“Freya, the queen of witches,” I whisper. I shiver and close my eyes. The troll mother roars.
“Signy … the Alfather does many things, manipulates words and memory, and thought … but he has no power over our dreams.”
My eyes fly open. “You think Freya is behind them. My dreams.”
“She stole Baldur’s ashes.”
“What?” I roll over abruptly, clutch the foot of the bed, and stare down at him. My hair falls all around my face. “They told us it was one of Odin’s Lonely Warriors, and why would she do that?” A memory flashes through my head: demanding to know if Unferth was Einherjar, and his swift, amused denial.
Soren’s dark eyes are grim, his lips tight. “To manipulate Astrid to exactly where Freya wanted her—for the destiny of the world, she said. Maybe she wants something from you, too.”
“But Odin Alfather cast my riddle into the Tree; the Valkyrie would know if it were otherwise. That’s what set me on this path!”
My calm companion doesn’t reply, his silence full of weight and meaning.
I throw myself back onto my back and stare at the popcorn ceiling as if I could force the swirls into answers. “What could she want from me?” I whisper.
“I don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t. I only know that either your dreams are only dreams, or they mean something because the goddess of dreams wants you to know a thing.”
“Odd-eye and rag me,” I whisper.
Could Freya be sending me dreams, could she be pushing me toward the troll mother? The troll mother she herself created?
“Odin,” I start, tentatively, “Odin would have to be … aware. He sent the riddle.”
“It sounds like a prophecy, though, doesn’t it? And Freya is the only one of them who sees the future.”
I say, “And so maybe he asked her to read my future, and this was her answer.”
“Which might have been all her intent, merely doing her cousin a favor.”
His tone makes clear that he doesn’t believe it. He doesn’t trust Freya, because whatever it is that happened to his Astrid, whatever got her name torn out of the world, he blames the goddess of dreams.
“All right.” I lick my dry lips. “Let’s pretend that’s what happened. She gave him this prophecy that he turned into a riddle. Maybe he knew the answer, that the troll mother is the stone heart I need—but Freya must have. If she’s the one driving me toward the mother.”
“And how did you figure out the troll mother was the answer?”
Nausea ruins my insides. “Ned.”
“Are you certain he came from Odin?”
“I believed it,” I whisper. “I chose to. Everything pointed to it; it was the right answer to the—the riddle of his existence.”
This is called doubt, little raven, he murmurs to me now.
“But no, I’m not certain,” I say through my teeth, barely willing to let the words out. I press the balls of my hands into my eyes. “Oh, Hangatyr, oh gods.”
May Signy Valborn never regret, Unferth prayed, the last thing before he died.
I knew he left pieces out of his story; I knew there was more to tell—but it can’t be that he used me. It can’t be. I kissed him. I loved him. I trusted him.
I want to take up his sword and crash it into the window, destroy something.
I have to know if Ned was a liar by his riddles, by all he omitted. I have to know if Freya sent him or if Odin did, because I am his, not hers: a Valkyrie and a wild, passionate, screaming one. If I am on a path Odin set me on, fine. But I won’t work against him. I have to know.
“Soren.”
“Signy.” He kneels, leaning his elbows onto the bed.
I sit cross-legged and reach for his hands. “Precia, the Valkyrie of the South, has her Death Hall in Port Orleans.”
He nods, turning his hands over so our palms connect.
“We’ll go for Disir Day and I’ll ask her about all of this. She told me she wanted to help.”
Soren agrees, and I cling to him. With my fingers dug into his wrists I beg him not to let go. We lie next to each other on the bed, only our hands connected. His hot, mine tingling with my pulse until I fall asleep.
But the troll mother waits.
Unferth is with her, and she puts her hand on his face gently, like a lover. It envelops his head and he leans into her, curls his fingers around her thumb. He smiles. He looks straight at me and says, “My only Signy.”
I wake up in darkness, unable to close my eyes again.
EIGHTEEN
BALDUR’S TOWN HOUSE in Port Orleans is a narrow blue-shingled building with a porch on the second and third stories, bright yellow shutters, and plants dripping like hair from the rails and even the roof. Soren parallel parks impressively, and I hop out onto a broken cobbled sidewalk. Graybeard moss dangles from the low branches of an oak. I have to brush it out of my way as I swing Unferth’s sword onto my shoulder.
Baldur himself will be joining us here for the ball tonight. Soren tapped his finger against the wheel for the entire drive once we hit the Orleans kingstate, which I assume means a level of excitement that would’ve set a lesser man puking.
We start for the front porch, with its wide fans and line of white rocking chairs. A man stands up from one, lifting a hand in greeting. But it’s not the god of light.
It’s Rathi.
He looks amazing, with his golden hair curled about his face by the humidity, his jacket gone, and those pale pink shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. I hope his slacks are cotton. I’m sweating already in my jeans and Mad Eagles T-shirt. “Rathi,” I say, letting surprise show in my tone. He puts his arms around me and hugs me.
“I’ve been worried about you,” he murmurs. “I’m glad you agreed to this.”
“The preacher cosponsoring the ball must be your Ardo Vassing?” I lean back to meet his eyes.
Rathi nods, then releases me to bow politely at Soren. “It’s good to see you again, Bearstar. And thank you for watching out for my sister.”
“She’s watched out for me,” Soren rumbles.
I lean my shoulder into Soren’s and catch Rathi’s swift glance of appraisal. “Well,” he says, his well-practiced smile flashing, “she’s good at that, too.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask, letting go of both boys and heading up to the tall front door.
“I got in last night with Ardo and managed to obtain this address to see if you had any free time for sightseeing.”
With a sardonic glance at Soren, I say, “He means he flirted his way here.”
Rathi holds still, one eyebrow tilted slightly as if to say I’m above such things. But Soren, knocking against the cut-glass window in the door, glances pointedly at me. “That skill must run in your family.”
Both Rathi and I laugh, but for different reasons, I’m sure.
An hour later, I’m walking through the Old Quarter between Rathi and Soren, with vague directions from the housekeeper to the hanging tree in Sanctus Louis Square. Soren was surprised we weren’t heading straight for the Port Orleans Death Hall, but that’s not where Precia will be today.
I recognize the energy of a tourist trap, though here we’re seduced not with hawkers and historical artifacts but with dark, almost filthy mystery. The Quarter sticks to the back of my throat; I could peel a film of it off my skin. The streets are narrow and cobbled in most places, the buildings redbrick though often painted over with dingy white or pale green. Upper stories are quiet, all tall dark windows and empty iron balconies. At street level, doors are flung open and painted signs beckon to us with the promise of magic charms and unique jewelry, seether readings, fancy shoes, and every sort of fried food.