedpost with one hand and shuts both eyes.
I don’t cross the room.
She waits until the floor returns, then opens them.
“Water,” she says. “Then Asta. Have you seen her?”
“Not since Ketill led her away.”
Solveih’s head comes up too quickly. She regrets it at once.
“He led her away?”
“She still had both feet.”
“That doesn’t answer anything.”
“It answered the important part.”
A grin tries to reach her face. She stops it because her skull objects.
“I have questions.”
“Find Ketill. He deserves them.”
She puts Snowpetal on one hip and collects her boots.
At the door, she looks back.
Her gaze touches the coat, then me.
“Thank you.”
“For the headache?”
“For bringing me inside.”
I face the storm.
The latch lifts.
“Eirik.”
I look over one shoulder.
She has one boot on and one in her hand. Snowpetal’s white head rests beneath her chin.
“I meant it,” she says. “About Myrkvier.”
Then she leaves before I can ruin that too.
The passage takes her toward the west stairs.
Three servants change direction when they see Snowpetal.
Snowpetal purrs.
I wait until the bond carries them beyond the gallery.
The room should improve.
It doesn’t.
My coat still holds the shape of her cheek where the wool dried. One fur has fallen to the floor. The bed smells of snow, mead, and the sweet grain-field note that has followed me for thirteen years.
I could stay here.
By noon, the night might become a private failure. Baldr would hear her plain account. Nothing happened. He would believe her because she can’t lie to save her life.
The morning could end there.
I fasten my coat.
Baldr stands in the lower gallery beneath a row of storm-dark windows.
He’s changed his shirt. He hasn’t slept.
One hand rests against the sill. Snow fills the glass beyond it. The Hall has begun to wake behind him, but every person who reaches the gallery turns away before crossing his path.
Strength feeders don’t need emotional walls. Most never learn to build them.
Baldr’s hurt reaches me before he turns.
Salt first.
Then iron.
It gathers beneath my tongue until I can taste nothing else.
He knows.
Of course he knows. He returned to the yard with Asta last night and found an empty hollow in the snow, Solveih gone, and enough tracks for a blind man to follow.
This morning she came down from my rooms wearing one boot.
A subtle conclusion.
Baldr faces me.
Same pale-green left eye. Amber right. My face without the silver, though nobody has looked at us and mistaken one for the other in centuries.
“She told me nothing happened.”
He skips the greeting.
I stop across from him.
“Did she.” I chuckle.
“She meant it.”
“She usually does.” I flick a non-existent dust mote from my coat.
The iron taste deepens.
He searches my eyes.
Baldr has spent a lifetime doing that. I’ve spent the same lifetime giving him poor material.
“Why your room?”
There it is.
Closer. Quieter. Empty of servants. Nowhere near the guest corridor a drunk human and a Sanguir would have woken.
I choose the one that cuts.
“She knew whose hands were on her when she fell asleep.”
Baldr goes still.
The words enter him.
Then the wound opens.
It comes through him whole—every night he held her, every easy laugh, every plan he let himself build because she came to his bed and reached for his hand. Under all of it sits the snowbank. He left to bring help. He came back and she had trusted me to carry her away.
My brother can’t hide any of it from me.
I put it there anyway.
I let the smile reach my eyes.
The taste nearly makes me choke.
At the dinner thirteen years ago, I hurt him and kept the reason. Four words would’ve changed the blood on his hands. She fed on you. I buried them because I could survive being the villain more easily than he could survive knowing he’d been used.
That defense has kept well.
It doesn’t belong here.
Every other time I’ve hurt him, something hid underneath it—a theft to stop, a threat to cut down, a kindness I couldn’t let him see. This morning, there’s only the wound.
I love my brother.
A useless fact, now that I’ve found the exact sentence that can gut him and put it between us for no better reason than he has what I want and can still see the wanting on me.
Baldr looks toward the windows.
His hands stay at his sides.
He won’t give me the anger I came for.
The hurt stays open. Quiet. It tastes worse that way.
“You went looking for me,” he says.
“I was passing.”
“From your rooms to the west stair.”
“Myrkvier contains many roads.”
His pale-green eye returns to mine.
He sees the smile.
He sees beneath it.
Damn him.
“You could’ve let her tell me,” he says. “You could’ve left it there.”
“You’ve heard her.”
“Then you came to make certain I heard you.”
The smile holds.
“Did it help?” he asks.
The question gets under the mask.
Last night returns in pieces. Snow in her curls. Her cheek on my coat. Her hand finding mine after she fell asleep.
Baldr waits.
He knows me.
Loves me anyway.
And I’m going to make him regret both.
“Immensely,” I say.
His face closes.
He stops looking for the part of me he found when we were boys.
Baldr steps around me.
I could stop him.
I have stopped armies with less effort.
My brother walks away.
I let him.
Ketill stands at the far end of the gallery.
One shoulder rests against the stone arch. His short hair is uncombed, and his shirt has been fastened wrong at the collar.
Asta has apparently survived.
Ketill waits until Baldr reaches the stairs.
Then his walls come down.
Disappointment enters first. Worry follows. Both reach me cleanly.
“Enjoy the performance?” I ask.
“No.”
He walks toward me.
His blue eyes follow the path Baldr took, then settle on mine.
“You should fasten your shirt.”
Ketill looks down.
“A devastating counterattack.”
He fixes the missed button. “Better?”
“Nothing could help, but the attempt has charm.”
“He saw what you were doing.”
“He has eyes.”
“He saw you.”
The storm strikes the windows hard enough to make one latch jump.
Ketill’s disappointment doesn’t change.
“And you punished him for it,” he says.
One true thing.
I look past him toward the stairs.
“The eastern tallies?”
“Still short.”
“Then perhaps the mine overseer should attend his mine.”
“Perhaps the Dróttin should attend his brother.”
“The mine is more likely to improve.”
Ketill studies me.
He knows the line.
“Asta wants to kill me,” he says.
“Get in line.”
“She has a head start.”
“Then run.”
He sighs and turns away. His walls rise before he reaches the arch.
The concern remains visible until the stone takes him.
I return to my study.
Baldr’s hurt moves down the west stairs. He walks without speaking to anyone. Solveih is somewhere near the kitchens with Asta. Her headache has eased. Her certainty from my room remains.
Two people trusted me before breakfast.
I dealt with one.
The study door doesn’t latch behind me. I leave it that way because turning around requires interest I no longer possess.
The eastern ledger waits on the desk.
Eight bars.
Still missing.
A problem I can count.
I sit.
Snowpetal pushes through the open door.
She arrives with empty jaws. Every other visit brings stolen meat, a ribbon, a piece of my furniture. This one brings nothing.
An alarming decline.
The Sanguir crosses the rug and jumps onto the bench beside my chair. One white paw lands on my thigh. Then the second.
She climbs into the space against my side, turns once, and settles.
Her horns rest beneath my hand.
The only natural predator my kind ever feared puts her throat against my wrist and closes her eyes.
Her purr begins.
I don’t move her.