Chapter Twenty-One #2
The words are about me.
They’re also not about me at all.
One dinner. One dead woman. One brother who has loved the other through every ugly piece and has finally been given a piece he can’t carry.
I know only the edges.
They’re sharp enough.
“Ketill,” I say. “Can the seals be changed?”
He looks grateful enough to concern me.
“Before nightfall.”
“Good. Then we have a plan.”
“We had a plan,” Baldr says.
Eirik folds the map.
“Yes. You were going to count badly in three places instead of one.”
Baldr stands.
The bench scrapes stone.
His hand catches my shoulder when the movement tips me sideways. He steadies me, then leaves the palm there.
Eirik looks at it.
Baldr sees him look.
I’m the only person at the table who took days to understand what they were doing.
Baldr’s fingers move beneath my hair.
He draws me against his side.
“We leave when the ridge opens,” he says.
Eirik puts the folded map into Ketill’s hands.
“Take whoever you require for the seals.”
Ketill doesn’t take it.
Eirik lets go anyway.
The map lands on the table.
I look up at Baldr.
He’s watching his brother.
Not me.
His hand rubs once across my shoulder.
Warm.
Familiar.
Wrong.
Baldr isn’t holding me.
He’s holding me up.
A purple cloak in a market. A hand beneath a table. A woman brought down from his brother’s rooms in one boot.
A flag.
I’m the flag.
My throat closes.
Baldr looks down at last.
His amber eye softens. His pale-green eye does not.
“What?”
I shake my head.
Coward.
In my own voice.
I could step away. I could tell him his hands haven’t been about me for days. I could say I know he’s hurting, and this makes it worse.
Eirik would hear.
Everyone would hear.
Baldr’s already been cut open in this Hall.
I can’t do it again.
So I smile. Badly.
“Nothing.”
Baldr studies my face.
He’s always known when I’m about to fall.
He doesn’t see this.
Or he sees it and needs one thing too badly to stop.
His hand comes to my cheek.
“Sól.”
I know what he’s asking.
I know what answer I should give.
His mouth touches mine.
Warm.
Careful for the first breath.
Then full.
Baldr kisses me in front of the long table, the mine clerks, Asta, Ketill, and his brother.
I put one hand against his chest.
It should become a fist in his shirt.
It doesn’t.
I stand inside his arms and wait for it to end.
One second.
Two.
Baldr’s mouth leaves mine.
Because Eirik’s hand has closed over his shoulder.
One pull.
Baldr’s no longer touching me.
The cup beside Ketill’s hand rolls onto its side.
Nobody reaches for it.
Eirik stands between us.
I didn’t see him move.
His gloved fingers press into Baldr’s shoulder. The silver mask covers his mouth, but the rest of his face is open.
Completely.
His purple eye burns.
The pale-green one is fixed on me.
The Dróttin is gone and what’s underneath is looking straight at me.
He saw me disappear inside that kiss.
He felt it.
And he couldn’t stay in his chair.
Baldr sees it too.
His face empties.
Eirik releases him.
His eyes go cold. His shoulders settle. When he speaks, the words are already aimed.
“She leaves with you when the road opens,” he says. “Try not to look so frightened of the wait.”
Eirik turns.
He walks out of the Hall.
No one stops him.
The door to the inner passage shuts. Baldr keeps looking at it.
He knows.
Whatever lie we were all sitting inside has broken.
I touch my mouth.
“Baldr.”
He looks at me.
His eyes are the same two colors they were an hour ago.
He looks older.
I want to take his hand.
That’d be another lie.
“I’m sorry.”
The words do nothing.
“Did you want me to kiss you?”
There’s no accusation in it.
That hurts more.
I look at the table.
“I wanted to.”
Baldr breathes out.
“That’s not what I asked.”
My eyes burn.
“I know.”
His jaw tightens.
Then releases.
“I’d have stopped.”
“I know.”
“You should’ve told me.”
“I know.”
He nods once.
I reach for the next sentence. An explanation. A promise. Anything that will put his face back where it was before Myrkvier.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
Baldr looks toward the door his brother used.
“No,” he says. “You were trying not to.”
He leaves through the passage.
Ketill exhales.
The sound is small but it still reaches every corner.
Asta moves her chair closer.
I stand before she can touch me.
The table catches my thigh. Pain runs down to my knee.
“Sól.”
“I need a minute.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No.”
Her face goes still.
I never tell Asta no.
Not for this.
I grip the edge of the table until my knee stops throbbing.
Eirik used the night in his room to hurt Baldr.
Baldr spent the last few days touching me to hurt Eirik.
They keep reaching for me when they want to cut each other.
And I keep letting them.
I slept in one brother’s bed and came down to the other.
I watched Eirik’s face every time Baldr touched me.
I kissed Baldr back until I could pretend I’d tried.
Both of them are breaking.
I’m the part they keep fighting over.
No.
I’m doing this.
The wind brushes the high windows. Not a strike now. A soft pass over the glass.
The blue opening above the pines has widened. Sun reaches Eirik’s empty chair.
Travel soon.
I should be relieved.
I can’t breathe in this room.
“Please,” I tell Asta.
Her mouth presses flat.
Then she nods.
I leave the table.
Nobody in the Hall looks directly at me. Mine clerks gather their papers. The woman near the hearth puts another piece of wood on a fire that doesn’t need it.
The inner passage is empty.
Eirik went this way.
I take the west stairs instead.
Baldr went that way.
I turn around.
The Hall contains sixty rooms, four galleries, two kitchens, a mine office, three staircases I understand, and several more that have appeared only when I’m already lost.
Every path holds one of them.
I need dark.
Quiet.
One place where nobody’s looking at me and deciding what I mean.
The narrow stair behind the old records room goes up.
I’ve never taken it.
Night gathers early beneath the clearing storm. The lamps haven’t been lit on this side of the Hall, and the last grey light reaches only the first landing.
I put one hand on the wall.
The stone’s cold beneath my palm.
Behind me, the Hall begins moving again.
Ahead, the stair turns out of sight.
I go up.