Page 265 of The Sun He Buried

Solveih nods.

“When?”

“The old watch room. Last night.”

His jaw tightens.

“Before all of this.”

“Yes.”

“Did you know what it was?”

“He told me everything it could do. He told me it couldn’t make me want him.”

Baldr glances at me.

“And you chose him before it opened.”

“Yes.”

The hurt deepens.

“I should’ve told you before the table,” Solveih says. “I knew something was wrong. I kept letting you touch me because I thought I loved you and I wanted that to be enough.”

Baldr looks down at Snowpetal.

“I wanted it to be enough too.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I.”

Her face crumples.

Baldr’s hand tightens in the white fur.

“I kept making choices for you,” he says. “The rooms. The road. Every useful thing you offered while I told you I’d take care of it.”

“You were taking care of me.”

“I was also refusing to see when you wanted to carry part of it.”

He looks at her bandaged wrists.

“Then I put my hands on you in rooms full of people and called it affection. By the long table, half the Hall had been given an answer you’d never said.”

“Baldr—”

His amber eye closes.

The pain hits hard enough that I grip the back of her chair.

Baldr breathes once and opens it again.

“You chose him,” he says. “The bond waited for you. I saw that in the weigh house.”

Solveih nods.