The Lost Sun

  “He’s in shock,” explains Baldur.

  Astrid sucks in a sharp breath. “Oh, sweet swans, he didn’t—”

  “No. That sleeping bear was forcibly restrained.” Baldur sounds irritated.

  I scowl at him. “Lucky for you, or that cut on your cheek would be a crushed skull.”

  Baldur touches his cheek, smearing the small stripe of blood. His mouth spreads into a grin again. “I barely dodged that one.”

  “Freya’s tits,” Astrid whispers, clutching at Baldur’s wrist. She drags his hand toward her face and stares at the smudge of red. “You’re bleeding.”

  “So is Soren,” he says, face falling as if he’s been caught out in some untruth.

  Astrid barely spares me a glance as she drops Baldur’s hand. She reaches up and nearly touches his face, but then she clutches her hands back against her stomach, fingers weaving together as if she’s discovered her own dark chaos lurking there and must press it back into her intestines. “Don’t you see?” Her sepia eyes are wide.

  It creeps up on me slower than the sun sets. Baldur bleeds. Baldur, god of light, stands before us with a slow trickle of blood marring the perfect gold of his face.

  “What?” He puts his hand against his cheek, hiding the wound as if that will make us stop watching him like he could crumble to dust any moment.

  Astrid steps close to him again and gently takes his hand away from his face. She holds it between both of hers and then lifts it so that his palm cups her cheek instead of his.

  I sink slowly to my knees. I’m dizzy once more, and Baldur puts his free hand on my shoulder to steady me. The three of us are connected in an arrow, with Baldur at the point.

  Looking up at him, I say, “You’re mortal.”

  NINE

  THE ROAD RUSHES below me, growling in rhythm with the wheels. Voices murmur near the edges of my consciousness. I could reach out and be awake, could share their quiet conversation, or I could sink back down into the nothingness of sleep.

  I sleep.

  “Soren.”

  The car is stopped, and a gentle breeze drifts over me. Fingers skim across my forehead, brushing hair away. Astrid whispers my name again.

  I open my eyes. She’s crouched outside the car, the door wide. Her face is inches from mine and seems upside-down.

  She is so beautiful.

  I don’t say anything, but merely watch. Her hand stills against my cheek. Dark curls fall toward me, hiding the edges of her face and framing her eyes. I could tilt my head and touch my lips to hers.

  Astrid draws in a long breath. “We’re just outside Fort Collins. There’s a motel here, and a string of fast-food places. I’m going to go book a room so we can rest for the night.” The corners of her mouth turn down, and she blinks her eyes several times.

  “What are we going to do?” I keep my voice quiet.

  Again she sighs. “I tried calling the info line they’ve been repeating on the radio, but can’t connect to anybody I trust. They just want me to leave a message and a number for them to get back to us. Can you imagine? ‘I have Baldur, call me!’ ” She hums displeasure before continuing. “We’ll get a room, as it’s near dark, then go more cautiously in the morning into Shield. We have to be careful with our delicate prince now.” Nudging at my head, she angles herself into the car. I begin to lean up so that she can sit where my head was, but all my body blossoms with dull pain.

  “Soren?”

  I must have grunted, because Astrid is behind me suddenly, propping my shoulders with her hands. She pulls me back down, arms cradling me. “Stop moving if you’re in pain. Oh, that blasted Baldur. I didn’t think he really hurt you.”

  Shaking my head, I push away, sitting up through the aches that pummel at my ribs. “I’m fine. I was just out of practice and wasn’t stretched out well enough and—” I manage to sit upright, but she’s still got her hands on my back, sliding them down my arm and trying to keep me from opening the door to climb out the other side of the car. “Stop fussing, Astrid.”

  I say it more sharply than I intend, and she jerks her hands away. We both wait, not looking at each other. I glance out of the car.

  One side of the road is lined with squat evergreens. Shadowy foothills stretch behind them, pale toward the far horizon. We’re the only people here. Cars pass by along the highway frequently, and I hear a radio from inside the gas stop. Just beyond it is a cluster of stucco cabins under a neon sign that reads: SIGYN’S KEEP-INN. I don’t see Baldur.

  “I’m going to go to the motel,” Astrid says. “I just didn’t want you to wake up alone.”

  She starts to get out, but I say, “Wait,” and she pauses, glances back over her shoulder at me. Her eyebrows arc neatly, impatiently.

  “I didn’t mean …,” I begin, but don’t know what I want to say.

  Astrid shakes her head gently. “Don’t.”

  I want to grab her shoulders and lift her up the way I did in Bassett, to make her listen to me. Where has our easy communication gone? Why do I feel like every simple word with her is suddenly a struggle?

  But then Baldur emerges from a door along the plain concrete side of the gas stop. He has a key attached to an old license plate swinging in his hand. There are shoes on his feet, and he’s got on a hoodie and jeans that fit. He jogs toward us, smiling. One of his free hands spreads out so more of its surface is in the sunlight.

  Astrid hops out of the car and goes to him. Their hands touch and the turmoil in her expression brightens into joy.

  That’s why.

  Yet when Baldur’s glance shifts over to me, I find myself smiling back at him, too.

  Astrid shoots past him then, toward the motel. As he approaches me, I get out of the car and finally stretch, allowing a grimace to spread over my face. Pain creeps around my head from the point where my skull hit the ground when he knocked me down. I roll my neck and let the waves ripple.

  Baldur laughs and claps a hand on my shoulder. “When was the last time you were so thoroughly defeated?”

  I shake my head gently. “I don’t remember. No—” I raise my arms over my head and reach with my entire body. “It was Master Pirro, before I began showing the signs.”

  “Well, then, it was time.”

  His smile is infectious. At least my face doesn’t hurt the way my ribs do. And one spot low on my right thigh. And the back of my skull. “Are you hurting, too?”

  “Ah, yeah.” Baldur rolls his left shoulder with a wince. “I’ve got a couple of bruises.”

  My lungs squeeze as I think that I could have killed him. Like I’m being bound up by knots of destiny.

  “Thank you,” he says.

  “For what?”

  He sets his hand back on my shoulder and regards me with the same expression he did when he held my spear tip against my neck: patient, serene, and very old.

  “Thank you for teaching me to remember I know battle,” he says.

  Words tighten in my throat.

  I want suddenly to drop to my knees and swear to him. I think of all the times I’ve seen men and women touch the hammer charm at their neck to pray for Thor’s protection, or whisper entreaties to Freyr or Odin or Tyr. I think of the wails of grief on Tyrsday when the beloved Baldur did not rise from his ashes.

  I feel that wail inside me now, because as I stare at him, I know the truth: he is just a man now, like me. Vulnerable. Breakable. I am standing here next to Baldur the Beautiful, who dies with the summer and is gone, dead, all winter long. He who battled me in holmgang, who took my own spear and laid me flat, who pushed me until I had to clamp down on my battle-rage or explode. Who knows what I am, and puts a hand of trust on my shoulder anyway. And if he dies now, he won’t rise next spring. It would take the tears of the entire world to bring him back again.

  I think of Astrid, crying in the woods because Baldur’s loss felt like a hollow ache inside her, and then asking me, Do you love the gods, Soren?

  Slowly I nod at him. “Let us get you home,”
I whisper, “so you might remember everything else as well.”

  Astrid returns, jangling keys. We move the Spark around to the lot next to our cabin and head inside without speaking. The room is very yellow, with striped wallpaper and a painting of the Rhine maidens with their five dragon rings cavorting at the bottom of a waterfall. I dump my backpack onto the geometric quilt. The heater clangs below the window as I turn the thermostat off and pull shut the curtains. The last rays of the setting sun vanish from the room. Baldur bends over the bed and skims his hand over the hilt of my father’s sword.

  “This is beautiful craftsmanship,” he says as Astrid walks in with the last of our things.

  I don’t want to think about the sword. “You two should take the beds.”

  Astrid frowns. “You and I can share, Soren. There’s more room here than there was in the Spark.”

  “I’m not going to sleep anyway.”

  “But you were passed out all afternoon. Maybe you will.”

  “I slept more today than I have in the last month.”

  Before Astrid can argue further, Baldur unsheathes Dad’s sword with a harsh slick of metal. Flicking his wrist, he’s got it in one hand with the tip pointed at me, the other arm up defensively. The pose is one of the first I learned from Dad when I was a kid. Baldur says, “Balls! This thing’s got excellent balance.”

  The dull blade winks in the lamplight. I used to covet the sword. Called Sleipnir’s Tooth, its pommel is painted with an image of Sleipnir, Odin’s eight-legged battle-horse, on one side, and the ravens Thought and Memory on the other. The grip is wrapped in sharkskin, worn and soft from my father’s hand. Carved into the crossguard are all twenty-seven of Odin’s runes, for which he hung nine days and nights on the Old World Tree, sacrificing himself to himself. The fuller cut down the center of the blade is deep and as long as the blade itself, to give better flexibility and to keep the sword from breaking against bone. “It was my father’s,” I say.

  Baldur raises his eyes. “And so yours now.”

  Mine, but with Dad’s legacy staining its power. A reminder of what could happen when I lose control.

  “An unused weapon is a danger to its owner, as much as to others.” It’s an old proverb, but Baldur sounds like he thinks he just invented it.

  “Not sheathed,” I reply, unable to take my eyes off the tip of the sword where it glints a fiery orange from the poor motel lamp. Baldur makes a face and turns his wrist over, so that the blade, too, turns. I stare a moment longer, feeling the heat of my frenzy churn, then I grab my bag and retire to the shower.

  The water warms my aching muscles. I turn the temperature up until the entire bathroom is foggy and I can’t see anything but the simple squares of white tile surrounding me. I let the water pound down over my hair and stream down my back. I breathe slowly, drawing the thick, hot air in and out, using the motion of the water to imagine all my fear and anger and tension melting out of me, running off my skin.

  If all goes well, tomorrow I will stand before Odin and ask him to strip this rage from my blood. I won’t have to calm down in showers, mistrust myself, or fear releasing my guard. I can travel with Astrid, supporting her, watching her, waiting to catch her.

  It is so close, the chaos inside me. Yet this morning I managed to hold it back. It was there when I fought Baldur, and I might have let it go. I might have lost everything then, fighting against him. He wanted me to. Why? Why did he want to see it?

  Does Baldur know something I can’t? He gripped my father’s sword so firmly, with such familiarity.

  Suddenly I’m afraid. Never before have I trusted anything but the exercises. The repetitions meant to train my mind and body to respond to control, to calm. I want to trust him.

  I want to let go.

  The battle-rage stirs: warm pleasure in my stomach, fizzing and popping like carbonated water. With Baldur at my side, could I give in?

  I press my hands flat to the slippery tiles and lean in, stretching my back and shoulders. Could I stop being afraid?

  The water takes my hopes and fears spinning down the drain.

  I emerge from the bathroom feeling lighter. The hotel shampoo smells like candy, which would normally turn my stomach, but tonight reminds me how starving I am.

  Astrid sits cross-legged in the center of her bed, tying knots in a thick red string. Without glancing up, she says, “He just went to sleep.”

  As I look, I rub my towel over my damp hair. Baldur didn’t even take off his new shoes or bother with the blankets. We should have put him on the floor if he was only going to pass out.

  Astrid tucks her string back into her seething kit, grabs a pile of clothes from the corner of her bed, and goes into the bathroom. I hear the water turn on immediately.

  While I wait, I drop to the floor and run through several sets of push-ups, then roll over to hold a dragon pose until the water turns off. When I release, my abs burn familiarly. I scan the room, wishing there was a pull-up bar, or some weights.

  Although the back of my head continues to ache, my ribs are feeling much better. My stomach growls loudly enough that Astrid hears it as she opens the bathroom door. “Sweet swans, we should get you some meat.”

  “Anything,” I say, stretching down to grab my toes.

  Astrid begins picking tangles out of her hair with the pointed handle of a comb. “I’m hungry, too. Is it all right to leave him?”

  “They think there are only two of us, yes?” From my upside-down position, the blood rushes into my face and my skull throbs. I straighten slowly.

  “That’s true.” She watches the sleeping Baldur, fingers lost in her heavy, snaking curls.

  “But I can run out. If you’re worried.”

  “Why don’t you cover up your tattoo with the hoodie? You’ll be less recognizable.”

  Scandalized, I only stare. It’s illegal for me to hide the spear, even with something as natural as a beard. She knows that.

  Scrunching her hair up on top of her head, Astrid holds it there. Her thin dress hangs from her shoulders down to her knees. The ribbons at the waist are untied, so it falls without shape. In the light shining out of the bathroom, I can see the soft outline of her body. I clear my throat and look away. “I’ll bring something back,” I say, wiping my suddenly sweating hands down my jeans.

  The night sky is thick with mist. I can’t see the stars, and it’s been a long while since I stayed in a place without them. Walking toward the block of tacky shops and fast-food restaurants across the way from our motel, I feel trapped under the low-hanging clouds. To the southwest, the glow of Fort Collins lights the sky like a false sunrise, and my skin crawls when I think of taking Baldur into it. We’ll have to listen to the news again, and make certain the situation isn’t worse in Shield.

  At the end of the strip mall is a run-down pub with a painted announcement of mead and drink specials on its huge front window. I duck inside, glancing around for a menu. It smells like grease and peanut-shell dust. The hostess doesn’t even flinch when she sees my face, but smiles brightly and offers me a booth against a dark wall covered in old pictures of National Stoneball teams and champion poets.

  “Can I get some to take with me?” I ask, turning my tattoo away, though she’s already seen it.

  “Oh, you know it!” She hands me a menu. As I sit down on the cushioned bench along the wall to peruse the menu, she leans over onto her podium to display her breasts better. “I recommend the ham-LT on rye, and also that Arnold with chips. But you look like a burger man.”

  I nod. I’m bad at flirting, and don’t even try.

  The hostess continues on as if my participation doesn’t matter. “Why not taste our Jotun burger—it’s a house special. With a kicking jalapeño sauce.” Her eyelids are shaded with sparkling green. I guess she’s about nineteen. Probably a part-timer at the Poets’ College outside Shield, where the best storytellers and lawspeakers in the world are trained.

  “Sure, I’ll take two. And a lavender tea, a
nd … Can I get a quarter-bottle of your house mead?”

  She glances at my tattoo. She could deny me alcohol, but instead she just grins. “You bet.”

  After putting my order in, I try to relax back against the wall. Some folks notice me; others ignore me completely as they shoot pool or glue their eyes to the flickering TV. Are they so unconcerned with berserkers here? Maybe the proximity of Bright Home, of the Alfather and Valkyrie, makes the citizens less wary. Maybe they’ve let themselves forget what we can do. I remember sharply what Astrid said in Bassett, that it isn’t other people treating me like an outsider, but me acting like I expect it.

  The loud conversation is so different from the silence I’ve gotten used to in the past handful of days. I watch a few minutes of the stoneball game on the TV hanging over the bar, and try to pretend that I’m at Fort Collins for no other reason than vacation. Maybe I’m meeting a friend. Suddenly I wish Astrid had come, and that we could sit together over dinner and talk. Pretend to be normal. Like we weren’t smuggling a god in the backseat of our car.

  “So, honey,” the hostess says, plopping down beside me. “My name’s Glory.”

  She’s close enough that her shoulder brushes mine. “I’m Soren,” I say, after suppressing the urge to avoid telling her. I want to test Astrid’s theory.

  “You a student?”

  “Not here. I’m not a poet.”

  Glory laughs. “What brings you to the Fort?”

  “Pilgrimage. To the gate.”

  “Bad time for that, honey.” She bumps her shoulder against mine. Such a casual, easy touch. As if I’m not dangerous. “With all the folks here after the prince, it’s crowded more than usual.”

  “How crowded?”

  “Like hogs in a pen. Everybody’s dying to see him. They’re camping out in front of the gate with candles and prayer bowls.”

  I frown, wondering how to glean more details.

  She squints her green eyes. “I sure as snakeskin wouldn’t go down there, especially if I had a pretty god like him with me—I’d keep him all to myself.”