by Anna Bright
I felt full to the brim with embarrassment—awkward and silly in front of this flawless specimen of a boy. But a note of happiness sang through the blush I felt like a burn on my skin.
“I’m not even much of a runner,” I confessed, smiling despite myself. “I like to ride, though. On a beautiful day I can walk for miles. Or garden for hours.”
Torden’s gaze grew serious. “Are you telling me you are a competitive gardener? Is this a sport in Potomac? How are the matches structured? Because—”
“All right, enough,” I said, unable to hold in a nervous giggle. “So, no, I don’t like sports. What’s to like?”
“Well, training and competition channel our energy,” he began.
I cut my eyes at his brothers—Fredrik had Hermódr in a headlock. “I see.”
Torden gave another quiet laugh. “Well, it helps, anyway.” Then he paused, considering. “We live for Norge. The kingdom needs us at our strongest. Besides, is there anything like it?”
“Like—sweat dripping in your eyes? Like screaming lungs and a side stitch and people watching me fail?” I shook my head. “If I could avoid being in the public eye forever—avoid all that pressure—I would do it.”
Torden hesitated, scratching at his beard, squinting at me. “Who cares about the people watching?”
Spoken truly like a boy who’s never been teased in his life.
Or, my brain rejoined, like one who’s been teased all his life and knows how to give it right back.
“No one knows how many years he has, Seneschal-elect. Life is short and death is certain.” Torden shot me a glance, tugging absently at the top button of his shirt. I gulped and dropped my eyes. “So every moment I am aboveground and not below it, I want to feel the difference. We’ll all be in our graves soon enough.”
I smiled at my shoes. “Your profile failed to mention what a philosopher you were.”
He opened his mouth, but Hermódr cut off his reply; the boys had quit scrapping. “Time for a horseback ride?”
Torden got to his feet. “Let’s see if you like to ride as much as you think you do.” He offered me a hand up, smile unreadable.
Bear had been sullen, cynical, romantic, and charming by turns—emotional, and disposed to talk about it. I’d understood him.
I had no idea what to make of the boy in front of me, or what to do with him, except to play his game and see if I liked it.
And what does it mean if you do? It’s too soon for any of this to be real.
But I pushed back.
No. What I had with Bear wasn’t real.
But this could be.
I needed it to be.
Everything calling me home—my father, my fear of Alessandra’s plans—needed this to work.
I swallowed hard and swatted Torden’s arm away, dragging myself upright. Though my legs were weary, I jogged past him after Hermódr. “Let’s see if you can keep up with me.”
Torden cocked his head, amused. “My horse is very fast.”
“I meant keep up with me in general,” I called over my shoulder, grinning. His smile broadened, and he broke into a run.
40
Konge Alfödr’s stables were a thing of wonder, home to row after row of enormous beasts bred to be ridden by warriors. As we trotted into the paddock on the backs of black-coated Friesians and dun-colored Fjord horses, the wind flapped the hem of my dress and pulled loose strands from Anya’s halo braid. Skop couldn’t look away from her face.
“Easy,” I muttered.
Skop shook his head. “She’s glorious. A sweet force of nature.”
I blinked at him. “Well, I’m glad your crush has turned you into such a poet.”
Skop arched his eyebrows at me. “Well, let’s hope yours turns you into an athlete,” he teased quietly. I gaped at him, indignant, but he shook his head. “Oh, Selah, I’m not in any deeper than you are.”
I flushed. “You—!” I lunged, meaning only to smack Skop on the arm, but the horse sensed my sudden movement. And before I knew it, we were off and running.
I’d always spent a lot of time alone, or with people who let me be. But Anya and the Asgard boys were happier and more whole together than apart. Where I craved stillness in written words or in the dirt or in church, they longed to be side by side, racing and chasing and crowding each other, only able to breathe if their lungs were burning. Over every hill was a sight they couldn’t wait one more moment to see, and Konge Alfödr had raised impeccable riders.
I couldn’t help but wonder, as we rode, how it would have been to grow up raised by a pack of wild animal boys instead of nuns and libraries. Would I be less fragile and anxious if I’d spent my earliest days being teased by brothers, more confident if I’d been conscripted into wrestling matches, taught to fight and race?
I watched Torden lean into his gallop, so handsome it hurt to look at him.
With a breath in, and a breath out, I resolved at least to find out if I could still be that person. Hardly knowing what I was doing, I gave myself up to the North.
My gibe at the prins notwithstanding, I had to fight to keep up with them. But as the clear air and their happy shouts flooded my system, I found I didn’t mind the physical struggle.
I imitated my new friends, howling at one another over the wind like so many feral animals, ignoring the growing ache in my limbs and the wind that stung my face. I’d never been less self-conscious in my life, and it was intoxicating. We were a racing pride of lions, a stampede of horses, a herd of beasts running wild, invulnerable and free and thrilled with the mad beating of our own hearts.
We tore across the cliffs over the Lysefjord until the light began to grow golden, and Aleksei suddenly stopped and dismounted. He barely paused to tie up his horse before sprinting between two rocky hills to the edge of a blue lake. The others took off after him.
“What—” I started. My heart seized as the Asgard boys began peeling off their clothes, stopping at the sturdy shorts they wore under their pants. I froze, more immobilized by the act of undressing than their state of undress, but I couldn’t look away. Aleksei’s thin form was vivid with tattoos: a snake, its jade color dull, wrapped itself around his upper arm, and a gray wolf stalked the sharp ridge of his spine toward his neck. Its lean charcoal body was warped and bizarrely elongated, as if its wearer had grown.
I stiffened at the sight of the wolf. But I shook myself and looked away.
Torden, Hermódr, and Bragi wore ink, as well—a mark like a slanting letter F over each of their hearts. I gasped as they streaked toward the water and jumped, and then again as they burst above the surface, pushing water off their faces and shaking droplets from their blond and black and red hair.
“Anya, that water’s got to be freezing,” I panted, palms braced on my knees. A stiff wind tore across the cliff top; a sultry Potomac summer day this was not.
Anya tugged off her dress, leaving only her wool tights and shirt. “Then you’d better hope that ride was enough of a warm-up.” She winked and hurtled toward the lake, flinging herself in after her brothers.
I seized Skop with shaking hands. “They’re insane.”
“I know,” he laughed raggedly, yanking off his sweater and pants. “Isn’t it great?” As he jumped, I backed away from the bank, stomach seething.
Torden swam over, grinning and blinking water from his eyes, waving me in. “Come on!” Goose bumps formed over his thick-muscled chest and arms.
I shook my head fast, worrying the cuff of my shirtdress. “I can’t swim.”
Hermódr gaped. Bragi and Aleksei groaned, beckoning me anyway.
“Don’t think about it. Don’t be afraid. Just do it. I’ll catch you.” Torden held both his arms out.
I shook my head again, taking another cautious step back. “I’ll just wait here.”
“No!” Anya called, looking disappointed.
Torden swam a little closer to the water’s edge. “Come on, Selah.” His smile was sincere, lit with no trace of mockery
. “I promise, I’ll catch you and I won’t let go. Jump. Trust me.”
Could I?
Was it foolish to trust so soon, having learned just how easily trust could be broken?
Or would it be worse, letting Bear break my heart and my faith in people?
Panting, shaking, grateful above all that Anya had forced me to wear her stupid wool tights, I turned around. I couldn’t fiddle with the buttons of my dress as they watched. At least one catcall—Fredrik, I thought—joined the cheers echoing off the rocks, but the offending noise was silenced by what was unmistakably a slap.
I stood shivering in my tights and undershirt for a moment when I was done, wringing my fingers. Then I turned, sprinted toward the lake, and jumped, hitting the icy water like a sack of flour and sinking like a stone.
Before the pain in my skin and lungs had stilled, strong hands seized my upper arms and dragged me to the surface. The others whooped as I came up coughing.
“You did it!” said Torden. “That was not so bad, was it?”
“No,” I gasped, trying not to cough in his face.
“Still—” Torden shifted his hands from my forearms to my elbows, drawing me closer. “Maybe we will work next on diving instead of swordplay.” Though his expression was serious, his lips twitched.
Torden began to laugh, and then so did I—nervously, foolishly, each of us watching the other. I hoped it hid the shaking in my limbs. My heart thumped as his grip traveled to my waist.
Barely a week ago, I’d been wrapped up in someone else’s arms.
Too soon, too soon, too soon.
“So, are you just going to hold me here and not swim around?” I tried to sound nonchalant.
“I told you I would.” Torden pushed his hair off his forehead.
He had. He’d caught me, just as he’d said he would.
It was so small a thing. We were children playing in a pond, wasting time on a summer day.
But the strength of Torden’s arms around me made me feel, for the first time, that my plan—hoping he might save me and my father—might not be a leap destined to end in bruised skin and broken bones.
Suddenly, a stream of water hit me in the face—Anya had swum up to spit water at me through her teeth. I squealed and shrank against Torden’s shoulder, laughing and splashing at her.
“Come on.” Fredrik beckoned to Anya, and she swam back to her brother.
Torden maneuvered me behind himself. “Climb on.”
“What?”
“You have to push Anya into the lake,” he said, lifting me up easily when I didn’t do it myself.
“Okay, but why?” I tried not to wobble, thankful that a thick layer of wool lay between my unshaved knees and his palms.
“Don’t you want to play?” Anya, already steady on her brother’s shoulders, looked disappointed.
Torden looked straight up at me. The corner of his mouth curved, and my insides spun dizzily.
Too soon.
But—Jump, he’d said. Don’t be afraid.
I lunged at Anya, seizing her shoulders. She squealed and grabbed one of my arms. Hermódr, Skop, and Bragi gave supportive hoots and cheers, but our fight was over as soon as it had begun. Anya shoved me and I fell backward with a smack!, swallowing a gallon of lake water before Torden dragged me to the surface. I climbed back on his shoulders, spluttering but determined.
Anya won easily, over and over again. The last time she upended me, I righted myself and dog-paddled feverishly toward her, barely afloat, not saying a word. She stared at me blankly until I dove forward and ducked her underwater, crowing, “I won this one! I win!” Anya shrieked delightedly, swiping at me wildly.
Torden finally intervened and the two of us tried to duck him without success. He flipped Anya and me over his shoulders, arms around the backs of our knees and both of our heads just above water. We screeched and hooted and flailed, and when he released us, Anya somehow managed to flip over his back into the lake, but I wound up in his arms, close against his chest.
I pushed my hair behind my ears with one hand and clung to his neck with the other, shaking from nerves and the cold as we bobbed silently together in the water.
Neither of us moved until another catcall from Fredrik split the air.
“Time to dry off,” said Torden, voice so low it rumbled in his chest. He hauled us both out of the lake easily, as though I weighed nothing at all.
The others climbed out after us, blue-lipped and shivering likewise. But as Fredrik heaved himself onto the bank, Torden gave him a playful shove and he flopped backward, hitting the water with a huge splash.
Fredrik clambered back toward the bank and dragged himself onto dry land. “What was that for?”
Torden eyed him and gave a long wolf whistle, as sharp and silly as Fredrik had before I’d jumped in. We all collapsed into laughter.
We retreated to the fortress freezing but exhilarated, and Anya and I both took scalding baths before I collapsed into her bed.
When I woke, Anya was aglow with excitement, her hair a mess and eyes so bright I wondered if she’d napped at all. “Time to get ready?” I asked hazily, wiping my eyes.
Anya nodded eagerly. “Time to get ready.”
We pawed through each other’s things while we got dressed, like little girls playing dress-up. Anya talked me into red lipstick and a bright ruby pendant of my mother’s with my yellow gown—but only on the condition that she wear her own golden tiara and the green dress I’d worn in England. She’d refused at first, her tone all well-bred protest, but her hands traced the patterns in the lace even as she shook her head.
I thought of the tie I’d knotted around Bear’s neck the night I’d worn that dress, of the way he’d watched me and held me when we danced.
It felt foolish to give away something so expensive. But it wasn’t as if I was ever going to wear it again.
When Anya was dressed, she didn’t fasten the amber and gold necklace around her neck. Smug on Skop’s behalf that she’d set aside the relic of a former flame, I dragged her to my jewelry box, and she chose a delicate chain with a little golden charm shaped like a kitten from its depths.
“I used to have cats in Varsinais-Suomi,” Anya said sadly. “Alfödr says pets are a waste of resources.”
He would. I fastened the chain around her neck, smiling. “It’s all yours.”
When Skop came to our door to escort us to the Valaskjálf, I checked myself one last time in her mirror, almost shy at the sight of my own reflection. I turned to Anya, twisting my fingers together, clinging to the remains of the dizzying confidence I’d felt earlier that day. “What do you think?”
Skop smiled as Anya seized my hand and tugged me toward the corridor.
“Don’t change a thing,” she insisted, then winked. “Come on. Torden’s waiting.”
41
My eyes found him the moment we walked into Valaskjálf.
The Asgard boys were dressed like the rest of the drengs, their white military dress trousers and gold epaulets and brass buttons gleaming in the firelight. Alfödr’s sons were an imposing crowd, handsome, laughing and shouting over one another—but I could only watch Torden.
He quit roughhousing with Hermódr, a smile hooking the corner of his lips as he took me in. My heart went abruptly still, my skin warming beneath his stare.
Hi, he mouthed.
I gave a tiny wave, though by now we were halfway across the hall. Hi.
Fredrik rolled his eyes and elbowed him in the ribs. Torden grunted, grabbing at his side. I stifled a laugh.
Valaskjálf’s long tables had been pushed nearer its perimeter to free up space for dancing. Colorful dresses and military jackets in Norsk blue and Varsinais-Suomi red filled its benches and aisles—though no one wore their clothes quite as well as Torden. When he caught me staring at him again, I flicked my gaze to the tapestries on the walls, woven not with images but foreign words.
Torden drew a chair out for me beside him. “Our library,” he sai
d in my ear.
I gave a shivery laugh. “What?”
“We have few paper books here. The København royal library down in Jylland is much larger.” Hermódr settled down across from me, sounding wistful.
“But our most important tales we keep where everyone can read them,” said Bragi. “Well, everyone who can read, anyway.”
Skop frowned. “What do you mean?”
“The hangings are worked with the names of the dead and their deeds, so our past is always before us,” Torden said. “And we wear the words that matter most. Here, and here.” He tapped his heart and pulled down his glove, so close to my side I caught the smell of his soap as he moved. I glanced at the symbol like an angular letter R tattooed over his pulse, thinking of the ink on his chest beneath his shirt.
My shoulders tensed at the memory of how close I’d been to that tattoo this afternoon.
Too soon.
Anya’s expression gentled, seeing I was stalled. “Do you keep many books in Potomac?” she asked helpfully.
But my mind didn’t go back to Arbor Hall. Suddenly, in my head, I was in Winchester’s library, with more volumes than I could read in a lifetime and a boy reading Beowulf aloud to me before a fire in a tiny, shabby attic room.
I nodded tightly. I was warm in the memory, but its recollection burned.
“Ah, but how do your storytellers compare to ours?” Bragi flashed a brilliant smile.
“Storytellers?” I sat up straight.
“Yes,” said Bragi. “Reading is solitary. But a storyteller, everyone can enjoy together.”
“Bragi’s not a bad storyteller,” said Anya.
“Not as good as you.” Bragi fixed her with an admiring stare. Anya cleared her throat and looked away.
Skop rubbed the back of his broad neck, eyes darting between them. “What kind of stories?”
“Our skálds tell the kind that are . . . mostly true,” Torden said. “Wars, great hunts, survival. Some love stories, too.” He smiled at me, dropping his voice as Alfödr rose from his seat. “I suppose we will see what Ragnvald has for us tonight.” But Torden’s smile froze when Aleksei entered the hall.
