“Understood.”
Tentatively, he slides his hand toward me, palm up, calloused and strong. It comes to a stop between us. Waiting. Once I do this, there’s no hiding, no going back, no pretending there’s not something odd about me. I look from Oskar’s hand to his face. He’s watching me, a frown tugging at his lips. His fingers curl like a snail pulling into its shell. “You don’t have to, Elli. If you say no, it won’t change anything at all. You’ll still have a home here, for as long as you need it.”
His hushed words fill the hollow space inside. My eyes sting with tears as I silently lay my palm over his.
It’s the quietest of things, the most fragile of moments. I feel the coolness of his skin, but also the texture of it, hard and soft, rough and smooth, as his long fingers wrap over mine. As soon as our gazes meet, the cold magic swirls along my palm, around my wrist, winding its way up my arm until it trickles into my chest, glittering and frigid. Oskar’s lips part. He looks stunned and stuck, like it feels too good to speak. The rush of magic intensifies, pouring into me so quickly that I swear I feel the tiny, cold kisses of snowflakes on my face.
“Oh,” he whispers, his eyes fluttering shut. “Thank you.”
I watch his face relaxing into the smallest of smiles as he falls into a peaceful sleep. He breathes evenly, a smooth rhythm from his powerful body, a much-needed truce after so much war inside him. My mind flickers with ice floes on the Motherlake, with icicles forming along branches and rocks, with snowflakes tumbling playfully through the air. The sight of his relief makes a tear slip from my eye, and I bow my head and kiss his knuckles, held tight in my grasp. I give in to it without guilt or shame. His skin tastes faintly of salt, maybe from my tears.
“Good night, Oskar.” I close my eyes and welcome his frigid dreams into my hollow darkness.
Over the next fortnight, we develop a new routine. Every night, Oskar waits, and every night, I go to him. I siphon his icy dreams, and inside me they thaw. It doesn’t hurt. The ice can’t claim me. It can’t even make me shiver.
But Oskar can, though I don’t think he realizes it. Now that he sleeps easy, he rises early, refreshed and warm. He always tests his magic on the pail of water near the fire—after a night touching me, it’s all he can do to make the surface freeze. And instead of being horrified that I’ve drained the powerful ice magic away, he’s delighted. He brews me tea, as if he’s worried his dreams will give me a chill. He never asks how I do it, or why I have this power. He always asks if perhaps I’m too tired, if I’d like to sleep with Freya in the other chamber. He seems embarrassed. I don’t think he understands that it feels just as good to me. I had been scared I would hurt him somehow, but every day he looks better.
Maybe I’m keeping him safe from his nightmares and giving him rest, but he’s giving me something too, more than the new pair of gloves that magically appeared beneath my cloak one afternoon, the one for the right hand crafted with only three fingers and extra padding over the knuckles where the ring finger and pinkie would have been. More even than the delicate carving of a dove that I found under my pillow the evening after that, its wooden wings spread in flight, the flex of its body ecstatic and free.
I’m not sure how to pin this feeling down. It’s as elusive as the numbness that swirls inside my body. Every day, as the hours creep past, I find myself getting jittery, waiting for the sight of Oskar’s tall figure striding into the cavern. And when he does, I can’t stop the smile from spreading across my face—especially because his eyes search for me, and when they find me, he smiles right back. That in and of itself is magical and ignites a spark of pride inside me.
I gave Oskar back his smile.
One day, as I’m hanging our laundry up to dry by the fire, he emerges from the back cavern, clean-shaven. Some of the young men, including Harri, his curly hair damp from the stream, are joking with him. “Tell me, Oskar, was it difficult to kill the ferocious little beast that had made its home on your ugly face?”
Oskar runs his palm along his smooth cheek. Harri couldn’t be more wrong—Oskar is far from ugly. He looks a few years younger without that beard, but his jawline is straight and strong. He laughs. “It was a close call,” he says, then draws his hunting knife and waves it in the air. “But it was him or me.” He looks over and sees me watching him, and I bite my lip and duck into the shelter again.