The Apple Throne

  When he sees me, his eyes widen.

  I say, “Pilot, I am Idun. Soren told me much about you.”

  “Lady Idun.” The boy puts two fingers to his chest in salute and bows. “Soren told me I could trust you,” he says bluntly.

  “Yes.”

  Pilot’s gaze sinks to Soren’s face, and his mouth seizes for a moment. Tears redden his eyes, but he clenches his jaw so tight it’s impossible to miss the muscles shifting in his small neck and at his temples. He makes a fist over his heart—just like Soren—and Darius leans nearer, touching Pilot’s back.

  “Carry it,” Darius murmurs. “Carry it, do not tamp it down, but let it hurt, boy. The madness is meant to hurt, and you are a channel for it, not a dam. And remember he will return to us.”

  Pilot nods hard, his eyes tightly shut. “Soren said,” he whispers, “forcing it down or away is only dangerous. He said it’s not my enemy, but my partner, and we should dance together.”

  Tears prick my eyes, and I feel them in my throat, though I know—I know—Soren is coming back. The moment is too wretched. It might have been real, Soren might have truly died, and we would have lost the best of us. I walk around the altar and place my hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  He tilts to see my hand better. His small mouth opens, and he touches my fingers in awe.

  Not my fingers—the elf gold ring. He lets out a shaky breath. “What is that? Can I have one?”

  “Pilot,” Darius chides. “That is another fire to channel. You must learn not to be tempted by fire or power.”

  “It feels like the Valkyrie’s necklace.”

  Darius and I share a look; him concerned, me impressed. The easy connection he makes between the heart and this ring that is fused to my finger reminds me of my dream this morning: of turning to gold in the sunlight as trolls turn to stone. It lights a thought in me.

  “Pilot.” The boy looks at me, barely having to raise his face for already he’s nearly as tall as me. “Will you guard Soren’s body for me until I return?”

  “Yes, Lady Idun.”

  I go to find Amon.

  • • •

  First I come across Sune with the off-duty berserkers, where one named Brick spars with him using two seax, the long knives Signy’s wolf guards have strapped to their thighs. I watch as Brick touches Sune teasingly during a break, showing him how to better position his hips and smiling wide. Sune seems to relax into it and flirt back until he sees me and snaps to, but I shake my head and wave him to continue.

  I find Amon hiding in his van out on the tourist-busy street. He’s cataloguing a few thin brown leaves into a book of pressed herbs. I ask if he has anything I can use to poison the Valkyrie and steal her heart, and the expression he makes is so shocked I have to immediately swear I was joking.

  Amon gives me an off-hand glare that slips into a smile. “I’ll have you selling shine and relics yet.”

  I drag the sliding door closed behind me and settle into the relative warmth of the van to watch him work. The nails tied to the ceiling sway and click together from my movements. As I watch him slide the leaves between thin pages and mark a date under each, it slowly dawns on me what he’s doing.

  “Amon,” I gasp, then lower my voice as if anyone can hear. “Did you pluck those leaves off the New World Tree?”

  “You sound totally ragging scandalized,” he says with a laugh.

  Horror tightens my throat. “Maybe I’ll just tell the Valkyrie and she’ll be enraged enough she’ll have to let the heart consume her.”

  He shrugs.

  “Do you have the rest of that elf gold still?” I ask.

  “In the trunk.”

  I get up and climb out of the van, heading to the rear where I jerk open one of the doors and then input the code he mutters into the keypad lock of his trunk. I swing it up, and there atop everything is the silk bag of elf gold. Though the ring on my finger and the gold in my shoulder both hum, I do not hear the siren song of this gold any longer. I overturn the bag, letting all the chunks and jewelry tumble onto the silk-covered troll organs. I put on all the rings, covering my right hand completely, with two remaining for my left. I twist the gold torc around my neck. I settle one of the wide cuff bracelets around my right wrist, where it grows warm to match my skin instantly.

  My right side is armored in elf gold. It is heavy and smooth and feels as though it sinks into me, uniting the ring and scar at my collar in one long gauntlet. I breathe deeply and feel the weight on my shoulder, the weight on my chest. I shudder, but am strong. Eirfinna said, when she healed my injuries, They won’t ever break again. That is the sort of monster I would choose: unbreakable, golden, alive.

  “Idun?”

  It’s Sune behind me, out of breath and flushed, as if he ran from the berserkers’ practice lot. “I—ah, what are you doing?”

  Amon comes around from the side of the van. “Done showing off for the Odinists?” he snaps.

  But Sune doesn’t rise to it, still staring at me, at the gold on my arm. He takes my hand and raises it, then his eyes drift closed as he kisses my fingers. Not like a friend or captain, but intimately. His tongue finds the pad of my middle finger, and he cups his mouth with my palm. I pull my hand back, but Sune does not let it go. He draws a long breath through his nose, and I feel him tremble.

  “Ragging mother of…” Amon drags Sune back and glares at me. “That gold is a disaster waiting to happen, Astrid. Somebody will hurt you to get it.”

  “Sune can handle himself.” I level my gaze at the hunter, whose shoulders heave and he looks back hungrily. He nods once, then again, then steps back. His body cracks with a long shiver, and then he meets my gaze again, more clear-eyed than before.

  Amon sighs with disgust. “Why?”

  “I think it might help the Valkyrie,” I say. “Like armor, like stone-skin.” I leave them both there.

  • • •

  Signy is avoiding me. I scour the Death Hall and her residence, opening doors thoughtlessly and calling her name. Most I come across shrink away—not from me, but from the gold armor. A few berserkers attempt to block my way, and I use my title against them, forcing a struggle between loyalty to their Valkyrie and loyalty to Idun the Young. Every time but once, she wins.

  It’s better that way I suppose.

  Finally, in the garden of the New World Tree itself, I locate Ned Unferth, sitting on a wrought-iron bench beneath a large shock of winter lavender. An old sword lays across his thighs, and there’s a bottle tipping against his side. “You,” he mutters.

  “Where is she?” I kneel in the cool yellow grass. Wind blows the lattice of Tree branches overhead, clicking and clacking them like a loom. There is a tall brick wall, capped with a concrete lintel, and beyond it common street traffic: horns and rushing wheels. It’s the center of a modern city outside, though here the garden runs wild and strange.

  “She is out,” he says, sneering at me. “Doesn’t want to see anybody until the funeral.”

  I reach a hand for the bottle, and he jerks back, snapping a few words at me in a tongue of Scandan I do not know, but clearly recognize as cursing.

  My elf gold glints in the thin rays of sunlight.

  Ned pulls a long drink from the bottle, then snarls, “That skit’s making me hard.”

  “I thought—I thought you were a poet,” I manage, leaning back onto my heels.

  “Oh. You thought I was a poet. Well. Then. Allow me to express the rip of desire coursing under my skin, threading a song from my tongue to my heart to my balls.” He grimaces. “Balls isn’t a very pretty word.”

  I chew on my lip and stand. As I turn to go, he calls, “She’s considering it, curse you. That’s where she is. Away and contemplating and probably thinking she’s alone in the world because that’s always how it is with her.”

  Stopping with my back to the drunken poet, I tilt my head up to glance at the tiny pieces of sky between thin black branches of the New World Tree. This garden is nothing like my o
rchard. The massive Tree is a symbol of sacrifice, dark and dangerous and wild; it is the realm of the Alfather, the god of the hanged, of death and madness. The Tree’s black roots break through all the pruned paths between flower beds, brambles tangling among the lily stalks and winter-dry seed pods.

  My orchard is safe. Though there are places where the trees grow out of line, where wildflowers scatter, it is lovely and calm. It is life and springtime, rebirth and growth. My sacred space—Idun’s home, where the gods come for a gift of life.

  I breathe the cool air here, and my mind falls quiet, strangely numb, but not with fear or apathy. With anticipation. The Valkyrie will make her choice, and I’ll be there for her, with her.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The sun sets, and we are a small group who circles the altar which has been transformed into Soren Bearstar’s funeral pyre. There are only myself and my friends, Signy’s household and berserkers. Many who would have come were he forever-dead, like Vider or maybe his estranged mother, who would have traveled days to get here, have not even been told we’re burning his body.

  The Valkyrie wears her grandest funerary attire, all blood-red and death-green, and her berserkers are in dress blacks, medals gleaming in the candlelight. Even the poet is in a finely cut suit. Amon has on his silver and white silk suit he wore to visit Gunn-Elin, and Sune brushed dirt and blood from his uniform coat and polished his weapons and boots. I stand apart from all but Amon because of the gold, wearing only this simple summer dress and loose violet cardigan, my scuffed boots, the black horn necklace. I remember so vividly when I stood in my tiny orchard cottage and told myself this is what Soren likes best: me dressed like it’s summer at the beach. But every finger of mine is circled with elf-gold or silver rings from Asgard, subtly pressing the others away from me. My hands, when I move them, glitter and spark like flames.

  I think of Baldur’s funeral this year, how I watched from beside Tyr the Just at the far edge of the gods because neither of us enjoy the limelight. The television crews turn on their cameras and all the great flashes flicker to life, and we fade back to allow our brighter cousins to speak and preen. Though he will return, we always cry when Baldur’s body burns. There is something about the fire, the shadow of bones and crackle of flames, that makes us remember centuries of death and dying.

  There should be cameras here, too. Soren Bearstar’s funeral should fill the Death Hall to the rafters and spill out onto the sidewalks and streets. Mourning and tears and long eulogies from politicians and priests vying to say better than the last how wonderful he was, how well and fully he overshadowed his father’s shame with bravery and success.

  Tears track down my cheeks, though I know he will come back to me. I know right now he probably is laughing with Baldur or sparring with him, maybe remembering nothing of his life, as the dead are wont to do.

  Signy welcomes us quietly with formal Valkyrie words.

  Captain Darius Strong and his handful of berserkers recite the Berserker’s Prayer for Soren, and Ned Unferth passes around another bottle of very potent mead. He sings a verse from the Lament of Beowulf.

  I say nothing. There is nothing I would share with strangers.

  One of the hooded women of Signy’s household offers us each a small jar of mint salve with which to anoint ourselves. It is a heady scent when smeared over the lips, tingling that delicate skin in preparation for the smell of the pyre.

  It is Pilot who lights it, with a long ash-wand and accelerant. The roof of the Hall roars as the ventilation kicks to life—a complicated system of ducts and fans to suck the smoke up through the carved branches of the Valkyrie’s throne. I watch it rise.

  She ordered evergreen and yew branches and scattered lavender, rose, and anise potpourri into the flames to further mask the smell of his flesh. At first the Hall is filled with a sharp winter smell, bright and living. I stand, and I stare.

  I think of that smile nobody but me knows is a smile because it only touches his eyes, and the hesitant touch of his hand on my breast. I think of the way he affixes his feet to the earth to fight, the strength of his stance and the smooth, graceful dance he does with a sword in hand. I think of his low voice, the pull of his shoulders under every T-shirt. I think of how easily he could have refused my apple.

  Somehow I manage to remain on my feet, though my vision blurs and I take the tissues handed to me.

  Gradually people shift and move and mingle, remaining in the sanctuary to sit or chat quietly. They leave me alone and apart. My elf gold pulls too strongly perhaps, or none of them wish to engage me as I stare at the flames.

  I sit lightly upon the first pew. I sip the water I’m handed. I let Amon hulk beside me as Sune kneels and makes the sign of the hammer at the foot of Soren’s pyre.

  There is drinking around me and some laughter, and distantly I hear Ned Unferth recite a poem about Soren he invents on the spot. I pull my legs up onto the pew and lean back, here for the duration, for the long night’s vigil. My vision slides unfocused, and all I see is the lick of flames, the flares of orange and white, the shadows in between. It will all be over soon.

  Signy joins me hours later when the Hall is silent again, seated an arm’s length away.

  The cavernous sanctuary has grown cool, the ceiling ventilation clicked off, and the altar glows with embers. If I look closely enough I see charred pieces of bone. The blade of Sleipnir’s Tooth glows. The sharkskin grip is destroyed. Perhaps I’ll have it redone with bearskin. He’ll have to break it in, soften it up and cover it with the oil from his palm. There will never be his father’s DNA upon it again.

  Signy says, “I know a great metalsmith,” as if she read my thoughts.

  I nod without glancing her way. My legs are stiff and my knees. I’m chilled and numb, and there is a buzzing in my ears. “I looked for you today.”

  “Unferth told me.”

  “I dreamed the heart eventually consuming you, Signy. I’ve seen it in your fate. The temptation, its hunger, will grow and grow, and finally, years from now, you’ll lose. I saw tusks tear out of your jaw.”

  She huffs a laugh. “Not so bad a look, maybe? My jaw’s pretty square as it is.” I’m quiet until she continues, “Freya told me so much herself. I didn’t give in to her then.”

  “It isn’t about Freya. It’s about you. It’s about the troll mothers dying and about you dying.”

  “You can’t stop death.”

  A tiny laugh pops out of me. “I can, actually. It’s what I do.”

  “The apple,” Signy whispers.

  “And this elf gold.” I hold my hand out to her, fingers splayed. “I’ve had dreams and…I know its healing power. It could be an armor for you. It is strong and made of etin-magic. If you wear it, it might protect your body as the apple will protect your life. Help you become a monster of your choosing, different from the stone-caged trolls.”

  There is a profound silence as Signy Valborn holds her breath.

  And she says, “I do not want this heart.”

  I take her hand in my heavy gold one. They rest entwined against the pew.

  “Something must be done, Signy,” I murmur.

  “Why don’t you swallow it?” she says, but the snap of the words is belied by the resignation of her tone.

  The strength of her profile is highlighted by the red glow of embers. The iron chain hangs down her chest, arrowing beneath the collar of her red dress. I cannot see the fire heart, but looking now, I feel the draw. My gold thrums in response. “I would survive it, I think, if I ate the apple,” I say. “I’ve dreamed of this gold melting over the hands before me, of swallowing it and turning into a statue of gold as the troll mothers turn into marble and granite.”

  “But?”

  “It can’t be me I’m dreaming of, Signy. I have no thread in fate. Not even Freya can see my future. I must see another woman becoming this new thing, this gilded lady of trolls. And besides, I am Idun. That was my choice. And Idun is… Freya called it the paradox of life and
death united—always young, always dying. If I ate an apple, I would no longer be that spark to keep the apple tree thriving. And despite everything, I want to be the Lady of Apples, the giver of youth.”

  “Yes, I understand,” she says excitedly. “I am a Valkyrie, not a troll queen. I am a monster inside. A Death Chooser. I am part of a sisterhood that reaches back centuries. I can’t break my promises.”

  With my gold-encrusted right hand, I reach for the chain that vanishes down the collar of her beautiful red dress. She catches my wrist and says, “I have fought against this heart every day for a year and a half. I dream of it, and it begs me some nights. It wants to burn me up—”

  “It will.”

  Our eyes meet. My lips are apart, my elf-gold scar aflame. “We must do something with it,” I whisper. “The heart must live, or it will destroy you and all the trolls who are left in the world. Someone must consume it.”

  Her lashes flutter. She pushes my hand away. “Freya cannot have it. I do not trust her, and I won’t let her win. I will not give it to the troll mothers again, Astrid. I will never give it to one of them for what they did to my family.”

  “Eirfinna of the Mountain?” I say. I imagine Eirfinna’s obsidian bones turning into gold. It causes a breathless pause between my heartbeats.

  “She killed Soren!” Signy yells.

  “She did,” I sigh. “And tortured him. And she has stolen from the gods, is ferocious and loyal to her family. In other circumstances, you might like her greatly.”

  Signy snorts.

  “Eirfinna wants to bring her people out of the darkness. She wants to lead them, to protect them.” I shake my head. “Maybe she needs the heart more than either of us.”

  “I don’t trust her, Astrid.”

  “Trust me, then.”