Ragna blew into her pale hands so her hot breath formed mist. “The rain. I kept building most of the night, just so I wouldn’t freeze.” She made a sound like the whimper of an animal being strangled. “But I can’t get warm, and every time I doze off, I’m afraid I won’t wake up.”
I bit my lip. If I heated my scales, she could warm herself against the plates. But drawing body heat to the surface burned our fat reserves quickly, so quickly that someone might notice the change in my appearance when I returned home. She shivered and coughed into her closed fist. The cough was deep and wet, and her body shook so violently I imagined I could hear her ribs rattling. If I stayed under the boat, I could get caught. With the result of my grading, the king would relish any chance to arrest me. But if I didn’t warm her, she might die.
I closed my eyes before flexing the micro-tendons that ran along the underside of my scales. The action hurt. My body wasn’t used to performing this process, and the muscles protested as I strained. I shifted so that I was sitting entirely on her furs. Without a barrier, I worried that I might melt a hole in the ice beneath us.
Each turquoise scale along my tail warmed as if the sun had struck it. My heart beat faster; my breathing came in abrupt gasps as if I were swimming as fast as I could. “Here, press yourself against me.”
Ragna’s eyebrows shot up. “What?” she asked warily.
“Against my scales. It’ll warm you,” I said, gritting my teeth against the muscle fatigue that threatened to overwhelm me. I would need to eat—soon.
She shifted so that her weight rested against my side and then drew back with a yelp. “You’re burning…”
I nodded. “We draw heat from the sun. Our scales act as plates to bring it in and store it. We can also push heat out, but it tires us.”
Ragna pressed herself against me. Her body felt amphibian: cold and moist, slick with melting ice. But there was something nice about it, too, like the way her frosted cheek felt when she rested it against my shoulder and the way her hair fanned across my back. I couldn’t remember when I’d held someone like this. She smelled of earthy things and taunted my curious nose with a fragrance that was at once delicate and gamy. What did I feel like to her? What did the sea smell like to a creature of land? Did she resent my cold breath?
A flush warmed my face, and I studied my hands. Now that the scales were heated, I relaxed my muscles. My body slumped in boneless exhaustion. When I looked at Ragna, she had fallen asleep. Smiling to myself, I pulled the furs around us to make a cocoon of heat. Under the covers, her fingers found mine in sleep. That was nice too, even if a curious electric tingling crawled up my arms at her touch. I wondered if that was part of the magic of her tattoos. Her body gave off its own warmth that flooded the space between us.
Alone together, snuggling with a girl who had held a knife to my throat only moments ago and had tried to spear me when we first met, I felt, strangely, safer and more at ease than I had in weeks. I closed my eyes and allowed my thoughts to drift.
A growl jolted me from my sleep. Beside me, Ragna stirred and groggily raised an eyebrow. Then something shook the boat’s hull. I peered under the tiny crack between the ice and the roof of our makeshift shelter. Silver claws and white fur glimmered in the bright daylight. A long, white snout sniffed along the ice.
My heart stopped beating. I was too far from the water. On land, I was slow and defenseless, especially now that I’d drained so much energy to heat my scales. As fragile and skinny as they looked, at least Ragna’s human legs could run on the land. If the polar bear flipped the boat, I would be an easy, blubbery meal for him: slow and totally unable to flee. Polar bears did not respect the merfolk. They lived most of their lives outside our domain, and they didn’t fear repercussions from us. The ice bears were known to scoop playing children from the sea’s surface and devour them without a second thought. They were strong enough to drag an adult beluga from the sea. We all knew better than to get too close.
Ragna’s eyes narrowed. Her muscles tensed. Then she fished for something below her feet. She grabbed a sword in one hand and her dagger in the other. Before I could stop her, she flipped the boat over with all her strength and caught the surprised bear across the jaw with the wooden hull.
As I lay writhing like a breached whale on the slippery ice, Ragna ran at the ice bear. She used the ice to her advantage, sliding toward the hulking white beast at speed. She moved like a streak of blonde lightning, flashing through the daylight like Thor with her weapon held high. I had never seen anyone move that way: swift and fearless. Ragna was terrifying. Despite the size and weight of the bear that stalked toward her, dripping blood from its injured mouth, she faced it. Where had she learned to fight like that? She had said her father gave up the idea of finding a mate for her as soon as he realized she could fight. How many of her kidnappers had she wounded before they managed to take her?
The bear circled her, paying no attention to me as I crawled on my belly toward the water. I didn’t want to leave her to spar alone, but, out of the water, what could I do? The bear would finish me with one bite from its powerful jaws. If Ragna had to worry about me, it would only slow her down.
Ragna pivoted, and the beast lunged for her. The bear’s jaws snapped on air, and she danced around him as the sword gleamed in the sunlight. The bear changed again, roaring with frustration. Polar bears hunted seals, belugas… prey that were as helpless and slow on land as I was. The creature wasn’t used to Ragna’s speed. He stumbled. With a cry, she jumped at him and plunged her sword just under the bear’s injured jaw. When she wrenched the blade out, fresh, steaming blood gushed onto the ice.
Ragna tossed her sword aside. I grimaced as she wiped the bear’s splattered blood from her face with the edge of a tattered sleeve. Then she stumbled toward me. Her legs were clumsy now that the danger of the fight was over and her battle-fever had ebbed.
Tearing her cloak from her shoulders, she spread it out across the ice and then collapsed onto it. Her nimble fingers pushed her ripped trousers down her hips and thighs. I stared, unable either to move to help or to look away. Those ethereal blue-ink tattoos ran down her legs and across the small of her back. Between the lines of ink, Ragna’s flesh looked as soft and delicately pink as a new pearl. Her legs were long and lean, but hard muscle ran the along the backs of her calves.