Page 70 of The Sun He Buried

I rub one finger between the baby’s ears.

She presses into it.

A purr rattles through her whole body.

“See?” I say. “Nice.”

Asta wraps the blanket around both of us. “This isn’t the word I’d choose.”

The baby pushes her face beneath my chin.

Baldr looks over my shoulder at the dead rogues, the wrecked wagon, and the blue body beside our boots.

Then he looks at me.

“We can’t take a Sanguir into Myrkviðr.”

“We can’t leave her here.”

“Sól.”

“No.”

The word comes out flat.

He looks at me instead of the creature beneath my chin.

I have never said no to him this way. Not at dinner. Not when he took my basket or my worries or an idea he thought I shouldn’t have to carry.

The baby purrs against my throat.

“I’m keeping her.”

Baldr rubs one hand over his mouth.

Behind him, a guard begins to speak.

Baldr raises one finger. The guard closes his mouth.

“Inside the carriage,” Baldr says. “No one else touches her. If she turns on you, you give her to me.”

“She won’t.”

“If.”

I look down at the white head beneath my chin.

“All right.”

Baldr steps aside.

That is how I get a Sanguir.

Asta climbs into the carriage after me and shuts the door. The baby sits in my lap inside the blanket, looks around once, and begins kneading my purple cloak with both front paws.

“She has spikes on both ends,” Asta says.

“The front ones went away.”