The Beholder

by Anna Bright

  55

  I stared at her, as if she’d slapped me instead of speaking aloud. “Gone?” It came out confused, as if I didn’t know what the word meant.

  “Yes,” Cobie said carefully. Beside her, Lang crossed his arms, silent.

  Slowly, my gaze shifted to him. “Lang, where’s my ship?”

  He didn’t answer, and I took two steps toward him. “Lang,” I said slowly. “Where. Is. My. Ship?”

  Lang stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets and finally met my eyes. “The Beholder made a run to Odense while we were in Norge. It should be back tonight.”

  I clenched my hands into fists at my sides. I was shaking with fury.

  “Selah?” Cobie said quietly. “Do you trust me?”

  I swung to face her. “Did you sign off on this decision?”

  Her brows arched in surprise. “I’m a rigger, Seneschal-elect. I don’t sign off on decisions. I obey orders.”

  “Then sure,” I said flatly.

  “Good.” Cobie turned to Fredrik. “Take everyone to your boat and wait for us there.”

  Fredrik blinked. “My boat?”

  She nodded slowly, then with more certainty. “Make sure Skídbladnir is ready to sail.” She turned to Hermódr. “You, come with me to the castle. We have to get her things out. Lang’s going to get Perrault and J.J.”

  “I should stay with Selah.” Lang’s voice was low, and his eyes were urgent in the dark.

  “No,” I said tautly. “You should not stay with me. You should get the people you’ve put in danger out of it.”

  “I’ll take care of Selah,” Torden said evenly. His arm tightened around my waist, and I wondered if I was imagining the possessiveness in his voice.

  “Fine.” Cobie nodded at Aleksei. “You have to convince Alfödr that Anya’s in her room, that she took a walk because she was upset, and now she’s embarrassed to come downstairs.”

  Aleksei nodded, dark eyes bitter and confident. “Leave the tricks to me.”

  I hiked back up from the banks of the Bilröst in silence with the others, angry and afraid and already lonely for everything I was about to leave behind.

  I hated Lang. I feared Alfödr. I loved these boys, with their broad shoulders and their stupid mouths and their loyal hearts.

  We split apart, each to our stations. One by one, I hugged the Asgard brothers, their jaws working silently, their eyes sad.

  Bragi.

  Hermódr.

  Even Aleksei. Even after everything. He stiffened in my arms but returned my embrace, then set off away from the fjord.

  Gone.

  “Don’t worry.” Cobie squeezed my hand. “I’m going to handle everything.” And then she was gone, too, hurrying after Hermódr into the dark.

  “I’ll get them out,” Lang promised.

  “You had better.” My warning was sharp-edged and angry.

  I watched them all disappear in the direction of the fortress, then followed Fredrik and Torden.

  The three of us reached the harbor in due course. Fog rolled between the cliffs, and Alfödr’s warships and Asgard’s fishing boats bobbed at the dark edge of the water. I automatically sought out the Beholder and her open arms, but she was nowhere to be found.

  Fredrik, Torden, and I made Skídbladnir ready to sail, and Lang, Cobie, J.J., and Perrault appeared on the horizon far too soon. J.J.’s skinny arms were wrapped around himself, his hollow eyes darting around the unfamiliar ship, and Perrault looked as confused as I felt. The Asgard boys were strangely quiet—the very quiet strange on them. I didn’t know what to make of them, wordless and sad.

  They made me ache for Anya. I hadn’t even given her a proper goodbye.

  “It’s time to go,” Lang said briefly. I shot him a furious look.

  “And the Beholder will meet you?” Torden asked, urgent. “You’re sure?”

  Cobie nodded, certain. “Yes. We’ll reach them. They were supposed to be here by midnight.”

  Only a few hours away. They’d truly believed I’d never know what they’d done.

  And if Lang hadn’t sent everything to hell two days early, I might not have.

  What fortune was mine.

  I pounded toward the gangplank after Cobie and Lang, but stopped short at a tug on my arm.

  “Selah.” Torden’s voice was soft. He didn’t move.

  “You’re not coming?” I blurted. “Not even to meet the ship?”

  Torden shook his head.

  I’d let anger drive me thus far, let my fury at Lang make me strong. But there was nowhere left to go. Nothing left to plan or do but climb aboard. I didn’t need to be strong anymore.

  I needed Torden.

  The dam broke, and I burst into tears.

  Silently, the Beholder crew began to move our things aboard.

  Torden drew me into himself with a wretched groan. I held him, memorizing the feel of his fingers on my neck, breathing him in as he kissed my hair.

  This was the end. I’d never see him again.

  “Selah, won’t you change your mind? Can’t you stay?”

  “Your father called me a spy. Will he change his mind?” I took Torden’s hand in one of mine, wiping my eyes with the other. “And what about my father? Could you leave?”

  “How can I, with the Imperiya hell-bent on our destruction?” The shape of his mouth was desperate. “Rihttá needs me. Asgard needs me.”

  “Exactly,” I whispered. “Except my enemies are already inside the gates.”

  I imagined arriving home with an escaped Torden in tow—out of favor in Asgard, useless as an ally. Alessandra and the Council would rip me to shreds.

  Torden nodded silently, his hangnails and calluses scratching gently at my palms. I kissed his pale knuckles, freckled and muscled and bruised and kind, so kind.

  He pressed something into my left hand. A ring.

  The rough rose-gold band was set with stones blue like the sky, like the Bilröst, like his brothers’ eyes. Pain squeezed my heart.

  “You’ll want this back.”

  “No. This could never belong to anyone else.” He slid the ring onto my finger. “I would still choose you.”

  “I—” I bit back another sob, tears spilling from my eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m not one of your valkyrja. This is killing me.”

  “You’re more a shield-maiden than you think.”

  My crying blunted and broke my words. “I wish I didn’t have to be.”

  We remained a bare half inch apart for a few breaths before Torden closed the distance between us, putting his lips to my ear. “You will always be the sun to me. Bright and beautiful and the warmest thing in my world.” He paused. “Be free, elskede.”

  Free.

  It meant riding like a wild thing over the cliff tops with Anya and the Asgard boys, jumping into the lake when I couldn’t swim. Free meant being unafraid to tell him the truth about Bear, to kiss him by the Bilröst.

  It meant wind in my hair. Water in my eyes. Sweat on my skin. Adrenaline in my blood.

  I hadn’t been afraid to jump, because he’d been a safe place to land.

  I’d changed, because he’d helped me grow.

  “I am free, because you made me free.” I cupped his cheek, saw his heart in his eyes. The blue stones of the ring sparkled against the red of his beard. “No matter what happens, Torden Asgard, I will always love you for what you’ve given me.” I bent my head to his chest, feeling the blood race beneath the rune tattooed there. Ash. Asgard. Home.

  “I gave you nothing you did not already have.” His voice was husky. “But Asgard will feel a little less like home without you here.”

  I could feel myself breaking apart there in his arms. Pieces of me scattered across the banks of the Bilröst, never to be recovered.

  I wondered if I’d ever be whole again.

  The dark was tense with our wanting and our sadness and our certainty as Torden’s mouth found mine. I didn’t understand the Norsk words he whispered in my ears, but I knew his vo
ice. I knew what he meant.

  And with his ring on my finger and his voice in my ears, I left him behind.

  56

  Skídbladnir cut through the Bilröst’s dark water under Fredrik’s deft steering. Our sails and the fjord glowed in the fog and the moonlight. My eyes tracked the great stone walls as we sailed, certain I’d see Alfödr’s men descending upon us at any moment.

  Once, I swore I saw Aleksei standing on top of a high rock, only his shock of black hair moving in the wind. When I blinked, he was gone, a shadow disappearing on the wind over the Lysefjord.

  But when I closed my eyes again, it wasn’t Aleksei I saw.

  Torden’s face filled my mind as we sailed over the midnight fjord, his half smile and forlorn mouth that broke my thudding heart as we sailed away from Norge. Red hair and red blood and freckles and muscles, honor and rashness and strength and fidelity, all of it enough to break me like a bottle of wine against the hull.

  “There she is!” Fredrik’s soft call was a shot across the bow. And when I turned, the blank, starry eyes of the Beholder were watching me, her arms flung wide.

  Welcome home, I heard her say.

  Skídbladnir drew as near our ship as Fredrik was able. J.J. and Cobie and Lang brought the Beholder’s proffered rowboat close, moving our things into it one trunk at a time.

  I nearly collapsed against the deck in relief.

  Fredrik leaned against the rail beside me. “Any last words?” He looked nothing like Torden, but he was every inch his brother—the broad shoulders, the wry grin.

  I bit my lip. “Tell him thank you. Tell him . . . I miss him already.”

  Fredrik nodded. “He misses you, too. I know it.” He paused, scratching at the crown of his head. “I’ve never seen him happier, lucky bastard. So-serious Torden and the girl of his dreams.”

  “And now I have to go.”

  “For now,” Fredrik said simply. “But this isn’t over.”

  I watched Vishnu summon another boatload of luggage from the deck rail, watched Cobie and Basile and Jeanne adjust our sails, and swallowed hard. “It looks pretty over to me. Your father seemed to think so, anyway.”

  Fredrik’s mouth hooked in a sharp grin. “I know a thing or two about relationships turning permanent, Selah, because those signs are my cue to run. But Torden—” His gaze narrowed. “This is not over tonight. Not for him.”

  “Selah!”

  My heart leapt in my chest, and I turned back to face the Beholder, eager to see Skop’s face for myself, to put days of worry to rest. And there he was.

  With Anya beside him. She waved at us happily, blond hair aglow in the moonlight. Fredrik’s breath went out in a huff.

  “Selah, take the helm.” Without another moment’s warning, Fredrik loosened a line and swung from Skídbladnir to the Beholder’s deck.

  I pushed my hands into my hair, unable to believe the sight of her. Anya must have found Skop somewhere and struck out with him to meet the ship.

  I was so glad to see her safe. But Anya’s escape had precipitated mine. And I hadn’t been ready to say goodbye.

  Relief and frustration were a thunderstorm in my chest.

  Fredrik covered the distance between himself and his sister in four long strides and wrapped her in an embrace. I couldn’t hear what he said, but the crumpled shape of his mouth and the tight squeeze of his closed eyes told me things Fredrik had never said aloud.

  “I have to,” Anya said, her words clear even across the distance between us.

  Fredrik nodded, exhaling a long breath. “I know.” He swallowed hard and squeezed his sister again. The muscles in his back were trembling when he let go, and his jaw was tight as he extended one hand to Skop and clapped the other on his broad shoulder.

  I looked away, back to my fingers white-knuckled on Skídbladnir’s rudder. I wished I could turn the boat around and sail back up the fjord, back to Asgard and back into Torden’s arms.

  Instead, when Fredrik returned, I hugged him goodbye and left the way he came, ignoring the rowboat Basile and Vishnu were already lowering into the water for me. When my feet hit the Beholder’s deck, I turned and saluted him, swallowing around the lump in my throat, blinking away the tears in my eyes. Fredrik barked a laugh that echoed against the rock walls of the fjord and dipped into a bow.

  Then, shaking his head, he threw his weight against Skídbladnir’s steering oar and turned around. Back to Alfödr’s hall. Back to pay the piper.

  And there would be hell to pay.

  Anya’s hand slipped around my waist as we watched her brother leave us. When he was out of sight, I gave her a kiss on the cheek and stomped off after our captain.

  Torden had told me to be free. And I was finally tall enough to jump Alessandra’s fences.

  Og er de ikke døde, så lever de ennå.

  And if they’re not dead,

  they still live.

  —Traditional ending, Norsk tale

  57

  The crew worked busily, feet pounding the deck, calling out to one another as we navigated the fjord by the shifting light of the moon. Nobody paid me any mind as I strode after Lang.

  I stopped him as he reached for Homer’s door.

  “What have you done, Lang?”

  He stilled but didn’t turn.

  “Selah, I can talk about this with you later, but right now—”

  “No. Now.” I seized Lang by the shoulder and turned him to face me. “Right now, you are going to let me in on whatever you’ve been keeping from me.” My chest rose and fell quickly, heart beating fast. “You’re going to tell me everything.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because this has been going on long enough!” I shouted. “Because when I needed to get out of Norge, my ship—my ship—was somewhere else.”

  Lang swallowed. “I’ve done all of this for a reason.”

  I pushed past him, pushed through Homer’s open door. “Excellent,” I said sharply. “I can’t wait to hear all about it.”

  Homer, Yu, and Andersen stood over the map in the navigator’s quarters, Andersen’s face guilty, Yu’s impassive, Homer’s looking rather satisfied.

  “I wondered when this day would come,” said the navigator.

  I refused to bask in his approval. I steeled myself, crossed my arms. “What was my ship doing in Odense, Homer?” I was going to ask the same question as many times as it took to get a direct answer. “And what kind of spying and treachery lost me my fiancé?”

  Andersen turned to Lang, eyebrows arched. “Would you care to explain?”

  The four of them stood silent over the map for a long moment, like the four winds at the corners of the world. Homer’s chapped hands were planted heavily on the table; Yu’s arms were crossed. Andersen looked strained, his gray-gold hair straggling around his sunburned face. Lang’s eyes were closed, dark lashes fanning out in the exhausted hollows above his cheeks.

  “Looking after her is our prime objective,” said Andersen, his low drawl intent. “How are you going to defend her if your head is always somewhere else?”

  “Andersen.” Homer gave him a warning look. “Just tell them what you told me.”

  “No,” I said. “No. Start at the beginning.”

  Yu raised his eyebrows. “Which beginning, Seneschal-elect? The night the Beholder left Norge? The night we met you? Or the night we accepted a mission you’re safer if you know nothing about?”

  “I’m safer knowing who you are.” I fired the words like shots. “I’m safer knowing what’s happening around me than I am blind and blundering around, one stray spark from burning everything down.”

  Lang put a hand on my shoulder. His lean fingers and his thin lips were tense. “Selah, isn’t it enough to know the rules and to trust us?”

  I shrugged Lang off. “It might have been, once,” I said sharply, “but not anymore. Trusting you and letting you keep me in the dark aren’t the same thing.”

  “I agree,” Andersen said.

&n
bsp; “Fine,” Lang snapped. He leaned over the map as if poised to spring. “Fine. You want to know the truth? You want to talk about sparks and burning things down? The truth, Selah, is that beneath your feet are enough guns to arm the resistance in old Deutschland and enough gunpowder to blow the Beholder to pieces.”

  I stared at him.

  I’d always thought the captain’s upturned nose and sweet-bowed upper lip looked refined—almost delicate. But his eyes were wild, and they lent an otherworldly look to the rest of his features.

  The four sailors and I were silent, listening to the creak of Homer’s lamps on their hinges and the lapping of the water against the hull.

  “To arm the resistance?” I finally breathed. “Why?”

  This was why Lang had stood with Perrault—why he had insisted on continuing into the Imperiya. He wasn’t concerned with me. He hadn’t been thinking of me at all.

  “Because the president of Zhōng Guó gave them to us,” said Yu simply.

  “So the zŏngtŏng paid you off,” I said slowly, “to arm the resistance to the Imperiya, and you decided that it was all right to use my ship to ferry weapons across the Atlantic without telling me?”

  Homer frowned. “This isn’t about cash, girl.”

  “Then what is it about?” I demanded. “Because right now, I’m thinking about the political ramifications of Potomac undermining one great power on behalf of another. And my father and the Council don’t even know it’s happening.” I smacked the table.

  “If you only understood—” Yu said.

  “Then help me understand!” I shouted.

  Andersen sighed. “The tsarytsya has done her best to break Deutschland. But her armies have met too much resistance. Yotunkheym is barely present in the Shvartsval’d now. The forest has grown wild, swallowed the Neukatzenelnbogen completely. The tsarytsya barely acknowledges Katz Castle.”

  The Neukatzenelnbogen, I knew, was the home of the hertsoh and my Shvartsval’d suitor. But—Katz Castle. Were they the same place? Why did that name sound familiar?

  Yu scratched his head. “Our contacts have confirmed there’s activity under the surface, just as the zŏngtŏng suspected. And arming the Waldleute is strategically the wisest way to help dismantle the Imperiya in Deutschland and the rest of Europe.”