Page 193 of The Sun He Buried

I drink. The horn is gone before I finish.

Baldr holds it.

I look up at him. He looks at the horn, then me. “How many?”

“Songs?”

“Drinks.”

“Some of them were the same one.”

“That’s not a number.”

“Then why did you ask?”

His mouth pulls into a smile before he stops it.

I catch his sleeve. “Dance with me.”

The smile leaves. The answer takes too long.

“My knee is bothering me.”

Baldr carried a roof beam through a storm yesterday and was fine.

I release his sleeve. “All right.”

“Sól.”

The green-eyed man holds out his hand again. I take it before Baldr can finish.

“She needs both feet watched,” Baldr tells him.

“I’ve seen.”

They exchange a look over my head.

I point at Baldr. “No managing.”

His jaw tightens.

Oh. That wasn’t fair.

The drum starts again, and I let the green-eyed man pull me away before I have to fix it.

We dance. One turn. Two.

On the third, his attention jumps past my shoulder. The pale skin around his eyes loses color.

“I have to go.”

He releases me and walks quickly into the crowd. I finish the turn alone.

Fine.

The man with the split eyebrow finds me again. He lasts through half a verse.

Then his gaze catches on the dark beyond the fire. His hands leave mine.