The Apple Throne

  Early morning cars begin to drift past, and I stand. I make my way back to the hotel where the men are ready—Amon returning from a donut run in track pants and a hoodie and Sune checking the pressure in his Jeep’s rear driver’s-side tire. I go directly to the van, slide the door open, and stand there, staring at the back of the driver’s seat where Amon hid the elf gold. I’d like to take it out. It is so easy to imagine a chunky golden ring on my forefinger.

  Amon hands me a bag with grease stains at the bottom. “Maybe you should ride with the hunter again today.”

  Sune rises from his crouch, a slight sheen of sweat on his brow despite the cool morning. “Need some alone time, Amon?” he says crossly.

  I frown. “Is the gold calling you, as well?”

  The hunter swivels to me, mouth open, but stops himself from speaking right away. He just shakes his head. “It’s fine. Come on.”

  Amon shrugs at me. I get in the Jeep, wondering if Sune had bad dreams all night, too.

  • • •

  Most of the six-hour drive is through gleaming, flat desert, with scrubby bushes and the occasional snowy ridge or vast mesa cutting up from the land. Sune is in no mood to chat, even by the time we cross into the Uto kingstate and I am awed by the raw, white salt flats. They’re an impossible stretch of nothing but salt-crusted cracks and the glare of sunlight that wavers in the distance in every direction. It is desolate but beautiful, as I imagine some of the underworlds must be. Sune doesn’t seem to appreciate it, cussing in his soft accent at nearly every car we pass, for little reason I can see. His hands flex constantly on the steering wheel, and a thin layer of sweat glistening over his ram horn tattoo. When I offer him water, he snatches it and gulps it all down. Then he apologizes, but tersely.

  I touch the window and try not to let his mood trigger a spiral of my own.

  Salt City is a bright town cradled in a bowl of purple mountains and laid out in a perfect grid. Besides numbered north-south streets, the east-west roads are named alphabetically after saints of the Thunderer. We follow Amon to a gas stop though we don’t need gas yet. He hops out of his van with a bag over his shoulder, lifts a hand to us, and disappears inside. Sune pinches his mouth as he climbs out and comes around the nose of the Jeep to open my door for me. I stretch my legs, welcoming the sunlight that warms the air so it’s just bearable without my coat. I reach for the clouds and watch the light catch on my rings.

  Amon emerges from the convenience store in crisp white slacks and a silky gray shirt, white vest hugging his torso. His shoes are polished to a shine, and flashy gemstones instead of steel run up his earlobes.

  Sune says, “Hiding your true colors from Gunn-Elin?” There are two bright pink blotches on his narrow cheeks, as if he has a fever.

  “Respecting the sacred space,” Amon replies, just as sharply. He’s beautiful. Dark and gleaming against the bright desert.

  I glance between the two of them, then gesture at Sune’s fine-cut uniform. “Are we going somewhere I need to be less, ah, raggedy?”

  Amon says, “The Rock Cathedral.”

  Sune dismisses my worry. “The Thunderer doesn’t care whether you enter his house in fine clothes.”

  The Rock Cathedral rises from the center of town, built square and tall of white sandstone and whiter marble, with four spires that cut up against the brilliant blue sky. A garden of volcanic rocks and elegantly shaped evergreen bushes swirls around it. We park in the full lot and Amon mutters he always arrives during services, but at least it’s not Thorsday. Sune leaves his axes in the van, but buttons up his uniform coat before sliding his shoulder holster in place.

  White salt-gravel paves the path to the wide-open double doors, and it’s a shock to step into the shaded atrium. A shallow golden bowl waits with clear water, and both Sune and Amon dip their fingers into it, then flick the water onto their faces as they murmur a prayer. Sune makes the hammer sign over his chest, but Amon leans back to take my elbow to lead us into the grand sanctuary.

  One thing I do know is that every rock cathedral is shaped like a hammer, and we enter at the base, looking up the grand nave of a handle toward the arms that spread perpendicular from the altar to form the head. Stone pews line the way, filled with worshippers. The great slab altar stone holds a cup and a large hammer, and a priest in sky blue and yellow vestments calls out a chant of strength that the congregation repeats like a war cry. The sound echoes up the stone pillars to the soaring ceiling and its arched rafters. Sune joins the responses loud and clearly, though Amon keeps his lips shut. Behind the priest is a semi-circle of statues of heroes and, rising over them, a great, blue stained-glass window. One jagged lightning strike cuts white down the center so it appears to aim directly at the altar.

  Amon leads us down the dim right-side aisle, past candle-lit prayer stations and saint statues. Sune breaks away and joins the congregation in the nave, sliding into the line forming in the center aisle. The worshippers approach the altar put a hand on this temple’s blessed hammer while the priest holds it and softly pray.

  I wish I knew what was appropriate. The religious rituals I’m used to involve drums and laughter and loud ecstasy. The hunter reaches the priest, whose eyes widen in surprise. Sune bows, touches the hammer reverently, and Amon murmurs the appropriate prayer into my ear: “As the hammer returns to Thor, so may I.”

  Then Amon turns away with a little half-hidden twist of distaste on his mouth and leads me through the slowly departing crowd. We tuck into an alcove and wait. Sune hangs near the altar as the priest finishes the service, then has a brief word with him before joining us. The wide hem of his coat snaps against his thighs as he strides over.

  “She’s in the ossuary,” he says to Amon.

  They take me to a large statue of a saint wearing a white glove. His pedestal reads, Never forget the stain. I recognize Sanctus Chambers, a warrior from the Second Eurland War. Amon presses his back to the cathedral wall in order to slip behind the statue. He pushes aside a thick blue curtain, revealing a dark, short corridor cut into the cathedral stone. I follow, with Sune bringing up the rear. Amon unlatches a plain wooden door and takes us down dank, narrow stairs.

  “Pull the door shut behind us,” he says. Sune does, and we’re covered in blackness. Then a flick and hiss, and Amon has lit the wick of a fat beeswax candle perched in a tiny alcove. He leaves the lighter.

  The walls are narrow and rough. I smell water and moist earth as I carefully make my way over the worn stairs. As we descend, I find my breath growing shallow with anticipation; this is near to the feel and smell of my seething dream, when I saw Soren chained in a cave. I skim my fingers against the stone wall and imagine coming around a corner to find him, here and alive and waiting for me. The tips of my fingers tingle.

  But the stairs end in a cool chamber barely big enough for Amon to stand up in. It’s made of dark stone, with only one decoration—a carved lintel above another doorway. Amon lifts the candle so we can read: Be Wary for You Enter the Mountain of Death.

  “What’s down here?” I whisper, my words hissing through the darkness and fluttering the candlelight.

  “The Salt City ossuary,” Amon says quietly.

  “Bones of your dead? I thought Thunderers were buried like Freyans. Put into the earth to become a part of it again.” I shiver, and there’s a discomfort in my chest, as if there’s less oxygen down here.

  It’s Sune who says from just behind me, “Our bones fortify the mountains here, to wait till Ragnarok or the Thunderer claims us again.”

  He sounds angry about it, and I half-turn to reassure him, but Amon adds, “It’s an old tradition. Rarely used any more. We are buried in cemeteries or monuments now, in the walls of a church.”

  Sune snarls, “Amon used to hide his stash down here.”

  Amon lifts the candle nearer to his face, and the light glints off his black cheeks, casts orange fire into his angry eyes.

  “You wanna hit me again?” Sune pushes, his chest pressing int
o my shoulder as I stand between them.

  “Nothing’s changed,” Amon says calmly. “You couldn’t defeat me now anymore than the first time.”

  I put a palm on each of their chests. Sune’s is hot, like Soren’s sometimes. “I don’t have time for this! What’s wrong with you? Are you feeling well?”

  Sune’s teeth gleam white with his lips curled back. “Just remembering old times.”

  “This is where he caught you with Eirfinna?” I say to Amon.

  The godling nods and turns away so fast the candle sputters out. Blackness hugs us, and I grip my fist against Sune’s chest because his coat is suddenly all I have grounding me. He covers my hand with his—it’s hot and sweaty—just as a sliver of light appears: Amon’s dragging open the door into the ossuary.

  Light spills toward us from inside, even, electric light that Amon’s shoulders briefly block as he steps in. I follow, Sune pressing at my heels.

  I’m surrounded by bones.

  Shelves carved into the walls hold reposing skeletons, their arms crossed over weapons and their heads resting on small round shields. Mounds of disarticulated bones are stacked like puzzles in the recesses between shelves, vertebrae atop vertebrae, femurs patterned into circles and spirals, pelvises and finger bones linked in intricate patterns. I touch my lips in sudden superstition. There is a skeleton seated in a chair and another, both facing the same direction. Shadows reach back toward us, cast in sharp, elongated detail from the electric lamps hanging from a tall iron hook. I can’t see the end of the hall for the blackness outside the light.

  A girl is far ahead of us in the pool of light. It’s Amon’s sister, the godling. She kneels on a blue tarp in dusty canvas overalls, bones scattered all around her. A soft sound slinks to my ears: a hymn it seems, with a repeating melody.

  “By bright waters find strength, by gentle mountain home,” she sings as she studies a yellowing skull with one hand covered in a latex glove. She touches a metal instrument to the jaw, measuring something, and marks in a tiny black notebook in her lap. Then she puts the skull down beside a row of rib bones and sticks a yellow tab with numbers I can’t make out. I don’t understand how she can be so calm down in this tomb, so relaxed.

  “Gunn-Elin,” Amon calls.

  She startles so violently the notebook slides off her thigh, and she presses the hand with the pen against her heart. “Amon!” A smile spreads over her dark face, quite enveloping the rest of her features.

  He goes to her and Gunn-Elin hugs him, arms around his shoulders but unable to meet in the back. Amon shifts to the side and turns her to face us. She’s barely taller than me, and her baggy overalls hide decadent curves. Her hair is under a handkerchief, and she wears no makeup or jewelry other than a small silver ring in her eyebrow exactly like Amon’s. She’s a shade paler than him, but no less beautiful, and the seriousness of her dark gaze reminds me immediately of their mother.

  She strips the gloves off her hands, discarding them, and reaches out to us. “Hello,” she says in a loving way, palms up with welcome. Her warm gaze takes me in and goes to Sune. She immediately lifts her winged eyebrows. “Is that you, Sune?”

  “Miss Gunn-Elin,” he says, bowing stiffly at the waist.

  Amon keeps a hand protectively against his sister’s back. “And here, sister, is the Lady of Apples, Idun.”

  Her lips part in surprise, and I make an effort to hold her gaze, to smile as sweetly as her as I take her cool, dry hand in my own. “Gunn-Elin, hello,” I say.

  “I can’t…” she begins, squeezes my hand, then takes hers back. “I have nothing to offer you down here for welcome, for hospitality. I…” She looks sharp at her brother. “Amon, how could you? Bring a goddess of life and immortality down here?” He gapes, and Gunn-Elin wipes her hands on her overalls, then nods once. “Lady, come with me, if you would. Amon, turn off the lamps when you follow.”

  Sune doesn’t move out of our path. “Miss Gunn-Elin, we are not here for pleasure or hospitality, but officially on behalf of the Thunderer.”

  “Oh.” She puts her hands on her round hips.

  “Amon seems to think you kept up his contacts with the elf-gold,” the hunter continues disapprovingly.

  Gunn-Elin bites her bottom lip and glances at me with apology. “I’m afraid I couldn’t help myself.”

  Amon slides his hand across her shoulders protectively. “You should have immunity to the trouble, as much as I do.”

  “Oh no, that’s not it!” She turns to me, as if I’m the one she must prove herself to. “I don’t want the gold, I want to help people. They came looking for Amon after he dropped it—people who knew he could get it, people looking to get rid of it. Elf gold isn’t just dangerous to keep; it’s dangerous to dispose of because you can’t predict how it will…change a person or how it will even choose a person. And so I made sure people knew my name was a safe one and they could come to me for any aid I might provide, and eventually…” She shrugs. “I ended up with a small hoard.”

  “Here?” Sune demands. “I don’t feel it.”

  She smiles proudly. “It’s very well hidden, major.”

  Amon says, “We’re investigating the death of a man near Eureka who had a stash in his basement, as well as a museum of calcified trolls. He was here last week in the city, and—”

  Sune’s shoulders heave strangely as he interrupts. “If you can tell us who’s supplying the gold or point us in the right direction, I might consider overlooking your hoard.”

  Gunn-Elin’s smile falters at his tone. It thickens his Southern accent, too.

  I quickly add, “His name was Evan Bell.”

  “I’ve heard the name, but never had any contact.” She shakes her head. “I can tell you that Eureka is where a lot of the recent gold is coming from.”

  My stomach sinks. We were in Eureka, but came here looking for the source.

  Amon covers his eyes with a hand. “You’re tracking the patterns.”

  The pride flares on her face again, and she gestures behind her at the spread of bones on the tarp. “It’s what I’m good at.”

  “Miss Gunn-Elin, it’s dangerous!” Sune explodes.

  “Back off, Sune,” Amon says.

  I study Sune’s flashing eyes, the hot cheeks, his breath as it goes shallow and faster. Something’s wrong with him.

  As soothingly as I can, I say to Gunn-Elin, “Could Evan Bell have been receiving his gold here, though? Is there a way people here in Salt City are contacting the elves?”

  “Yes, possibly.” Gunn-Elin’s gaze tracks Sune, unsurprised by my mention of living elves. “I can show you my charts, and we can talk to a few…” She trails off as Sune presses the butts of his hands into his eyes.

  “What’s wrong, Sune?” I murmur. The hunter shakes his head, backing away until his shoulder knocks into the shelves. Bones rattle, several toppling to the cave floor. Gunn-Elin cries out.

  “Sune,” I say, but Amon butts in front of me and grabs Sune’s arm. Sune throws his fist at Amon.

  Startled, Amon stumbles back, and the two of them crash across the narrow bonehall into one of the seated skeletons. Gunn-Elin gasps, and I fling myself at the men, grabbing at Sune. I try to drag him back as Amon catches himself, but Sune pulls away, drawing off with his head in his hands. He’s panting and gasping. Blood drips from his lip.

  The three of us watch as he turns in a half-circle, eyes open and wild, searching blindly for something we can’t see. His teeth are clenched, and his breath sucks in and out, hissing hard. Blood and sweat dot his face. “I…can’t…” he says.

  He looks like a berserker fighting the frenzy. My guts go cold. “The bearbane. Last night in your trunk, Amon. It spilled.”

  Sune shakes his head, gasping, “Too—long—ago!” But his entire body shudders.

  “Skit,” Amon whispers and launches himself at Sune.

  The hunter flails, but Amon has him caught, huge arms wrapped around him, binding him tight. Amon shakes him, and Sune cr
ies out, struggling—but not fighting him, clinging to Amon, digging his fingers in, knees bent and face screwed as if he’s being dragged apart and only Amon’s arms hold him here in the Middle World.

  Amon’s expression is a mask of blank fear, but he does not let go as Sune thrashes and cleaves to him. I reach for Gunn-Elin, and she holds my hand. Her mouth moves in a soft prayer: a song of strength from the mountain and Thor, the god of the mountains.

  THIRTEEN

  Sune burns out quickly, and Amon takes his limp body in strong arms. We follow Gunn-Elin out the back entrance of the ossuary and into the boarding house of the Sisters of Sif. She leads us down a simple hallway to a guest room that is whitewashed, bright and plain. Three beds in a line, made with blue and cream blankets and layered with quilted pillows. There’s a single window over each bed and hammer-crosses hanging at the headboards. Afternoon light shines through blue curtains.

  Amon puts Sune down on one of the beds and removes his shoulder holster. I sink into a wooden chair beside a washbasin with mirror and toiletries. Gunn-Elin says she’ll be back with water and cloths, hurrying out. Amon unbuttons his own gray silk shirt down to the edge of the vest, then says, “Help me get his coat off, too. He sweat through everything.”

  We work in silence. Sune’s sprawled limbs are heavy with unconsciousness. It’s easier for Amon to prop his weight and let me work off the coat and shirt. I bite my bottom lip when we move to the boots and pants, but Amon’s right: it all needs to come off. The hunter does not twitch at all; he is not dreaming, but deeply asleep. His breathing, thank the gods, is smooth and deep; his skin warm, but not burning.