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“Oh, Gytha,” he said in a strangled voice. “When you put your hands in my fur that day, it was the first time in centuries that a hand touched me without intending to cause pain. I think I fell in love with you that very instant.”

She felt the pain and exhaustion and despair in his embrace. He shivered and his head sagged.

“Am I hurting you?” she whispered.

“I don’t mind at all.” He made a strange, choked sound and she realized it was a laugh, rough and unpracticed. “I am utterly yours.”

For some minutes they sat in silence with their arms around each other. Their embrace was the furthest thing from passionate, but there was love in it.

Chapter 16

Before Gytha was ready to be interrupted, there was a preemptory knock on the door and Iphreshken entered. “His Majesty has used his magic to make you food you might prefer. He commands you eat and be strengthened.”

At the sound of the goblin’s voice, Gytha felt Alexander tense almost imperceptibly. But he said only, “Thank you,” his voice raw and exhausted. The tension remained in his shoulders as Iphreshken put an enormous platter in front of them.

Fresh bread, a pot of creamy herbed butter with a tiny knife, slices of raw fish, a pile of cooked greens, and pieces of steaming, savory sausage filled the air with delicious scents. The ice goblin nodded to them and retreated without another word. This spread seemed to recall both the familiar tastes of Gytha’shome and the more exotic tastes of the magically-procured food of the underground prison.

“You should eat,” Alexander said, and his voice was strange and rough with emotion.

Gytha withdrew a little and studied his face. “You should, too,” she said gently.

Alexander’s dark eyes searched her face, and finally he nodded. “If you wish it,” he murmured.

For several moments there was only silence. Finally Gytha said, “Eat a bite, Alexander.”

Her heart twisted with grief and compassion as she watched him eat. He said little, only looking up at her several times questioningly.

At last, when he had settled with his elbows on his knees and his head hanging down, she said softly, “You must be tired. You can sleep if you need to.”

“I am tired,” he admitted reluctantly, and he straightened with effort he could not hide. “But I am troubled. I brought you here to the end of the world, and I do not know how to return you to your home.”

“I am sure the king will help us. For now, we should rest, so that when the time comes, we are ready to travel.”

Soon the goblins brought them more thick furs, both to use as blankets and already sewn into clothes that would keep them warm in the cruelest blizzard.

Once they were wearing this attire, they slipped beneath the furs and slept, together but not touching. To Gytha, this seemed like the only familiar thing in the world. Alexander slept like the dead, and if he trembled at times in his sleep, she knew it was not because he was freezing.

The goblins invited them to explore the city, promising that they would be safe and treated with utmost courtesy. Nevertheless, Alexander and Gytha stayed mostly in the one relativelywarm room. Alexander volunteered little of his story to Gytha over the following days, and so eventually she began to probe, little by little.

“Nothing I say can make your life better,” he said, his dark eyes holding hers. “Why are you so kind to me, when I have brought you nothing but pain?”

“I wish you would not scorn yourself so easily,” Gytha said fiercely. “You brought my family hope in our despair, and you brought me the opportunity to do what was right and good in the face of my own fear.”

Alexander swallowed and looked down for a moment before meeting her eyes again. “You have not repented of that kindness and courage yet? Even now?”

“Not at all.” Gytha bit her lip as she studied his face. He was still gaunt and hollow-eyed, with a strange, haunted look that made her heart turn over with sympathy.

When he looked away again, she said, “We cannot stay here; this place is too cold for us, and it is neither your home nor mine. So when shall we leave, and shall we go to your home or mine?” She wanted to go to her home, of course, but she could not bear the thought of telling him what to do. He had been a prisoner for so long that she felt it important to give him a choice, even in this.

“I have no home anymore.” His voice was bleak. He took a deep breath and smiled, the expression somehow both sad and hopeful. “But I would count it an honor to see your family again, and if you still have not repented of your decision, to marry you in the sight of all whom you love.”

The sweetness of his smile caught at her heart, and she said, “I will not repent of it.”

For quite some time, they stayed with the ice goblins. Though they had more furs, it still seemed reasonable to sleep on the same pallet, though neither of them was bold enough to touch the other once they turned down the lamp. They did, however, talk in the darkness, and their conversations had a careful, hope-filled sweetness that left Gytha smiling as she drifted into dreams. Time was as strange and unmoored from dark and light and sleep and waking as it had been in that unground prison, only there was no need to even attempt to count the days. It might have been a week or a month; neither of them could tell, and they did not try.

Neither did Alexander develop much interest in exploring the icy city. He said he had seen the streets before and had no wish to see either the streets or most ice goblins again. But he did accompany Gytha out several times to a secluded courtyard where they watched the ephemeral ribbons of color dance across the sky, streaks green, gold, pink, and blue.

Eshkeshken came several times to speak with them, to apologize for the slowness of his opposition to Javethai the Usurper and to offer his assistance in their return to the human lands. The goblin king did not change his simple attire much with his new status; his clothes were less threadbare but no more ostentatious than what he had worn as a servant. The only visible sign of his royalty was a thin silver circlet upon his head. The metal was unpolished and set with only a single white gem, and the dull metal was so close in color to that of his hair that the crown did not draw much attention.