Free The Lost Sun by Tessa Gratton Page B

broadcast. It is not a test.”
    Astrid grips my knee, digging her fingers into my jeans. I jerk upright, the frenzy blinding me like a flash-bomb. My foot hits the brakes and we screech to a halt. It’s a good thing there aren’t others on the road.
    “Repeat: this is not a test. All citizens of the United States of Asgard are cautioned against moving outside of city centers. Greater mountain trolls have come down from Canadia and attacked a settlement in Vinland. This is not a test.”
    I lower my forehead to the steering wheel and press in, letting the dull pain focus my fever there instead of that hot place where Astrid’s hand holds my knee.
    “All citizens of the United States of Asgard are cautioned against moving outside of city centers. Greater mountain trolls—”
    She violently changes the station back to HM. The emergency broadcast is blaring there, too. Astrid dials the volume down and gently replaces her hand on my knee. The effort to be calm makes my bones tremble.
    After a moment, the HM announcer cuts in, apologizing for the interruption in regular programming, and says, “We received the official statement from President Adamson, and it’s true that Tyrsday evening greater mountain trolls crossed Leif’s Channel onto Vinland, wreaking destruction along the coast, including burning down the village of Jellyfish Cove and the National Historic Site where Gudrid Traveler and her family first landed. At least fifty-six people have escaped the island, but over a hundred residents are not yet accounted for. The Mad Eagle and Flying Bear berserk bands were dispatched from New Scotland to stop the trolls before dawn. No herd has caused such a death toll since the renegade Rock Mountain herd that famously killed Luta Bearsdottir’s family in the sixties.
    “The captain of the Mad Eagles reports that the trolls left symbols of Ragnarok painted in blood on the ruined walls ofthe town, and it’s been confirmed that the president’s warning has been put into effect because he and Congress believe the troll-mothers will use our time of loss to create as much chaos as they can.”
    I switch off the radio. I can imagine how brutal those people’s deaths were, and don’t want to hear more details.
    Astrid slowly gets out of the car, moving with exaggerated grace as though she’s afraid of falling over. With her seething kit, she kneels on the gravel shoulder of the highway and braids some of the tall prairie grass into a circle. She sets the kit before her and lights a slim candle. “For all the children of Asgard who were killed,” she whispers, and then repeats it more loudly. “May their spirits lift as smoke and find peace in the halls of death, wrapped in Freya’s feather-warm pillows.”
    She uses her hands to waft the thin gray smoke up toward the sky.
    It’s said that all our prayers are gathered up by the wind, are seen by the stars, are captured in the claws of ravens, and given into the ears of our gods. But the gods have been remarkably vague about why and when they choose to turn their attention to individuals.
    As I watch Astrid, I wonder if she thinks any of them are listening to her now.
    But I suspect if I asked, she would tell me that the prayer itself has power, regardless of who hears it.

    We’ve been back on the road for only ten minutes when we begin to see hills in the distance, turned shadowy and violet in the late-morning light. We turn off the highway where a carved-wood sign declares the entrance to Badlands National Park. Astrid says, “Mom and I used to stop at all of those kinds of signs to take a picture.” She sighs. “Uncle Richard has the album. It’s just us, standing there grinning. Sometimes Mom helped me climb up to the top, and held my ankles so I wouldn’t fall.”
    “Too bad we don’t have a camera,” I say.
    She smiles wistfully.
    I drive to the small booth in the middle of the road. A rack of heavy spears and steel shields leans against it. On either