by Anna Bright
Aleksei had been right about the boys’ Asgardian instincts.
They hated to be alone, but they kept everything hard or hurtful to themselves. I couldn’t understand it.
They felt time slipping through our fingers, responded to it without acknowledging it out loud. Even as Torden and I recycled the same conversation when we were alone—I can’t stay; you can’t go. I want to be together; I want to be with you—he never said a word to Anya or his brothers.
Monday morning, Torden pulled me aside after breakfast, eyes bright. “No training today. Get your”—he glanced around and lowered his voice—“your radio. Meet me at the stables.”
I seized his arm, hands trembling. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
I was going to talk to my godmother.
We rode on separate horses this time, Torden on Gullfaxi, me on Skeithbrimir, racing, racing over five miles of rocky cliffs, beneath five miles of blue sky, toward the mouth of the fjord.
A tower rose in the distance.
It was a massive thing, metallic, like a pen poised to scrawl messages across the sky itself. “You found one,” I breathed.
“Turns out the old forge wasn’t just a forge.” Torden jumped down from Gullfaxi’s back. “I found it reviewing the renovation plans. We’re going to turn it into a second stronghold.”
I climbed out of the saddle and crept to the edge of the cliff. Thousands of wooden planks descended in a curving staircase down to the Lysefjord, the drop as long as the tower was high.
“How close do you think we need to be?” I swallowed hard and turned, my neck bending back to take in the tower’s height. “Do I—have to climb it?”
“No, no, I don’t think so.” Torden guided me underneath the massive structure. “If I’m right, the extension at the top of the tower does just what your antenna does, only it can transmit and receive a signal over much greater distances.”
I unfolded the antenna. Radio in one hand, book in the other, I tilted my head back again, squinting against the sun. Bars and beams segmented the blue sky overhead in geometric patterns as intricate as the veins on a leaf.
I tuned the radio’s frequency carefully to 3.44 and switched it on.
“Godmother?” My voice was hoarse. “Godmother Al—”
“Selah?”
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. I hadn’t expected her to respond so quickly.
“Selah, sweet girl, is that you?” My godmother’s voice was bright as the sky above, damp with tears.
I put a hand to my mouth to stifle a sob.
She was there. My godmother was really there, waiting for me, all the way across the world.
Torden wrapped an arm around me until I was in control again.
“Yes, ma’am,” I choked.
“Oh, Selah. Oh, my baby girl. Where are you?”
“I’m in Norge. How are things?” I blurted. “How is he?”
“He—” She hesitated.
“Godmother?”
“He’s fine.” But her voice was tentative. Althea sighed. “No, he’s not. He’s not fine, honey.” I put a hand to my mouth again, felt tears running over my fingers.
“Is he—is—” But I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t bring myself to use the word dying.
“No,” Godmother Althea said. This time, she meant it. I lifted my eyes to Torden’s, and he nodded, encouraging. “He can’t do much without getting real tired. But Dr. Pugh and Dr. Gold say they’re doing their best.”
Torden passed me a handkerchief and I wiped my nose, nodding, though she couldn’t see me. “Has Alessandra made any moves?”
“Nothing obvious.” Godmother sighed. “She seems just to be . . . waiting.” She paused. “Do what you have to do, sweet girl, but don’t stay away any longer than you have to. I just don’t know what’s gonna happen.”
I buried my face in my hands, racked by silent sobs.
Torden cleared his throat. “Miss—ah, Sister Althea?”
“Yes?” My godmother’s voice turned curious. “Who’s this?”
“I’m Prins Torden of Norge,” he said evenly. “I’m Selah’s—well, she’s here visiting me.”
“I see.” My godmother’s voice was wry. I swallowed, wiping my nose with Torden’s handkerchief.
“Sister, I wanted to ask Selah a very particular question,” he said slowly, brown eyes never leaving mine. “I know your government chose me, but it sounds like your opinion and her father’s are what really matter to her.”
My heart stilled in my chest at the desperate bob of his Adam’s apple, the nervous blink of his perfect rose-gold eyelashes. Not all the spears in Asgard had such power to undo me.
“A question, hmm?” Godmother Althea asked.
“Yes.”
I didn’t understand. Torden and I had worn in the lines of our exchange so well I could have recited them in my sleep. I can’t stay. You can’t go. “What are you doing?” My voice shook.
“What if I went home with you, just for a little while?” Torden asked.
But you can’t, I almost blurted. Not with things as they were.
“For a little while?” asked Godmother Althea before I could speak.
“Yes,” I said quickly. “Godmother, the Council set me up with all suitors with hereditary obligations, who couldn’t come back to Potomac. I—” But I didn’t want to talk about other boys. Not with Torden standing here, eyes burning into mine.
“I see.”
I could imagine my godmother’s face, forehead furrowed, one eyebrow cocked.
“If I come back with you, you can see to your father and appease your Council,” said Torden. “Then, Sister Althea, maybe you can help us figure something out.”
“But what about . . .” I trailed off.
About Aleksei and your father. About your mother and Týr and Vidarr and Váli. About Hodr, exiled, and your house, falling apart around your ears.
“Just for a while,” Torden insisted.
Slowly, I nodded.
It wasn’t a permanent solution, but it didn’t matter. We’d go to Potomac and make sure Daddy was all right. Alessandra and the Council would have to agree I’d done my duty.
And Torden would love it—the woods and the fields and the freedom he’d feel, away from his father and all the rules that went with life in Asgard.
Maybe he’d love it so much he’d agree to stay.
It was such a selfish idea. It filled me with guilt. It filled me with greedy hope.
My godmother gave an enormous sniffle. “Do you love her?”
Torden watched me steadily. “Yes.”
“Will you take care of her, and let her take care of you?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll always be true to her? Never manipulate her goodwill, or deceive her, always tell her the truth?”
Torden silently kissed my forehead. “On my brothers’ lives,” he finally said.
“Then, sweet boy, as long as she’ll have you, you have my blessing.”
I blinked back tears, but to no avail. They poured down my cheeks, ill-matched to the laughter that rang from my mouth and his. “I love you,” I said to her, and to him.
“I love you, too, baby girl. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“Nice to meet you, Sister Althea.” Torden’s voice was as solid as his smile.
“See you in a few weeks, boy. You better be good to my girl.”
I switched off the radio. Torden passed a hand over my hair and bent to kiss me, and I threw my arms around him. I let myself forget the past few days, all the fighting and the tears and the pain I’d felt and uncovered.
I was going home. And I was already there.
Torden’s smile was triumphant, relentless. He ate his dinner with one arm wrapped around me, laughing with his brothers, unconcerned with his father’s drengs and thegns watching. I fluttered, distracted; Anya’d had to do the buttons on my gown, a beautiful thing in rose-gold chiffon, because my hands shook too hard for me to do it myse
lf. “You look like a sunrise,” she’d said, squeezing my fingers, beaming at me.
It was only Monday, still two days from the end of our trip. But Torden had told me to wear my favorite dress to dinner.
He was planning something. I hoped it was what I hoped it was.
I’d wandered out of her room and through the crowded halls, unable to sit still while she’d stayed behind to finish getting ready. But Anya hadn’t shown up to supper.
I hoped she wasn’t crying again, alone in her room. I wanted her there for whatever Torden was planning.
When the meal was finished, Alfödr stood, and Valaskjálf quieted.
“The house of Asgard has long been the shield of the North, defender against the shadow to the south,” said the konge, brows tense.
“I wish to see Asgard’s walls secured. And for the honor and strength of Norge to be preserved, its sons need fierce, faithful mates at their sides.”
Torden nodded, heart in his eyes. My own heart was thundering; it sounded loud in the noiseless hall.
Every person in the room watched Alfödr. No one had been expecting an announcement tonight.
Torden reached into his pocket. Something tiny glittered in his pale hand, catching the firelight—a ring. But his eyes were on me.
For once, despite the cost, I was glad to feel beautiful, in a beautiful gown.
But then his father spoke.
“Selah, Seneschal-elect of Potomac,” said Alfödr. “You have brought spies and treason into our midst. Therefore, I decline to extend a proposal to you on behalf of my fifth son, Torden of Asgard.”
Valaskjálf was cemetery-silent, lead-heavy with the stares of Alfödr’s heerthmen. I stared at the king, paralyzed, cold all over.
Torden’s hand was very still around mine.
For a long moment, I couldn’t speak.
“Spies?” I finally blurted. “Treason? Konge Alfödr, what do you mean?”
“Perhaps you ought to ask your captain.” The king stared at me. “Perhaps you ought to get to know your crew.”
I glanced at the high table. Cobie and Lang were tense, as if ready to run for the door. Torden’s brothers were pale with horror. Aleksei’s mouth was wry and sharp and strained as a garrote wire. Anya was still nowhere to be seen.
“It pains me,” Alfödr said, glancing down the table, “to cause my children pain. But my true-born children must serve Asgard first and truly, even if my adopted children do not.” His eyes lit on Aleksei, then drifted away, searching for something, then narrowing.
And even as his father’s eyes moved on, something hardened in Aleksei’s face, some determination I didn’t understand.
“Father,” Torden began, shaking his head.
Suddenly, Valaskjálf erupted in whispers. Huginn and Muninn swept down the great hall’s center aisle, like ravens descending on a wind.
The room held its breath as Alfödr conferred with them, then turned a fierce glare on me. “This is your doing, isn’t it?” he demanded. He looked down the table again, on his left and on his right, his gaze fixing on the empty chair next to Fredrik.
“What?” I stammered. The konge stomped toward me, lowering his voice so the rest of the hall couldn’t hear.
“Anya,” he said furiously, “is missing.”
54
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” My voice was unsteady, even above the noise of the dancers and musicians the konge had ordered to begin.
The hall full of drengs and thegns and heerthmen and noblewomen pretended not to watch as Alfödr planted his hands on the table and leaned down so his single eye was on a level with mine. “I don’t believe you.” His gravelly voice was low, his gaze on fire.
I shook my head hard. “She helped me get dressed earlier. That’s the last time I saw her.”
“You told me yourself you would back her,” he said. “That you approved of her insubordination.”
“Pappa, Selah would never flout your authority that way,” Torden cut in.
Alfödr dismissed him with a wave. “Of course she would.”
Of course I would, I wanted to add. But one glance at Torden silenced me. His back was ramrod straight in his chair, his voice confident, but his eyes on Alfödr were almost pleading.
Torden sat before his konge a soldier of Asgard. But he wanted his father to see his son.
“Your Majesty,” Huginn said, “it is unlikely that Prinsessa Anya will make an effective match if she is not found soon.”
Alfödr turned his furious gaze on me. “Do you hear that?” he whispered. “You helped her run away. You have lost me an ally. With the Imperiya drawing nearer every season, we lose a marriage alliance for the sake of a crush.”
I gripped Torden’s hand. “But I didn’t—”
Aleksei stepped to his father’s side. “It’s okay, Selah.”
“You—” Torden’s jaw tightened, but Aleksei held out a hand.
“Pappa,” Aleksei said reasonably, sidling over to Torden and me. “Let me talk to her.”
“Let you?” Alfödr stared at his Yotne son. “Why?”
“Because I know Selah, and I can make her see reason,” Aleksei said, sounding as reasonable as I’d ever heard him. “She doesn’t understand the way we do things here.” His black eyes met Torden’s, then mine. “But she knows how far we’ll go for family.”
“Majesty, if Anya is not found, and soon—” Huginn tried again.
“But if we send out search parties, the kingdom will know, and word will spread to our allies of the prinsessa’s . . . dalliance,” Muninn cut in. “If we exercise patience—judgment—this may yet be resolved quietly.”
The king stared at me for a long moment. I could practically hear his teeth grinding over the scrape of the bow against the strings of the hardingfele.
“Three hours,” he muttered, just loud enough that all his sons could hear. “You have three hours to bring her back. If my daughter is not home by the end of the ball, the world will know why.” Alfödr stepped nearer to me. “You will not marry my son. You will not find a husband anywhere in the civilized world who will accept such a wayward wife.”
“Three hours,” I stammered back. “I’m sure she just lost track of time. I’ll find her.”
“Yes,” said Alfödr. “You will.”
I left Valaskjálf as if I were making for my room, then doubled back through darkened corridors and empty halls. I kept quiet as I could as I slipped through the front door and through Asgard’s gates.
Evidently, it was easier to get out than it was to get in.
Anya had figured out as much.
The others were waiting among Yggdrasil’s roots beside the Bilröst when we arrived—the Asgard boys, plus Cobie and Lang. The moon washed their faces pale and serious.
I wanted to talk to Torden. But I owed our captain some words.
“What did you do?” I demanded, stalking toward Lang. My words echoed off the water. “‘Treason and spies’?”
I had trusted him. I had accepted the terms of his ceasefire and let him keep his secrets. If only I’d known what a mistake that would be.
“Selah,” Lang said. “This isn’t the t—”
“It is the time,” I fired back.
Aleksei put a hand on my arm. “Selah,” he said flatly, “you have to run.”
I flinched away from his ghostly face, his eyes like pits.
I was not inclined to trust him.
He’d betrayed Anya and Skop just days ago, and tried to humiliate me the same night. He’d delivered a horrible truth with the sole intent of horrifying me. But Aleksei was as sincere as I’d ever seen him.
And in the dark, with Asgard looming overhead, it was hard not to listen.
I pressed my lips together and shook my head. “But I didn’t do it. I don’t know where Anya is.”
Torden stepped to my side, and I gripped his hand.
“Are you certain?” Lang asked. His face was composed, but anger swelled in me at the skep
ticism in his tone.
“What do you mean, am I certain?” I spat. “I either know or I don’t, and I told you I didn’t. You’re the one who ruined absolutely everything!”
Cobie put a lean hand on my shoulder. “I just think everyone needs to calm down.”
“Selah, I’m on your side,” Lang began.
“Try acting like it,” I snarled.
“We’re dawdling,” Hermódr said softly. “If Anya isn’t found, you’ll be punished, Selah.”
“Leave tonight.” Fredrik’s voice was urgent. “Go. We’ll cover for you. Get your people and get out of here.”
“Tonight?” Cobie exclaimed.
Hermódr and I both jumped. But Cobie was watching Lang.
“Yes, tonight,” Aleksei retorted. He ran a hand through his hair, standing its dark strands wildly on end. “What did you think he meant by ‘three hours’? If you can’t produce Anya, tonight is all you’ve got.”
Could it have been just this afternoon that Torden had asked my godmother’s permission to marry me?
I buried my face in my hands, near tears.
“Selah,” Aleksei said. His voice broke, and I looked up at him. “You can’t be here when she doesn’t return. You don’t want to watch what happens.” He met Torden’s eyes. “Trust me.”
I was straw in a breath of wind. I was glass shattered on stone. I was the soft red flesh of a heart, vulnerable to every sharp thing in its path.
I couldn’t go home now, without a fiancé. But what would Althea think when I didn’t reappear in a month, if I couldn’t tell her what had happened?
Hermódr turned to Cobie. “Can your navigator manage the Lysefjord after dark?”
“Ever practical,” Cobie said, giving a wan smile. Hermódr pushed his glasses up, looking forlorn.
“Homer’s the best there is,” Lang said, tentative. “But unfortunately, that’s not our problem.”
I lifted my head. “What is our problem, Lang?”
He wet his lips and looked away. Into his silence, Cobie spoke instead. Her hazel eyes were sharp as knives in the dark.
“Selah, the ship is gone.”
