Page 78 of The Sun He Buried

I drink with my free hand.

“The widow upstairs minds him when I come here. She’s leaving at thaw.”

“Or I could come here instead.” She traces the edge of my ring. “Not only when you send for me. The boy too. There are rooms enough.”

Below us, Solveih laughs.

Her brightness cuts straight through the grief, hot under my skin.

She was mine first.

I empty the cup.

Thora watches me over our joined hands. “Would that trouble you?”

I take the last sharp pull of grief. Her fingers loosen. When I lift my hand, she sits lighter in the chair, hollow-eyed and steady.

The next knock comes without patience.

Ketill enters with two mine clerks and a narrow tally board. His gaze passes over Thora’s bare hand, my cup, and the bottle beside the east ledger. His walls remain pleasantly low. Nosiness has always been his most durable organ.

“Your guests are housed,” he says. “Snowpetal ate a cushion.”

“Did the cushion offend her?”

“It concealed meat.”

“Then it died in service.”

“The human apologized to both.”

Thora glances toward the door. Ketill sets the tally board beside my cup.

“East reserve,” he says.

Three columns are cut into the wax: stock, releases, metal under lock. The last figure falls short.

“Eight bars.”

The older clerk nods. “We counted three times, my Dróttin. I took the first. He took the second. Ketill watched the last.”

“I was magnificent,” Ketill says. “Still eight.”

One release bears the mine seal and a cart mark from three days ago. The physical stock is eight below the ledger. The receipt from the eastern pass hasn’t returned.

“We checked the rack beds and the weigh room,” Halla says. “There’s no loose bar under another mark.”

“A late receipt explains it,” Ketill says.

“A receipt explains ink.” I turn the board toward the clerks. “Count every reserve.”

The younger clerk blinks. “All four?”

“Have I acquired more?”

“No, my Dróttin.”

“Then all four should contain the task.”