Page 11

The female servant glanced at her again and turned away.

She pulled a plate from a cabinet and cut several fat slices of golden cheese, which she arranged in a neat curve.

She added purple carrots, which contrasted beautifully with the rich cheese and the smooth white of the plate.

The servant pulled a steaming loaf of bread from an oven Gytha had not noticed, sliced an enormous piece from the end, and put it on the already-full plate.

She pushed it toward Gytha without a word.

“Thank you,” the girl said, sincerity filling her voice.

The servant’s gray eyes flicked over her face, as if she were vaguely startled, and then she nodded. She pointed to a small wooden table for two and chairs in the corner. Gytha sat and ate. Her escort folded his arms and stood near her, watching the other servant return to her work.

“Thank you,” Gytha said again when she had finished eating. “May I know your name?”

The servant shook her head and did not look up.

“Well, thank you for the food.” It felt silly to keep saying the same thing, but it was always better to be overly polite than not polite enough. Even, or perhaps especially, to magical beings who might be dangerous.

Gytha continued her exploration of the underground palace, for it was more expansive and varied than any palace or castle she had ever imagined.

There was a great hall with a vaulted ceiling that soared so high above her head she could not pick out the details of it at all, except to see that it glowed a soft blue that permeated the room with a cold, clear light. The walls gleamed with rough crystal.

Another room was entirely given over to painting.

Three easels of different types stood in a row, and one of these held a half-finished painting of a small village that seemed familiar.

Gytha stopped, puzzled, before she realized that it was her village as it might appear from one of the hillsides to the north, looking south over the little valley where the houses nestled among the snowy trees.

She had never stood in that exact spot, but she had walked lower on the same hillside.

The narrow street in the center of town looked more crooked, and the lodges more jumbled together, from this perspective.

There weren’t enough buildings for even a child to get lost. She found her own lodge among the trees some distance from town, and then the paths to the river, barely discernible as shadowy trails in the white snow beneath the trees.

As she moved the lantern closer to the canvas, the exquisite detail astonished her. There was Fastulfr with his thick fur cloak, striding up the path to his lodge with a brace of hares dangling from one hand. There was Tryggvi with his draught horse that he hired out sometimes.

Gytha blinked and drew back. The painting was beautiful, but it wasn’t real.

Her family’s lodge looked comfortable and cozy, which it was, but the painting seemed to depict some imaginary time in which her family had not been plagued by bad harvests, bad hunting, hunger, and illness.

All the pain and sorrow were gone from the picture, leaving only the joy.

Forgetting the servant, she stepped past the easel to look at the other canvases stacked against the wall.

There were dozens of them, with more piled in an alcove she had not previously noticed.

The next painting was very different, showing a breathtaking panorama of mountains, valleys, and rivers.

Green trees, crystalline lakes, grass, ferns, rocks, cliffs, and snow were all painted with loving attention to detail.

Every color was exact, every curl of every blade of grass was both realistic and unrealistically perfect, as if no pain or sorrow ever touched this magnificent land.

Only after admiring it for some time did Gytha notice a tiny figure in the bottom right corner.

A small white bear stood with his head down staring into a lake.

Though the mountains and clouds above were reflected, there was no reflection of the bear.

Another painting, and another, and another.

One showed a youth with short, dark brown hair and a crimson cloak standing on the balcony of a palace built into a steep cliff face overlooking choppy, sunlit water, rich with turquoise and indigo hues that stood out with startling clarity.

In the distance, the water met the sky, as if the water would reach to the end of the world.

The youth’s face was turned away, so that the painting mostly showed his dark hair and very edge of his jaw as he looked toward the horizon. Who was he?

The paintings, despite their undeniable skill and beauty, had a melancholic, lonely feel. Gytha glanced at the servant and almost asked him who the artist was, but she could not bring herself to speak.

The servant had vertical pupils like a cat. His silence was unnerving.

She flipped several canvases forward to look at those farther back. A youth, perhaps the same as before but without the cloak, brandished a narrow sword at a figure that looked like the servant beside her.

Gytha looked over her shoulder at the servant and back at the picture, trying not to show that she had noticed the similarity. The servant grabbed her arm and pulled her away, pushing the canvas back among the others with his other hand.

“Ow!” she cried.

The servant smiled placatingly, not showing his teeth, and edged between her and the finished paintings in the alcove. He gestured toward the room and bowed slightly, somehow both humbly agreeable and menacing.

Gytha sidled away from him, trying to keep her heart from pounding. His hand was as cold and hard as ice, and his touch had sent a chill of fear through her whole body .

He followed her into the hall and to another door.

“Where is the bear?” she asked.

There was no answer, and when she looked back at him, he ducked his head politely and said nothing. So she swept on, trying to be brave. She found another empty room.

Then at last she found a room that might have been lived in. It was larger than hers, but not by much. There was a bed, a well-used fireplace, a desk and parchment, and a separate bathing chamber with an enormous tub set into the stone floor.

“Where is the bear?” she repeated, and received only silence as her answer. She turned back to the corridor and started toward her own room.

Then she felt the bear’s presence behind them and stopped so suddenly the servant bumped into her. He stepped back, ducked his head, and said nothing, neither a word of anger nor an apology.

The corridor was scarcely wide enough for the bear to pass by her, but he hardly glanced at her as he passed. Gytha felt it like a sting, a slap in the face, and she was angry.

Tears filled her eyes, and she swallowed. The anger passed, and then she became afraid, for if the bear was not her friend in this place, then she had no friends at all.

But he was the reason she had come, and the anger returned, and she was both afraid and angry. She stuffed both feelings down in her heart and lifted her chin in a rush of proud determination not to show her fear.

She followed the bear down the hall, though she could feel his disapproval with every step.

He turned down another corridor, and at last the narrow space opened to another spacious hall.

The room was golden, with gold inlaid on every visible stone surface, and tapestries of green and gold and scarlet covered the walls.

The floor was covered in thick carpets of blue and green with many glittering golden threads.

Light filled the room, spilling from crystal and gold lamps like liquid sunlight.

Far overhead sparkling chandeliers lit the vaulted ceiling.

The room was dazzling, and Gytha breathed a sigh of relief. She had not realized until then how oppressive the darkness felt, as if the whole crust of the earth pressed upon her.

The bear stood some distance away looking toward her, and when she met his gaze, he growled softly, so low that she could barely hear him.

Over the low menace of his growl was the sound of bells and ice cracking, and the queen swept toward her. Her face glittered in the light, and her slender hands were as strong as steel and cold as ice when she touched Gytha’s cheek.

“So beautiful! She’s so warm, bear. You are right!” She smiled triumphantly.

Her teeth were pointed!

Gytha tried to be brave, but she felt her heart pounding again.

The queen swept her toward a dais at the far end of the room.

So many other objects and surfaces glittered that Gytha only now noticed the gilded throne upon the dais.

The seat and back were upholstered in short, dark fur which Gytha did not recognize, and the arms and legs gleamed gold.

Below the throne were steps hewn of the pale stone, with a decorative edge carved into the front of each one.

The queen dropped Gytha’s arm as she sailed up the steps. She flung herself into the chair with a sigh and crossed her long legs. “Sit there!” Her voice was hard and sharp.

She pointed at the steps in front of her, and Gytha sank to sit on the second step from the top, careful not to sit on the queen’s robes.

There was another chair beside her throne, slightly plainer but still glittering with gold. Gytha wondered whether it was for her king and whether she would meet him. The thought set her heart racing again, and she twisted her hands together in her lap.

The queen’s robes splayed out across the chair and down the steps, many layers of silk and fur. None of the layers were wool, and the fur seemed to be only for ornamentation, not warmth; the dress left her long arms and her throat bare. She did not seem to mind the cold.

“Sit still!” She jabbed at Gytha with the point of one sharp shoe, and Gytha swallowed her protest.

“Bear!” The queen’s voice rang out like shattering glass. “Dance for me!”