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  THE WEIGHT OF STARS

  By Tessa Gratton

  The Weight of Stars

  Copyright © 2014 by Tessa Gratton. All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Saundra Mitchell

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

  The United States of Asgard is a nation of poets and warriors, of rock bands and evangelical preachers, of gods and their children. The media tracks troll sightings and reality TV is about dragon slaying and teen prophets. The president rules the country alongside a council of Valkyrie, and the military has a special battalion dedicated to eradicating the threat of Greater Mountain Trolls.

  Welcome to the United States of Asgard: Be sure to watch for troll-sign!

  GOLD RUNNER tells the story of Amon Thorson, bastard son of Thor Thunderer, a rebel who specializes in illegal troll artifacts and elf gold. Someone has stolen Loki’s Mask of Changing, and Amon is the prime suspect, putting a famous hunter and a mysterious stranger on his tail.

  LADY BERSERK is about Vider, the first female berserker warrior in generations, who is loved by Loki Changer but determined to stand on her own. One of six celebrities invited to participate in a televised dragon hunt, she knows things are not as they seem—which is usually a sign Loki is up to his old tricks.

  GLORY’S TEETH offers a glimpse into the wild heart of the Fenris Wolf, also called Glory, trapped in the shape of a teenaged girl for hundreds of years so she cannot grow large enough to devour the sun and begin the end of the world. But Glory's seen signs that now is time she’s fated to hunt Baldur the Sun down and eat him.

  With evocative writing and lush world building, Tessa Gratton once again captivates readers with her inventive reimagining of Norse mythology and American life in this collection of novellas based on her United States of Asgard series.

  Note: the author recommends reading the novels in order of publication. But the novellas stand alone and can be read in any order.

  Here is the United States of Asgard:

  A nation of poets and warriors, of rock bands and entrepreneurs.

  In Alta California Thor Thunderer trains the specialized Hunter Unit of the Army to raid the dens of Greater Mountain Trolls and track elf gold.

  From the White Hall in Philadelphia the president rules Congress, a body of officials elected from each kingstate to represent the will of the citizenry. A Council of Valkyrie speaks to the nation on behalf of the gods, and to the gods on behalf of the people.

  Every Yule, Odin Alfather presides over the national sacrifice at the Bright Home gallowfield.

  Prophets dedicated to Freya, the goddess of dreams, roam the country, reading the future in handfuls of runes and dancing along the web of destiny to predict drought and wildfire, what apprenticeship this girl should choose, whether that boy will survive his first ritual combat.

  The most famous colleges are the Poets College in Shield, Colorada, and the Hangadrottin War College in Bostown, though Yale’s lawspeaker program is considered the best in the land.

  Every lost child has a home in one of Loki Changer’s orphanages, though it pays to be cautious, for the Changer comes in many forms and his heart is fickle.

  Cities along the Mizizibi River are overrun of late by bridge-eater trolls with tiny, monkey-like hands and diamond teeth, while prairie homesteaders put up fences to ward off the cat wights, who roam in huge packs.

  Frigg Cloud-Spinner and Freyr the Satisfied have joined with Bliss Church preachers throughout the South to promote new charities to aid veterans of the nation’s recent wars.

  The people of New Asgard choose, when they turn thirteen, which of the many gods to dedicate themselves to. Berserker warriors belong to Odin, the god of madness and poetry and war. Prophets belong to Freya. Those with fire and humor in their hearts are Loki’s; he also claims any who are lost, any who do not fit into the roles the world assigns them. If you value service and family above all else, you may find satisfaction with Freyr. If loyalty is your favored virtue, or if you believe people must fight for their own choices, Thor Thunderer will welcome you.

  But of course, of all the gods, the most beloved is Baldur the Beautiful. The god of light and hope, who dies every year when the summer dies, and rises again when winter passes. Because he dies, because he knows to fear the dreams of death, he is the god most human. He is hope in a world where young adulthood is made more complicated by prophecy and ritual combat, where a road trip means the danger of encountering wandering bands of trolls, where everyone has a thread in the great weave of destiny. He is the spark of divinity in us all.

  In the following pages, you will find mad warriors, rebellious godlings, hidden elf gold, dragon fire, trickster gods, desperate hunger, kissing and fighting and heartache, defeat and triumph and death and destiny.

  Isn’t all that what you’re here for?

  Welcome to the United States of Asgard. Do watch for troll-sign.

  Table of Contents

  Gold Runner

  Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine

  Lady Berserk

  Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve | Chapter Thirteen

  Glory’s Teeth

  Chapter One | Chapter Two

  About The Strange Maid

  Acknowledgements

  Also by Tessa Gratton

  About the Author

  GOLD RUNNER

  By Tessa Gratton

  For all the girls who love themselves

  ONE.

  It’s business as usual in the gods’ hall.

  Screaming and laughter, spilled beer sticky on the floor of Bright Home, static from competing personal microphones. False starlight shines down from the vaulted ceiling onto Loki Changer, with his boots on the high table, yelling out over the crowd as Thor Thunderer tries to scoop him away. The Alfather sits on his throne wearing an impassive smile, staring across the hall with that swirling crystal eye. His giant ravens glide between the golden pillars to hunt scraps of candied bacon and memories. There’s the brother-sister duo of Freyr and Freya, toasting each other in their old-fashioned velvet and silk. There’s Tyr the Just, with his silver hand on the head of the massive Fenris Wolf. She crouches beside him with her tongue lolling hungrily out. Baldur’s chair is empty as always this time of year, six weeks dead as he is, and sleeping somewhere in Hel for the winter.

  Spread out from the high table are lines of benches and guest tables, covered in platters of meat and fruit, sloshed with mead and beer and the occasional disappointing glass of water. The president of the United States of Asgard dominates the first table, with his wife and his lawspeaker, surrounded by kingstate princes and members of Congress who pulled a long straw for a seat tonight. Next come artists and celebrities, Tinseltown stars, military heroes in their studded uniforms, preachers and high priests and jarls.

  Then there’s my table, tucked here to the side where we aren’t quite forgotten but can be pleasantly ignored by our famous parents.

  I slam my mug down onto the wooden table, chipping a new gouge. There’s no beer to slop out because I’ve sucked it all away, though cursed if it may as well be water for all the drunk I feel. Blood from my father, maybe the most famous carouser in millennia, plus seve
nteen years of these holiday parties has bumped my tolerance up to godlike. Jamie Calling, beside me, isn’t so cursed, and knocks his shoulder into mine as he leans precariously near to show me pictures on his cell phone. “Here we are in Baja California catching the last waves,” he slurs. It’s a sharp image of him, looking fantastic in Speedos, with his fellow kingstate prince Edward Something, whose name I never bother to remember because he’s a coward.

  Across the table, Liz Thorlin catches my eye, and one side of her gorgeous mouth curls up. Despite her name, she’s Freyr the Satisfied’s granddaughter from one of the god’s more scandalous indulgences with an artist in Tejas. He gave her beauty and a sex drive deeper than Hymir’s cauldron, and no sorry side effects that I know of. A perfect distraction for me. She scoots her empty wine glass forward a touch, and I open my mouth to politely offer to go with her to secure a refill. Last Yule, we managed to get lost in the sidehalls and find plenty of ways to put her godling mouth and my sobriety to better use.

  But the blaring trumpet of the ramhorn cuts through my offer like the end of the world.

  The hall chokes quiet and the double doors swing dramatically open to admit the Valkyrie. They stride in, nine of them, with their double braids and death-green apron dresses, tall and elegant and deadly. All of us, me included, crane our heads to the end of the line, where the new one should be.

  She carries the wide Poet’s Cup, into which the first mead was poured, between gold-adorned hands. Her chin is raised and she’s a gouge of violent red lipstick, but otherwise she blends in with them, with her Asgardian coloring and handsomeness. My mom said, After a hundred years with no ninth Valkyrie, the Alfather should’ve chosen one of ours. But he doesn’t even bother with a pretense of affirmative action. It set off a huge debate in her house about institutionalized racism and the legal system stacked against us and, as always, veered off into the militia laws and then health-care cause that’s Auntie Treena’s specialty. I’d stormed out, as always, after biting off something about earning a place with strength and courage instead of handouts. Treena bitched that my dad’s eyes staring out of my face will always mean I’ll be given the chance to prove my strength, despite the color of my skin.

  I try not to get home much.

  Behind the Valkyrie comes a company of Lonely Warriors, hefting a giant platter on their shoulders. It’s the great roast boar of the Valhol, with bones made by ancient elf queens and a heart blessed by Thor’s Hammer so it never runs out of meat. The Lonely Warriors eat from the boar for all eternity, sustaining them in death so they rise up and fight again and again on the Alfather’s behalf, until Ragnarok brings the end of the world. I tasted a strip of bacon off it once and thought it needed salt.

  Servers flood between all the tables to refill mugs and glasses before the feast is ready. I use the shifting crowd to heave off my bench. The next hour will be dead boring as everybody eats. It’s the perfect time to hunt out the trouble I’m really here for. I try to catch Liz’s eye, but she’s got her lips up to the ear of Franklin Adamson, the president’s son. Can’t blame her; he’s got a great mouth.

  There’s naught between me and the wall but a line of guards with their Bright Home house uniforms and their tall spears. I make an obscene gesture at one of them so he knows I’m going to take a piss. I learned the hard way when I was twelve to leave a trail for my dad to follow at these things. Otherwise he might level the whole place and set up an interrogation center to find me, if he suddenly recalls I should be here.

  Cheers follow me out as the Lonely Warriors set the boar on the high table. No doubt my father has claimed a new flagon of beer and leapt to give the first toast. Because it’s Hallowblot, nobody but Loki will begrudge him that, as nobody but Loki has a stronger relationship with etinfolk than Thor Thunderer. And Hallowblot is the etinfolk’s night. We drink to them as the winter comes: to the giants, the goblins, the trolls, and the elves under the mountain. We give sacrifice and promise to share the middle world with them; it’s all lies, of course, especially out of the Thunderer’s lips, he who has killed more giants than the rest of us teamed. And we haven’t done much to keep the trolls from dying.

  It used to be that we burned and bled, offered mead and spit and blood, set great fires to turn the night sky red. These days it’s mostly for show. Kids dress up like their favorite monsters, there are parties with candy and sweet drinks, the fires are set in pumpkins and gourds and cut-paper lanterns, and the only offerings we make are song and maybe a martyr mouse or two. Most of the USA acts as if the etinfolk are as good as extinct, and since the recent Stone Plague that’s decimated troll populations, it feels mostly truth. Giants have been gone for two generations, and goblins hide in the darkness. But I know absolutely that elves still creep under the mountain.

  Dad’s voice echoes through the hall and out into this narrow corridor: “You call me the etin’s best enemy,” he begins, as he always begins.

  I shut it out and push past a line of caterers in their dark blue bow ties. This is a rear exit out the back hall, through a dimly lit series of sitting rooms to a tiny library. The main entrance will be covered in spotlights, with valets smoking against the marble curb, more cameras, and plenty of witnesses. But this way leads out to the side of the peak.

  The outside door of the library is glass and slides open quietly. Cold wind gusts against my face, and I don’t bother to close it behind me. It’s all shadows here, gray and black and flickering orange from the two tall torches at either corner of the patio. The flames cast out onto the mountainside, turning the thick trunks of the lodgepole pines bloody. We’re surrounded by them here.

  I breathe in the icy air. There’s snow coming tonight, though the clouds aren’t gathered yet. I can feel it gleaming like a frozen promise in the elf-scar on my left forearm. Before long, my earrings and the iron nail piercing my eyebrow will start to burn.

  A shuffle drags my attention to the dark wall of Bright Home. Leaning against the huge logs of the building is a man. His white coat reflects the moonlight. I can’t believe I missed him when I walked out. I jerk my chin for hello and he leans away from the hall.

  “I didn’t expect anyone else here,” he says quietly.

  I spread my arms out to encompass the patio. “Finest hiding place in Bright Home.”

  The man shrugs.

  I move so I can see his face in the light. He’s young, my age, and has the widest shoulders. He’s not taller than me, though, or better looking. His face is square and the sort that falls naturally into a frown. Not my type. Lighter skin than mine, and though it’s hard to tell by the torches, dark eyes. Hair cut like we call “sport short” back home.

  He turns his cheek just slightly, eyes on mine, to show me the spear tattoo cutting down his face.

  “Soren Bearstar,” I say, placing him in my memory. He’s one of Odin’s berserker warriors, but last spring he saved the world—or at least the Alfather’s reputation—rescuing Baldur the Beautiful from whatever most recent indignity he’d gotton involved with. Soren chose to stay with Baldur afterward, forsaking Odin. They call him the Sun’s Berserk now. “Why are you here when your man is sleeping dark?”

  Soren looks pained, and I laugh. “Same reason I’m here?” I answer for him. “Some god invited you, and you haven’t figured out yet how to decline. Amon Thorson,” I add, holding out my hand.

  He clasps my wrist, studying me like a warrior, and with an edge of suspicion.

  I snort. “Don’t look much like my dad do I?”

  The berserker shrugs. “I try not to judge people by their parents.”

  Makes me wonder what’s wrong with his own father, but I appreciate it. “Mine is the god I can’t figure out how to say no to.”

  “Mine’s dead,” Soren says, leaning back against the feast hall. It towers over us like a black mountain itself.

  “May he drink deep,” I say, making the hammer sign over my chest.

  We share silence for a while. Wind hisses through the pin
e needles, and muffled noise from the long hall vibrates through the building behind us. I wonder how to get him to leave so I can go about my business.

  Soren says, “Do you know why Idun the Young isn’t here?”

  I cast him a sly one. “Idun? She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Though I can’t quite picture what she looks like. Small and delicate, I think. Forgettable, with her little basket of apples.

  He doesn’t answer but shifts his weight.

  “She’s never here at Hallowblot,” I say.

  The downcast of his frown is so disappointed, it catches me out with a laugh. “Man, she’s only ever here at the quarter holidays. Yule, Midsummer, and Baldur’s feasts.”

  “Ah.”

  “I should introduce you to Liz Thorlin or Manda, if you’re into kissing pretty godlings.”

  His mouth falls open in panic, and I laugh again. Curse, but he’s an easy target. My laughter has the berserker snapping his mouth shut and glaring at me with vexation. It’s a little too charming, and I catch up in it for a dazed moment, mouth falling into a flirty grin. “I can help you find what you’re looking for if you tell me what it is.”

  Soren hums uncomfortably through that epic frown. He says defensively, “I’ve heard of you, too. You’re a runner. You get what people want.”

  “Yeah.” I mime opening an invisible coat to display my wares. “Relics and shiny things, specialty items, a few, ah…medicines…particular to your kind….” I tease with a wide smile.

  “I know bearbane,” he says darkly.

  “Would you like some?” I lean in. “Give your blood a rush even without your godling?”

  “It’s illegal,” he says firm as a lawspeaker.

  I only keep my smile wide.

  He ruins it by saying, “If you didn’t have a god for a father it might not be so simple.”

  A flash of anger cuts my attraction off with a razor edge. But it’s better this way. Sons of Thor aren’t supposed to flirt with other boys.