I bite my lip and focus, gathering the heat inside my hollow chest. I imagine kindling the fire, then scooping it up to my shoulder and letting it slide down my arm, straight into Oskar through our joined hands. But it merely sways and swirls inside me, flickering up before receding again.
“I think maybe you don’t want him to live,” Raimo taunts.
Sig’s grip on my scarred right hand tightens, and he offers me more fire. It overflows my chest and courses down my left arm, my wrist, my fingers. But then it hits the icy wall of Oskar’s skin and shrinks back. I push against it with all my might. Oskar is more than ice. He’s more than magic. Without it, he’s still a whole person, able to love and protect and laugh and live. My hand shakes as I force the heat toward him, willing his heart to move warm blood through his chest, willing his body to accept what I’m offering, to reignite the spark he needs to survive. Slowly I melt the frozen barrier. And then, all of a sudden, it gives way, and the heat pulses into him.
He lets out a shaky sigh, his breath fogging from between his lips. I tear my hand from Sig’s and throw myself on top of Oskar, pressing my cheek to his, offering him whatever warmth I have.
“My mother,” he whispers.
“I’m right here,” she says, her face creased with worry. “I’m all right. No burns.”
“Elli?”
I lay my palms on his rough cheeks and press light kisses across his brow. “I’m here.”
Sig gets to his feet, his boots scuffing against the loose stone. “But it’s time to go.”
Oskar’s eyes pop open, dark as a thundercloud. He sits up with me still on his chest, so I end up in his lap. He coils his arm around my waist. The cold pulses from him, already stronger than it was. “She’s not going anywhere with you.”
Sig gives him a ghostly smile. “Oh, but she is. Just ask her.”
Oskar’s gaze snaps to mine. “I have to,” I murmur.
Raimo uses his walking stick to pull himself to his feet. “Elli struck a deal with Sig,” he says mildly. “But it barely matters. We’re all going.”
Aira, Ismael, and Veikko glance back and forth between me and Raimo with identical looks of confusion. “Us, too?” Veikko asks.
“Oh, yes,” Raimo says. “It’s time.”
Oskar looks like he’s been hit over the head. “What?”
Raimo sighs, so stooped that he’s only a head taller than Oskar, who’s sitting on the ground. “You’ve put this off for so long, Oskar, but you can’t deny what you are anymore, or what you were meant to do.”
“I’m not meant to do anything,” Oskar says, moving me off his lap so he can get to his feet. “Except to care for my family.”
“You’re the Ice Suurin!” Raimo yells, his arms shaking as he holds on to the stick. “This war will find you whether you want it or not.” He watches as Oskar pulls me to my feet and brings me close. “It already has, I’d say.”
I touch Raimo’s gnarled hand. “Tell us what you know. Please. You can’t expect Oskar—or any of us, for that matter—to go into this blind. We’re all here. We need to understand.”
Raimo glances at his wooden box and rubs his palm over his bald head. “I suppose you are all here.” He lets out a bemused cackle. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for so many years that it seems odd that it’s actually happening.”
“You were a priest,” I prompt him. “And somehow you came into possession of the prophecy that’s been missing from the temple for ages, didn’t you? That’s how you know all these things.”
He grins, showing all his yellow teeth. “I stole it.”
“But wasn’t it kept in the temple?” Oskar asks.
“No. We were all living in the old fortress by the lake,” Raimo says, picking up his box and hobbling over to the community hearth. He sinks onto the stone with the box in his lap. “The temple was still under construction at that time.”
We all gape at him. “The Temple on the Rock is over three hundred years old,” I stammer.
Raimo gives us all an amused look. “True. And so am I.”
CHAPTER 22
We settle ourselves around the old man, hungry for answers, stunned by the understanding that he’s older than the temple itself. But somehow I can’t bring myself to doubt it, and I can tell by looking at the others that they don’t either. It makes a strange kind of sense.
Raimo’s fingers slide over the carvings on the surface of the box. “Contrary to what many like to believe, the Kupari are not native to these lands. Our ancestors had only arrived here a few hundred years before I was born, fleeing the murderous warrior tribes of the far north.”
Veikko’s eyes go wide. “The Soturi?”
Raimo nods. “I suspect they are the very same, though they have only recently crossed the Motherlake in any number. Our ancestors made the great journey guided by the stars, believing they were safe on this peninsula surrounded by the vast waters. And so they were, for a long time. They discovered the copper that runs through the veins of this land, and here they settled.”