Thorin tilted his head. He tapped a finger to his jaw. A light sparked in his eyes, and he went to a shelf where he drew out several books. “Here, look at these.”

I accepted his offerings and flipped through the covers, all textbook types, but contemporary enough. At least they were written in twentieth-century English and not Norse, Latin, or Middle English. Thorin pointed to one in particular. “Start with that one. Learn a little something, maybe.”

After I showered and dressed from a bag of clothes that had clearly made the transfer from New Breidablick, I curled up on the sofa with my borrowed collection of books, and Thorin left me to read in peace. As I flipped through the pages, I practiced forming fireballs in my palm. The effort helped hone my control and eased my headache. A palm full of fire was the most I had managed, but my strength was returning.

Manipulating my fire put me in a paradoxical situation, though. Anger lurked like a living thing under my skin, squirming, wriggling, trying to get out. It lived close to my fire, wrapped itself around it, entwined with it. Each handful of flames brought out my fury. Memories seeped in, ones I had tried all day to ignore: Val screaming in my ear, the charred smell of his burning flesh, the surrender in his voice when he had asked me to make his pain stop.

Damn him for using me that way. And damn me for letting him.

My blood pressure soared. My temples throbbed. In a sudden fit of pique, I growled and slung a textbook at the nearest wall. The book hit with a satisfying thunk and clattered to the floor. I picked up another book and threw it. I stood and spun around, looking for something else to throw, and found Thorin standing on the threshold. Confusion drew his face into sharp angles. I nearly missed slinging a book against his head. Good thing he had quick reflexes.

“Solina? What’s going on?”

“What do you think?” I palmed another fireball and touched it to another book. Hope it isn’t priceless. I flung the burning missile at him, expecting him to take the hint and leave me to let my anger consume me alone.

It didn’t work. He narrowed his eyes, shook his head, and flashed across the room. He plowed into me, tackling me onto the sofa. I laughed like an insane idiot, but deep down I was glad he stopped me. I couldn’t have done it myself. The laughter turned to sobs. Thorin held me and let me cry.

Later, when my tears had run dry, Thorin rolled over and pulled me to him, fitting me to his side so his shoulder pillowed my head. “I didn’t know I was arming you when I gave you those books.”

I couldn’t say anything, couldn’t even crack a joke. I am such a fool.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I snorted.

“Do you want to listen to me talk instead?”

I gnawed my lip for a moment. “’Bout what?”

“About the days after Ragnarok.”

“Okay. But why?”

“I’m not without empathy, Solina. I might understand a little about the way you’re feeling right now.” His deep voice reverberated as if a giant purring cat had sidled up next to me. He stroked my back, and I melted against him. As he talked about the devastation he had suffered, he let down his walls and let me see it in his memories.

Standing before the hearth fire of a rustic kitchen, a woman in a long woolen dress lugs a small child onto her hip. Eir… and Joren. Strands of pale hair have loosened from the knot at the nape of her neck, and a purple smudge near her neckline matches the violet smears around the little boy’s grinning mouth—evidence of his recent bilberry feast. Joren clutches at beads strung across the yoke of Eir’s dress. Circles of exhaustion darken the skin beneath her eyes, but her smile is bright and genuine. At the sight of her holding his boy, Thorin’s heart swells. His chest aches with the strain of containing the immensity of his love.

A blackened house frame, smoldering timbers, charred rubble—nothing remains of his home or its occupants. Something glints in the cinders, and Thorin crouches to examine it. He finds a brooch among the soot and ashes. Although the fire has melted and deformed the piece, he remembers it clearly: a pair of bronze deer, a stag and a doe forming an endless circle. Heads butted together, the deer had stared into each other’s eyes. He had given the piece to Eir on their wedding day as a symbol of his vows. The melted brooch is the only thing of hers that remains, and he clings to it as though it might lead him to her again. His heart, once so swollen full of pride and love, hangs empty in his chest, crushed, dried, and useless.

“I didn’t know.” I forced the words past the lump rising in my throat.

“No. It’s not in the legends or history books.” Thorin assured me only on the rarest instances, like now, could he bear talking about them. He spoke of his anger and how it drove a wedge between him and his brother—how it had crippled him for years.

“How’d you get past it? How did you ever recover?”

“I didn’t.” He shook his head. “You don’t recover, but you learn to cope. Or else you give up. You’ve talked about me being a relic, and you’re right. Sometimes, it’s easier to retreat from the world than to engage with it and risk the pain that’s bound to come. But you also miss the joy. After all these years, you’d think I would know more about living, but it never gets easier. You have to decide, every day, if it’s worth it or not.”

I wound a finger in a loose tendril of his hair. “You’ve had a lot of days of deciding it’s worth it.”

His shoulder shrugged beneath me. “After a while, it becomes habit. You realize there are things you can accept and endure”—his arm tightened around me—“and things you can never let go of at any cost. It wasn’t supposed to be like this for you, Sunshine. You are a creature of light and were never meant to know darkness like you’ve suffered. It’s going to leave a bad scar, but you’ll heal if you let yourself. You’ll heal faster if you’ll accept the grace of those who care about you.”

I took a deep breath and exhaled. “I haven’t survived all these horrible things so I could waste the rest of my life being scared of my own shadow. But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to have group therapy time.”

“No.” He chuckled. “But we should probably find a more productive way for you to vent.”

I ducked my face against his side. He stroked my hair, heedless of my embarrassment. “I would let you tear this house down, piece by piece, if it made you feel better.”

“It doesn’t make me feel better. I just don’t know what else to do with these feelings.”

“You can use my workout room. I have one of those fighting dummies you seemed to like so much at the Aerie. You can take it out on him.”

“I killed him,” I said, not talking about the fighting dummy. “How do I live with that?”

“You brought him peace. You saved my brother and me.”

“I don’t know if that’s enough.”

Thorin held his breath, and I sensed him searching for the words that would fix this, fix me. Those words didn’t exist, though, and he must have realized it, because he exhaled without saying anything. Instead he just held me, and I let him.

Chapter 18

Thorin did his best to keep me distracted for the rest of the day. He loaned me a knit hat and a wool peacoat that fit me like a dress, and we hiked the circumference of the private island on which he’d built his home. He explained Lopteldr meant “lightning” in his ancient tongue, and sitting high up on a summit in the middle of the little island, his house certainly looked like something that attracted the attention of storms and squalls.

When the wind and cold had me calling for mercy, he led me inside and kept me company while I warmed up on hot chocolate and a grilled cheese sandwich. Then he took me out for a cruise of Resurrection Bay on his fishing skiff. The beauty and majesty of the snowy peaks surrounding the bay made my heart stutter with awe. A peaceful reverence bathed my wounded spirit. I blessed him for understanding my need to absorb it all in silence. A person could heal in such a place. Maybe that’s why he’d brought me here.

“You should probably call and check in with your parents,” Thorin said. “Let them know you’re okay. I’m not so sure they took my word for it.”

I closed my eyes and leaned into the frigid breeze blowing off the water, letting it numb me, starting with my nose and cheeks and moving inward. “Is it wrong of me for not wanting to face them yet? I’ve done what I can for now to make them safe. But how do I look them in the eye? How do I pretend I’m still the daughter they think they know and love?”

“You don’t have to face them yet. But you should probably give them some reassurance. They deserve that much at least. Don’t you think?”

“You’re probably right.” I didn’t sound very convincing.

Thorin drew back on the boat’s throttle and shifted into neutral, leaving the engines to idle as he drew me into his embrace. I sank into his warmth. “I would have chosen differently for you. I would have chosen the suffering if it saved you from this. You asked for my protection, and I failed you.”

I looked into his eyes, losing myself in his warm brown gaze. “‘The blame is his who chooses. God is blameless.’”

“You read my Plato book?”

I smiled. “It’s not God’s fault, and it isn’t your fault either. Don’t choose the blame, Thorin.”

“I could say the same thing to you, couldn’t I?”

I bobbed my head once. “I know, and I’m working on it. We’re both still alive. I think we’ve both kept our promises.”

After we returned to the dock, I hurried up the hill to his house and left Thorin to secure the boat. In the kitchen, I poured a glass of water and gulped it down. Using a phone I borrowed from Thorin, I dialed the number to my dad’s cell. As it rang, I concentrated on steadying my breathing and slowing my pulse. Why did I feel as though I was facing a jury about to hand down my conviction?