The Apple Throne (7 page)

“No,” I say quietly, but firmly.

I take off at a sharp pace, but don’t allow myself to run while his gaze is on my back. I focus my own eyes ahead, ignoring the yard around me—where Baldur died, where Soren fought his first holmgang, where we burned my mother’s body and I thought I’d lost my heart forever.

Bypassing the loud, bright feast hall, I duck into the courtyard. High overhead the triangle pennant with Idun’s insignia snaps in the cold wind. A spotlight at the base of the pole shines onto the golden apple so it glints like a tiny sun. My chest pinches; maybe Justice is right to be nervous. I’m abandoning my charge, breaking the rules.

I have no idea what the consequences will be for me, the gods, or the world. Will Freya take it away from me when she finds out? I am under no delusion that I can keep this adventure from the goddess of dreams. I’m not certain I even wish to. I’ve never hidden from her before; I’ve prayed to her and trusted her and loved her. But I have to go, even if it costs me the orchard and the short life I have left. I have to do this for Soren, or I’m not worth anything.

Noise erupts as the hall door swings open, and two berserkers stumble out, arms entangled. Eldun and Jersy. I hold still. They don’t even glance my way, laughing and thumping each other. I watch them weave toward the barracks with my breath held, slinking further into the shadows to hide the glare of my white coat.

On the flat stone parking lot beside the heliplane hanger is a pale van, full-sized and windowless in the back. I dash toward it. The driver’s door is unlocked, and I climb up to perch on the edge of the tall, cloth seat. The wheel is huge, and I guess the van is at least twenty years old. There’s no key, and I can’t find one under the visor or in the pockets or glove compartment. I have no idea how to hotwire anything.

Closing the door, I sigh into the cold cab. I’ll have to wait for Amon Thorson to come out.

An iron cross and a neon orange plastic lightning charm dangle from the rearview mirror. A row of bobbleheads sticks to the dash like a silent audience. They’re all some version of his father Thor Thunderer.

Amon Thorson must be the type who makes light of the gods and their role in this world, despite being the son of one, but he and his van can at least get me to the nearest town. Leavenworth will have local news, in case there was an accident, and national if Soren’s predicament is worse. His name is attached to the USA’s golden god, and anything gossip-worthy will be on the interweave. If I have to, I can find contact information for the Valkyrie Signy or the preacher Soren’s mentioned; at least he’ll have a church number. It was Bliss Church, I think.

I close my eyes and lean back in the seat. My feet dangle over the pedals. The cab dulls all the music from the feast hall, and wind rocks the van gently. It’s like huddling inside a massive sea shell, floating on the ocean.

I’m half-asleep when I see Amon Thorson making his slow way across the courtyard to the van. He’s black as a shadow, creeping a step at a time. He sits down on the short stone wall around the flagpoles, and for a moment, I think he won’t stand again. He’s young—my age or no older than twenty—and shaped like a V just as his father is. When he shoves back to his feet, I realize his eyes are closed, he’s that drunk or high. I wonder what terrible drug can affect the son of Thor.

He holds his dark hand out so it hits the van first, rocking it hard. I hear the sliding door jerk open, and the van shakes again as he collapses inside.

There’s a moment of silence.

I throw open my door and scramble down. His feet hang out of the side, and he’s sprawled across a pile of blankets as if he’d prepared himself a drunken bed before leaving. One shovel-wide hand is spread over his stomach, the other flung up and hooked over a small cooler. He’s got on jeans and a silky button-up and a leather jacket covered in buckles. His chest rises slowly.

Not in the least bit careful, I climb over his legs and dig my hands into his jacket pockets. Tissues, coins, and a couple of nails in one. Nothing in the other. I open the jacket and find an inner pocket. His wallet is tucked inside it. With an annoyed sigh, I roll his hip slightly and try his jeans.

Amon mutters something, and his hand bats at mine. He sleepily tries to unbuckle his belt. I stop for a moment, flushing, then grab his hand. I toss it away and try his other pocket. The keys are there.

I hop back onto the ground with the key ring around one finger. Shoving his feet inside, I pull the sliding door closed and then head back for the driver’s seat.

The van rumbles to life, radio igniting into some vicious drums. I twist the music down as Amon groans again behind me. I can’t find a lever to adjust the chair, so I merely scoot to the edge before putting the van into gear. The headlamps sweep across the courtyard as I take us out of the lot and head for the far mountains. Leavenworth is at least two hours east, once I’m outside Bear Vale.

Even at night, the valley manages to retain a heavy saturation of color. Golden grass, the dark blue of the creeks, the mountains that cup us in their arms violet against the starry sky. Where the headlamps cut, everything goes pale in a line. There’s magic here, in this hidden vale. But outside, I’ll just be a girl with no history, no name. No dreams.

The van slows under my hesitant foot. There’s a narrow cliff road before me that I walked down before with Soren, Baldur, and Vider at my side. Tonight, I’m alone. Vider doesn’t remember me, Baldur is dead for the winter, and Soren is lost.

I turn the longing strains of rock music louder and start up the mountain.

A
s the highway threads down the mountain toward Leavenworth, the headlamps seem to pull the van along, hooking into the asphalt and dragging me behind.

It’s dangerous to let that be the theme of this journey. I need to get ahead and direct.

In the darkness, the bobbleheads on the dash nod. They’re all the same head—a fire-red-bearded Thor Thunderer—with different outfits on their stocky plastic bodies, though I can’t make out what they are.

“I’ll tell you a story,” I murmur to them. “To distract myself.”

I used to tell stories all the time. It was a trick my mother and I used to pass long hours in the car, to teach me patterns and archetypes that would help me seeth, to understand people and their desires. I loved the tales of the gods and their awful or humorous adventures, especially Thor and Loki as they traveled the world making mischief and aiding others. When I drove with Soren to find Baldur, I told him stories. And once we’d collected the god of light, I told more. It was me who had reminded Baldur how he’d become a god, that he’d been born a godling like this one snoring behind me now, half-god and half-man, until he’d proved himself worthy of power and immortality.

It never was a problem for me to draw a story to mind, appropriate to the situation or mood of my audience, but I can’t think of one now. No story resonates, waiting at the tip of my tongue to be brought to life.

I suppose it’s because there are no stories like mine.

Or rather, there are a hundred stories exactly like it: a girl torn out of fate, forgotten by the Nine Worlds. A girl with no history has no story.

But I do know tales of the Iduns before me.

There’s a famous one where Loki Changer convinced Idun to go with him out of her orchard because he claimed to have found another tree with withered apples like hers. Shocked and afraid, she went, though she expected a trick. And a trick there was: the giant Thiazi waited in the guise of a massive eagle. He kidnapped Idun to hold her ransom against acquiring his own apples of immortality.

Loki was forced by the gods to retrieve her. It was a wild and messy adventure, with much shapeshifting, fire, and flight.

I wonder if that’s truly what happened, though. I know now that the apples would have withered while she was missing from her orchard. Freya would not have needed that Idun back from the giant; she only would have needed a new girl.

How expendable am I outside the orchard?

I let go a slow, long breath and remind myself my goddess loves me. She will not cut her losses if she does not have to. She will look at all the ripples of fate and make the best choice for the world.

I am making the best choice for Soren, and hoping it’s also the best for the world.

The bobbleheads nod encouragingly.

“What the
ragging skit-sticker.
” Amon Thorson knocks into the driver’s seat as he flings himself up.

I gasp. I half-forgot he was back there. “I’m pulling over!” I say firmly, slowing down, eyes peeled for a shoulder large enough to fit the van.

He continues cussing in the flavor of sexual insults, but it’s less directed at me than at the world. I feel his hand grab the seat at my shoulder. His breath is hot on my ear. “Who the rut are you?”

I angle onto a pullout. The van trembles as I put it in park and turn off the ignition. I take the keys with me when I climb down. Rushing river water is loud but unseen down the sharp slope off the road, and the moon is far gone past the black evergreen trees and mountain peaks.

The side door rushes open as I come around the front. Amon’s on his feet, towering over me in the pitch darkness. He grabs my shoulders, and I press the sharp end of the key against his side. “Let me go.”

“You’ve stolen me and my van,” he growls. His teeth flash and his pastel blue eyes shock with crackles of lightning, proof of his heritage despite his black skin and beardlessness.

I calmly say, “Commandeered it.”

He blinks, then explodes with laughter.

Startled, I slip the key into one of my coat pockets and take a deep breath instead of smoothing my hair or shuffling my feet.

There’s no sign of hangover or alcohol haze in his face, and he leans against the van, retaining the high amusement in his smirk. “So, you a buzzer?”

I narrow my eyes. “A what?”

“You look familiar, so I’m assuming I’ve seen you around Bear Valley. You must be a buzzer.”

“I don’t know what that means,” I lie. A buzzer is a person who
prefers
berserker men because of what the frenzy is like in bed. And that’s the polite way to say it. “I need to use your van for a few days. I’m—”

“Whoa there, jilly, I—”

I hold my palm toward his face, deciding it’s to my advantage for him to know who I am. He will have no duty to stop me, nor authority if he wanted to. “Amon Thorson. You know my face for the same reason I know yours. I see you sit at the table of castaways in Bright Home, draining pint after pint, angry cracking eyes staring after your father.”

Amon tugs at the steel ring pierced through his left eyebrow. “Bright Home,” he mutters. He half-climbs into the van to switch on the overhead light. It casts yellow onto his face, and I turn toward it. I’m unsure if he’ll recognize me. He’s certainly seen me at the Bright Home high table, and all the gods remember me. How will a godling fit into Freya’s magic?

As he studies me, I return the favor. He’s handsome and reminds me of an article I read in my old life about symmetry and beauty. His father Thor Thunderer has a broken nose and round eyes and a harsh red beard and creamy-to-pink skin, and you can tell he laughs frequently by the squinty lines around his temples. Other than the crackling blue of his eyes, Amon is the opposite in every way. He has a smooth jaw, no breaks or scars distorting the planes of his wide, elegant nose and high cheeks, and his eyes narrow mysteriously at the corners. He’s as dark as I am pale. I’ve never seen his mother that I know of, but she must be breathtaking. She’d have to be to attract a god’s attention.

Then, of course, there’s the raw iron tugging at his left eyebrow and the spiral rings curling up and through both ears like steel caterpillars.

Amon Thorson finally says, “Skit.
Idun
. Lady Idun… Just because you’re a god doesn’t mean you can just decide to take my van.”

I attempt to look imperious. “I can if you don’t want me to let the militia know about your sales of bearbane to my berserkers.”

He spits on the ground. “That is…harsh, jill. Idun. Lady.
Rag me
.” Amon wipes a hand over his tight curls. “I’m being blackmailed by a goddess.”

“There are worse things.”

“Yeah. Sure. Where is it you need my van to take you?”

“Leavenworth.”

“Hand over the keys. I’ll drive, you’ll talk.”

We close the sliding door and swing up into the cab. As Amon turns over the engine, he says, “In your defense, this is how the best stories start.”

• • •

It is hard to codify the story of my life into one that makes sense in a world where Astrid Glyn never existed. This is the lie I tell him:

“Twenty months ago, when Soren Bearskin, now called Bearstar, brought Baldur the Beautiful to my orchard for a bite of the immortal apple, I fell in love with him.”

“With Baldur?” Amon interrupts.

“With Soren,” I say peevishly. “He was supposed to be there last night, after the Yule feast, and he was not. I don’t know where he is, and I must find him.”

“Do you have…a plan?”

“
Find him
.”

Amon casts me a side-eye. “Don’t mind my saying so, but that’s not very divine of you. Why do you think he’s in Leavenworth?”

“I don’t, though he may be. It’s the nearest town to my valley, and they will have news, local and national.”

“Can’t you just call Bright Home for some help from the cousins?”

“No,” I say firmly. “But I do need a phone.”

Amon reaches down into the driver’s side pocket and tosses me a slim black cell. I slide it on and stare at the number screen glowing in the dim cab. It’s much more sophisticated than my last phone. More like Soren’s. He told me Baldur’s given him a cell three times, on the same family plan, but he loses them.

I dial Soren’s number, the only one I have memorized besides the direct line to Bright Home. It goes straight to voicemail.
This is Soren
, he mumbles.

Nothing more.

“Soren,” I say. “Where are you?”

I hang up, and my hands are shaking. The godling ignores me, for which I am grateful.