Page 26

MOONLIGHT POURED INTO my bedroom, slicing through the windowsill to knock against the sharp corners of my bed and wardrobe. I awoke from a deep sleep quickly, and after only a few gulps of air, felt as if I could take on an army if only I had a weapon in my hand. My axe lay, tilted against my weaponry mantle, the steel glinting in the light. He’d cleaned it for me.

I threw my feet over my bed to land on the wool. I still wore my tunic from yesterday, back when I’d trained with Tova. After meeting Ve’s móoir, speaking with Aegir, then being attacked by wolves, I ought to be more exhausted. But Ve’s healing power had done its job well. Besides a long tear in the fabric of my tunic, I was otherwise unscathed.

And alone. If Ve was here, he wasn’t upstairs. I cast a look to the stairwell before first moving to the wardrobe to remove the old tunic and find a new one. My fingers settled on a full-length one, fashioned of red silk that would pair well with my short, dark hair, while leaving my shoulders open to feel the nighttime breeze. It hung to the ground in loose enough pants to make it appear as a dress, with a simple swooped neckline and buttons above.

My feet were kept bare and my hair undone, but I felt almost like a new person in clean clothes. Things had unraveled quickly yesterday, but perhaps by the time the sun rose, I’d have found the path to snatch the loose ends back up and weave them together in a bond that wouldn’t be easily broken.

The way was uncertain, but my starting point was clear. Loneliness had not become me, and I no longer cared for holding my secrets close like a dark suit of armor. I wanted to build a route forward with Ve with nothing unsaid between us.

I treaded slow steps down the marble stairs. Just as I’d suspected, Ve was asleep on the sofa. I grinned at the sight.

He appeared at such peace with his brow uncreased and lips slightly parted, one arm bent upward behind his head with the other outstretched. The cut in his pants where he’d been wounded indicated he’d never left after bringing me home. I checked the wound, even knowing it was healed. I checked his shoulder next. Everything was mended just as it should be, and I hoped to never again see his skin torn open like that. And never to force him to pick up an axe again.

I sat beside him to slip my hand in his, tracing slow, mindless circles. I’d be content to stay that way for hours, but it didn’t take long for him to stir. His eyes slowly opened, revealing pools of brown that appeared as black as his hair in the night. When he saw me, he smiled. “You’re awake.”

“I slept long enough. But I can let you sleep if you need.”

He tightened his fingers around mine. “Stay,”

he whispered, propping himself up on his elbow. His eyes went right to my side, and I warmed. He was checking that I was healed, just as I had been for him. “Your head is clear?”

“Better. I think your touch can reverse aging.”

He laughed. “Don’t tell my móoir, or she’ll never let me out of her sight.”

Something in me stirred. Did he know I’d met her yesterday? Had she said anything? A line was forming of people who knew things I didn’t want them to, and sooner or later, those things would spill out.

I swallowed hard. Those things needed to come out now. He needed to know everything.

My hand slid from his to touch the fabric of the cushion. “This is where I woke in Asgard, right here in this room. I thought Balder to be nothing but a man without a mind, and that Frigg might kill me. I’d never have guessed what happened instead.”

“She could if she wanted to,”

Ve said with a grin. “Never underestimate her.”

I tucked that away for later. Then continued. “It was hard to believe their words. I’m not certain when I did. Perhaps it was when I stepped into Odin’s home and saw the magnificence. Or spoke to the gods. Or maybe it took me all the way until you healed me for the first time, and I saw the power then.”

I thought back to that day, when Ve had touched my cheek to heal the spot where his faoir had cut me. I’d been nothing but confusion and anger back then.

“It must have been a lot to take in,”

Ve said when I paused. “It was a lot for me too. I’d spent my life wondering about the girl I was betrothed to, finally accepting she was gone, just to hear she had shown up and I was to meet her that night. I almost didn’t show.”

He shifted, sitting up fully to retake my hands. Our legs were touching, and there was an intensity in his eye that made my mind spin. “When I heard you’d appeared, I thought you would be a chain that held me here and I’d never get my adventure. I’d never taste freedom. But then I saw you, head held high and a light in your eyes like they were made of burning amber, and a sense about you that while you were a stranger in our world, you could take any of us on if you wanted. I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was stare at you and know I was looking at my future. So I left, because for the first time, I had something worth staying for, and that scared me as much as it excited me.”

My throat grew tight, and I hung onto every word. He wasn’t finished.

“Then we finally meet, and you hold a dagger to my throat and threaten to kill me, and all I could think was how much I wanted to kiss you. You spoke of your upbringing and it killed me that you endured so much and I could do nothing about it. And you fight for your sister with your very life, because that is who you are. Every day I get to know you more and more, and yet I don’t think I’ll ever have enough.”

His words ignited something that set fire to my very bones.

I’d spent my life wanting Trig because I wanted someone who made me something. I didn’t want to face the world alone. But with Ve, I wanted him. Nothing else. I’d take him if he was a poor farmer with only a patch of soil. I’d take him at his worst, or at his weakest, because he was all I needed. I would take every high and every low if I had him by my side.

“Rune,”

he said, and I shivered at the sound of my real name on his tongue, “when we go to Earth, I want a life with you. I want this engagement to be real, and to take you as my wife. If you’ll have me, I want it all.”

The dizziness in my head returned, but this time, I didn’t mind. All the emotion inside burst until I was feeling a million things at once and all of them too great to put into words. Instead, I reached a hand to his neck and brought his lips to mine, and let him taste my answer. I felt him smile beneath me before he deepened the kiss. It was our first kiss of hundreds—thousands—however many made a lifetime.

“Did you still need to tell me something?”

he asked, the words a whisper in my mouth.

I remembered my words to him before I blacked out last night. But that wasn’t what I wanted to think about right now. “No,”

I whispered back, holding him closer so the kiss would never end.

We would face the problems of my mortality tomorrow. Today was about us.