Fulla stopped at the nursery door.
Io had been speaking as they walked, telling her which rooms faced the gardens, where she would sleep, how the afternoon light warmed the eastern side of the palace. Small things. Gentle things.
She fell silent when she realized Fulla was no longer beside her.
The older woman stood with one hand against the doorframe.
Inside, Lysandra sat on the carpet with Ignatius supported against her knees. A nurse was fastening the last button on Seraphina’s dress while the baby expressed her objections with impressive stamina.
Shadow watched from the windowsill, her black-and-white tail twitching.
Nothing in the room was extraordinary.
A dropped cloth lay beside a chair. Someone had abandoned half a cup of tea on the mantel. Ignatius had one sock.
Fulla looked at all of it as though she had reached the end of a very long road and no longer trusted the ground beneath her.
Io went back.
“They’re here.”
Fulla nodded.
She still did not move.
Lexander quietly pulled a chair closer to the hearth.
“Come sit down.”
That seemed to help.
A simple instruction. Something her body could obey while the rest of her caught up.
Fulla crossed the threshold.
Lysandra looked up, then rose carefully with Ignatius in her arms.
“Would you like to hold him?”
Fulla stared at the boy.
Her hands curled inward, hiding the bandage around her wrist.
“I’m not—”
“He mostly wants someone to complain to,” Lysandra said. “You don’t need qualifications.”
A faint smile touched Fulla’s mouth.
Io helped her sit.
Then Lysandra placed Ignatius in her arms.
For several seconds, he studied this new person.
Fulla stared back.
“Well,” she whispered.
Ignatius caught her finger.
Her face crumpled.
Io knelt beside the chair and put an arm around her shoulders while she cried.
Nobody hurried her.
Thor stood just inside the doorway, looking fixedly at a painting of a meadow as though it contained a tactical problem requiring her full attention.
Loki remained in the corridor.
Lexander could see the edge of his coat.
Ignatius made a soft questioning sound.
Gold warmed Fulla’s hand.
She gasped.
The light spread beneath the bandage, tracing the swollen flesh around her wrist. Her fingers loosened. The painful stiffness left them slowly enough that she could feel each joint begin to move.
Lexander crouched beside her.
“That happens sometimes.”
Fulla looked from him to the baby.
“He—”
“Has terrible table manners,” Io said, her own eyes wet. “And occasionally does that.”
Ignatius smiled.
Fulla laughed through her tears.
The light faded. A faint scar remained above the edge of the cloth.
Her exhaustion did not disappear. Her shoulders still shook.
But she could bend her wrist without flinching.
Across the room, Seraphina noticed that her brother was receiving attention.
She inhaled.
Thor turned immediately.
“Oh, no you don’t.”
The baby let out a shout.
Thor took her from the nurse with the confidence of someone intercepting a thrown weapon.
“Yes, dreadful. Someone else was being admired. We’ll have them punished.”
Seraphina quieted.
Fulla looked up.
Then she blinked at Thor.
“Oh.”
Thor narrowed her eyes.
“Choose your next words carefully.”
Fulla considered her.
“You’re holding her too far from your chest.”
Lysandra bent over very suddenly to retrieve Ignatius’s sock.
Lexander covered his mouth.
Thor adjusted her grip.
“Better,” Fulla said.
And for the first time since the mill, the room felt entirely safe.
They gave her an hour.
Fulla insisted it had been two.
Lisbeth informed her that sleeping through most of it did not count as an argument.
By the time they gathered in the small council chamber, someone had brought broth, fresh bread, and a padded chair. Fulla regarded the arrangement with suspicion.
“I can sit in an ordinary chair.”
“You can,” Io agreed. “You’re sitting in that one.”
Fulla glanced at Lexander.
He raised both hands.
“I married her voluntarily. I have no defense.”
Aurethar’s head rested beyond the open terrace doors. Bruni stood farther out in the garden, keeping curious staff away with the solemn declaration that they were having a quiet meeting.
He delivered this declaration loudly enough to reach the kitchens.
Atreyu placed his notebook on the table.
“We can stop whenever you need.”
Fulla nodded.
Then she looked at Io’s distaff.
It lay beside the queen’s hand, pale wood unmarked by the violence at the mill.
“He couldn’t make it work himself,” she said.
Io touched the carved shaft.
“So he found you.”
“He found people who might remember something useful. I was one of them.”
Loki leaned forward.
“How many?”
“I saw four others before they moved me. I don’t know where they were taken.”
Atreyu’s pen began moving.
“What do you remember about them?”
Fulla gave him what she could.
A woman with a scar through one eyebrow. An elderly man who spoke to someone in his sleep. A young traveler who insisted he had never seen the sea but woke screaming about drowning.
The fourth had been kept apart.
She had heard him singing through a wall.
Baldr looked down at his hands.
Lexander felt the same thought move around the table.
There were more of them.
Some remembered.
Some might not even understand why they were being hunted.
“Were they alive when you last saw them?” Mara asked.
“Yes.”
“Then we start there,” Atreyu said.
Fulla nodded gratefully.
Loki waited until she had taken a drink.
“The opening.”
Her fingers tightened around the cup.
“He called it an ember vault.”
Aurethar lifted his head.
Fulla looked toward him.
“You know what that means?”
“I know places where great fires have burned can retain what they consumed.”
“This wasn’t a place,” she said. “Not anymore.”
The room went still.
Fulla set down the cup.
“I saw through it twice. There was ground, or something like ground. Ash packed so deep that nothing beneath it showed. Pieces of buildings. A stairway standing alone.”
Lexander’s injured eye began to ache.
“And things moving,” she continued. “Some crawled. Some stood upright. I couldn’t see them properly until he brought one close.”
Thor’s voice was low.
“The hand.”
Fulla nodded.
“It didn’t have a face until he spoke to it.”
Lisbeth drew her cloak closer around her shoulders.
“What happened then?”
“It tried to make one.”
Nobody spoke for several breaths.
Then Loki asked, “A particular face?”
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t let it finish.”
Lexander stood and crossed to the water jug.
He filled Fulla’s cup himself.
It gave him something to do with his hands.
“What did he want them for?”
“Obedience. Bodies that could survive more of his fire.” She swallowed. “He said the living were always asking what they would receive.”
Thor’s expression turned ugly.
“So he’s building soldiers.”
“I think so.”
Loki glanced toward Aurethar.
“The remains of the old world?”
“Possibly,” the dragon said. “Or something feeding on them.”
Lexander returned to his chair.
They would have to live with that uncertainty for now.
“What stopped him?”
Fulla looked at Io.
“The distaff remembers what it was made to do. I could draw the edges together. I could stitch a way between them. But holding it open was harder.”
“So you made mistakes,” Io said softly.
Fulla’s mouth trembled.
“So many mistakes.”
Thor smiled.
This time there was warmth in it.
“The wheel?”
“Kept breaking the work apart. Running water troubled the seam. He thought I needed its motion to feed the weaving.”
Loki stared at her.
“You put the brake inside the engine.”
“I told him it was complicated.”
A short laugh escaped him.
“He must have hated that.”
“He did.”
Io reached across the table and took her hand.
They stopped when Fulla began losing her place.
She protested only once.
Atreyu closed his notebook before she could try again.
“We have enough to begin.”
Mara stood beside him.
“We took three men alive outside the mill. Two others fled before the collapse. The prisoners may know where you were held before.”
Fulla nodded.
Lisbeth escorted her upstairs.
Thor followed after being firmly reminded that burns did not become less real because she found them irritating.
When the room had emptied, Lexander remained beside the table.
Loki lingered by the terrace.
“You knew what those things were,” Lexander said.
“I recognized the method.”
“That sounds carefully worded.”
“It is.”
Lexander waited.
Outside, gardeners were moving a damaged planter away from Aurethar’s foreleg. The dragon watched them with elaborate patience.
Loki rubbed one thumb over the hilt of his dagger.
“There were things made toward the end. Things that should have died and didn’t. Fire gave them shape. Hatred gave them purpose.”
“Surtr’s hatred?”
“Sometimes that was enough.”
Lexander studied him.
“Do you remember fighting them?”
“Yes.”
“Then tomorrow, you tell Atreyu how.”
Loki looked up.
No accusation.
No demand for every old horror at once.
Just something useful he could do.
“I can manage that.”
Lexander nodded.
Loki started toward the door, then stopped.
“The mill was a retreating fight. Thor held him long enough for us to leave. Nothing more.”
“I know.”
“He’s stronger than he was when we last faced him.”
Lexander looked toward the distaff Io had carried away.
“So are we.”
Loki’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“You sound confident.”
“I’m trying it. Apparently kings do.”
“That and taxes.”
“Don’t remind me. The clerk came back.”
“What did he want?”
“To know whether a dragon counts as a permanent obstruction of the eastern service road.”
From the terrace, Aurethar said, “I heard that.”
Loki smiled.
A little of the strain left his face.
The next morning, Fulla discovered that nobody intended to let her resume running a divine household before breakfast.
She dealt with this by reorganizing the breakfast tray.
When Io entered, the cups had been moved, the bread covered to preserve its warmth, and the flowers shifted away from the food.
“You’re supposed to be resting.”
“I am sitting down.”
“You’ve frightened the maid.”
“The maid was carrying a scalding pot with a split handle.”
Io paused.
Fulla pointed toward the side table.
The broken handle lay beside the pot.
“Ah.”
“Yes.”
Io sat opposite her.
For a little while, they ate without speaking.
Sunlight lay across the bedspread. Down in the courtyard, someone was arguing with Bruni about whether his proposed shield would fit through the armory doors.
Fulla listened.
“Is it always like this?”
“Frequently louder.”
“It’s a good house.”
Io looked up.
Fulla was watching the window.
“There are people working because they expect to be here tomorrow,” she said. “You can hear it.”
Io set down her cup.
“I want you to expect that too.”
Fulla’s eyes lowered.
“I’m trying.”
“I know.”
A knock came at the door.
Lexander entered carrying the distaff in one hand and a baby cloth over his shoulder.
Fulla looked at the cloth first.
“You’ve missed some.”
He glanced down.
“Where?”
She indicated his sleeve.
He sighed.
“I used to inspire fear.”
Io smiled into her tea.
“Seraphina remains unmoved.”
He placed the distaff beside her.
“Have you worked out how you pulled it through the table?”
Io ran a finger along the wood.
“Not in any way I could explain to a carpenter.”
“The carpenter has already decided it was my fault.”
“Reasonable,” Fulla murmured.
Lexander looked at her.
Her expression remained entirely composed.
He grinned.
“There you are.”
The words caught her by surprise.
For a moment she seemed unable to answer.
Then she reached for her tea.
Io gave her time.
When Fulla spoke again, her voice was steadier.
“The strand was still part of the distaff’s work. You called the whole through the part.”
“Can I do it again?” Io asked.
“Perhaps. With something you know that closely.” Fulla touched the wood. “I wouldn’t start with furniture.”
Lexander nodded.
“We’ve suffered enough.”
Io lifted the distaff.
“Could I use it here? For protection?”
Fulla considered that for much longer.
“Yes,” she said at last. “But begin with one door.”
The nursery’s new protection took most of the afternoon.
It required no jewels.
No blood.
No incantation that made the windows shake.
Io sat beside the doorway with a length of linen across her knees and tried to stitch a straight line.
Lexander watched for several minutes.
Then, unwisely, he said, “That looks simple enough.”
Fulla handed him the needle.
Ten minutes later, he surrendered.
Lysandra inspected his work.
“Did you do this while falling down stairs?”
“I was distracted.”
“By the needle?”
Thor laughed from the hearth.
Seraphina, asleep against her chest, stirred.
Thor immediately stopped laughing.
Fulla guided Io’s hands.
“The stitch gives it somewhere to settle. The intention does the work. Don’t try to stop every possible danger. You’ll exhaust yourself imagining them.”
Io looked toward the children.
That was clearly a difficult instruction.
“What should I ask?”
“Ask it to notice a stranger crossing.”
“Someone we don’t know?”
“Someone the room hasn’t welcomed.”
Lexander leaned against the wall.
“So visitors need to be invited?”
“Yes.”
“And if someone forces their way inside?”
“You’ll feel the crossing. It may delay them for a breath or two.”
A breath or two.
During the attack on the twins’ birth, that could have changed everything.
Io bent over the linen again.
They worked until the light softened.
At last Fulla helped her fasten the narrow strip along the inner frame, hidden beneath the molding.
The thread warmed.
Io’s head lifted.
“Oh.”
Lexander felt nothing.
“What?”
“The doorway.”
“Still there?”
She gave him a look.
“I can feel where it is.”
They tested it with an obliging footman who had never entered the nursery before.
Io closed her eyes.
The man stepped across.
She pointed immediately.
“Now.”
He retreated, looking impressed.
Thor volunteered to test forcing her way through.
Everyone refused.
“Cowards,” she said.
Fulla sank into the chair beside the hearth, pale with fatigue.
Io put the distaff aside at once.
“That’s enough.”
“One door,” Fulla agreed.
Lexander looked at the thin strip of linen.
Tomorrow, perhaps, another.
For tonight, this one was something they had not possessed yesterday.
He went to the cradle and lifted Ignatius.
His son yawned against his shoulder.
The stablemaster arrived during supper.
He wore the expression of a man who had spent several minutes trying to find a sensible explanation and had finally decided to make the problem royal.
Lexander set down his fork.
“Fire?”
“No, Your Majesty.”
“Injury?”
“Not exactly.”
Thor looked interested.
The stablemaster cleared his throat.
“There’s a farmer at the western gate. His daughter’s with him. They’ve brought an animal.”
“People do that,” Loki said.
“Yes, my lord.”
The stablemaster’s gaze settled on Lexander.
“He says he was told the king was looking for an unusual foal.”
Baldr straightened.
Loki stopped reaching for the bread.
Lexander noticed both.
“Bring them into the lower stable yard.”
“They’re already there, Your Majesty. The gate captain thought it best.”
“Then why are you here?”
The man hesitated.
“The foal is… difficult to count.”
Thor was on her feet before he finished.
The farmer had mud to his knees.
His daughter, perhaps eleven, stood beside a small gray foal with a blanket draped over its back.
The animal’s ears turned toward every noise.
Its coat was dull with travel, and one leg was wrapped in a strip of homespun.
Several other legs were trying to occupy the same patch of ground.
Lexander stopped.
Thor walked a slow circle around it.
The foal followed her with its head until it lost track of its own feet and leaned heavily against the girl.
She steadied it with practiced patience.
“He’s tired.”
“I imagine,” Thor said.
Loki remained at the entrance.
Baldr looked at him.
Loki ignored him.
The farmer removed his cap.
“Beg pardon, Your Majesty. We heard you were asking after such creatures. Didn’t believe it concerned us until the extra ones started staying.”
Lexander looked at the foal again.
“Started staying?”
“They weren’t always there,” the girl said. “Sometimes only when he ran.”
The stable yard grew quiet.
Io arrived beside Lexander, Fulla walking slowly at her arm.
The foal lifted its head.
For one instant, all eight hooves settled neatly beneath it.
Then it saw Lexander.
It gave a soft, delighted whicker and came toward him.
The girl’s rope slipped from her hand.
Lexander had time to think that the animal was several paces away.
Then its nose struck his chest.
He staggered backward and caught its head on instinct.
Behind it, the dust between them remained undisturbed.
Thor looked down at the clean stretch of ground.
“Oh, I like him.”
Loki closed his eyes.
“Of course you do.”
The foal began chewing Lexander’s coat.
Io laughed.
Fulla put a hand to her mouth, smiling.
For a little while, nobody spoke of mills or fire or the things moving in the ruins of an old world.
Lexander rubbed the warm gray forehead pressed against him.
“You’ll have a stable,” he told the foal. “Food. Somewhere to sleep.”
“And a better name than whatever you’re considering,” Io added.
“I hadn’t considered one.”
“You looked as though you were.”
The girl approached cautiously.
“He likes pears.”
Lexander looked down at her.
“Then we’ll find some pears.”
She nodded, relieved, and reached to untangle the rope from one of the foal’s many legs.
At the entrance, Loki finally opened his eyes.
The foal turned its head toward him.
Its ears pricked.
“No,” Loki said.
Thor’s smile widened.
The foal whickered again.
Loki took one deliberate step backward.
“I have had a very long week.”
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