Page 115 of The Sun He Buried

Asta picks up my purple cloak. “We’re going outside.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ve spent an hour worrying that Eirik can feel you through the walls.”

Asta holds the cloak open. “If he intends to keep listening, he may listen to you walk.”

I put my arms through.

She fastens the clasp and pulls the hood over my hair. “Also, I’d like to see his territory before it tries to bury us.”

“The sky is clear.”

Snowpetal launches onto my shoulder. Her club-tail strikes the wardrobe with a loud crack.

We all look at the new dent.

“Outside,” Asta says.

Good idea.

Myrkviðr has daylight, but the forest keeps most of it.

Black pines crowd the hall from every side. Their trunks are wider than our carriage, and the branches begin so high that I have to tip my head all the way back to find the tops. Snow rests on every limb. The ground beneath them is dark with old needles where the canopy has kept it clear.

Sólvik opens straight into sea and sky. Here, every path turns around a root, a boulder, a house, or another tree that was apparently too important to move.

Asta counts the turns.

I know because her lips move at each one.

“Are you planning our escape?”

“Our return.” She counts the next turn under her breath.

“That sounds less exciting.”

“You walked into a mop room last night.”

“It was useful. I know where the mops are.”

She steps over a root. “A vital discovery.”

Snowpetal jumps from my shoulder and lands in snow up to her ears.

The drift explodes.

She comes out white from nose to tail, shakes once, and charges at the next one.

Two Skorvær carrying a timber beam stop to let her pass. Both have matching green eyes. One climbs onto a stump.

“She’s friendly,” I tell him.

Snowpetal attacks a buried branch.

He stays on the stump.

The settlement is larger than it looked from the carriage. Houses and workshops sit between the trees, connected by paths that cross and divide without asking permission. Smoke comes from low stone chimneys. A smithy rings deeper in the forest. Near a little market clearing, three children slide down a packed bank on a hide and nearly remove Asta at the knees.