by Jessica Daw
I ignored him. I couldn’t, no social norm could bind me, not then. I escaped the heat of the ballroom, running through my parents’ palace to my room.
Methodically, I began ripping my hair from its fantastic bindings. Espen. Espen, alive? Only rumors. But Espen . . . could my isbjørn be Espen? I tried to compare the Espen I’d known to my isbjørn, their personalities, to see if they could match. But I hadn’t seen Espen for three years now, and I couldn’t exactly recall what he was like. Besides, I knew how much I’d changed in that time, wasn’t it possible that Espen had changed too? Especially if his life had almost been ended.
And there had to be some sort of mystery around it, something at play that was greater than I knew. Why else would all the secrecy be in place? Why wouldn’t anyone tell me if Espen was alive? There had to be a reason, reasons I couldn’t name, but that didn’t bother me. I had no idea why I had been sent to a castle with a shifter in the first place, left there without supervision. A punishment, yes, and a convenient way to get me away from public eye, but wouldn’t something simpler have done the job, maybe better?
My scalp stung—my hair was all free, clumps of it knotted around my fingers. I clenched my fists around that hair, pacing the room, feeling absolutely, utterly mad.
Unbidden, the night after our first attempt to fly came into my mind. After I’d nearly fallen to my death, and my isbjørn had taken me back to the castle, he’d fallen asleep in my room. I’d caught a glimpse, just a glimpse, of him as a man. For a moment, I tried to recall the exact shape of the shoulders I’d seen, and match it to Espen’s, but the exercise was pointless, my memory too blurred and tired to catch details.
But something else could be learned from that memory. He hadn’t meant to demanifest in front of me. He couldn’t hold his shape while he slept.
He couldn’t hold his shape while he slept.
I didn’t have to ask, I didn’t even have to wait until the single week was over. I could just find him as he slept and peek. Just peek, nothing more.
“No,” I said aloud, turning, pacing, broken hairs still clutched in my hands. I couldn’t betray my isbjørn like that, couldn’t betray . . . Espen?
But I couldn’t ask. The Binding on my arm was still real enough for me to know that I could not ask. I would have to wait.
What was a week? A week was nothing, seven days. I’d already spent nearly fifty weeks with my isbjørn, surely I could wait out one week more, and then all my questions would be answered.
For a moment, I was satisfied, standing still, taking a calming breath. A week, I could do a week, a week wasn’t too long, a week was a nightmare, an eternity, no, I couldn’t do this, this would never work, I was losing my mind!
Hope had already taken deep root in my heart, hope that Espen lived, hope that I’d spent the last year with him, getting to know him better than I’d ever known him before, falling more in love with him than ever.
That thought gave me pause. Was I in love with my isbjørn? I sat on my window seat, though my hands did not release the hair I’d torn from my head. My chest felt hollow. Shouldn’t my heart have been more active if I was in love with my isbjørn? I had been in love with Espen, and the very thought of him had sent my pulse into a frenzy.
How could I be in love with a man I’d never seen? I couldn’t fall in love with an isbjørn.
I’d have to see his face to know, I decided.
That conclusion led to me letting out an unladylike curse. Two reasons to go insane if I had to wait a whole week to see the face of my isbjørn. How had I gone so many months, contentedly living with my isbjørn, and never knowing who he was? Never knowing anything about his family, about his life before he’d met me. What if he was in love with someone else? That was a knife in my chest.
Dagmar found me hunched in my window seat, head between my knees, feeling more abjectly miserable than I’d felt in my whole life with hope refusing to shut its pointless mouth. I couldn’t stand to hope that my isbjørn was Espen and then find out that Espen was dead after all and my isbjørn was just a shifter who’d done a job for my parents and was ready to be released. I wouldn’t survive that.
“Home early, are you? Oh, Lena. What is wrong?”
Dagmar’s warm voice, the voice of my childhood, made me burst into tears. She let out a little cry and came and wrapped her motherly arms around me. “Hush, baby girl. Hush now. Tell me what’s wrong?”
Words refused to come. I was sobbing, messy gulps and burning tears and shaking shoulders.
“Are you afraid to return to that shifter? It’s only a week, child.”
I let out a strange guttural sound at that unhelpful comment and proceeded to cry, if it was possible, even harder.
“Ah,” she sighed, the sound full of wisdom. “You don’t want to come home for good, do you?”
“I can’t leave him!”
How Dagmar interpreted the broken sentence was beyond me. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she was toothless and sometimes difficult to understand herself. Not that I cognizantly thought any of that in the moment. “Baby girl. You’ll find him again. I know you too well to believe anything else.”
I had no such faith in myself. What had I proved myself capable of doing thus far? Losing my title? Lighting suitors on fire? No, I hadn’t even done that successfully, their wards blocked the fire from getting to them.
“Go to sleep, child. You’ll feel better.”
I shook my head against her shoulder. “I can’t sleep.”
“Hmm.” I fully expected Dagmar to insist I sleep, and was considering pretending to sleep until she left, though I thought it might be the death of me to try to hold so still. “There are only a few hours until morning anyway. Let’s get you good and ready. Do you like the sound of that?”
I started crying again, that’s how well I liked the sound of that.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lena
Snow came up to my knees. I’d been standing in the same spot for three minutes. I hadn’t been able to wait, whispering goodbye to my parents, who’d been more than half asleep, and hugging Dagmar, before taking my bag and waiting outside. I was dressed in all my warm clothes, savoring the feeling of wearing my sealskin trousers again. They were a reminder that all this wasn’t a dream. That maybe I could see Espen.
Oops. I was trying not to think about Espen. Oops. It wasn’t going well.
Three minutes was all I had to wait. My isbjørn was just as impatient for sunrise as I was, as when he came there was nothing more than the barest graying of the sky to indicate dawn ever had any intentions of showing up.
To my embarrassment, tears sprang to my eyes when I saw him. That was the face I’d spent almost a year memorizing, long and narrow, covered in velvety white fur, with a big black nose that I knew to be soft and cool to the touch, a thin black line of a mouth, and gray eyes that seemed just as happy to see me as I was happy to see them.
For a moment, I didn’t even wonder if he was Espen. All I could do was rush forward and throw my arms around his neck. “I missed you every single second of every day,” I whispered fervently in his soft, round ear.
“I missed you too but you’re going to strangle me,” he grunted, and I felt his voice vibrate in my chest. I squeezed him tighter for a moment and then pulled away, smiling as I surreptitiously wiped tears from my eyes. Though it was hard to be all that surreptitious when our faces were about two inches apart and he was staring at me as much as I was staring at him.
Before I realized what it was doing, part of my mind was trying to compare his human eyes to Espen’s. Espen had blue eyes and my isbjørn had gray eyes, but considering the fact that I was looking at an isbjørn and not a human being, such minor changes as different eye color could be accounted for.
I also discovered I could not recall Espen’s expressions to match them with my isbjørn’s. I tried to swallow hope and disappointment in one gulp, and it was bitter in my throat. How could I possibly endure an entir
e week of not knowing?
“How was the wedding?”
A giggle bubbled through the hope and disappointment clogging my throat at the incongruity of the question, so mundane compared to everything I was feeling and thinking. “Fine. Princess Yulia wore enough diamonds to purchase a small country, and August looked pleased as a fox with a chicken.”
His eyebrows rose, and my heart squeezed. I’d missed that expression on my isbjørn’s face. “Interesting imagery.”
I shrugged. “I think I’m prejudiced unfairly against my cousin, probably because he proposed to me and I’m offended that he found someone else to marry him so soon after that.”
His shrug matched mine in intent, though its shape was different with his sloping isbjørn shoulders. “Shall we go, then?”
A brilliant smile broke across my face. “Yes.”
He turned to let me climb onto the cloth saddle. “I’m going to go extra fast—I want to try to make it before nightfall.”
“I’ll be impressed,” I replied. “Not that I know the actual location of the castle, but you always seem to go very fast and it takes longer than that.”
Instead of answering, he began running. He still somehow was able to attend to the magic that caused his fur to wrap around my fingers and hands to hold me in place as I leaned against his neck.
I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but we actually did seem to be moving faster than usual. My battered mind couldn’t appreciate the landscape that blurred past me, all stark and snow-covered. The same questions kept circling in my mind, all centered on Espen and my isbjørn.
At some point I slipped into a restless sleep, interrupted by flickers of dreams, images that I never could see clearly enough.
It wasn’t until my isbjørn stopped moving that I woke. “We’re home.” He spoke so quietly I doubted he meant me to hear.
For a moment, I didn’t move, blinking away the darkness. Stars were strewn across the sky, brighter than they were in Edeleste. The castle was nothing but a black shadow against the stars.
I was reluctant to get off my isbjørn, tired and comfortable in his warmth. He walked inside the castle without asking me to move, and then surprised me by taking me directly to my room, stopping outside the door.
“You need to get up now, Lena,” he said softly.
I sighed into his fur. “I’m impressed.”
“I didn’t beat nightfall, it’s already late.”
“Still. You’re amazing, you know?”
“You’re more tired than I realized.” His voice was gruff. The furs holding my hands in place untied themselves, reverting to its normal length. “Go to bed. There’s bread under the cloth on your table if you’re hungry.”
I could picture my isbjørn making bread in preparation to my arrival, putting it in my room, even remembering to place it under a cloth. It made me ache to know who he was. Could he be Espen? Was Espen that thoughtful? I thought maybe he was. My tired mind couldn’t quite reason it out.
Finally I convinced myself to climb off my isbjørn. The fire was lit, I saw—he must have prepared the wood too, to be ready to light as soon as we returned. Its warmth hadn’t spread far, but it would, soon.
Once I was standing, I faced my isbjørn, staring at the floor. So many words filled my mind but I couldn’t say any of them, and only some of them due to the Binding.
He seemed just as disinclined to leave as I was to let him go, but he said nothing. The moment stretched, and I almost spoke, not sure what words would come out if let them. Before I could find out, he rumbled, “Good night, Lena. Sleep well.”
“Good night, Isbjørn.” Another moment passed and he didn’t leave. Words rose again, wanting to say something making my tongue feel heavy. Then he grunted and left.
With his presence gone, the room seemed small and bare, even with the grass on the floor and willow tree growing in the corner. They were washed-out and gray in the faint firelight.
Moving slowly, I took off my winter layers, savoring the feeling of the cool grass against my bare feet. The longer my isbjørn and his calming presence were gone, the harder my heart was pounding with the idea that wouldn’t leave my mind.
He couldn’t hold his shape sleeping.
Just one look.
Just one.
What if?
What if it was Espen?
Just one look.
I paced my room until the fire had warmed it, fingering my hair and working it into a braid, then feeling at a loss. The very idea of sleep was repulsive. Not because my eyelids weren’t heavy, they were.
I would be haunted in my dreams, I was certain of it. My mind would not rest until I knew.
I had to know.
Just one look.
When I glanced out my window, it was the darkest part of night, even the stars dark. The dark before the dawn. If I didn’t go now, I’d lose my chance.
Just one look.
My thoughts were incoherent, but my hands knew how to pick up the candle on my table, enchanted to burn long and steady. My hands lit it with a whisper of magic. My hands opened my door, and my feet walked through the doorway.
The grass we’d planted on every floor surface in the castle doubled excellently as a muffler for late-night wanderers. My footsteps were soundless as I walked through the halls.
My mental map of the castle did not fail me. I was fully aware of where my isbjørn’s room was. He’d had strong opinions when we’d filled it with plant life.
It felt like my heart was going to burst, my chest was going to collapse, my stomach was going to catch aflame. My hands, so confident when picking up the candle, trembled, the tiny flame casting dancing shadows on the walls.
His room was not far from mine. The walk was interminable, but it was terrifyingly brief. I would know. I would know, without a doubt, if my isbjørn was my Espen, lost to me so many months ago. Hope was going to scald my insides.
Opening the door nearly did cause my heart to burst.
The room beyond was swathed in darkness. He had built a fire for me but not for himself. Who was that kind? Something bright and beautiful was woven in with nerves and fear in my chest, something I was fairly certain I could name, but I had to see his face.
I saw his sleeping form, but it was a shadow, nothing discernable. Not from the doorway.
Moving so slowly it was torture, I stepped inside. Every step towards him took all the effort I had, to take the step and to not run away and to not run towards him. Slow, careful, quiet—it would be the death of me to be slow, careful, quiet.
Espen. Isbjørn. Espen. Isbjørn.
The light of the candle fell on a mask, sitting beside his table, achingly familiar and yet entirely strange. It was designed like my isbjørn’s face, long and white with a dark tip, but symbols were marked around the edges, symbols I could not make out in the dark but I wasn’t sure I could have made them out with light either. It was not Vansen made, not made in any country I was familiar with, its craftsmanship too crude and foreign.
I hardly had eyes for it. I was walking alongside his bed. His form was massive, I didn’t think Espen had been so big, but I had to see, I had to know for certain.
The light fell on his face and my heart stopped. My isbjørn laid before me, soundly asleep, a man. For a long, quiet moment, I simply stared at him. I don’t think my heart beat once that whole time. I certainly didn’t breathe. His body really was enormous under the covers, his chest and shoulders visible above it, one arm folded across his stomach and the other sprawled up by his head. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen anyone so hugely muscled.
White hair was tangled around his head, though I guessed it would be chin-length if it were combed straight. His face bore a few days’ stubble, though it didn’t hide a strong jawline and chin. Thick brown lashes brushed his cheeks, matching his brown eyebrows, lending his face entirely unnecessary intensity, though it was relaxed then.
My eyes followed his straight nose down to his mouth. It was, as shoul
d be expected, perfect, the lips neither thin nor unduly full, neither pink nor red nor white but a color that I couldn’t think of a comparison for.
Not Espen. Conclusively, certainly, undoubtedly not Espen. That made my heart plummet for the briefest second, but it didn’t stay down long. My eyes were far too busy consuming him, eating up every detail like a starving creature. He was vaguely familiar, as if I had seen him before. I couldn’t place him, though, and my mind couldn’t focus on that.
He was so like my isbjørn and so foreign all at once. I could imagine those eyebrows rising with the same questioning-my-sanity look the isbjørn wore, could imagine that nose flaring with disgust at a particularly vile cooking disaster, could imagine that mouth quirking in an unexpected smile.
The bright and beautiful woven in my chest had entirely overcome the nerves and fear, and I couldn’t help but name it.
Love.
I loved this man, my isbjørn. It was a feeling not even related to what I’d thought I felt for Espen, which I now knew must have been superficial attraction and admiration. No, this was something very deep, all-encompassing. It was made up of every memory of his smiles and the bread and fire in my room that night and how he’d saved me when I’d been drowning and his sarcasm and how much Rune adored him and how he always listened to my opinions and how patiently he’d taught me so much—more than I’d known, I realized.
I loved him. All the anxiety and fear from earlier was swept away. I was certain, confident. I loved him.
Part of me knew I was supposed to walk away now. Just one look. How long had I stood staring at him, watching him sleep?
Something entirely unplanned entered my mind, brought on with a recollection. I had never kissed Espen, as infatuated with him as I had been, I had never kissed him. I had never kissed anyone.
I wanted nothing more than to kiss my isbjørn. It seemed extremely obvious, staring at his face. His mouth. Woken with a kiss. Something from a bedtime story.
Just one kiss.
I bent over, and seeing his face closer cleared any doubts in my mind that this was the right course. Inches from him, I felt his breath on my face, soft and warm. My eyes fluttered closed and . . . I kissed him. His mouth was soft and warm as his breath on my face, and that bright and beautiful love in me turned into a sunrise, a crescendo, a wave crashing against the shore, exploding, extending, expanding.
