The Apple Throne Read Online Free Page A

see.”
    The girl studies me through narrowed eyes. I tilt my head so the little lights shine onto my face. Whatever she searches for, she seems to find it and says, “I apologize, lady.”
    I shrug away her apology. “Did someone hurt you?” I ask.
    She smiles a dark smile. “Maybe. Yes? I’m not sure.”
    “Can I help?”
    The girl asks, “Do you know anything about dreams?”
    It startles a laugh out of me, and I sit beside her on the cold stone. “I venture to say I know quite a bit about them.”
    “How do I tell if my dreams are true ones?”
    I touch my neck, where my mother’s black plastic pearls hang. My dreams were
always
true. I say, “I think…you just know. You can feel the difference, or you see evidence of it when you wake.”
    The Valkyrie girl glowers. “Why would I have true dreams at all? I’m not seethkona. I don’t pray to the goddess of dreams.”
    That she is so dismissive of this thing I want more than anything grates at my heart. I force myself to say, “Because you’re walking along a strong strand of fate, or because she wants you to.”
    “Do you know Freya well?”
    I nod, thinking of the goddess’s hand on my elbow. “As well as any.”
    “Do you trust her?” The girl clearly does not and wants me to agree.
    How like Soren she is in her suspicion. But despite everything, Freya has never made me think she does not want what is best. Carefully, I say, “I trust that Freya acts for the good of the world.”
    “For the good of the world,” the girl repeats bitterly and balls her hand into a tight fist. “Does your goddess use women and men to change the course of the world’s fate?”
    “Of course! There is no other way to do it than to use us. She gives us prophecy or dreams for a guide, but we are the actors. The gods may not so directly interfere.” I touch the back of her hand. “What does she want from you?”
    “To kill a troll, I think.”
    “There are worse things she could ask than that.”
    We sit quietly, hands together, listening to the vibrant music from the mansion. I’d like to walk in—even if my sundress is hardly fit for a grand occasion—and find Soren, for surely he is here if the disir brought me to the place Baldur is. Oh, I miss him. The melody in my heart longs for his harmony.
    I try to think instead what this girl needs. She’s confused by her dreams and by something Freya wants of her. Freya wanted me to be Idun, and I did as she wished, but it wasn’t just because she asked it. I did it for the world, too.
    Squeezing her hand, I say, “In the end, it doesn’t matter what Freya wants. Sometimes you must stop thinking about the gods and think about yourself and the people you love. What do
you
want the world to be like? What can you do to make it that way? You don’t need to know what Freya has done or wants done. You don’t need to know what Loki or the Alfather or Tyr the Just wants. What is in
your
heart? Let that be your guide, and it will bring you to those moments when you can change fate or the entire world.” I’m quite breathless when I add, “We make our own world.”
    The Valkyrie girl’s thin brows come together with determination. She nods, hard, and stands up. “Thank you for your counsel, lady. Do you have a name? So I may thank you properly at a shrine?”
    My triumph fades in a rush. “I had one once,” I say. “But no one remembers it.”
    “Tell me and I’ll remember,” she insists.
    Sadly, I shake my head.
    Her lips purse, and she’s already distracted, thinking of her own life, her own destiny. She steps away from me, and I’m forgotten like that.
    I have to go, to find the disir and return to my orchard and my destiny without Soren. He and Baldur are in that ball, but I am not part of that life.

Eighty-two nights
.
    Nearly three long months without a dream, but I am determined their loss be my only regret.
    When I’m alone, I climb the apple trees. I swing into them and hang upside down until the