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Then the goblin king stepped back. “It is done.” His voice rasped.

Alexander stared at him and nodded. Between one breath and the next, his gaunt frame transformed into that of the great white bear Gytha had known first.

The bear turned to Gytha, walked around the room, and then returned to the same spot. Alexander took his human form again. “It is different,” he said breathlessly. He sagged and put a hand on the table to steady himself.

Eshkeshken stepped back, giving the two humans a moment for private conversation.

The room was so quiet that the distant grinding sound of goblin voices was heard for a moment as the speakers passed by the end of the corridor. Then the silence fell upon them again, and Alexander looked down. His long hair fell over his face, hiding his expression.

The weariness in his shoulders tugged at Gytha’s heart. “Is it too terrible?”

Alexander hesitated and then took her hand. “The king’s magic is kinder than Javethai’s was, but it is still cold and alien, like ice in my veins. The wild, fierce strength of the bear makes it easier to endure the brutal cold, but harder to remember my humanity. I forgot my home and my mind before, and I do not want to do so again.” His dark eyes searched her face. “But you are strong enough to endure it well,” he said at last. “It is not that I think it too difficult for you. It is only that I have asked so much of you already, and it is unjust to ask this too. My debt to you piles up like snowdrifts, thick and cold and heavy. I do not want you to suffer for me.”

Gytha felt the weight of his regret, his guilt, his grief, and the tenuous thread of hope that he still did not want to voice. “I have not endured what you have,” she said, choosing her wordswith care, for she did not want to hurt him. “Yet I am not easily broken, either. If Eshkeshken can make us bears together, I think we can return to your home.” She hesitated and then said, “I do want to see my family, and I think they would like to see you, too.”

The desperate longing in his voice brought tears to her eyes. “Do you think so? They must be as generous as you are, to forgive me for taking you away.”

She gripped his hands more firmly. “They will love you. You’ll see.” She took a deep breath and ignored the fear still quivering in her belly. “I am ready.”

For another moment, his haunted eyes searched her face, and then he nodded. He turned to Eshkeshken. “We are ready, Your Majesty.”

They had nearly forgotten Dakjudr was in the room too, for she had been silent and had stepped back to stand by the door while Eshkeshken transformed Alexander. They remembered her only now, when they saw her at Eshkeshken’s side. He had clasped one of her hands in his and bent to speak into her ear.

The goblin king straightened now and stepped forward, still clasping the queen’s hand. “Is it painful?” he asked Alexander. “I can make it wear off faster, I think.”

Alexander hesitated and then shook his head. “No, Your Majesty,” he said in a low voice. “I feel it, but it is not painful. It is only when I am a bear that I feel the tug of madness. Your magic is not like Javethai’s was, though it is powerful.”

Eshkeshken nodded gravely. “If it troubles you, come back to my lands, and I will remove it. But I think it would be no bad thing if you could transform when you wish, as long as the magic does not cause you suffering.”

He glanced at Dakjudr, who said, “Gytha, I wish to give you a token of friendship. You were kind to me when I was a servant. Now that I am a queen, I will give a gift worthy of thefriend of a queen.” She smiled, and her pale eyes were lit with affection. In the palm of her hand she showed Gytha a golden necklace with a single enormous diamond pendant. Then she folded it carefully into a piece of leather and slipped it among their supplies.

“That is very generous of you,” said Gytha, surprised and touched. “I didn’t expect…”

Dakjudr’s smiled widened, and her sharp white teeth glinted in the lamplight. “I know. That is why it touched me. You expected nothing in return, and still you were kind. You will always be welcome here, Gytha.”

Eshkeshken nodded. “Go in peace, humans.”

At Gytha’s nod of readiness, Eshkeshken put his cold gray hand on her shoulder. A flood of icy chill went through her like the shock of falling into a frozen pond, and she shivered, with sparkles in her vision like snowflakes swirling under the brightest sun.

Then she stood looking down at Eshkeshken. Her feet were wide, white paws, and her ears flicked. She could hear the goblin king and his queen breathing, and the great breaths of the bear beside her.

“Can I talk?” She was relieved to find that she could. She wished herself to be a human, and she transformed in a moment with a rush of icy magic. “How very strange!” she gasped. She wished herself back into bear form, and the transformation was just as quick, with a shiver that ran down her spine and through her mind.

Alexander transformed again, and the goblins put the pack on him. It would be easy to remove it once he took his human form; the straps would fall off him.

A vague memory of Eshkeshken’s words to the winds caught at Gytha’s mind and tugged at it like an insistent breeze. “Aren’t we beyond the edge of the world, east of the sun andwest of the moon, where only the wind can go?” she asked. “How can we walk to the human lands?”

Eshkeshken looked up and smiled, bright and proud. “I have my magic,” he said. “I can take you across the icy water where only the wind could go before.”

Soon they set off into the cold, dark, endless winter night. Ribbons of light danced above them as if in celebration, and Gytha thought that if they listened hard enough, they might almost hear the stars singing. The ice goblins walked side by side without talking, and the bears followed.

For many hours they walked, until at last Eshkeshken stopped. He swept one arm through the air as if sweeping an invisible tent flap aside, and ushered the others through. A slight pressure weighed upon Gytha’s fur as she strode past him, and there was a rush of icy wind upon her face.

In that moment they stepped by magic from one place to another far distant. They now stood upon a low, rocky hillside a little way above the snow-swept plains over which Alexander had carried Gytha. The goblin king pointed to the west, where the mountaintops caught the faint starlight above their shadowy sides. “Elestar is that way.” He pointed to the south. “Gytha’s home is that way, not quite so far.”

“Thank you.” Alexander shifted into his human form again, perhaps to test that he could, and also to bow to the goblin king. Gytha did so as well.

After short farewells and well-wishes, Alexander and Gytha set off toward the city he barely remembered. As bears, with the ice goblin magic in their veins, it was not difficult to run for hours, and their steps were sped by magic, so they covered miles faster than even the fastest dog sled, much less horses.