The Weight of Stars

by Tessa Gratton

  I slide my arm around her waist to hold her up. She touches into me, offering the mead. I drink, too, and it’s warm and sweet, but not heady—not for me.

  Her eyes are so sad, which is like a bite in my stomach, but doesn’t distract me from her mouth as she opens it just enough to sigh with sweet honey-mead breath.

  Slipping a hand under her jacket, I play with the ridiculous folded cummerbund, pressing through the layers of material into her hip. She gasps.

  I watch her eyes and she tilts up her head. When I kiss her, I trap her between me and the wall of Rock Church.

  She drops the bottle. It hits the floor with a glass crack, tilting over and spilling mead in a long river of gold toward the fire. She grabs my shoulders and lifts, letting me drag her off her feet for better access to her mouth, to her neck, to her hair. It surrounds me like a cloud, smelling of the Bright Home feast hall: all smoke and salty boar and beer. I groan and suck on her lip.

  “That—that god statue is,” she pauses when I lick down her jaw, “is watching.”

  “He would not mind even slightly,” I whisper in her ear, and she laughs.

  I catch the laugh with my mouth and she kisses me back, winding her arms around my head. I’m lost in it, in the touching and pushing, and hardly notice dropping with her down onto the hard floor. Her fingers are in my tight braids, tugging at the band that ties it all back, and I skim down to the collar of her shirt. I unknot her bow tie with a flick of my fingers, and the top button’s already undone. I kiss the hollow of her throat, and she wraps her legs around one of my thighs. My knees and one arm support most of my weight as I lean over her, completely rutted, diving down with my mouth. I pop another button and another, revealing more skin, and hot skit, she’s not wearing a bra.

  Her fingers dig into my shoulders when I unfold the side of the tuxedo shirt and put my lips against her breast. She slaps her hands onto her cheeks, covering her entire face and offering a little whimper. It pulls a grin across my mouth and I nuzzle in, grabbing her ribs to hold her tight. The moment my tongue starts its work, she says, “Oh, gods,” and slides her hands down to hold her own breasts. “Stop, gods.”

  I freeze in shock, and she tries to roll to the side. But I’ve got too firm a hold. Her head shakes no and she tries again to turn. She pulls the tuxedo shirt closed over her chest. “Gods,” she says a third time.

  My burning muscles finally obey her and I let go, leaning away. I might die. I groan, long and low, letting it take half my tension with it. My hands are fists against the packed-dirt floor.

  We don’t move for a long moment, me shuddering and her…I don’t even know, because my eyes are squeezed shut. But I don’t hear anything other than the woven song of our tight breathing.

  After a while, I look.

  She’s sitting cross-legged, shirt open, looking down at herself. One hand cups her own breast like she’s never seen it before. I make a sound of disbelief.

  Clutching her shirt closed again, she glances up. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes still so sad, her lips parted in that same sexy way. She shakes her head, but not like no this time. It’s like she’s confused and unsure what to say. This is up to me. I grind my jaw for a split second, then offer a skinny smile. “Hey,” I say with a raw voice. “No worries.”

  She laughs darkly. “I know better than that. If you’re feeling half of what I’m feeling right now.” Her eyes slide down to my mouth before she shuts them.

  “Then…why?” I try not to let it sound like a demand.

  “I’ve never…um,” she stops.

  Oh, rag me a thousand times with a troll bone. “You’re a virgin.”

  Anger blazes through her eyes and turns that pale skin blotchier than a paint horse. “No! I only…” She sits and flings her arms around. “You don’t even know my name.”

  Her shirt comes open, and I can’t help my flickered glance. She furiously tries to button it and I reach to help, but she slaps my hands away. Then she stops. Waits.

  I gently button the shirt. “Tell me,” I say.

  “Huh?” It’s an inelegant noise.

  “Your name.”

  “Oh,” she lets it out in a long breath. “I’m…Kasja.”

  “Like the elf maiden?”

  She purses her lips as if she can’t be blamed for her parents’ poor choices.

  I say, “I’d offer you a toast, but the mead ran out when the bottle broke.” I wave my hand at the chunks of sticky glass as I scoot to the wall beside the hearth.

  Kasja says, “You overwhelmed me,” but not like she minded at all.

  She shifts nearer to me. Or nearer to the fire, more like.

  “If you’re cold, we can go back down the mountain. I’ve done what I came for.”

  “No.” She pulls her tux jacket closed around her and curls her knees up to her chest.

  I laugh. “No, you’re not cold?”

  “No, I don’t want to go back.”

  The way she says it cools the last passion out of my rocks. “Someone did hurt you.”

  “I hurt myself,” she laments, eyes rolling woefully up to the low stone ceiling. “Being dangerously stupid.”

  I’ve been dangerously stupid plenty of times. Comes with Thorson blood. “You seem all right. Alive. Brave. Pretty.”

  She bats her eyelashes. “Thanks for noticing the most important part.”

  A sudden gust of wind hits the Rock Church, squeezing through the cracks near the ceiling. We both glance up, and then Kasja’s gaze lingers on the statue of Thor. “Is this where you bring all the girls?”

  “Because it’s so welcoming and sexy?”

  “Reminds me of home,” she says vaguely.

  “You’re from the mountains?”

  “Farther north.” Her arms curl tighter around her knees, and dark hair falls around her face. It catches red in the firelight.

  “How’d you end up here for Hallowblot?” I ask.

  “I came… because of the new Valkyrie.”

  “Skit, are you one of her handmaidens?” If I’ve stolen away a Valkyrie’s maid, she’ll be missed faster than me, and we’re both ragged.

  But Kasja laughs. “Hardly, but I thought seeing her would be enlightening.”

  I relax slightly. “That make you an Odinist, too?”

  “Never.”

  “Freyan, then,” I guess, since people so obviously anti-Alfather tend to devote to Freyr the Satisfied. I never understood any of the rivalries. They’re all related, all working for New Asgard, doing what they do.

  She cuts her eyes up at me. “I won’t devote to any of them.”

  Some piece of me screams I shouldn’t ask; I don’t want to know. It’s the vibrant gleam in her eyes, the wildness. I feel it viscerally in my ropes, the way I sometimes do. It’s a gift from my mom, not Dad. A basic, human instinct.

  I stay quiet. Kasja studies her hands, staring like she’s never seen them. With her left fingers, she traces the lines in her right palm. “I am a new person,” she whispers.

  “I’m leaving tonight on a circuit,” I say slowly. “Want to tag on?”

  Kasja climbs into a crouch, leaning in with her hands on my knees. Her face is close. “You mean it?” she says, dead flat and serious.

  “Skit, yes, I do.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  She glances away, to Thor’s statue behind me. “I’m trouble, Amon.”

  My laugh is like an explosion of thunder. “Trouble is exactly what I was looking for.”

  THREE.

  The dark roads are ice-slick on the way back down the mountain, so it takes twice as long as it should. I’m no expert driver, especially with a passenger, one whose thighs hug mine excruciatingly, so I go careful.

  Shield remains bright despite the hour, lit from bonfires in every park and town square. I take us straight to the Mad Eye Bar and Grill and park beside a full-size van. Mine. Luck I left it here so I don’t have to take her to my place. After dropping the kick
stand, I lead Kasja to the van door and slide it roughly open. She climbs into the nest of old quilts in the back, and I follow. With a jerk, I close the door. Darkness drops around us, and I blink to adjust to the simple blue light gently finding its way through the windshield.

  “This is all yours?” she murmurs, fingering the yarn knots at the corner of one quilt.

  “Yeah. It’s my Sky.”

  “Sky?”

  “She’s blue on the outside. Used to call everything that color ‘sky,’ my mom says, so couldn’t resist naming my van that, too.” I pat the cold metal ceiling. Rows of nails dangle from string I tacked up along the length of the car. When the van bounces, sometimes the nails jingle together. Most times, they just swing like there’s a private wind in here.

  Before tucking the bag of elf gold under the driver’s seat, I slip out a handful of cash notes and fold them into my pocket. Kasja half watches, but her eyes wander about the van. There are no benches back here, but the space is plenty full. I’ve got two duffles stuffed with clothes, a hiker’s pack of survival gear, a laundry basket of canned goods and protein bars, and a crate of bottled water. The cooler’s not stocked, but I was planning a cheese and beer run tomorrow morning. There’s a TV/radio Velcroed to the thin carpet.

  “I’m hungry,” Kasja says, as if it surprises her.

  “Let’s go into the bar.” We can hear the bass thrumming across the asphalt. “I have a sweater if you want.”

  “No. I don’t suppose you have a brush, though?” She pinches the tip of one unruly curl.

  I crawl half across her and dig into the side pocket of a duffle bag for my pick. “Just this,” I offer, along with a couple of hair bands.

  She thanks me, and we climb back out to run through the cold to the bar door. It swings in, hitting the wall behind it hard. The sound is swallowed by the merriment that suddenly surrounds us. Louder and more chaotic than up at Bright Home. No bouncer tonight, just a great crowd, half in costume, all drunk. I press through and drag Kasja in my wake to the bathrooms. Leaning in to her ear, I yell I’ll find us a table and grab some ale. She slips away, and my breath catches like I’ll never see her again.

  I buy two pints. They slosh over my hands as I shove through pirates and sharkmen and sexy wolf girls. I avoid the draugar with their dripping fake blood—nobody needs corn syrup in their beer.

  There’s a tiny round table with high stools that a couple dressed like goblins are making out against. They keep giggling as they kiss off the plastic rubies stuck to their cheeks and foreheads. Not properly placed, but I’m probably the only person in here who’s seen an actual goblin. “Mind?” I yell, nudging the guy away. They spin a little, hands under clothes, and I sit, hooking a second stool with my toe.

  Leaning against the rough brick wall, I take a massive drink of beer and smile. This is more my party. No high table, no fancy dress, no daddy-ragging gods. There’s notes in my pocket, fresh elf gold back in the van, and a dangerous, shiny girl about to find me again.

  Kasja appears just as I think of her. She’s lost the cummerbund and tied the ends of her white shirt in a knot under her breasts. It leaves a smooth swath of belly bare, peeking out between the lapels of the tux jacket. The pants hug her hips.

  She wetted her hair enough to comb it and tame it, but the curls bounce enticingly around her shoulders.

  “Fair shine,” I say as she lifts onto the open stool and claims her beer.

  She lifts it, holding the glass high. “To new friends, running away, and being pretty,” she boasts.

  “May it be!” I answer, tapping my beer to hers. We drink. Kasja holds her glass with both hands, tipping it back and gulping down at least half the ale. I laugh, and when she breathes again, she says, “Your turn, Amon.”

  I roll my eyes to the sticky, smoky ceiling as if I’ll find an easy answer there. Usually I knock it away, make something up. My mouth opens to pour out a standard For strength, but the words catch on my teeth. Kasja’s waiting with her whole face open, those flickering wilderness eyes wide and her lips parted just barely. Like she’ll breathe in whatever I say.

  My stall gets her leaning in. “How about,” she says just loud enough to punch through the bar noise, “To our hidden hearts?”

  “Hearts,” I say, sliding off my stool, “are not a thing I’m gentle with.” I drain the rest of my beer. “Dancing, though, that’s a thing I can do.”

  Kasja looks at me a moment too long, just a pinch, to make it awkward, and then downs her drink. She puts her hands on my shoulders, and I lift her down.

  The music is live, from a mountain band in the corner, heavy on the strings. Their fingers burn up time. I pull Kasja onto the crushing dance floor and whip her around under my arm. She hits another dancer and winces, but I don’t pause, just pull her back and grab her waist. I stomp my feet, find the rhythm, and she manages to follow. Doesn’t matter; it works. My blood pumps and her face reddens, making those freckles stand out and reddish wisps of hair stick to her temples and the back of her neck. I sweat, too, and when she strips out of her jacket three songs in, I spin it over our heads to clear more space. I let it go, and it flies like a raven through the air.

  We swing into a fast three-step, while other couples back away and the music burns through me and into Kasja. I’m laughing and almost feeling drunk, ignoring all but the smooth floor, the rhythm, and her body. She keeps up with me, and nobody keeps up with me. Her hands are strong on my shoulders, her feet hitting hard beside mine without flagging. It’s like lightning in my blood, and my boots echo the thunder down down down, freeing all that need that’s been caged and pinned and trussed like a swan inside.

  The songs blur together and I get stronger the harder I go, especially with cheers feeding me, and other couples joining in, too, with this real dancing, not that chaotic every-man-for-his-own skit they were doing before. But Kasja suddenly wilts into my chest, shaking with laughter. She wraps her arms around my waist, and her knees fold. Her face presses into my T-shirt and she kisses my chest, her hot mouth jolting through my shirt to my heart. I cup my hand against her skull, and warp her body in my other arm. The band’s breaking, people shifting away, and Kasja’s spinning eyes find mine.

  She wants me again. Finally.

  I’d like to rip off that flimsy white shirt and push her down on this dance floor. Instead, I pick her up. She wraps her legs around my waist, and instantly I’m jolted ready. Holding her ass, I turn, to run if I have to, back to the van where there’s blankets and condoms.

  The bar doors slam open.

  There’s a woman with deadly green eyes, skin-tight green shirt, and jeans so low on her hips, it’s magic holding them up. Silence cuts through the Mad Eye, and Kasja twists in my arms to look. Her whole body clenches around mine, and I whisper in her ear, “Slip down.”

  Nodding, Kasja lets go and hits the floor smoothly. She darts behind me and I don’t glance back.

  Bar patrons clear a path for the Lady Fenris, but she’s not moving. She’s waiting. She knows I’m here.

  Before she can call me out, I shove through the frozen dancers. I wipe the sweat from my face as I step into the open space and flash her my greatest smile. She smiles right back and strides toward me. I hold my ground, trying not to think about how sharp her teeth might be behind those dark red lips.

  I’ve known Lady Fenris—Glory, she goes by, when she’s like this—most of my life. Met her by pulling her ruffled tail one Yule when I was five as she curled in wolf form under Tyr the Just’s chair. She jerked and growled, startling Tyr so he knocked his silver hand into his goblet of mead. The chain reaction that started only ended when my dad lifted me up onto his shoulder and let go his thundering laugh. Glory’s never forgiven me for the embarrassment, so, of course, the only way to keep the relationship civil is if I keep pulling her tail. And she pulls mine right back.

  Tonight she curls her fingers into the collar of my T-shirt and tugs. She rubs her cheek against mine and takes a long pull of br
eath. “Ahhhh, Amon, you smell like my bike. And… sex.”

  “Jealous?” I snap my teeth near her ear. Blood is a roar in my ears, so loud she can probably hear it, too.

  Her sharp nails cut down my chest, around my sides to my hips. She presses against me. “Aren’t you eager, little boy.”

  I think of Kasja, glad Glory’s particular skills don’t include reading minds. “Always.”

  “Like father, like son,” she spits, shoving away from me.

  It’s a struggle to keep relief from showing as she stalks around in a fast circle. The crowd throws itself out of her way. That brings an easy smirk to my face. Don’t they know she hates it? She absolutely despises them for being afraid. This is the United States of Asgard, where courage is the first commandment.

  “It’s in the lot,” I say casually.

  “I know, Thorson.”

  At least three people around us gasp in recognition. Curse it, there’ll be cameras out now. Lady Fenris and Amon Thorson, circling like enemies just down the mountain from Bright Home? Those pictures will sell for hard cash to the tabs. “Maybe we should take this outside,” I grind through my teeth.

  Her smile is glorious. “Afraid of a little publicity, dearie? One might think of that before stealing the Fenris’s motorcycle.” She raises her voice just enough to make certain nobody in the bar misses it.

  I push past her and out into the frozen night. Her cackle of laughter follows me, and then the wolf herself. I speed up toward the van, weaving through the rows of parked cars. She could catch up, but doesn’t bother until I’m at Sky.

  Strong hands grip my shoulder and spin me around like I’m nothing. Glory slams my back against Sky, rocking the van on her wheels. The Fenris puts her face in mine and hisses, “Is not only my bike was stolen from the gods’ hall tonight, Amon, son of Thor. And you, god-child, your scent screams of the world-under-the-mountain, of etin magic and heavy destiny.”