Page 9 of The Sun He Buried

“That’s a comfort.”

His practice sword is still standing where he left it. The sunlight catches the damp skin over his chest when he reaches for the grip.

I look at the scarf.

Asta bumps her knee against mine.

I ignore her.

A young steward hurries from the hall before Baldr can return to the yard. He carries a narrow wooden box under one arm and a folded strip of parchment in the other. “Dróttin. The eastern allotment arrived.”

Baldr’s grin disappears. “How light?”

The steward offers the box. “More than last time.”

Baldr opens it. Dark cloth lines the inside, holding six slim bars of vein-silver. There should be more. I know that much from the size of the empty grooves.

“Was there a letter?”

The parchment changes hands. Baldr reads it once, then again.

The muscle along his jaw tightens.

The steward shifts the box higher against his ribs. “Myrkviðr confirms the count. The mines released a full shipment. The seal was intact when it reached the pass.”

Myrkviðr.

Screaming. A wall of it, and one spark of purple cutting through.

An eye above a silver mask. White cloth going red. That eye finding me across the room like I’m the only one in it.

And the grief—huge, and quiet, sitting under all of it where no one else thought to look. I felt it like it was mine.

The hook slips and bites my thumb.

I blink down. A bright bead gathers beside the nail.

No.

I press my thumb into the blue wool and make myself look at the courtyard. Sea wind. Wooden swords. The cat washing one paw beneath the wall. Baldr, reading the parchment a third time.

He looks up. “Sól?”

“The hook won.” I hold up my thumb.

His gaze drops to the blood. “Let me see.”

“It’s tiny.”

“You say that about every injury.”

“Because people keep reacting to them incorrectly.”

He takes my hand anyway. His fingers close around mine, warm and rough from the sword grip. He turns my thumb toward the light with great seriousness.

The cut is barely there.

I lift my thumb between us. “I may survive.”