I hold my breath, hoping Veikko won’t tell him that the priests might also come to the outlands in search of the lost, mad Valtia, but Oskar speaks before he has a chance to.
“For the first time in years, I completely agree with you.” Oskar’s large hands fall to his sides. “Which is why we should be guarding our home and not traipsing across the outlands with our heads stuffed full of impossible dreams.”
“He’s right, Sig,” calls out Ruuben, putting his arm around Senja. “This place is safe for the winter. Let’s forget about this for now.”
Sig’s nostrils flare. “Oskar,” he says softly. “We shouldn’t have to live like this.” He lowers his voice even more. “We shouldn’t have to hide. Neither of us should have to hide. This is our chance to change things.” There’s a fierce kind of softness in his eyes, a plea. He cares what Oskar thinks.
Oskar’s stare is icy and hard, though. “I’m not hiding. I’m living.”
“If you can call it that.” Sig rolls his eyes, but they shine with barely suppressed emotion. “You are such a coward. You always have been.”
Oskar’s face is relaxed, his fingers loose. “Stay if you want peace. Otherwise, leave. No one here wants to help you start a war.”
“War is what we were meant for, Oskar, and you know that.” Sig turns slowly in place, his pale skin smooth in the chilly air of the cave. He looks at the crowd, faces full of wariness, pinched mouths, tense shoulders. For a moment, his eyes meet mine. His gaze is like a flame across my skin, trying to burn down to my marrow and see what’s inside. He tilts his head. “You’re new.” He takes a step closer. “What’s your name?”
The air around me suddenly grows warm, then hot, and Freya grimaces and steps away, like she can’t stand it. “Cut it out, Sig!” she whines.
Once again, I feel the heat like a thought, something without temperature. I know it’s there, but it doesn’t make me sweat. “I’m Elli.”
His dark eyes slowly glide over my body and face. “Are you an ice wielder?”
What? Why would he ask me that? “I—”
“She’s under my protection,” says Oskar, stepping between us, menace radiating from him in palpable waves of cold.
Sig chuckles, but it’s a bitter sound. “Oh, Oskar. No one told me you’d taken up with a girl.”
My stomach does an odd swoop, and I edge to the side so I can look up at Oskar’s face as he says, “Sig, leave. Now.”
Sig takes a step back, wearing a sneer. “I can’t wait for the day you lose that tightly wound temper. We’ll have fun then, you and I.”
“I said leave,” Oskar growls.
Sig turns his attention back to me. “Nice to meet you, Elli. Try to stay warm.” He smirks. “But I suppose you’re quite fond of the cold, aren’t you?” His eyes linger on mine for a moment, and then he strides out of the cavern and into the winter outside, as if it’s a perfectly natural thing to walk around half-naked. As the lingering daylight reaches him, I see that his back is striped with silvery scars from the base of his neck all the way to his waist. The lash marks on Elli’s back were worse than any I’ve seen, save one, Oskar had said.
At least eight young men and women, some in light tunics and some in heavy furs like Oskar, follow Sig out of the cavern. “We’re at the dunes by the northwestern oak bluffs if anyone wants to get away from this coward’s cave,” Sig calls as he mounts one of the horses. He and the others canter away a moment later.
The temperature in the cavern drops back to its normal damp chilliness, and people talk nervously among themselves as they return to their dinner preparations. Jouni stares after Sig and the others like he’s thinking of joining them, but then his shoulders slump and he heads over to the big fire with some of the other men, one of whom is clearly his father. The man, his skin weathered and spotted with age, hugs Jouni and asks him how the town was. Oskar trudges to the shelter, and Freya and I follow with our kindling, then grab pails and head out again to fetch water.
“Are you an ice wielder?” Freya whispers as we hike back down to the underground stream.
“Most definitely not. I’m the most unmagical person you’ll ever meet.” I try for a breezy tone, but my voice shakes a bit at the end.
“But Sig’s heat didn’t even affect you,” says Freya, sounding awed. “I thought I was going to faint.”
My heart races. I make a mental note to at least pretend to be affected by things like that in the future. Doing otherwise is going to lead to questions I shouldn’t answer. “Oh, I suppose I’m just a summer girl,” I say as we dip our buckets in the stream. “I don’t mind the heat.”