Page 257 of The Sun He Buried

His bloody fingers reach for the knot at my ankle and stop before they touch it.

“Where are you hurt?”

“My head. My knee. My wrists. This ankle. None of them feels deadly.”

His eyes close.

Relief hits through the bond hard enough to make me sway.

His knife comes free.

He cuts the rope at my ankles, then reaches behind the chair. The blade never touches my skin. Each strand falls away carefully, one at a time.

Snowpetal remains in my lap.

She purrs through all of it.

When my hands come free, I bring them around.

Pins and fire race through every finger.

Eirik catches my wrists.

His thumbs pass over the raw bands the rope left behind.

The hands that tore out Varrik’s throat hold me gently enough that my eyes fill again.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Later.”

“I went to find Baldr. I thought if I told him myself—”

“Later, Sól.”

The bond says the rest.

He came when I called.

I slide out of the chair and my legs fail.

Eirik catches me against his chest.

Snowpetal climbs between us and hooks both front paws over his shoulder.

Her bloody face presses beside the silver mask.

He holds both of us.

I press my forehead to the runes.

“You came.”

His hands come up and frame my face, one on either side, tilting it up until the purple eye is all I can see.

His thumb drags slow across my cheekbone. It leaves something wet behind—his blood or Varrik’s or mine, I’ve lost track.

“I will always come for you, Sól.” His thumb goes still against my cheek. “There’s no treaty I won’t burn. No king I won’t unmake. No queen I won’t pull down from her hall. And there’s no ground you could stand on that I wouldn’t raze to stand on it beside you.”