The Lost Sun (34 page)

Astrid turns her face into my shoulder, and one of her hands slides under my coat. Her fingers dig into my ribs where blood has crusted, and I welcome the fresh jolt of pain. It reminds me of all we’ve been through tonight.

Idun continues her story: “The goddess was tempted to dismiss her seethkona’s plea outright, but Freya is never one to lose an opportunity, and so she cast another spell. A spell to show her all the possibilities of the world, all the changes and fates that spun out from this single moment of choice. After studying the weave, she struck a bargain with the seethkona. ‘You shall guard the apples in your daughter’s stead for a handful of years, so that she may live and love. But there will come a day when a light will disappear from the world, and you will know your time is ending. You will peer into a cup of visions and see what you must do for me.’ ” Idun sighs again, and her lips stretch into a flat line that is almost a smile and almost a grimace. “Because she was desperate and willing, the seethkona agreed without thinking. She agreed out of loyalty to her goddess. She agreed for love of her daughter, and Jenna Glyn died. She became Idun. Me.”

“You should have told me!” Astrid cries, shoving off my
chest and at her mother. She lands on her hands and knees, the cloak weighing her shoulders down. Her head hangs. “I would have loved you all the more. But now … now …”

“I could not, little cat.” Idun takes Astrid’s face in her hands and raises it. “To become truly Idun is to step out of Easte, to be forgotten. To have your human destiny pulled out of the weave of the world. You will no longer exist in the hearts of men.”

Denial scalds my throat. “No one has forgotten you,” I say forcefully. “There are memorials and—and television specials.”

She lifts her gaze to mine. “I am sorry, young man. It is a tradition the lords and ladies of Asgard firmly hold, so that no one will know with any certainty who Idun is. To protect the apples. So Freya created for Jenna Glyn a seeming death, in order that no one might suspect what she had become. Who I have become.”

“Astrid knew,” I whisper.

“She needed a mother. She needed those memories of me, and so did the world, to make her who she is. And she believed I lived because she has always had faith as strong as a mountain. Because she is not wholly of the Middle World. She has always been destined to be Idun. She could not forget me; she needed to yearn for me and needed to hunt for me in order to play her role in Baldur’s disappearance. That is the only reason the name of Jenna Glyn lived on, though to the world she had died. So that Astrid would seek out Baldur. But, Soren, when my daughter steps into her new role, you will forget her.”

The thought of it does the one thing I have been unable to
do for myself: it makes me cold. The fever freezes in my blood and my ribs become a cage of ice. To lose Astrid is to lose everything I’ve become, everything I’ve learned to love. She changed me, showed me how to find strength in what I feared. Without her I would not have known Baldur or hope. I would still be a boy carrying the weight of my father’s crimes around my neck. If I forget her, will I forget all of it? Not only my Astrid, but Baldur and Vider and the faith and strength I’ve chosen to wrap around my shoulders?

I would rather die. I would rather fight all the universe.

It cannot happen.

“No.” I take Astrid’s arm and drag her to her feet. “It will not happen.”

Idun begins to speak, but Astrid puts her back against my chest. “Soren will not bend, Mom. He will stand in the way of fate until fate bends around him.”

I grip her shoulders, relieved and afraid in equal measure. Idun watches, her pale eyes flicking back and forth between our faces, and she murmurs, “It was not supposed to be like this. I did not see it all.”

Before Astrid or I can respond, the cat suddenly arches its back and leaps up into the apple tree, scrambling into the closest of the ancient branches. Although it disappears into the darkness, all three of us track its shadow, searching for sign of what startled it.

We don’t wait long.

Out of the thick branches tumbles a person, her silver hair catching and tearing on the twigs. She lands hard and grunts,
putting her hands to her head where a small trickle of blood sprouts like a tendril of grass.

“Vider.” I release Astrid and crouch, just as the cat bounds down, too, and puts its front paws on Vider’s chest.

Vider coughs and groans, but her eyes fly open, bright and startled. “Sorry!” she gasps. “But I
was
hiding!”

Behind me, Astrid makes a noise that’s half a laugh, half a sob. She touches my shoulder and then reaches over to offer Vider a hand. Vider takes it, and with our help she slowly gets to her feet. We are three standing before Idun, where we should have been four. I don’t have it in me to be angry that Vider broke into the orchard and followed us. I am glad for her hand in mine.

Idun takes us in, looking closely at our faces, her daughter’s last of all. “There are many who love you. Whom you love.”

“Yes,” Astrid says, passion slurring the word.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this complicated, little cat. I didn’t see any but you and Baldur. It was only meant to be you and Baldur.”

A new voice, low with authority, says, “I knew. I saw.”

Where the cat was rises a lady. Her skin ripples as the fur disappears, and she stands before us with eyes the color of storm clouds and hair the color of rain. As I watch, half of her face darkens into blackness, the skin there tightening to fit against her skull until she appears half-dead.

Astrid and her mother, Idun, fall to their knees.

It is Freya herself, Queen of Hel and mother of all magic.

Vider shakes and slowly goes down, and I—I feel nothing. It is dangerous and crazy, but I stand.

She glides toward me, her closeness a pressure in my inner ear. “Soren, called new Bearstar, son of Styrr who lies well in my deathbed, self-sworn brother of Baldur the Beautiful. Will you not kneel?”

Her beauty is frightening, not like the overwhelming sunlight of Baldur, but insidious and creeping into my imagination so that no matter how long I stare, it is never the same shade of half-perfection. I bow my head and lower myself onto one knee. “Dark Lady,” I say, surprised my voice is as firm as it is.

For the briefest moment her fingers skim down my tattooed cheek, and I am a thousand kilometers into the sky, surrounded by stars and the bright cold of death. My frenzy bursts into life and she draws it through her fingertips. I shake and shudder, but her lips against my ear whisper a song that brings me back into myself, into the apple grove.

Even in such a moment, my strongest thought is for Astrid. “Lady, please,” I say, “if Astrid is to be Idun, can you not give her the same seeming death you gave to her mother? Let us not forget her, and still make it impossible for the world to guess what has become of her?”

The goddess with two faces puts both of her hands on my cheeks. Cold spins down over my skin, locking my bones. But there is sympathy in the turn of her lips. “Bearstar, no. Many exceptions were made for this already. Jenna-become-Idun could never leave the valley, for she would be recognized even
in death. And so for five long years our apple ritual has been missing its linchpin, and my fellow gods agreed to humor my manipulations for only so long.”

“I don’t understand why you did it, then,” I whisper. “Will you tell us what future you’re trying to bring about?”

Her fingers slide down my face. “I serve fate, Soren Bearstar, not my own needs. And yet here”—she gestures gracefully toward Jenna Glyn—“here is a woman who served me well and faithfully, with love. If I could give her the desire of her heart for a few small years, is it so difficult to believe that I would not? Have you no faith at all in the love of your gods?”

“What of the desires of
my
heart?” My voice makes me sound like a child again.

“Your heart is not mine to attend, berserker.”

All the words in the world seem empty.

“Freya.”

It’s Vider. She kneels with her hands clasped, her head down so that all her white-blond hair falls over her face.

The goddess moves to Vider, and my entire body sways at the relief. Freya sets one hand on Vider’s head. “Daughter of Loki. I know what you wish to say.”

She plucks a hair, making Vider wince. Then Freya blows on the strand, transforming it into a tiny silver sparrow. With a toss, she launches the bird into the night sky. It soars upward, disappearing almost instantly. “Go on,” she says.

Biting her lip, Vider gets to her feet. She glances at me but lowers her eyes fast, then looks at Astrid, who has not risen from her knees. Vider heaves a breath and tells Idun, “I’m available.”

“No,” says Astrid immediately. And Idun’s mouth opens slightly. She watches Vider with admiration.

“No one will miss me,” Vider retorts, digging her fingers into her hips and again glancing swiftly and briefly at me. “Not, at least, like you’ll be missed, Astrid.”

“Vider!” I grab her wrist, thinking of how quickly she sacrificed herself to the trolls, how easily she’ll give herself up from the world now. “You aren’t worthless! None of us is staying here.”

Astrid remains kneeling, and says to Freya, “It is not so easy as refusing, is it?”

“No, wise girl.” Freya kneels before Astrid and holds out her hands. It reminds me of my mother, of how we would gently touch hands to show we weren’t angry. “It is not so easy as refusal. You are Idun. There is no other path for you.”

I lash forward, but Freya slams her hand into my chest, halting me before I can push between her and Astrid. I cannot move; I cannot speak. I am paralyzed.

She is Queen of Hel and I have no power over her.

“You will choose to stay,” Freya says calmly to Astrid.

Astrid shakes her head. “You will have to trap me here, for I will not choose to give him up.”

Ice creeps through my heart from Freya’s hand. It tightens, breaking my iron star into small pieces. She could kill me in a moment, could take me away from Astrid and hardly think twice.

I gasp but keep my eyes open, wide and locked onto the goddess’s.

Freya smiles at me. “You carry courage about you like a second skin, Soren. But I do not need
your
death for my leverage.”

Astrid sucks air through her teeth, covering her mouth with one hand. I don’t understand, but Freya gently pushes me back. I fall from her magic, collapsing to the cold ground, and Vider is there, holding my head up. She catches my eye and shakes her head. She doesn’t understand, either.

But Astrid shudders. “Oh,” she moans.

From beneath the golden apple tree, Idun, Astrid’s mother, whispers, “It was only supposed to be you and the god of light. I did not see there would be others, others who would divide your love. Others to make the choice more terrible. It was only going to be you and Baldur. Everyone falls in love with Baldur.”

“But Baldur is dead,” Vider cries, fury splotching her cheeks. Her fingers dig into my scalp as she holds my head in her lap.

Baldur is dead. I’m dizzy and light as I begin to grasp the key Freya has offered. As I push up, I remember the story of Baldur’s rebirth that Astrid told us in the car so many days ago:

Odin rode his eight-legged horse to the black river that floods into Hel. There he met the witch-goddess Freya, seer of all and the queen of Hel’s magic. “Freya: lover, friend, teacher. My prophetess,” the Alfather begged, “give my son back to me, back to the world, which loved him dearly.”

Freya holds all the power over Baldur’s death. It matters not that he ate no apple, for even if he is only a mortal man, Freya is the Queen of Death.

“You would bring him back,” I whisper.

Vider, in her shock, drops my head. Astrid stares at me, and I see all those lifetimes of destiny in her eyes—the lifetimes I imagined joined us, while I held her on the roof of the Spark.

“Once upon a time,” Freya and Idun say together, as Idun’s eyes shut and she holds her palms out flat as if she channels a great seething magic, “it took all the world weeping to return the light to the sky.” Their voices echo in the apple orchard. “But tonight, only one girl need make one choice, and dawn will come.”

Vider pulls at the cloak hiding Astrid’s hands. “She’ll do it anyway. She won’t let the world be without the sun. Odin wouldn’t let her.”

“Vider Lokisdottir,” Freya says, hissing like a cat and turning so that the side of her face black with death shines in the moonlight, “you of all here should understand the length and depth of a god’s temper.”

Shrinking back, Vider says, “Against one, maybe, but not against the world.”

Freya smiles. “I love the world, and I love Baldur the Beautiful. I would happily hold him in my embrace, keep him sleeping in my underworld bed for the next thousand years, little goblin. I see fate, and you cannot know if the fate of the world I have seen rests better if Baldur remains in ashes.”

The air thickens, and I feel pressure in my ears again as Freya stands. “All the threads of fate are twisted here, in this moment,” she says, “and even I cannot know how Astrid Jennasdottir will choose.”

But I know.

I climb to my feet, and I go to Astrid. She takes my hands and there is such sorrow in the fall of her mouth.
Do you love the gods, Soren?
she asked me in the woods at Sanctus Sigurd’s. Now I would like to answer,
Not nearly as much as I love you
. But she knows it, as she looks at me. Likely the whole universe of stars can read it in my face.

I wish I could choose to die in his place, that it would make this easier. Better to die with her name on my tongue than live a hundred years without even the memory of her. Without the strength she makes me feel, without her love to help me control the rage. I don’t know if I can do it without her.

But Baldur.

Staring into my eyes, Astrid says, “Yes. Bring the sun back. Here I shall remain.”

I pull Astrid into my arms, holding her as if I can impress her so deeply into my heart that no magic in the nine worlds could make me forget.