Arctic Dawn (The Norse Chronicles Book 2) (32 page)

Chapter Thirty-six

T
horin said nothing when we arrived at the cabin. I went to the kitchen, hoping Baldur had left coffee in the pot that I could reheat in the microwave. Thorin went to his room, changed into a clean shirt, and returned to the living room. He crouched before the fireplace, stoked the coals, and brought the fire back to life, if for no other reason than to put his attention on something other than me. At least, that’s what I figured. Knowing Thorin, he wasn’t avoiding my glare out of shame or regret. More likely, he was struggling to control his emotions. I, however, remained numb.

Val’s revelations had hurt me, and the wound ran deep, and raw, which explained why I had shut down everything inside me. That kind of injury was threatening to incapacitate me, and I couldn’t afford a breakdown. My brother’s best friend, a man I had taken into my heart as an intimate confidant, had exposed himself for a lying bastard of the grandest design—a manipulator on a scale so massive I barely comprehended it. From the start, I had worried Val might lie and use me to get something he wanted, but I’d never imagined anything like the scheme he’d constructed. How could I have guessed the magnitude of his betrayal?

However… I felt sorry for Val. I knew his pain and understood what it had driven him to do. I understood why.

And Thorin.
Oh, the gods, Thorin.
Val had undoubtedly wanted me to hate Thorin—hate him enough to leave him—but did I? I searched myself for animosity or disgust or loathing, but I only found numbness, as if Baldur’s invisibility rune had reconstructed itself and taken up residence in my heart.

“You were there?” I stepped closer to Thorin, who lingered in a crouch before the fireplace. “You were one of the ones who did that to him?”

Thorin rose up to full height and turned to face me. I expected to see blackness in his eyes, but it wasn’t there.

“Were you a part of turning Val into the beast?” I asked.

“It was thousands of years ago.” He said it in a tired voice as if he knew it was insufficient but worth a try anyway.

“A million years wouldn’t matter if I was an eternal being who was forced to kill my own brother.”

Thorin raised his chin. His eyes hadn’t gone dark, but he was still a proud man.

I shouldn’t expect remorse from him.

“And what if I
was
there?”

Unconsciously, my hands balled at my sides. “Then I might put some blame on you for what Val has become.”

“You pity him?”

“No. Not pity. But empathy? Yes. I can put myself in Val’s shoes. I know what it would have done to me if I had woken to find I had killed Mani. If I had picked his flesh from my teeth. I couldn’t have lived with it, and if I had, it would have made me a monster.”

Thorin stepped closer to me and captured my gaze. An earnest light burned in his eyes. “You probably can’t understand how beloved Baldur was to us. He was the epitome of what a god should be, and he made the rest of us feel we were all a little closer to the ideal we had reached for but failed. Baldur was our Christ, but his death didn’t redeem our sins. It only made them lower and uglier. It made us
all
lower and uglier. Losing him…” Thorin shrugged and shook his head. He swallowed. “We would have burned the world ourselves if it would have stopped our hurting. We wanted Loki to feel our pain, to know the enormity of our loss and what he had cost us. It wasn’t moral, it wasn’t
right
, but ask me if I would do it again, Solina.”

Thorin knitted his brows. “Ask me what I
wouldn’t
do to avenge the death of my family. Ask me what horrors I
wouldn’t
inflict on my enemy, on the one who would destroy someone I loved. Right or wrong is not a question that applies to those circumstances.”

I snorted and deepened my voice in mimicry of a man’s. “It was desperate times—we were desperate men.”

Thorin huffed. “You’re making jokes?”

“I’m trying to cope. Sometimes I do it gracelessly.” I turned away from him and paced the living room.
Make him suffer a little. He deserves it. We’re all about the revenge these days, right?
“People say revenge is prison and forgiveness is freedom.”

“And have you forgiven Mani’s killer?”

I stopped and turned to face Thorin. “I didn’t have to forgive him. I killed him.”

Thorin’s eyes flashed. “Was I not due the same justice?”

“It’s a bitter cycle. When does it end? How many of us will go down with that ship?”

“When Baldur died, I would have happily gone down with his ship.”

“But you didn’t.”

Thorin shook his head. His posture had softened—perhaps he had caught a whiff of truce in my tone. “I survived, and I moved on. And that, in a way, is also a revenge.”

“Do you think Helen Locke cares if I go on or not? Do you think it hurts her that I continue to live?”

“I think it does, yes.” Thorin closed the remaining distance between us and peered into my face as if searching for something.

I inhaled his scent, lightning and rain. Tentatively, I took his hand, and the connection thawed me a little—touching him was like exposing the cold places inside me to sunlight. Our physical contact brought forth no visions, which maybe meant Thorin was keeping his thoughts fully in the present.

He squeezed my fingers and didn’t quite smile, but the hardness in his face eased. “I think every day your heart continues to beat brings her a great deal of infuriation.”

I sniffed. “Well, good. I think I’ll go on with the heart beating and the air breathing and the getting on with life. I’d do it for no other reason than to be a thorn in her side.”

Thorin chuckled, and his humor dispersed the worst of the acrimony between us. Things hadn’t returned to normal, but I could move on. I could continue.

I retreated to my room and packed up my few measly belongings. Lost in the endless whirlpool of my thoughts, time passed quickly, and Baldur returned before I could wonder about him or worry about his return. His voice carried through my bedroom door as he talked to Thorin. I squared my shoulders, stiffened my spine, and went out to join them.

“Solina,” Baldur said. “We need to plan our next steps. Staying at the cabin any longer is probably not safe.”

I nodded. “I agree. And I know exactly what we need to do next.”

Baldur’s eyebrow arched. “Oh?”

“Kill that damned wolf,” I said. “It all begins and ends with him, and we never should have lost sight of that. I’ve been thinking about it, and it’s possible the Aerie has resources we can utilize. Maybe Skyla can convince the Valkyries to join the hunt. This is what they were made for. Skyla has been looking for a cause to unite them. Hunting Skoll—it’s the perfect thing, the answer to their battle lust.”

Baldur bit his lip against a smile. “Battle lust?”

“How long has it been since you’ve given them a purpose? They train and play fight and hold tight to their traditions, but there’s no outlet for their aggression. The Aesir have squandered a powerful resource. We should have exploited them sooner.”

“You think Skyla can lead them to a unified action?” Baldur asked, tactfully ignoring my
squandered
comment.

“I’m depending on it. We were driven apart by our own stubbornness, by fate and circumstance. It made us easy pickings. But we’re back together… for the most part.”

Val was gone, never to return, and I mourned him. I grieved the man my brother had loved, the man I had considered a dear, if deeply flawed, friend. The Val I’d thought I knew was merely a ghost of someone who had died eons before. I still felt his absence like a missing organ, but I hid my concern for Val in the same dark place I put all my other unhelpful emotions. “With the Valkyries behind us, it might be possible to end this thing. Once and for all.”

“But you don’t trust them,” Baldur said.

“Not completely. But I trust Skyla, and we need their help.” I turned and eyed Thorin. “I want to trust you too, know that you’ll be at my back, be the wall everyone has to go through first if they want to get to me.”

Thorin scowled. “Why don’t you already believe that?”

“You’ve chosen Baldur over me too many times.”

Thorin flinched. His gaze shifted to Baldur.

Baldur nodded. “It’s true. I released you from your vows, but I still made demands of you.” Baldur’s gaze shifted to me. “Don’t be too hard on Magni. There are thousands of years of allegiance between us. That’s a lot of indoctrination to overcome in a short time. It won’t happen again.”

“Easy to say,” I said, “now that you have Nina back. Swear to me that you’ll make no more demands of Thorin’s loyalty. Swear to me that when I need him, he’ll be free to decide for himself.”

Baldur nodded. “I swear it.”

I turned to Thorin. “Swear that I am your only priority. Promise my well-being comes before anything or anyone else.”

Thorin snarled. “I swear it, but only if you swear not to run headlong toward danger and ignore the counsel of those vowed to protect you.”

I wasn’t going to run headlong toward danger, but that wasn’t the same as avoiding it altogether. And I was going to listen to Thorin’s counsel, as well as Baldur and Skyla’s. But I was ultimately going to make my own decisions.
I should be an attorney: there are no true mutual agreements, only the appearance of them
. “I swear it.”

“If the Valkyries will come,” Baldur said, “tell them to meet us at New Breidablik. If Vali Lokison truly has command of Odin’s ravens, New Breidablik is the only place safe from their omniscience.”

“How will we track Skoll from New Breidablik?” I asked.

“I’ll reach out to my network,” Baldur said. “They’ve been off the job since we found Nina, but I can put them on Helen’s trail and, thereby, the wolf’s.”

Once we agreed on a course of action, we all made ready to withdraw to New Breidablik.

Out on the cabin’s front porch, Baldur blipped away after casually saying, “See you back at the ranch.”

I sucked in a breath and held it as Thorin stepped close. “Before we go one step further,” he said, “there’s something I need to do.” He slipped Mjölnir from his pocket, slid the pendant free from its chain, and stuffed the hammer back into his pocket. He dangled the chain before my eyes as a hypnotist might.

“Put my leash back on?” I asked, already lifting my hair out of the way.

“After all that’s happened, you would go without it?” Thorin leaned close. He slipped the chain around my neck and fastened the clasp. The gesture brought him intimately close as his fingers brushed against my neck. Like an afterimage burned on my retinas, the brief and ghostly likeness of a woman in a horse-drawn chariot appeared, racing across a field of blue. The vision might have meant Thorin was thinking of Sol, or it could have meant he was thinking of me.
Where does she end and I begin?

“No.” I fingered the necklace. “I don’t mind it. I just wish I didn’t need it.”

Thorin studied me as he adjusted the chain to lie flush against my skin. He held my gaze for a moment. What did he see when he looked at me that way? What was he looking for? Thorin exhaled and shook his head, breaking the spell. “Things aren’t going to be like they were before, are they?”

“I still believe in you, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

And it was true. No matter my muddled emotions, I still believed in his powers and abilities. Nothing had stopped him from being the God of Thunder.

“But no, things aren’t the same,” I said. “Another layer of my naiveté has peeled away. If there was any innocence still living in me, I think it’s gone now.”

Thorin shook his head. “You are the sun, Solina. You may be wiser and harder, but nothing can take away your light.”

Glad you think so. Me… I’m not so sure.
“Neither of us is the same as we were before,” I said. “And especially not to each other.”

Thorin’s breath caught. I was close enough to sense his reaction, and it felt like anticipation.

“It’s not something I’m willing to define, yet. It’s not the right time.”

He eased his hands around my hips and drew me in. “You’ll let me know when it is the right time?”

I slid my arms around his neck and held him close—maybe a little closer than necessary. “You’ll be the first to know.”

Thorin tightened his grip on me. My ears popped, and the world vanished. Our movement through the æther mirrored the sensation of an ocean voyage in a horrible storm. My stomach lurched, my sense of up and down disappeared, and vertigo swirled my consciousness into a soupy mess. The experience took apart my world and stranded me in the unfamiliar and unknowable. Then Thorin curled himself around me, and he held me close. He was a steadying presence, the calm among the fury.

Val had said I opened Pandora’s Box, and maybe he was right. But Pandora had closed the box before hope could escape. Did that mean she had doomed the world to hopelessness, or had she kept it safe so we’d know where to find it when we needed it most? I chose to believe the latter. I chose to believe we could win.

“Don’t let me go,” I whispered and tightened my grip on Thorin.

Thorin put his lips close to my ear, and despite the roaring winds, his reply cut through the deafening chaos. “I wouldn’t dare.”

Dear Reader,

We hope you enjoyed
Arctic Dawn
, by Karissa Laurel. Please consider leaving a review on your favorite book site.

Visit our website
to sign up for the Red Adept Publishing Newsletter to be notified of future releases.

Acknowledgments

First thanks are for God and family. Nothing I’ve done would matter without faith, hope, and love.

To my beta readers, Jean Hobbs and Diana Carey, your friendship and advice is golden.

Thanks to Suzanne Warr, not just for your editorial guidance, but for going above and beyond with advice and mentorship and for letting me tag along on your coattails every once in a while.

Also thanks to Kelly Reed for trimming up, cleaning out, and polishing everything to a high glossy shine—and for getting my
Princess Bride
references.

To Mary Fan, Erica Lucke Dean, and Jaime Leigh: you’ve been one of the best parts of joining the Red Adept Publishing family. Thank you for kindness, friendship, and laughter.

Thanks to my earliest readers and fans, and especially those book bloggers who have been willing to take a chance on a new author. Bloggers grease the wheels that make the book world go round. We couldn’t do it without you.