Page 260 of The Sun He Buried

She walks out, the door shutting behind her.

Solveih waits until Asta’s steps reach the stair.

“She likes you.”

“Your injury’s worse than reported.”

“She only threatens people she thinks will still be here later.”

My certainty that I’ll be here. Her chair beside my hearth. The next bowl, the next meal, the next night. Every ordinary day I refused to build because wanting one made it possible to lose.

Her breath catches.

I put the wall back up between us.

It doesn’t seal. It never seals. She still gets the edge of it though— enough to feel me step back from her, not enough to follow.

Pain strikes back through the bond.

“Don’t.”

Her hand tightens in Snowpetal’s fur.

I’ve heard that tone over thrown knives, bad coffee, and every cruelty she decided I’d answer for. It’s stopped me each time.

Apparently choice has made her worse.

I take it down again. Only her side of it.

The rest holds. The mask is off and half of Myrkviðr is already inside my chest—the cook, the healer, two men arguing in the yard about a horse. Not one of them will feel a thing off me. Practice.

Nothing stands between her side and mine now.

She receives my fear first. It’s occupied the same place since the road tore it open. Beneath it sits relief sharp enough to hurt, and under that—

She looks at me.

There.

The thing I’ve kept from her since she was nine has crossed the bond without permission, dignity, or a useful way to deny it.

Her eyes fill.

“Eirik.”

“Don’t.”

“You love me.”

The words are quiet.

The bond answers her.

Tedious.

I take the bowl to the washstand and set it down beside the silver mask.

“You could say it,” she says.