Page 7 of The Sun He Buried

“Sólvik is in Náströnd.” I look at Asta. “It was this morning, wasn’t it?”

“It hasn’t moved.”

“Good. I hate packing.”

He stares at me.

I wait.

I’m usually terrible at silence. This one’s useful, though. He came over to tell me what he thinks, and men who do that rarely stop after one sentence.

“Your family sent a daughter here to guarantee its obedience.” He folds his arms. “You sit beside our Dróttin, eat from his stores, and play with string while your people congratulate themselves for keeping the treaty.”

Asta turns the hook between her fingers. “There it is.”

The courtier rounds on her. “You have a place because she requires an attendant. Don’t confuse that with belonging.”

Asta’s face doesn’t change. He’s reading her quiet as soft. It isn’t. I’m tempted to let her have him.

But he still has room to dig.

“I’m sorry.” I gather the second ball of yarn. “I thought you said I occupy a chair. Now I eat the food too. This position has grown terribly demanding.”

His gold eyes narrow. “You’re a hostage.”

The training yard goes quiet behind him.

Not fully. A pair of men keep moving at the far end, boots grinding into dirt, but the nearest drills have stopped.

The courtier notices too late.

Baldr walks through the gate with a practice sword in one hand and no shirt anywhere on the rest of him.

Oh.

Well.

That seems unnecessary.

I’ve seen him without a coat. I’ve seen him in thin summer linen. Once, when I was fourteen, I saw him soaked through after he pulled a fisherman from the bay, and that memory has stayed very well maintained. None of it prepared me for this.

He’s broad everywhere. Shoulders, chest, arms. Sweat darkens the light-brown hair at his temples and runs down skin marked with old pale lines. His right eye is amber. The left, pale green, finds me first.

It moves over the overturned basket, the yarn around my boots, Asta holding my hook, and the courtier standing too close.

His attention settles there.

The courtier lowers his arms. “Dróttin.”

Baldr plants the wooden sword against the ground. “Apologize.”

No one moves.

The cat crunches his stolen bread beneath the wall.

The courtier dips his head. “I spoke carelessly, Dróttin.”

“You didn’t speak to me.”