“Why?” I demanded, looking up at the mist. “You tell me why, right now!”
But there was no answer. The mist just swirled its endless gray clouds. Blocking me from my only home. My family, my friends, completely walled off from reach.
Despair settled like a heavy weight in my stomach. What came next? Should I head back to Arendelle, keep living the lie? Leave everything I ever knew and loved behind? Become someone else entirely?
Daughter of Greta and Torra. Whoever they were.
I sat up, rubbing my sore ankle. I stared bitterly at the mist. “You couldn’t have given me one more person?” I growled. “Even one?” Why did I have to be the only Northuldra to escape?
Because you chose another path, I imagined it saying back to me. You chose to save your enemy.
I scowled at the fog. “What was I supposed to do?” I demanded. “Just leave him there to die?”
If the mist had an answer, it chose not to share it with me.
I wrapped my arms around my chest, shivering. The sun had risen, but its early morning rays were barely visible behind thick storm clouds. It would snow again soon; I could smell it in the air. The temperature had dropped further and the wind had picked up, icy blasts stinging my cheeks and nose. I needed to get back to the orphanage before my absence was noticed.
Gritting my teeth against the sure pain, I tried again to rise to my feet. But my ankle wasn’t having it, forcing me to collapse back onto the cold, hard ground.
In the distance, a wolf howled, followed by another.
Desperate, I lifted my voice to the sky, attempting to call for Gale. “Ah ah ah ah!”
The Wind Spirit had always been there for me in the past. Swooping in to save me anytime I found myself in a mess.
But that day my repeated calls went unanswered. And only an angry, unfriendly wind howled through the trees, chilling me to the bone. Was Gale also trapped behind the mist? Or was the Wind Spirit simply angry at me?
The thought made me sad. In so many ways, the Wind Spirit had been my best friend. My only true friend. Had it really abandoned me? Would it ever return?
Would I be alive when it did?
Only Ahtohallan knows….
My mother’s voice rose once again in my heart as I stared out at the impenetrable mist. A crushing despair began to weigh on my chest. Everyone I ever loved was there behind that wall. And I was stuck on the outside, utterly alone.
But I was not dead yet.
Grimacing, I forced myself to my hands and knees, ignoring the pain shooting up my leg. I began a halting crawl around the unforgiving surroundings, scooping up piles of leaves and tiny sticks and gathering them into a small pile. I reached into my satchel, thankful I’d at least remembered to bring my flint. Back home, I’d simply have called for Bruni, the Fire Spirit, to help me light my flame. But the elders insisted we also learn to make a spark the human way, just in case Bruni—whose temper could be as hot as its fire—wasn’t in the mood to give aid. Or, you know, trapped behind a magical mist in this case. Thankfully I’d paid attention.
Huddling by the tiny pile, I struck the flint together as I had been taught to do. At first nothing happened. Then there was a spark of light that died quickly on leaves damp with the first breath of snow. Finally, I managed to create a small flame with a single dry leaf. The flame spread to the next leaf and then a twig. The crackling sound was a merry contrast to the desolate setting.
I had a fire. A tiny one—Bruni would have smiled at its feeble flame—but it was better than nothing. I held my freezing hands over it, warming them as best I could. As the heat from it spread through my fingertips, a small shred of hope rose in my heart. The wolves in the distance howled again, but I ignored them this time, instead drowning out their voices with a song of my own.
Until I heard a noise behind me.
I CLAMPED MY MOUTH SHUT, WHIRLING around, my heart in my throat at the sudden sound. A heavily cloaked figure rode into view astride a tall white horse. At first I thought it must be an illusion—the kind of hallucination one might see before freezing to death. But when I blinked, the figure was still there.
It was Agnarr.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said with a bashful grin.
Emotion flooded me before I could stop it. He’d come! He’d actually come. Not that I’d needed him, of course, I scolded myself. Obviously. I wasn’t some damsel in distress from one of those Arendellian books, in need of rescue from a handsome prince.
Still, I couldn’t stop the fountain of joy from bubbling up inside me as I watched him approach on his horse. I wasn’t alone anymore.
I gasped as he climbed down from the horse and strode toward me.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his smile fading as he got closer to me and observed my swollen ankle. My pathetic little fire.
“I’m fine,” I shot back quickly, though it was obvious I wasn’t. “I thought you weren’t coming,” I added. “I thought they wouldn’t let you leave the castle.”
“Eh.” He shrugged. “I figured in this case it might be better to ask forgiveness than permission.” His mouth quirked. “Besides, everyone probably thinks I’m holed up in my room with a good book, as usual. They won’t start looking for me for ages.”
I watched as he walked over to the mist, dragging a hand across its surface, his eyes as wide as saucers. “So, this is it,” he marveled. “The magical mist everyone’s been talking about.”
“Don’t try to walk through it,” I warned him ruefully. “It may look like mist, but it’s solid as rock.”
“Did you walk around it? See if there were any openings?”
I shook my head. “But if there were, people would have come out by now, right? They would have made their way back to Arendelle.”
“Yeah.” His smile faded. “I guess you’re right.”
Another gust of wind blew through the clearing and I shivered violently, the cold seeping into my bones despite the warmth of the fire. Agnarr noticed immediately and abandoned the mist, walking over to me and pulling off his thick woolen cloak, then draping it over my shoulders.
“You’ll be cold,” I protested.
He waved a hand. “The cold never bothers me.”
“Liar,” I accused as his body betrayed him with a fierce, all-consuming shiver. He grinned sheepishly.
“Okay fine. I hate the cold. But I’m not taking back my cloak.”
“Then come share it with me,” I said, beckoning him over. “This thing is huge. Surely it can warm us both.”
Something flashed across Agnarr’s face that I didn’t quite recognize, but after a moment’s pause, he relented and dropped down to join me by the fire, crawling under the thick fabric I held open and wrapping it around his body. I could feel his shoulder press up against mine, and a strange sensation wormed through my stomach. Back home, my family had always huddled together on cold nights, using our shared body heat to keep warm. This was no different, right?
Except somehow it was. It felt a lot different.
“Scooch in,” I said jokingly, trying to ease the sudden tension. It was what we used to say back home. “There’s plenty of room for two.”
“I’m not surprised,” he replied, inching us closer to the fire. “It was my father’s cloak. He was a large man.”