The Lost Sun (33 page)

The frenzy is mine.

I dive at him, knocking his sword away with my hand—my bare hand—and he falls back. I’m on top of him, a knee on his chest, the point of my sword pressing into his throat.

My arm shakes. Alwulf’s eyes roll wildly and blood trickles from the corner of his mouth.

All I have to do is press in.

I remember Baldur standing over me, ready. The tip of my spear pressing into my neck. I remember how his head blocked the sun and the sky behind him raged with light.
Now, Soren Bearskin, are you ready to take me wherever I need to go?

And I remember how calm he was despite the hard breathing and sweat of the moment. He patiently waited for me to say
I am ready, Prince. Under the sun, and to the edges of the world
.

Then he let me up.

That holmgang ended in mercy—a thing Odin does not believe in.

But I am not sworn to the god of madness.

Tears blur my sight and one drops hot and hard onto Alwulf’s chest.

Closing my eyes, I close my heart, too, and the frenzy fades. Because I wished it to, because it is my tool. I am not its slave.

I stand up, taking my sword.

“New shield?” Henry calls, voice wavering with uncertainty.

Staring down at the captain, I say, “No. This is over. I serve the god of light; your life, Alwulf, the rest of the years, is a gift.”

He grimaces, tries to sit, but can’t. I’ve defeated him. Henry Halson says, “So be it.”

“So be it,”
the rest acknowledge, in scattered voices, repeating it one or two at a time until, finally, the three words rasp from Alwulf’s own lips.

Shakily, I go to where Baldur’s body rests. I stare down at the pale gold of him, dull under the night sky, and lifeless as a doll. Down on one knee, I touch my hand over his heart, feeling the loss of him hollowing me out again.

Cold wind blows off the mountains, smelling of snow and evergreens. “I am your man,” I say to his lifeless face. “There may be the wild frenzy inside, but I am not a killer. Astrid knew. You knew. I am berserk, but can choose what that means. I serve the sun, and that—” My voice thickens too much for talking. I want to lie down beside him, to remain here all throughout the night and, when the dawn arrives, myself light the fire that will consume him.

“That,” I whisper, “means hope and life and love. Those things you forgot, but still were.”

My hand warms the skin over his heart, and for a moment I can almost imagine it will beat again.

But he is dead, his murderer defeated. And I am not finished.

Astrid is in the orchard, and so awaits Idun, the lady who ordered Baldur killed.

As I move toward the gate, Henry and two others approach.
One is the older man who stood at Alwulf’s side, the other the berserker in whose frenzy I sensed so much sadness. Both of them blond and blue-eyed as berserkers should be.

Henry says, “Take this, for it will get colder before the sun rises.”

The older berserker holds out a coat of bearskin, and the sad one offers a cloak trimmed in fur.

“Thank you.” I put the coat on over my bare, bloody chest. It’s heavy and warm. Henry hands me my boots. I remove Vider’s troll eye from the toe and tuck it into the coat pocket. As I tie up my boots I say, “Wait for me.” I cannot add
before you burn Baldur
, but they know.

I throw the cloak over my arm for Astrid, and walk to the orchard gate.

TWENTY-ONE

THE HEAVY BLACK lock opens easily, and I step onto the orchard ground. Berserkers swing the gate shut behind me. The moment I’m trapped, I sense tranquility in the air itself: I’ve walked onto hallowed land.

Astrid appears, and I open my coat. She slips in against my bare chest, uncaring that I have been bloodied so recently. I wrap the cloak about both of us, and we breathe in slow unison, heating all the crevices and shadows between us.

As she thaws, tears gently fall from her closed eyes, as if her sorrow was ice and now it melts in the heat of my bitter victory.

All around us are the whisper of wind through leaves, the quiet creak of branches, and the crackle of fire as the berserkers outside light more and more torches to place along the fence. The glow will guide us into the deep darkness that is Idun’s orchard.

Finally, Astrid opens her eyes and says, “That was well done, Soren. He would be proud, and I am honored.” She wipes the tears from her cheeks.

I go onto my knees and kiss both of her hands. “I want you to come out of here with me, but you can’t, can you?”

Astrid tugs the cloak closed around her shoulders. She turns and looks into the trees. “This is what I have dreamed.”

“I know.”

“For years.”

“For your whole life,” I say, thinking of how my father was here before I was born, how this orchard is the cradle for all the threads linking us to the past.

“It’s been pulling at me,” she says. “But I would not go without you.”

I put my hand on her shoulder and squeeze. “As it should be, Astrid Jennasdottir.”

Together we walk between the trees.

It’s not long before we leave the torches behind, and the only light we have filters silver and pale from the moon. It’s barely enough, but Astrid knows the way. Her fingers curl around mine and I move beside her, a strong shadow. Our feet make sharp snaps against the cold orchard ground.

The trees are ancient ones, their thick limbs heavy with leaves but mostly bare of fruit. Here and there a round apple shines, out of season, and colored unnaturally bright in the moonlight. But there are no more than a handful of apples for every tree. Fruit and leaves have blanketed the ground, though we walk along a clear path through the low-hanging, looming branches. It’s quiet; even breezes do not penetrate the thickness
here. I think once or twice that something watches us, paces us through the wild apples.

It isn’t long before weariness creeps into me. I’ve exploded with frenzy, fought for my life, lost a friend. All I wish to do is curl up in the roots of a tree and sleep for several days.

I doubt we’ve walked more than a half kilometer yet into the antique orchard when a clearing appears through the branches.

Moonlight streams in, and onto a slender figure in a white cloak. A cat perches delicately on her shoulder. She stands before a small golden tree, no taller than me, but hung with tiny, wizened apples. A half dozen would fit easily into my palm, and they’re every shade of gold.

I free my sword and say, “Idun.”

But the lady draws back her hood to look at Astrid, and Astrid says,
“Mom.”

My arm falters as Astrid rushes forward and Idun spreads her hands to welcome her daughter into an embrace. The cat leaps away, making room. They hold each other tight, and Astrid is shaking. Idun, known before as Jenna Glyn, closes her eyes, and I can see the finality, the penance, marked across her face as she hugs her daughter.

I wait outside their embrace, hanging back with my sword point hovering just over the earth. All I can think is:
Astrid’s mother is alive, and she had Baldur killed
.

Astrid leans away and puts her hands on her mother’s face, peering into it. “You haven’t changed,” she whispers, but Jenna says, “Oh, my little cat, you have. You have. Everything has changed.”

“What have you done?” I ask, stepping forward. I wish to tear Astrid away, to impose myself between.

“Soren.” Astrid reaches for my hand and for her mother’s, and she connects us. “Soren, this is my mother, Jenna Glyn. Mom, this is Soren, my …” She blinks and shakes her head before saying, “… my everything.”

Jenna’s eyes widen in horror, and I don’t mind because I dislike her, too. Vehemently. She is like an older, harder version of Astrid, with the same thick licorice curls, the same eyes that hold the moonlight like bottle glass, the same lips and cheeks, as if nothing of Astrid’s father found its way into Astrid.

Except, perhaps, honor. For this woman had Baldur killed.

“Oh, Astrid,” she breathes, her mouth trembling as she stares at me, as if I am news she has dreaded for a hundred years.

“What’s wrong, Mom?” Astrid is smiling. “Sweet swans! I’ve found you here; I’ve always been meant to. I knew you weren’t dead!” A laugh pours out of her, like bubbles in sparkling mead. “Mom! I can’t believe it—you’re Idun … but you’re human. You’re mortal, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I am. But it is always a woman—or a girl—who guards the apples. True youth burns only in one who will someday die. The apples grow brightest when tended by one who is young, but will be so only for a time.” Jenna’s eyes close again, and she takes her hand away from Astrid, to press against her own chest.

I say, “Remember what the berserkers were ordered: ‘Kill the golden one and lead the seether into the orchard.’ ”

There is a moment of fraught silence as Astrid remembers. I see the image of Baldur’s broken self flash in Astrid’s eyes, and I see her face fall to pieces. It cuts at me, because I made her remember, I wouldn’t even let her have five minutes of happiness with her rediscovered mother.

“You left me to become the Lady of Apples,” Astrid whispers. “You’re Idun.”

Jenna lifts one hand to gently cup a wrinkled apple of immortality that dangles near her from the small golden tree. “I am.”

Astrid puts one foot forward. “And you told the Bears to kill Baldur.”

“I did,” she admits, her voice hushed and sorry. Not at all what I expected. She should not regret it; she should be triumphant. I grip my sword tightly and go to Astrid’s side. I take her hand and weave our fingers together. “This was your mother, Astrid, but is no longer.”

My cruel words cause Jenna’s eyes to shut again, and tears plop onto Astrid’s cheeks.

“Listen, Astrid, child of the Feather-Flying Goddess,” Idun the Youthful murmurs, opening her eyes and pinning her daughter to the darkness of the grove. “And listen, Soren Bearstar, child of Odin and brother to his son. Listen to the story of Jenna Glyn, called Freyasdottir, called Seether of All Dreams. I will tell you what became of her, if you will listen.”

She pulls back from us and kneels on the soft grass growing between the roots of the apple tree.

Astrid tugs my hand. My sword arm trembles, but she
caresses my knuckles, my wrist, her fingers flickering under the cuff of the bearskin coat. “Soren,” she whispers.

I sheathe my sword. When Astrid turns to face Idun again, I wrap my arms around her from behind, making myself into a shell for her. Into support and anything else she might need. Both of us look to her mother.

“Once, many years ago,” Idun begins in a voice of memories, a voice both lighter and more dreaming than Astrid’s, “there was a seethkona who devoted all her life and energy to her lady, Freya, Queen of Hel. She traveled with her brother, with a parade of friends and followers, around New Asgard to tell the fortunes and read the bones of all with the courage to ask. Such was her fidelity to Freya that when she saw in her own fate the face of a daughter the goddess longed to see born, this seethkona did not hesitate to get herself with child.”

Within my arms, Astrid is still. She stares at her mother’s mouth, and I wish I could reach out and snatch the words before they find their way to Astrid’s ears.

“Although her brother and friends and followers all wished to know the name of the father, the seethkona would only admit that he was beautiful and kind and filled with magic. When the girl was born, the seethkona and her daughter traveled the country together, with joy and promise, with all the magic to be found in this Middle World. The seethkona taught her daughter to see power, to dance the wild dance of fate, to carve bones and listen to the song of the past. In her daughter the seethkona saw the entire world of happiness made into flesh.”

Idun’s telling falters, and she tilts her face up toward the
sky, as if she might find the tale’s thread woven in the stars. For a single moment, a twinge of sympathy touches me. Astrid sighs.

The cat slinks into Idun’s lap, butting its head up into her fist until Idun relaxes her fingers and continues, with the cat’s purr as undertone. “For twelve years they were content, and more than content, until one night in the most barren place on the prairie, the seethkona woke to hear a low call. She reached out with her skillful fingers and plucked the strand of magic out of the sky. It was a summons, and because she was versed in the language of the gods, the seethkona heard it, though it was never intended for her ears. It was a call for her daughter, from a distant orchard where the apples yearned for a new lady, for youth and brightness and all the wild power a girl of such heart and strength could offer.”

Now I know where Astrid learned to tell a story—I am so caught up in the words that it isn’t until Astrid stiffens against me, until her sharp gasp snaps me into the moment, that I realize exactly what her mother is telling us.

Idun leans forward and says, “But the seethkona snared the call in a net of magic. She would not let her daughter go. She would not have her child of magic forgotten by the world, plucked from the strands of fate as if she’d never been, to serve in isolation. And so she kissed her little girl good night and vanished into the desert.” Idun sighs, her eyes alive with need. “She followed the thread of the call into the mountains and through the orchard, to where her goddess Freya waited
beneath a small and golden apple tree. ‘Where is the girl we have called?’ Freya demanded, blazing with a darkness from beyond the stars. The seethkona dropped to her knees and said, ‘All things you have asked of me, I have given. But my daughter is only a child; she has not lived, has not loved. I beg you, let me serve in her place.’ ”