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A crack of thunder and a blinding light made her cry out in fright, and she sat up, flinging one hand up to keep the harsh light out of her eyes.

Her visitor was slower to wake, and as he blinked in exhausted incomprehension, she saw his face clearly. A deep pink scar puckered the skin at the inside corner of his left eye and dragged down the length of his nose. His long hair was as brown as elm wood, and his eyes were brown too.

The queen’s sharp, grinding voice rang out in fury. “Foolish child!” Her eyes blazed. “Why did you not even look at him?”

With one gray hand, she reached out to Alexander, and he shrank back, keeping himself between the queen and Gytha.

He fought free of the blankets and furs and stood, though he had to get a little closer to her to put his feet on the ground. He extended one hand behind him, as if to keep Gytha away from the queen.

Light blazed from the queen’s crown so brightly that he shielded his face with his other hand. Gytha squinted, but she could not help trying to see him. He was of about her father’s height and terribly thin, and his brown hair fell in messy curls halfway down his back.

The queen cried, “I am tired of this foolish bargain! You will marry me within a fortnight, Alexander de Gracey, or I will rip out your heart and eat it in front of all my subjects.”

The young man said hoarsely, “Your Majesty, you promised…”

“I lied!” The queen’s voice cracked with fury.

“Submit to me because of the bargain or submit because of my power. I care nothing for your reasons. But submit you will, and I will have you as my own.” Her cold gray eyes flashed as she focused on Gytha.

“Idiot human. I will honor this part of our bargain, Alexander: I will leave the human child here, unharmed. Now, come, and you will see the glory and might of my kingdom. Soon you will either rule with me or die in agony.”

She caught the young man by the nape of his neck and lifted him nearly off his feet. Then she ripped a hole in the world and vanished.

The world collapsed around Gytha in a clap of thunder. She covered her ears and closed her eyes, and the last thing she remembered was rocks and ice falling upon her head.

Muffled sounds slowly brought Gytha back to awareness, but it took some time before she understood her situation. She was entirely buried in snow and ice, but someone was methodically digging somewhere above her head, producing the cold crunching of snow.

“Help!” she called, but her voice was weak. It was hard to breathe, even though there was a little space around her nose and mouth.

There was an answer, but with her hood muffling her ears and snow beyond that, she could not understand the words.

Eventually strong hands freed her head and arms and hauled her out of the snow. She staggered and would have fallen, for her legs felt weak, but Eshkeshken kept his hands on her arms, steadying her until she nodded.

“Thank you,” she said gratefully.

His gray eyes swept over her and then he nodded and stepped back. His gaze flicked to behind her shoulder, and she turned to see the ice goblin cook.

The female bowed a little and said, “I am ready.” She had a heavy pack over each shoulder, and she slung one of them off and handed it to Eshkeshken.

He nodded formally and looked back at Gytha. “Can you walk?”

“Yes.” She looked around in wonder.

In three directions, starlight glinted on ice and snow.

A short distance to the north, the vast icy tundra fell away to the sea, which shifted beneath a thick layer of broken sea ice.

The tops of the icebergs were jagged and of uneven height, so that it was difficult to imagine how one might even attempt to cross them.

Broken chunks of ice formed a low ridge some distance away, and far in the distance, outlined against the black sky, mountain peaks glittered with snow.

Besides the two ice goblins and Gytha herself, no sign of life was visible, and for all she knew, they had been transported to an entirely different world in which no life existed.

“Where are we?” she whispered. “What happened?”

The female said, “The queen put an end to her pretense of mercy.”

Eshkeshken set off west, striding over the ice with utter confidence. “Come, Gytha, if you would rescue the bear prince.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” Gytha hurried after him, feeling more at a loss than before.

The female goblin walked behind her.

“Um. My name is Gytha,” the girl offered after a moment. She had introduced herself nearly a year ago, but not since then, and it was only reasonable to assume the goblin might have forgotten it. Anyway, it was better to be unnecessarily polite than unnecessarily rude.

“Dakjudr,” the goblin said.

That was unlike any name Gytha had ever heard before. Gytha turned everything over in her mind, trying to keep from weeping as she did so. Tears would only freeze on her cheeks.

Her nighttime visitor had indeed been human, but his face had that distinctive scar. She had been right. Somehow, the human had been the bear, or the bear had been the human.

Now the queen held him prisoner and would either marry him or eat his heart. They were far from any shelter and far from wherever the queen was, as far as she could tell. What had happened to the underground prison with all the paintings and embroidery supplies and furs?

“What happened to the caves?”

“The queen unmade it,” Eshkeshken said over his shoulder. “It was only a prison, not the real palace. We must get to the palace to find her.”

“Where is it? ”

He waved a hand in the air. “East of the sun, west of the moon, where only the winds can follow.”

Gytha frowned and looked around. “Then where are we going?”

“To ask the winds for help.” He turned around and walked backward for a moment, unconcerned with the cold or uncertain footing on the wind-swept ice. “You were kind to me,” he said seriously, “when you did not know who I am. A prince repays his debts.”

“A prince?” Gytha asked, her voice trembling.

“We go to rescue your bear prince, because you care for him, and we go to kill the queen, because I can no longer countenance her rule of my people.”

“Your people?”

He smiled at her, his lips pulled back from his sharp teeth, and said softly, “My people.” Then he turned around and began to walk again. “Are you warm enough to live?”

Gytha swallowed. “Yes. Thank you for making me wear all this.”

He waved a hand in acknowledgment of her thanks, but said nothing else.

Hour after hour they walked, until Gytha was staggering with fatigue. The darkness never changed. The stars remained overhead and the sun never rose. At last Dakjudr said something that Gytha did not understand—it sounded like glass shattering—and Eshkeshken stopped. “We can rest here,” he said.

In a few minutes, they had dug out a depression in the snow and ushered Gytha into it. “It will be warm enough for you to rest.”

“What about you?” She glanced from one to the other. Their shirts were similar and fit loosely, so they fluttered in the wind, highlighting their thin, hard frames. They wore long sleeves, but their hands and faces were not flushed with cold, and they did not shiver.

“We do not suffer from the cold as you do,” Eshkeshken said. “Rest now. There are miles yet to go.”

She crawled into the hole, which was just big enough for her to be out of the wind.

She pulled her hood close around her face and listened to the wind rush past. Eshkeshken and Dakjudr spoke together quietly in their strange, rough voices, and she tried to imagine what they might be saying. She dozed.

Sooner than she expected, one of them reached down and shook her shoulder gently. “Come.”

She clambered out of her strange resting place.

Eshkeshken handed her a piece of yellow cheese. “Eat while you walk. You need strength.”

“Thank you.” Gytha turned everything over in her mind as they tramped through the snow.

Alexander’s face had been visible only for an instant, but the ugly scar down his nose was the same one that had marred the bear’s face.

Her midnight visitor, the man, was the bear who had taken her home expecting to pay for that generosity with his life.

She had known this, but still it was difficult to understand.

The bear who had promised the stranger would not touch her was the same man who had kept his distance, listening with sympathy when she wept from loneliness.

She wished she had bared her heart to him in the many hours they had spent in the dark. The darkness would have provided privacy for tears and an excuse for boldness. What ought she have said to him? She had not been brave enough.

“I know the bear is the man,” she said at last. “But why did you say he was a prince?”

Eshkeshken looked back at her in apparent surprise. “You didn’t know? The queen stole him from human lands two and a half centuries ago. She wants him for her own, because his face is handsome and his skin is warm.”

“But he will not have her?” Gytha’s voice carried a question, but she was beginning to understand.

Dakjudr said, “His heart is warm but as hard as stone toward her. How can love arise when coerced? Love must be given, not taken by force.”

Her footsteps crunched on the snow, and Gytha turned to look at her in surprise.

“What sort of queen is she?” Gytha asked.

“A usurper,” said Dakjudr darkly. “Eshkeshken has been denied his birthright for far too long.”

Eshkeshken said in a low voice, as if justifying himself, “I would have let her keep the throne if she had not been so cruel.”

“But you are the rightful ruler?” Gytha pressed.