Page 38

Once, when she was growing tired of reading by the fire, she asked him, “Was it my fault?”

He looked up at her, his eyes wide and blank.

“The servant. Was it my fault he was beaten?” Her voice trembled, and she watched his face.

He blinked slowly and then looked away. She could not interpret this. She tried to tell herself that it meant he did not blame her. But she blamed herself.

Her visitor still came at night. His footfalls were nearly silent, and he kept his distance from her as before. She wanted to talk to him, to either give or receive some comfort, but she did not know what to say. She was no longer certain that it was Alexander in his human form; she thought it was, but she was not sure. She felt unsure of many things. Did the world outside this dark underground prison still exist? Would she ever again see the faces of those she knew and loved? Would anyone know, or care, if she died in her sleep?

When Gytha, Sigrid, or Solveig had a bad dream, the other sisters would sleepily turn and snuggle closer, wrapping their arms around each other. Only in the depths of the worst winter had Gytha been fearful for long while surrounded by warmth and love. Even then, she had felt the comfort of her sisters sleeping by her side; no matter what happened, even ifthey all starved to death, they would go surrounded by love. Her mother and father would go first, and Gytha feared that far more than her own death.

This loneliness was alien and terrible. It would have been far easier to endure if she could at least hear the stranger’s voice and be sure that it was Alexander. She did not need to touch him! But if he would speak to her, she would know that she was not alone with a stranger, but enduring a trial with a kind-hearted friend.

When Magni finally returned, she did not notice at first. He slipped in the room and stood against the wall beside the door. Eventually Gytha looked up, and her eyes widened. He looked the same as before, though a bit thinner, if that was possible. She wondered that she had ever been afraid of him. He was not large, and she stood straighter than when she had first stepped into these dark halls. She was fully as tall as he was, and heavier now that she had regular meals, though he was stronger. A beating like the one he had endured would have killed any human.

When she looked at him, his eyes darted away, glancing around the room quickly. Then he looked back at her and met her eyes.

She smiled tentatively, feeling suddenly tearful again. Though she thought him strange and unnerving, she was glad he was alive.

He glanced away again, and then looked back at her and smiled carefully.

“I’m sorry,” Gytha whispered, her voice barely audible.

He blinked and then half-shrugged, a quick, awkward jerk of one shoulder. He didn’t say anything, only leaned back against the wall and watched her.

She had thought he would look different somehow, if she ever saw him again. Suffering made one look different,didn’t it? But he looked the same.

Still, somehow she read his expression differently. Perhaps that strange light in his eyes was sadness and resignation rather than cold hostility. Perhaps his attitude had changed, or perhaps she had changed.

Gytha smeared butter on the last piece of bread and slid the plate across the table toward him. “That’s for you.”

His gray eyes studied her face. He took a careful step forward and then stopped. She gestured at it again and then went to the basin to wash for bed, studiously ignoring him.

After a moment, he took another step forward, watching for her reaction. Gytha kept her back turned, noting his movement only out of the corner of his eye.

Finally he took up the bread and hesitated. At last he took a careful bite, his eyes on her. Once he decided to eat it, it was gone in moments; he barely chewed one bite before taking the next.

Still silent, he watched while she readied for bed, and turned his back to her when she slipped her dress over her head and exchanged it for the nightgown. His thin shirt pulled tight over his shoulders as he crossed his arms.

“I’m finished,” she said.

He turned back around, his gray eyes sweeping up and down her again.

Gytha was not sure exactly how or why she was so certain that her nighttime visitor was the bear Alexander in human form. It was a strange thought, and she was not sure which was his natural form; was he a bear changed to a human form for the nights, or a human changed to bear form during the day? Why was he a bear during the entire visit with her family?

Still, something about him struck her as so familiar, perhaps even comfortable, and she did not have that feeling with anyone else here.

Not once had she thought that Magni was the one who visited at night. His presence was uneasy and vaguely threatening in a way that Alexander’s had never been, even when he growled.

Besides, Magni had never shivered during the day, though his clothes were not warm. Not to mention that he was too small and light to be the body that shared her bed.

Finally she stepped closer to him, holding up the lantern to see his face better.

The gray color of his skin was not a trick of the light; he was gray from head to toe, and his skin was rougher than she had thought at first, almost like sandstone. His eyes were more lovely than she had realized. There was a pale ring of ice blue around his pupils that darkened to almost black around the outside edge.

“I am sorry,” she whispered.

He blinked and then smiled, the expression a little sad and a little ironic. “You. Are. Sorry.” The words sounded like they took effort, as if he wasn’t sure if they were the right ones, or if he was saying them correctly. His voice sounded like stones grinding together, low and cold and sharp.