Winter Lost

I had a vision of a five-year-old Zane standing on the railing of a balcony that was on some sort of skyscraper. I could see the other tall buildings around him; a few were higher, but he could look down on most of the city. I knew that he was deciding if he should jump or not. If he jumped, would his parents be forced to have another child? Someone else who would have to bear the weight of their ancestors? Then that chance was over, his nanny wrapping her arms around him and pulling him off the railing. She was shaking and crying.

“Meeting someone would be dangerous?” someone asked—and I realized it was me. And that I was asking why Zane and Liam both thought that him running around in the storm was dangerous for other people.

“Hello, there,” Adam murmured. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

“That’s pretty optimistic,” I muttered. If I spoke any louder, my head would explode. “Let’s say conscious.”

“I could be satisfied with conscious,” he admitted.

“Hello, Mercy Hauptman,” said the stranger. “I’m Zane Heddar.”

“The groom,” I said—which was better than “Yes, I know.” As soon as I spoke, I realized I’d almost forgotten that we needed to do more than just get the artifact. There had to be a marriage. “You made it. Congratulations.”

There was a pause. I think they were waiting for me to pull my head away from Adam so I could see the person I was greeting. I didn’t know if looking would make my understanding of him deeper—and I had no desire to find out.

“Zane came in to save the day when Garmr—the hound—proved resistant to my attempt to destroy him,” Adam said.

And I felt Zane’s puzzlement, because he knew Garmr. The creature he’d driven off hadn’t been the way he remembered Garmr.

I knew that. Because I knew what Hrímnir had given Garmr. Receiving gifts from Hrímnir was apparently worse than receiving a gift from one of the fae. Dangerous gifts.

“Mercy?” Adam said, and I felt him tug at our bond.

I tightened my fingers—and tightened my hold keeping the tie between us closed. “Headache,” I told him. Truth. “I don’t want to make you hurt.” Also the truth—even if I wasn’t going to be able to avoid that.

“To your question about why my encountering anyone while I was running here—”

—a long, cold run, longer than he’d ever done before. The consequences of failure were so high that he fought past exhaustion into a white space where magic supplied his muscles—

“As a white stag,” I said, comprehending the problem.

There was a surprised silence.

Pretend to be normal, I chided myself. White stags. I remembered a couple of stories about white stags. “Any human who sees the white stag will hunt it until they die.”

“I was beginning to wonder if I was the one doomed to run around until I died,” said Zane—and I realized he was talking to the whole room, not just me. This wasn’t a repeat of a story. “I got stuck trekking fruitlessly around the mountains. It was frustrating as hell. I knew where the hot springs were.” There was a hollow sound as he hit something—his chest, maybe. “But I kept getting turned around—and then, about twenty minutes before I ran into you, I was allowed in.”

“Hrímnir?” asked Liam.

Oh yes, I thought dreamily. Because Garmr could have killed me—would have killed me if he’d been allowed to.

I knew that without the artifact, the frost giant’s control of his dog was not without limits. He would not have been able to stop Garmr from killing me. Hrímnir would have known that. He must have timed Zane’s arrival. But the frost giant didn’t know exactly why Garmr would want me dead, because Hrímnir didn’t understand what he’d done to Garmr. I did. I understood because no matter what form I wore—I could die.

Timor mortis conturbat me, I thought muzzily, unsure where I was getting the phrase from, my memories or the memories of someone in the room—but I knew what it meant. Hrímnir did not.

Zane, not a participant in my inner dialogue, said, “I can only suppose.”

I didn’t remember what question he was answering.

He added, “But just because I’m here in time doesn’t mean we’re in the clear.”

He was the groom, and he was here. Necessary. Right. My efforts to appear normal were doomed to failure. I needed a plan B and I couldn’t think.

“We need the lyre,” said Liam.

“Yes,” I said, my voice sounding oddly muffled. I realized my face was still pressed into Adam. His hands were threaded through my hair in a way I’d usually have noticed earlier. “Or harp. Depending apparently on which side of the wedding we’re talking about. If Hrímnir doesn’t have the lyre in his hands during your marriage, then Garmr is freed and the world ends.” I paused. “Poor Garmr. It’s tough being a good dog.”

“Who have you been talking to?” Adam asked, sounding concerned. I definitely wasn’t doing a good job of acting normal.