He’s a problem, says Vil in my mind, tangling with Saga’s voice: What happened in the caves, what you thought he was to you there—it was nothing. It meant nothing. Gulla’s words are there, too, the memory of her fingers spelling them out in the great hall: He has become too much like his father, desiring only power. But I think of colorful cards laid out on his bed and his childhood gifts of food and quiet company. I think of his back to mine, battling monsters in the dark, of his fingers tangled in my newly grown hair and his magic sparking inside me, hot enough to burn. I think of his
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