Page 221 of The Sun He Buried

I turn around.

The Hall contains sixty rooms, four galleries, two kitchens, a mine office, three staircases I understand, and several more that have appeared only when I’m already lost.

Every path holds one of them.

I need dark.

Quiet.

One place where nobody’s looking at me and deciding what I mean.

The narrow stair behind the old records room goes up.

I’ve never taken it.

Night gathers early beneath the clearing storm. The lamps haven’t been lit on this side of the Hall, and the last grey light reaches only the first landing.

I put one hand on the wall.

The stone’s cold beneath my palm.

Behind me, the Hall begins moving again.

Ahead, the stair turns out of sight.

I go up.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Tomorrow she leaves. Good. I sit on the floor of the old watch room and fail to believe either sentence.

The storm is nearly spent.

Wind moves over the roof in low passes. Snow slides from the northern eave and strikes the ground three floors below. By dawn, the watch will have the ridge markers clear. Baldr can take his wagons, his people, and the woman I pulled out of his hands.

Her mouth answered his from habit. Every evening in Sólvik knew what to do. The rest of her waited for the kiss to finish.

I received every second.

Then I crossed the Hall and ended it.

One pull.

That was all it took to tell my brother the truth I’d spent years burying.

Solveih moves below me.

The narrow stair has seventeen steps. She’s on the tenth. Guilt has been tearing through the bond since she left the long table, though now another want moves under it. Quieter. Worse.

She takes the eleventh step.

She was meant to turn at the lower gallery. Everyone turns there. The stair beyond it leads to the old watch room, empty since the eastern roof sank.

She reaches the top.

The latch lifts.

Solveih stops on the threshold.