obstacle course and I ran it again and again while he graded me from the kitchen counter. My grades tended to be less about success and more about flare, as he awarded me with cries of “You look like a donkey!” or “There are those beautiful Valkyrie wings!” depending on how well I finessed a corner. I built a huge nest of old sweaters and blankets near the ground-floor hearth, the only place warm enough that my voice didn’t puff out in icy fog. We’d fall asleep side by side, though sometimes I stayed awake on purpose, just to listen to him breathe.
Every morning I looked for runes in my eyes. Torch and death and choice cycled through as they always had, with torch the most frequent as our isolation lasted, unsurprising because of my burning desire to get back out into the world.
Finally the snow melted enough that we crashed into town for an impromptu celebration at the Shipworm. Amidst the laughter and fiddle and crush of everyone, I glanced once at Unferth and caught him in the corner with his shoulders against two other men’s, obviously sharing gossip like a clutch of chickens. His cheeks were bright, his mouth loose, and when he saw me looking his gray eyes shone. He was happy with the Freyans, knew all their songs and prayers. Some boys dragged him to the middle of the dance floor, where he first crouched and touched his fist to the wooden panels in an old Freyan act of devotion to the earth. Then he leapt onto a table with a yell and recited the opening lines of The Charge of Winter to much uproarious applause.
The inn grew hot with his poetry and the enthusiasm of the crowd. He held them trapped in rhyme and rhythm so long that sweat melted through his shirt and he stripped it off during the dramatic transition from the warrior-king’s forces to the approaching army of frost giants.
Two girls beside me gasped to see the jagged claw marks striping down Unferth’s chest and across his back. I shifted away, itching with tension as he performed for them. The scars shimmered in the firelight, forming runes against his skin like a message just for me. Truth and always truth.
The final line rang through the fiery air and Unferth’s head fell forward in a bow, his hands turned palm out, his shoulders heaved. It was a moment when I could have called out a response, drawn his attention, gotten those rain-colored eyes on me and me alone. But we were surrounded and I didn’t want to share it—share him. I rubbed my arms as the inn exploded with cheering. They clapped his hands and pulled him off the tabletop, offering mugs of beer and requests for another or another. As he promised he’d perform at the festival feast when it started up again, the crowd swallowed him whole.
He belonged there, shining with sweat and pleasure, and I wanted to destroy it all. I shoved my way outside into the white snow.
Every time Unferth went into town after that, I stayed in the tower. I dug mazes in the snow, building my muscles until I could throw the troll-spears accurately. I tended to Red Stripe, picking dust out of the crevasses of his stone skin, polishing the shards of amethyst at his arm stump until they shone. I wandered the island as I could, pretended there were trolls to hunt here, and twice tracked a pack of wolves swinging too near town. Using troll-spears on caribou is overkill, but I did it anyway.
And if I heard Unferth’s familiar gate stomping through crusts of ice toward me, anticipation burned like never before. I started leaving the tower just to dredge up the buzz of expectation I’d feel when I went home to him again. It was pathetic, but I didn’t stop. I blamed the forced stagnation of the winter, the inability to act or get anything accomplished. There was nothing more fantastic to hold my attention, and so too big a piece of me latched on to him.
But sometimes he would push me onto a stool to brush and braid my hair, or tease me with a string of riddles whose answers were always troll, and
Every morning I looked for runes in my eyes. Torch and death and choice cycled through as they always had, with torch the most frequent as our isolation lasted, unsurprising because of my burning desire to get back out into the world.
Finally the snow melted enough that we crashed into town for an impromptu celebration at the Shipworm. Amidst the laughter and fiddle and crush of everyone, I glanced once at Unferth and caught him in the corner with his shoulders against two other men’s, obviously sharing gossip like a clutch of chickens. His cheeks were bright, his mouth loose, and when he saw me looking his gray eyes shone. He was happy with the Freyans, knew all their songs and prayers. Some boys dragged him to the middle of the dance floor, where he first crouched and touched his fist to the wooden panels in an old Freyan act of devotion to the earth. Then he leapt onto a table with a yell and recited the opening lines of The Charge of Winter to much uproarious applause.
The inn grew hot with his poetry and the enthusiasm of the crowd. He held them trapped in rhyme and rhythm so long that sweat melted through his shirt and he stripped it off during the dramatic transition from the warrior-king’s forces to the approaching army of frost giants.
Two girls beside me gasped to see the jagged claw marks striping down Unferth’s chest and across his back. I shifted away, itching with tension as he performed for them. The scars shimmered in the firelight, forming runes against his skin like a message just for me. Truth and always truth.
The final line rang through the fiery air and Unferth’s head fell forward in a bow, his hands turned palm out, his shoulders heaved. It was a moment when I could have called out a response, drawn his attention, gotten those rain-colored eyes on me and me alone. But we were surrounded and I didn’t want to share it—share him. I rubbed my arms as the inn exploded with cheering. They clapped his hands and pulled him off the tabletop, offering mugs of beer and requests for another or another. As he promised he’d perform at the festival feast when it started up again, the crowd swallowed him whole.
He belonged there, shining with sweat and pleasure, and I wanted to destroy it all. I shoved my way outside into the white snow.
Every time Unferth went into town after that, I stayed in the tower. I dug mazes in the snow, building my muscles until I could throw the troll-spears accurately. I tended to Red Stripe, picking dust out of the crevasses of his stone skin, polishing the shards of amethyst at his arm stump until they shone. I wandered the island as I could, pretended there were trolls to hunt here, and twice tracked a pack of wolves swinging too near town. Using troll-spears on caribou is overkill, but I did it anyway.
And if I heard Unferth’s familiar gate stomping through crusts of ice toward me, anticipation burned like never before. I started leaving the tower just to dredge up the buzz of expectation I’d feel when I went home to him again. It was pathetic, but I didn’t stop. I blamed the forced stagnation of the winter, the inability to act or get anything accomplished. There was nothing more fantastic to hold my attention, and so too big a piece of me latched on to him.
But sometimes he would push me onto a stool to brush and braid my hair, or tease me with a string of riddles whose answers were always troll, and
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