I was about to tell her no, but the desperate, heartbroken look on her face finally made me cave. With everything that Ulla and Kate had told me about what it was like to grow up here, I didn’t think it would be good for anybody.
“Fine, but if you slow me down, I’m leaving you behind,” I said, which was more of an empty threat than I wanted to admit.
Ulla almost squealed with delight, but I silenced her and then walked past her and headed down the stairs. Taking her with didn’t seem that bad, since I was just headed back to the Trylle. Ulla should be safe with the Trylle, and they could help her find a place in this world.
It wasn’t until we’d taken the snowmobile to the nearest town that I realized that Ulla had never been outside of Iskyla before. She was amazed and entranced by every little thing, and I had to constantly remind her that we were traveling incognito and that she needed to stop making a scene.
Surprisingly, she handled the plane better than I did. Somehow the ride managed to be even more turbulent than it had been last time, and the pilot told me it was thanks to an incoming freak blizzard.
Our landing was twice as rough this time, but at least we made it alive. The pilot was right about the storm, though. A brutal wind was coming from the north, bringing with it heavy snow. Ulla suggested we get a hotel for the night and head out in the morning, but I suspected that she just wanted a chance to see more of the city.
I, on the other hand, didn’t want to waste any time. I had information that I needed to get to the Trylle as soon as possible. Everyone in Doldastam was depending on it, whether they knew it or not.
So, despite travel advisories telling me not to, I rented an SUV and headed south. For her part, Ulla actually didn’t seem to mind the storm or the slow going. I think she would’ve been thrilled by just about anything I did, though.
The first hour or so into the drive went okay. I barely went above thirty, but we were moving. And then we weren’t. We hit a snowdrift so large, the SUV just couldn’t get through it. We were stuck.
“Don’t worry. I got it,” Ulla said. She’d taken off her kamiks while I was driving, but now she slipped them back on, along with her heavy gloves.
“What do you mean, you got it?” I asked, but she was already opening the car door and hopping out into the snow. “Ulla!”
I wasn’t about to let her disappear into the snowstorm, so I jumped out after her. She’d gone around to the back of the SUV, and she’d put on what reminded me of old flight goggles. They were strapped on underneath the earflaps of her hat, and while they were comical-looking, they probably worked well at keeping the snow from stinging her eyes.
“What are you doing?” she asked me, like I was the one who had leapt out of the vehicle without explanation. “Is the SUV in neutral?”
“No. It’s in park. Why? What are you doing?”
“I’m gonna get us unstuck.” She flexed her arms.
It sounded ridiculous, but she did have Omte blood. She may not have been the size of the ogre Torun I’d seen in Fulatr?sk, but she should have some of his strength.
“Be careful,” I told her, but I left her to it.
I got back in the vehicle and put it in neutral. I adjusted the rearview mirror so I could watch. Her head bent down as she pushed on the back, and the SUV jerked forward a bit.
Then nothing happened at all for a few seconds, and suddenly it lurched forward, going straight through the snowdrift. Snow flew up around the vehicle, and it skidded to a stop on a clearer stretch of highway on the other side of the drift.
As soon as the SUV stopped, I put it in park and jumped out to make sure Ulla hadn’t been hurt. After all, that had been an awfully big push.
“Ulla!” I shouted when I didn’t see her right away, and I charged through the drift.
She was standing in the middle of the road, staring off to the right of her, but she didn’t appear injured.
“Ulla,” I repeated. “That was amazing.”
“We should probably get out of here,” she said flatly.
“What? Why?” I asked, and I looked to see where she was staring.
There, a few feet off the road and almost invisible in the snow, were two small polar bear cubs. The bigger, fluffier one hung back, but for some reason the smaller one thought it would be a good idea to trot toward us—its big eyes wide and excited.
Growing up near the polar bear capital of the world in Doldastam, there was one important lesson I had learned—wherever there was a cub, nearby was an angry mama bear.
“Let’s go,” I commanded.
Ulla started hurrying toward the SUV past me. I turned to join her, but it was already too late. The mama bear had come out of nowhere. The giant white beast growled and stomped between me and the vehicle. I had nowhere to run, but that didn’t matter, because she wasn’t about to let me run anywhere.
Before I could dodge out of the way, she swung at me with her giant paw, and that was the last thing I saw.
THIRTY-ONE
anguish