The Apple Throne (27 page)

How could Soren be suffering in such a perfect, magical place?

Here and there tiny creatures perch in the trees: crystal birds and glossy, diamond-crusted cats; crouching goblins with no hint of elf in them, all limbs and extra joints, sharp teeth and twisted smiles. But even they seem beautiful here because they belong.

I take the first step up the curve of marble bridge, and butterflies swarm around me, blinding light flashing off their wings. I close my eyes and let them taste my cheeks and alight upon my hair, not moving to bat them away though they tickle and sting. I whisper, “Hello,” and they flitter off toward Sune and Amon. I continue up the arch of the bridge. Its surface is carved with images of elves and giants, enough to give my boots grip as I go.

In the time it took us to cross the bridge, the checkerboard castle yard has filled with elves and goblins. Tens of them, standing or crouching, in perfect armor or nearly naked, in elaborate costumes with wire and silk wings, in crowns of gold and covered in golden chains, every one of them open-mouthed so I can see the prick of their teeth, as if they taste the air and what I bring. Some stare with chunks of obsidian for eyes; others are humanlike with irises of every gemstone color. Here is one with skin sparkling dark like granite whose amethyst cheek-crystals are as long as my finger, five of them curving up from each cheek like a fan. He must witness the world as if from a cage. There is another with quartz horns cutting back in a jagged row from her temples like a crown. Here a tiny one, like a child but oh-so-slender and proportioned like an adult, gold covering her neck and arms and fingers and hips and no clothing. Another with nubs of topaz growing from her knuckles and her collarbone, too. One seems as human as me, in a torn peasant-skirt from thirty years ago, though her eyes shift like fire-opals.

They all stare at me, parting as I head for the castle gate.

One hisses at Amon behind me. The godling smiles back meanly, hefting his hammer. Sune comes with his hands empty, axes sheathed and gun holstered. He sticks to my heels.

I pause and say to the crowd, “I am Idun the Young.” I lift my voice and say it again to the high stone statues, to the faraway ceiling of the mountain. “I am Idun the Young, and I seek Eirfinna.”

The creatures’ attention shifts toward the castle gate, which trembles and then pushes out toward us. It is heavy stone, growing out of the castle, and moves somehow like water, smooth and seamlessly.

I take a long breath and try to slow my heartbeat. My palms tingle. I feel adrenaline burning in my ears, in my veins.

From the shadows beyond the gate, a figure emerges.

She comes light on her feet, in pants and a shirt of pale silk, white boots with no heel, and an array of gold rings on her fingers. Gold binds back her white hair, and ribbons of gentle violet bring out the flecks of amethyst in her solid black eyes. Those black diamonds that spread up her cheekbones are exactly as Amon described, as they appeared in the photo, short and sharp, and they seem to reflect her long curve of a smile, to make it wider and more ferocious. She has them on her knuckles, too, and her fingernails are just as black. Her teeth, when she parts her lips to breathe us in glint like obsidian.

“Gentles,” she rasps, “we have a holy guest.”

The elves and goblins around us shift and whisper like the tide against rocks. I shiver, wishing Sleipnir’s Tooth were in my hand. I remind myself this is a crowd, and I know how to address them. “I am Idun the Young, of Bright Home and the apples of immortality. I seek Eirfinna Grimlakinder for a conversation. My companions are Amon Thorson and Sune Rask, hunter of Thor.”

It’s hard to tell, but I think, as her gaze slides past me to Amon and Sune, her smile grows feral. “Amon, you do not seem to come in peace, and I know the soldier does not.”

Amon doesn’t lower his hammer. “We come at Idun’s side, not for peace or battle, but to meet whatever you have to throw. My actions are up to you.”

“Your actions,” she says, slinking nearer him, “cracked our mountain.”

The gathered elves hiss.

“I will answer for that,” I say.

The elf steps to me and puts her long hand onto my shoulder. “I am Eirfinna, and I will speak with you, Lady of Apples. Come.”

She beckons us as she turns gracefully around.

We follow her into the darkness of the castle.

T
he great doors flow shut behind us, and the sudden darkness nearly blinds me. Sune takes my hand, and we follow the pale shadow that is Eirfinna forward through the empty blackness. Amon overtakes us, striding behind the elf. Veins of crystal glow dimly in the ceiling. My eyes adjust as we pass through a wide arch and into a long hall, turn right down another passage, then into a tightly spiraled turret stairway. The walls are perfectly smooth marble, and Sune murmurs, “It’s the same texture as the melted edges of the militia prison.”

Eirfinna leads us up at least three flights, faster as we near the top, and into a cave-like room full of computers and television screens that I have no time to study before the elf spins and launches herself at Amon.

I gasp. Sune has his gun out and aimed.

But she only leaps into his arms and kisses him.

Amon’s eyes close, and Eirfinna tilts her head, deepening her kiss. His hammer lowers, and his other arm slowly moves around to support her as she lifts onto her tiptoes and winds her arms around his neck.

Sune makes a soft sound of disbelief. I tear my gaze away from the strange beauty of their embrace and look around at the room.

The ceiling angles sharply down, with stalactites that glow from some internal magic, casting silver-blue light just like the glow of a computer screen. Shelves carved into the walls hold all manner of technology: computers, yes, in pieces and alive with blinking lights; wires and copper tubing; a toy train set and a pile of CDs; three old-fashioned radios a meter tall; the metal shell of an old Model-T; televisions ranging from tiny black-and-whites to massive monitors to thin flatscreens wired together in a corner. A wide wooden worktable spreads between two stalagmites that have been magically melted flat at waist-height to support the tabletop, and tools scatter across it, many that I recognize, like pliers and a welding torch, and some I couldn’t begin to name.

There are mannequins, too, dressed in human finery from across ages: fringed flapper dresses and velvet mantles, military uniforms, business suits, miniskirts and bodices and bustled gowns. They cluster to the side, near a messy mattress set on the cave floor and tossed with a dozen fluffy pillows like a nest.

Amon grunts softly as he sets Eirfinna down. He frowns at her, though I know him well enough now to see the amusement in his face. Eirfinna strokes his forehead, fingering the steel in his eyebrow, and then says, “I did miss you, godling.”

It’s Sune who responds. “You shouldn’t have betrayed him, then,” he says harshly. He shoves his gun away in the holster.

She says to Amon, “Still slumming, I see.”

“Your teeth are sharp without the mask,” is Amon’s only comment. He wipes a dot of blood from the corner of his mouth.

Eirfinna smiles, and her teeth grow slightly dull, her eyes brighten with white at the edges until she watches us through human-seeming eyes colored a vivid purple. She does nothing to shift the shape of her face or the black diamonds along her cheekbones. Half-girl, half-elf-goblin, she bows to Amon, spreading her arms extravagantly.

He offers her a half-smile in return.

“How are you doing that without the mask?” Sune demands.

She tosses a look at him over her shoulder as she goes toward the far end of the cave and opens a cabinet formed of thin marble and glass. “This is my home, hunter. You would do better to help me forget you put a bullet in my gut.”

“I did my duty,” he says, hand resting on the butt of his gun.

From the cabinet Eirfinna takes a crystal decanter and four thin flutes. She pours pale golden drinks for us and hands the first to me. I accept the cold glass, as does Amon. Sune’s jaw tightens, and Eirfinna holds his glass out farther, nearly enough that she could touch the rim of it to his lips. He keeps his hooded eyes on her, waiting.

With a delighted sigh, she finally says, “I reclaimed ancient secrets from that mask, hunter. I never intended to keep it, only to learn from it things my grandmothers lost.”

I lift my flute in salute, “To our grandmothers and the secrets we never lose.”

Her lips part in what appears to be pleased surprise, and Eirfinna turns finally to me. She raises her flute to match mine, then sips. I follow, unable to keep my eyes from fluttering closed at the tickle of pleasure the delicate honey-liquor imparts. Instead of burning, it draws a fluid line of warmth down my throat, like laughter or a kiss. It’s even more delicious than the elf mead Loki brought me once.

I manage to open my eyes, and Eirfinna smiles. Her teeth have gone sharp again, but remain white as a human’s. Amon takes another drink, finishing his entire glass. Sune sets his flute, barely touched, onto the smooth surface of a flattened stalagmite, beside an open laptop and three matching flip phones with their keypads missing.

I say, “I am here for the berserker named Soren Bearstar.”

Eirfinna’s smile widens. “Who?”

Her tone and the angle of her grin clearly show the lie. I do not repeat his name, but only softly say, “He belongs to me, Eirfinna of the Mountain.”

The humor falls off her face, and the elf says sharply, “He murdered my cousin.”

“Your cousin? Bell was your cousin?” says Amon. “What the rut was
your cousin
doing in Eureka, masquerading as a man?”

“Practicing.” Her diamond teeth glint meanly.

“For what?” the godling sneers. “Gangster of the month?”

“For emergence, Amon Thorson. For us to take our place in the sun. Three hundred years ago when your gods finally came here, dragging Asgard along, my family established these halls. But the Thunderer did not let us claim what we might have claimed.” Eirfinna fists her hand, digging her own sharp, diamond claws into her palm. A thin stream of purple blood leaks down her wrist. “When we attempted it, the Thunderer led his army against us, again and again, claiming we would ruin this new country, that we were desperate monsters and jealous of men and women and their places in Asgard’s heart.”

Sune says, “The Thunderer must believe it if he claims it.”

Eirfinna shrugs one shoulder and opens her hand. “I did not make the choices of my ancestors, three hundred or three thousand years ago, but I am what is left of the elves-under-the-mountain, and I will not allow us to fade into stories.” She wipes her palm on the hip of her white tunic, leaving a long streak of violet.

“I understand,” I murmur.

“Do you?”

“You want to be remembered.”

Her eyes turn to black slits.

I say, “You want to be a part of the world, of the weave of fate. To affect things. Anything.”

Eirfinna Grimlakinder slinks nearer to me. “Yes.”

“And I want Soren Bearstar.” I try not to pinch my flute too tightly.

“What has
one
to do with the
other
?”

“Only that we understand each other. I am as determined as you to get what I want.”

“I have him,” the elf says. “But he is guilty of murder and I will have my blood price.”

I have him.

Sune says, “He was imprisoned by the Alta California militia and would have seen justice served for any crimes he was proven guilty of. You had no right to sneak him away. The militia would have recognized Bell’s family’s blood right.”

“I never would have been allowed to make such a claim in human court!”

“I want Soren,” I say. I hand Sune my flute and stare at Eirfinna. As always is the case, she is taller than me. I lift my head and focus on those violet eyes. “He is mine, and I demand you return him to me.”

She breathes through her sharp teeth. I see a flick of pale tongue. “You do not taste like a god,” she whispers.

“Nevertheless, I am Idun. You will give Soren Bearstar to me.”

“He is mine to punish, for his crime was not against the men of Asgard. He acted against
me
, against the elves-under-the-mountain, and so it is the elves-under-the-mountain who seek blood price.”

“Soren would murder no one.” I set my hands on my hips, elbows wide. “He killed, and so your cousin pushed him to it.”

Eirfinna lashes out, and I feel nothing but the slick of air, followed by a burn of pain on my cheek. Shock makes me gasp as Sune draws his gun again, aiming it for Eirfinna’s head. Amon, though, pushes Sune’s braced arm aside and grips her by the throat. His black hand presses against her marble-white skin, and she shrieks, gripping his forearm with both obsidian-clawed hands.

“Stop,” I say, resisting the pain in my cheek, the warm slick of blood sinking toward my chin. My left eye waters from the burning, and I blink the tears away.

Sune stands with his chest near my shoulder, gun held out like a shield between me and the elf.

Amon slowly releases her. She hisses at him, eyes narrow. “You could not kill me if you tried, godling, and I know you don’t want to.”

“I won’t let you harm the Lady of Apples.”

“She is no god.”

“She is the Lady of Apples, and if you deny it, you deny not my word but the word of the Thunderer himself.”

“Amon,” I say, gently moving past Sune to touch Amon’s elbow. I look at the elf as I speak. “Eirfinna only defended her cousin’s name.”

She reaches out and takes my hand off Amon, giving the godling her shoulder. “What you say is true, lady. And Soren Bearstar killed that cousin. I am owed. Is that not a thing Asgard will honor?” She says it with deceptive lightness.

“I do not speak for Asgard,” I say carefully, sensing this conversation is not only dangerous, but as delicate as negotiating with Loki Changer. “But if I did, I would say that a blood price for murder is death, not torture, and a holmgang is the only blood price you have a right to call for.”

“Torture!” Her hairless brow wings up, widening those black eyes. “You think I torture him?”