Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
“He told me everything it could do. He told me it couldn’t make me want him.”
Baldr glances at me.
“And you chose him before it opened.”
“Yes.”
The hurt deepens.
“I should’ve told you before the table,” Solveih says. “I knew something was wrong. I kept letting you touch me because I thought I loved you and I wanted that to be enough.”
Baldr looks down at Snowpetal.
“I wanted it to be enough too.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
Her face crumples.
Baldr’s hand tightens in the white fur.
“I kept making choices for you,” he says. “The rooms. The road. Every useful thing you offered while I told you I’d take care of it.”
“You were taking care of me.”
“I was also refusing to see when you wanted to carry part of it.”
He looks at her bandaged wrists.
“Then I put my hands on you in rooms full of people and called it affection. By the long table, half the Hall had been given an answer you’d never said.”
“Baldr—”
His amber eye closes.
The pain hits hard enough that I grip the back of her chair.
Baldr breathes once and opens it again.
“You chose him,” he says. “The bond waited for you. I saw that in the weigh house.”
Solveih nods.
“Then I’ll honor the answer you gave.”
She reaches across the space between the chairs.
Baldr looks at her hand before taking it.
He holds it between both of his. Warm, careful, familiar.
Then he lets go.
Solveih cries.
Snowpetal climbs from Baldr’s chest to his shoulder and licks one tear from his jaw.
Her tongue leaves a streak of dried blood.
He stares at her.
“That was Varrik’s man,” Solveih says.
“Thank you.”
“I thought you should know.”
Baldr takes a cloth from the table and wipes his face.
His gaze reaches me over Snowpetal’s horns.
“You used her to punish me,” he says.
“Yes.”
Solveih looks between us.
“At the table,” Baldr continues. “This morning. Every time I saw what you wanted.”
“Yes.”
“Do it again and I’ll break your jaw.”
Snowpetal purrs against his shoulder. “You’ve tried.”
“I was younger.”
“You were larger.”
“I’m still larger.”
“A common burden among cattle.”
Solveih covers her face.
Her laughter comes through the bond before I hear it.
Baldr’s mouth pulls into a real smile.
It disappears quickly.
“I came anyway,” he says.
“You did,” I say.
Baldr waits. My apology gets as far as my throat.
“Eirik.”
His voice is warm. I look at him.
“I know.”
He knows I’m sorry.
He stands and sets Snowpetal in Solveih’s lap.
His hand closes around my shoulder on the way past.
The grip is brief and hard. Then he goes to find his wagons.
The room’s quiet again.
I take the mask off the washstand.
“Does that hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Every time?”
“Every time.”
She doesn’t tell me not to.
The silver finds the scars it made and seals back into them. Blood first, then the heat, then Myrkvier drops out of my chest until it’s only a room full of people again—the cook, the healer, the men in the yard, all of it at a distance I can carry.
Solveih watches every part of it and stays where she is.
By dawn, the eastern road’s open.
Ketill finds me at the lower gate with three reports, eight recovered bars, and the name of every dead man from the weigh house. Varrik’s name sits at the top.
One rider is missing.
“He left before the fighting,” Ketill says. “East road, then south beyond the old marker. The watch found the horse’s tracks.”
“Where do they end?”
“They don’t.”
Somewhere beyond my border, a man’s explaining that Varrik failed, the bars are back in Myrkvier, and the Sanguir their grandfathers tried to erase is alive.
He will also explain Solveih.
What she is to me.
Where to put the next blade.
“Find the people Varrik answered to,” I say.
Ketill folds the reports beneath one arm. “And then?”
The treaty’s kept Skorvaer inside Nástrond longer than any living ruler remembers. Humans call the borders peace. Varrik called them a cage while a bound woman sat in front of him.
The grievance remains true.
His methods made it monstrous.
Killing the general removed one man. It did nothing to the border that made his cause useful.
“Bring me every treaty copy in the archive,” I say.
Ketill studies me.
“You intend to change it.”
“I intend to end the cage.”
“The human courts may object.”
“They should practice.”
Ketill nods.
He looks past me toward the Hall.
Solveih comes down the steps with Asta on one side and Snowpetal limping on the other. The purple cloak has been cleaned as far as it’ll allow. A dark stain remains along the hem.
Baldr waits beside the lead wagon.
Clear sky stretches above the pines. Cold sunlight reaches every roof the storm tried to bury.
Ketill’s attention returns to me.
“And Snowpetal?”
“Double the watch.”
“That’ll protect the border.”
“For now.”
Snowpetal reaches the yard and attacks the end of Asta’s braid.
Asta removes it from her mouth.
The Sanguir tries again.
Varrik’s people will come for her. Other factions will follow once the story travels far enough. A living predator, small enough to carry and strong enough to open a Skorvaer throat, will turn every frightened ruler in Nástrond toward Myrkvier.
They’ll come for Solveih too.
I made the mistake of showing them exactly what taking her means.
They’ll calculate better next time.
Baldr mounts. Solveih hugs him before he can stop her.
He closes both arms around her. His eyes shut above her curls.
Then he releases her and steps back.
“Send word when you reach Sólvik,” she says.
“I will.”
Baldr looks at me.
“Send word before you start the next war.”
“It removes the surprise.”
“Try it once.”
“A dull habit.”
His smile returns.
He turns the horse toward the open gate.
The wagons follow him east between the black pines.
I watch until the last one passes the ridge marker.
Solveih comes to my side.
She puts two fingers on the silver, over the rune where the skin underneath is still open.
For six hundred years I’ve put this between myself and every person close enough to reach me. Silver against noise. Runes against need. My brother’s face covered before anyone could mistake it for mine.
That use is finished. She’s had her hands under it.
Her other hand finds mine.
The bond opens warm beneath my ribs. Her grief for Baldr moves through it beside relief, fear, and the stubborn choice she made twice in two days.
Snowpetal presses against her boot.
Beyond the trees, Varrik’s people are already carrying word of the woman beside me and the Sanguir at her feet.
They will reach me first.