Dolor and Shadow (42 page)

Rune cocked his head toward Kallan’s backside and, complacently, returned his eyes to his boot, indifferent by anything the woman said or Kallan did.

“The woman brought us mead,” Halvard held back from booming over a half-attempted whisper. “Are you daft or dead?”

Rune raised his eyes from the floor, a grin stretched across his face with a known mischievous look to his eye.

“They deserve each other.” Rune shrugged. “He’s slimy and she’s ornery. Besides, he’ll be begging to bring her back before the night’s end.”

CHAPTER 52

The scent of sweet hay rolled from the stables as Brand pulled open the doors. Orange light from his swaying lantern streaked the stalls and Kallan swaggered several steps ahead past the rows of horses.

“How old is he?” Brand asked, eager to pull her back to him.

“Well,” Kallan said with a grin, peering over her shoulder. “How old are you?”

Brand flashed his wide grin.

“Does my age change your answer?” he asked.

“How old do you think?” she asked.

Brand shrugged.

“Three, maybe four.”

Kallan shrugged back.

“Let’s call Astrid three, then.”

“Let’s,” Brand said, dropping the lantern onto a hook.

With a hearty pat to Astrid’s neck, Kallan snatched up a brush beside her.

“And ‘Astrid’,” Brand threw his hands to the air, with a half chuckle lost to his grin. “What is that?”

Kallan pushed the brush through his coat as Brand followed her long locks down her back where they stopped at her backside.

“He was born when I was a child,” she said. “I insisted he was a girl and named him Astrid.”

With every stroke of the brush, her ringlets bounced lightly, holding Brand’s attention there at their tips.

“A child?” he whispered. “That would make you…”

Kallan smiled.

“Yeah, let’s say Astrid’s three,” Brand agreed.

With every stroke, the gold cords laced at Kallan’s side caught the light, and he followed the lacing in and out through Kallan’s gown.

“How is it you know of Palfrey and Courser when the draw horse is all that’s found north of the empire?” Brand asked pulling his eyes from the gold.

Kallan cocked a single brow as she pushed the brush through Astrid’s coat then abandoned it to a barrel.

“Should I not?”

Brand eyed the hem of her dress. His attention lingered on her feet wrapped in leather then dragged his eyes up.

“Most in the area have never seen anything beyond the creams of the fjord horse,” he said. “Let alone own one that looks so much like the horses found along the desert markets south of Volga.”

He watched as Kallan opened her palm for Astrid to snuffle with his wet nose as if sniffing for a treat. After a gentle stroke to his face, Kallan planted a kiss. A lump caught in Brand’s throat as he studied the fine lines of her jaw down to her neck.

“You should come with me,” he whispered.

Kallan looked up, hooking him on the lapis blue rings of her eyes.

“With you?” She kindly grinned.

“When next we go out,” he clarified. He gulped. His hands were cold and damp.

“We?” She snickered. “And when would that be?” Her voice lilted with an eagerness that encouraged more from him.

“Leif has another expedition planned next summer,” Brand rambled on, uncertain why he couldn’t shut up. “He looks to go west.”

“To the islands of Englia?” she asked, pulling herself from Astrid’s face. A single ringlet fell to her eyes.

“Further.” He lowered his voice.

Aching to pull back the ringlet, he dared a step closer, carefully, as if she was a fledgling that would take flight.

“To Groen Land?” Kallan widened her grin. She was shaking her head before Brand could stop her. “False promises of a land rolling with green.” She repeated the stories aloud. “And farmland enough to feed an entire country. Hopeful settlers have returned, laden with stories of fields of ice and barren rock.”

Brand shrugged.

“Well, how else would Leif and Erik draw settlers if not by calling it Groen Land?”

Kallan laughed and his chest tightened.

“It’s an ice block,” she managed to say between chuckles. “Even the Northern Passage is warmer.”

Brand shrugged with a smile.

“Either way.” He shook his head, letting his face fall to severity. “No.”

Kallan stopped laughing as the joviality fell from Brand’s face, leaving behind her grin.

“No?” she asked.

Brand shook his head. “Not Groen Land,” Brand whispered. “Beyond.”

“Beyond.”

The light of his lantern caught her eye.

“There is nothing beyond,” she whispered. “But Ginnungagap and the tips of the ash branches that stretch into the endless sea made black by the sea worms that fill those waters.”

“There is more,” Brand insisted. “I’ve been there.”

Her eyes widened with clear fascination. Now that he held her captivated, he kept her and wouldn’t let go.

“Fields of green and pastures lined with berries in so much abundance that wine flows right out of the ground,” he said.

Kallan shook her head, her grin recovering.

“More false promises of sheets of ice?”

“No.” He lowered his voice, forcing her closer to hear. She smelled of roses and lavender. “This is real.”

“Green ice,” she whispered.

He exploded into a laugh, encouraging her smile that launched him into his travels.

“The Empire is building a cathedral in Mainz,” he said. “Books containing the newest innovations are flowing from Râ-Kedet.”

“Books,” she said with intrigue.

“Books bound and made with silks and mesh fibers they call paper. The Arabi have been doing this for two centuries.” His eyes brightened with excitement. “Ideas are written and sold right there in the markets. Innovations and knowledge brimming with possibilities that are moving along the Volga trade roads in exchange for spices. Explorers bring gods from the lands beyond. They say the scholars have found maps in the stars.”

“Maps in the stars,” she said.

“Too easily you could forget home,” he said. “We can travel farther than anyone before us. There’s a world, twenty years ago, we didn’t even know was there. And there’s something there, beyond that one.”

“And how far will you go?” Kallan whispered. “Until the branches of Yggdrasill reach beyond the stars?”

Brand paused, coming down from his maps in the stars to meet Kallan’s mystical eyes beaming with the worlds he spoke.

“Come with me,” Brand bade just above a whisper.

“To the stars?” Her eyes glistened with excitement.

His words brushed her lips.

“Come with me,” he whispered.

“Unfortunately…” Rune’s voice cut through the stables like an ugly horn sounding from the North. “…Her Highness has other commitments requiring her immediate attention in Gunir.”

Kallan snarled at Rune as Brand straightened his back. Hate filled Kallan’s head at the sight of Rune, pushing aside thoughts of stars, books, and worlds carved with green ice. On the other side of the lantern, Rune rested a large arm on the stall. His hair tied back made him appear older, wiser, and angrier than usual.

“Olga has asked me to fetch you.” Rune’s voice rolled through the stall like venom.

“Olga has,” Brand answered, not sounding entirely convinced the Ljosalfr told the truth.

“Yes,” Rune insisted. “She’s in the Mead Hall, saying something about Halvard needing something…with…something…”

Rune handed the words to Brand, not bothering to make his improvisation sound convincing.

Brand exchanged Kallan’s apologetic glance for a remorseful one and, with gross hesitation, walked to the end of the stall. Pulling the lantern from its hook, Brand stopped long enough to gaze at Rune.

With chests puffed out, they sized each other and, after an eternal second, Brand moved on his way.

“What is wrong with you?” Kallan hissed once Brand’s footfalls faded.

“Wrong? Wrong?” Rune said, feigning innocence. “I was delivering a message.”

“There is no message,” she said.

“There could be.”

Kallan gave a girlish growl. “What are you doing here, anyway?” she asked.

“Rescuing him,” Rune said.

“Rescuing.”

“From you,” he clarified before he could catch the huff from her lips. In silence, Rune strolled from the stables with Kallan cursing beneath her breath behind him.

The night had settled, mingling with the orange lights that poured from the Mead Hall. In the distance, muffled laughter of the Throendir carried on the wind as Rune plodded down to the beach with Kallan in tow.

“We were enjoying a pleasant conversation,” she said just as Rune stopped short.

Slamming her shoulder into his, Kallan stomped on ahead, taking the lead. Her skirts rustled as she pushed her way onto the beach.

“
You
were enjoying a pleasant conversation,” he corrected. “That boy was hopping on the verge of madness.”

The weight of his eyes bore into her back and she whipped about on her heel. His arms hung at his side.

“I was,” she said.

“You had him strung along tighter than a mast line,” Rune said.

“I did?”

Rune shrugged. “You’re cruel.”

Kallan whipped back around.

“I am not cruel,” she said.

“Were you going to sleep with him?” Rune asked. A bite in his tone replaced his impassiveness. Kallan flushed white then red as she clutched her fists with the want to summon her Seidr. “Because he thought you were,” he said, not bothering to wait for an answer. “And you let him.”

He gave her the moment to flash her finest glare.

“See.” Rune shrugged. “Cruel.”

He sauntered down to the water’s surface, ensuring he slammed his shoulder into her along the way.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

Rune held his gaze on the black sea. Another huff escaped her lips before he bothered to answer.

“Why do they want your pouch, Kallan?”

Kallan threw back her head.

“Not in all my days,” she said, “for as long as I reign, will I ever concede to your twisted…”

Rune gazed into the cold hate that met his eyes.

“I am not your ally!” she shouted.

Holding up his arm in answer, Rune let slide a single, black tri-corner knot that stopped short at the end of a chain.

Kallan gasped, turning as pale as the moonlight that glistened off the silver-black sheen of the elding steel.

“Where did you…?” she breathed.

With trembling hands, Kallan reached for the pendant.

“It was all I could find,” Rune said as Kallan took the tri-knot.

Too stunned to speak, Kallan cradled the charm until she collected the strength to tear her eyes away from the boon.

“My mother…” Kallan tried to speak, but caught her words on a breath as she caressed the lines of elding with her finger. “This is all I have left.”

Dark days flooded back of the bitter tang buried beneath Dvergar caves, and the hopelessness she had found there as the sea air rushed in and over her, clearing her thoughts and allowing questions that hadn’t surfaced before. With a gulp, Kallan found her voice.

“In the caves…how did you know where to find me?”

Rune looked to the clear sky. The moon was almost gone now.

Rune breathed in the sea air.

“My brother spent some time in Nidavellir,” Rune said with a subtle grin. “He managed to bring some knowledge back with him.”

“Your brother,” Kallan whispered, holding her eyes on the pendant again.

The moonlight glistened off the elding as she turned the metal over. Distant laughter rolled through the silence of the evening’s festivities and the impenetrable walls of Kallan’s grief began to weaken.

“You often speak of your brother,” she said, running her finger along the lines of elding. “Earth. Air. Wind,” she muttered and looked to Rune. He stood gazing at the black sea.

The black sea.

Kallan watched each wave twist, roll, and contort itself like the black, sleek bodies of the sea worms. Any moment now, a flat, snake-like head with metallic, beady eyes would rise up and peer out from the ocean waters.