Ch. 54 Concordia's New Allies

Chapter 54: Concordia's New Allies

Thor left Concordia with one travel bag, Mjölnir, four horses, 4 barrels of beer and enough instructions for the nursery to govern a small province.

Baldr read the first page.

Then the second.

Then he looked at her.

“I have held a baby before.”

“Recently?”

“Yes.”

“Without someone supervising?”

Io took the papers from him.

“We’ll manage.”

Thor glanced toward the twins.

Ignatius was occupied with a wooden ring. Seraphina watched the preparations from Lexander’s arms, wearing the suspicious expression she reserved for adults doing something without consulting her.

Thor stepped closer.

“Behave.”

Seraphina reached for her hair.

Thor allowed it.

Lexander waited while his daughter seized a fistful and refused to release it.

“An eloquent argument against your departure.”

“Traitor.”

It was unclear which of them she meant.

When Thor finally reached the courtyard, Bruni was waiting in his new armor.

He stood so straight that the morning light ran evenly across his breastplate.

“I stay.”

Thor nodded.

“You stay.”

“Watch little ones.”

“And listen to Atreyu.”

Bruni considered this additional burden.

“Mostly.”

“Bruni.”

“Yes.”

She reached up and knocked her knuckles against his shield.

Then she was gone.

Greykeep’s wards noticed her before the gate guards did.

Thor felt the first touch of them along the road: a pressure against her skin, light enough to be mistaken for a change in weather.

Then another presence stirred beneath it.

And another.

She slowed.

Power lay across the valley in overlapping workings. Some felt old. Others had the rough edges of recent contributions, still settling into their places.

None reached inside her.

None tried to bend her will.

At the gates, she stopped and looked up at the castle.

“Well,” she murmured.

A guard approached.

“Your name?”

“Thor.”

His eyes moved to Mjölnir.

Then back to her face.

“We were told to expect you.”

“Were you told to be frightened?”

“No.”

“Good.”

A second voice spoke from behind him.

“I can arrange it, if you consider it essential to diplomatic proceedings.”

The figure approaching wore a body of worked metal and stone.

Its movements were too deliberate to be human, yet it carried itself with the weary dignity Thor associated with palace stewards.

She grinned.

“You must be the Castellan.”

“Correct.”

“Does the whole castle listen when you do?”

“Where my duties require it.”

“That sounds like an answer someone made you practice.”

“The wording has been discussed.”

“I’m going to like this place.”

Uriah met her without a throne between them.

Evelyn stood beside him, with Aurelia nearby and Mary holding a sheaf of papers that suggested the meeting had already acquired consequences.

Thor studied the king.

Storm and winter rested within him.

There was more beneath them, something changing, but she did not stare long enough to make an examination of the greeting.

Uriah offered his hand.

“Welcome to Greykeep.”

She took it.

A faint spark passed between their palms.

Both looked down.

Evelyn sighed.

“Please try to leave the reception room intact.”

Thor laughed.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m definitely going to like this place.”

They began with Surtr.

There was no good reason to leave that subject waiting politely behind discussions of roads and trade.

Thor described the attack during the twins’ birth, the prisoners, the mill, and the thing found in the stove. She separated what they knew from what they suspected.

Uriah listened without interrupting.

Evelyn’s expression grew steadily quieter.

When Thor finished, the king looked toward the door.

“Thank you for writing.”

“I wish there had been no reason.”

“So do I.”

Aurelia asked about the captured remnant. Mary recorded the names of the places used by Surtr’s people. The Castellan asked questions about the creature’s movement, its dependence on heat, and the routes it had been intended to use.

Thor answered what she could.

When she could not, he recorded that too.

Then Evelyn spoke.

“Your queen. How is she?”

Thor had expected questions about the First Flame.

About the children’s power.

About what Surtr might gain.

The simple concern caught her off guard.

“Tired,” she said honestly. “Trying not to show how frightened she is.”

Evelyn nodded.

“Will you take a letter back for her?”

“Yes.”

“And tell her she doesn’t have to be composed in her reply.”

Thor looked at her for a moment.

Then she nodded too.

She stayed long enough to see Greykeep at work.

The castle impressed her.

The people impressed her more.

Especially Melody, who had become her fast friend. The shared hair color probably helped.

Mary could interrupt a discussion between gods to ask who intended to pay for the timber. Evelyn’s healing work continued between royal obligations. Uriah stopped in a corridor to listen to a worker describe a drainage problem, then sent for someone who understood drains better than he did.

Aurelia was approached with affection as often as reverence.

The Castellan was corrected.

Thor found that particularly interesting.

“You permit people to argue with you,” she observed as he guided her beneath the castle.

“Frequent behavior.”

“Does it improve anything?”

“Occasionally.”

“High praise.”

They stopped beside a chamber where lines of power passed through stone.

Thor could feel distinct contributions within the whole.

“Could we do this in Concordia?”

“Partly.”

She looked at him.

“Which part?”

“The principles can be adapted. The original structure cannot simply be reproduced beneath an unrelated city.”

“Can you help us adapt it?”

“Yes.”

Thor folded her arms.

“Tell me everything.”

The Castellan did.

By the end, she regretted the exact wording of her request.

But she understood the important parts.

A contributor could lend strength without surrendering authority over themselves. Their power could be kept separate from that of others. Their contribution could be withdrawn. The workings could protect people without granting someone a secret route through every defense.

And a keeper would have to attend to it.

“A keeper like you?”

“A keeper suited to Concordia.”

“Can you make one?”

“I can assist in its creation.”

Thor went still.

For once, no joke came immediately.

“Someone who would notice what was happening to the building?”

“Within its established reach.”

“Openings. Damage. A flue that should be cold becoming hot.”

“Yes.”

She thought of Io sewing through the night.

Lexander reading the same report twice.

Aurethar taking heat into himself while something wearing a boy’s face crawled across a floor.

“Write that down for me.”

“I have already begun.”

The transit gate required another discussion.

Then another.

Thor endured both with unusual patience.

The Castellan explained that Greykeep could establish eleven additional fixed connections, provided each had a paired foundation, a stable source of power, mutual recognition, and people authorized to maintain it.

Either end could close.

Neither end could force the other to reopen.

Thor repeated that last part.

Uriah nodded.

“I would not ask Concordia to accept a doorway it couldn’t shut.”

“And you wouldn’t accept one.”

“No.”

“Good.”

Mary looked from one to the other.

“I will put that in the agreement before either of you decides a handshake is sufficient.”

They discussed healers crossing when needed. Messengers arriving before news became useless. Families escaping danger. Soldiers answering a call for aid without spending days on the road.

Thor leaned forward.

“If someone comes for your people, Concordia should know in time to help.”

“And if someone comes for yours,” Uriah said, “Greykeep should be able to answer.”

“I can carry that proposal.”

“Carry more than the proposal,” Evelyn said. “Tell them we mean it.”

Thor looked at them both.

She believed her.

Before leaving, Thor read the Accord again.

This time, she took longer.

When she put it down, Aurelia waited without prompting her.

“I’d like to stand with this,” Thor said.

Mary reached for a fresh sheet.

“As a visitor?”

“As myself.”

She rested one hand on Mjölnir.

“Thor. Lightning. Courage in battle.”

Her gaze moved toward the courtyard, where workers were passing stone from hand to hand.

“And strength placed between danger and those who cannot yet face it.”

Aurelia’s expression warmed.

No one demanded that Thor kneel.

No one asked her to surrender the people she already loved.

That mattered.

She signed.

Then she requested another copy for Io, because there were some decisions she preferred to explain while holding the words she had agreed to.

Thor returned to Concordia with three document cases, a parcel from Evelyn, and an expression that made Loki immediately suspicious.

“You enjoyed yourself.”

“Yes.”

“Did anyone survive?”

“Most of the people worth keeping.”

She went to the nursery before the council room.

Ignatius recognized her voice and reached.

That nearly ended the afternoon’s business.

Io eventually took him back.

“Tell us.”

Thor looked at Lexander.

Then at the others gathering around the room.

“We should become their allies.”

Lexander leaned against the table.

“That was direct.”

“I’ve been saving time for the complicated part.”

“There’s a complicated part?”

“The castle would like to build us a castle person.”

Loki shut his eyes.

“Of course it would.”

The report took the rest of the afternoon.

Thor began with Uriah and Evelyn.

“They’re building something they expect people to live in,” she said. “That sounds obvious until you remember how many rulers build things they expect people to admire.”

Io opened Evelyn’s parcel.

Inside lay a letter and two small knitted blankets.

She touched one with her fingertips while Thor continued.

Greykeep offered sanctuary.

Cooperation against threats to either kingdom.

A permanent means of travel, if both sides agreed to its construction and operation.

And assistance in giving Concordia a system of wards that did not depend on one exhausted person catching every danger.

At that, Fulla leaned forward.

“Show me.”

Thor opened the first case.

The Castellan’s diagrams were meticulous.

Loki studied them for several minutes.

Then he sat down.

That drew Lexander’s attention more effectively than any exclamation could have.

“What?”

“These are good.”

Thor smiled.

“I did notice.”

“No hidden claim to the recipient’s power,” Loki murmured. “No route reserved for the maker.”

He looked at the notes again.

“And no reason to tie every contribution into a single knot.”

Io moved beside him.

“Could my work remain part of it?”

“It should,” Fulla said before anyone else could answer.

She traced a line on the drawing.

“We would be giving it more places to hold.”

Thor nodded.

“The Castellan said the same.”

Lexander watched Io’s shoulders ease.

Not much.

Enough.

The council had questions.

It would have been disappointing if it had not.

A governor worried that accepting Greykeep’s assistance would place Concordia under another ruler’s influence.

A treasurer wanted to know the cost.

Atreyu wanted the gate outside the private palace grounds.

Io wanted protected rooms to remain private.

Lexander wanted the proposed Castellan to answer to Concordia.

All of those concerns were put in writing.

All were sent to Greykeep.

The answer came with further drawings, practical revisions, and a note from Uriah.

If someone offered to install a powerful stranger beneath my home, I would ask the same questions.

Lexander laughed when he read it.

Then he wrote back.

Mine would include whether it intended to correct my posture.

Uriah’s next reply was shorter.

Expect corrections about doors. Mine has opinions about doors.

By then, Evelyn and Io were exchanging letters of their own.

Those began with children.

They did not remain there.

Evelyn wrote about healing, the work of receiving frightened newcomers, and the difficulty of judging how much strength she had left before someone else needed it.

Io wrote about governing two households that were becoming one kingdom, about recovering memories that did not arrive in order, and about how lonely it could feel to be surrounded by people determined to reassure her.

Evelyn did not tell her there was nothing to fear.

She wrote that she understood why reassurance sometimes failed.

Io kept that letter on her desk.