I close my eyes, not to sleep but to center myself, to regain the control that slips further with each hour she remains in my domain. Three days, I told her. Three days until the storm passes and she returns to her world.
I already suspect those three days will change everything.
5
Freya
Iwake to cold and heat simultaneously—cold along my back where it presses against something solid, heat everywhere else beneath the furs. And something heavy across my waist that definitely wasn't there when I fell asleep.
An arm. Vidar's arm.
My eyes fly open, body tensing. Somehow during the night, the careful boundary of furs between us has disappeared. We're pressed together, his chest against my back, his arm draped over me in a possessive curve. The contradiction of his icy presence and the cocoon of warmth from the furs is bizarrely pleasant.
But that's not what makes my breath catch.
What makes me freeze is what I can see in the dim morning light filtering through frosted windows. His hand, extended past my waist, rests on the furs in front of me. Except it's not entirely a hand anymore. The fingers have elongated, tipped with what look like translucent claws that catch the light like crystal. Frostpatterns spiral up his forearm, not like frost on skin but like frostwithinit, as if his veins carry winter instead of blood.
I should be terrified. I should be planning my escape from this cabin, from whateverheis. Instead, I find myself studying the patterns with a photographer's eye. The fractals are perfect, mathematical, beautiful in their precision. I've never seen anything like them—not in nature, not in art.
Slowly, I turn my head, needing to see more despite the danger.
His face is inches from mine, but it's not the face I saw yesterday. The skull-like mask I glimpsed in the storm is halfway formed, melded with his human features in a way that should be horrifying but is instead mesmerizing. The high cheekbones have sharpened, jaw elongated. His closed eyes sit deeper in his face, frost dusting his lashes. The antlers have expanded, no longer the delicate crown but branching crystalline structures that glow faintly in the dim light.
He's beautiful. Terrifying, but beautiful.
As if sensing my scrutiny, his eyes snap open. No longer ice-blue but luminous, pupils vertical like a deer's. For a heartbeat, we stare at each other, both frozen in shock.
Then chaos.
He jerks away with inhuman speed, nearly toppling from the bed. The air temperature plummets as he scrambles back, antlers scraping the ceiling. Frost explodes across every surface—windows, walls, my exhaled breath suspended in crystallized clouds.
"Don't look!" His voice is wrong—deeper, layered with harmonics that make the cabin vibrate. One hand covers his face while the other gestures frantically for me to turn away.
I don't.
"Vidar," I say, his name a tether in this impossible moment. "It's okay."
"It's not okay." The words emerge through gritted teeth—teeth sharper than they should be. "Give me a moment."
I watch, transfixed, as he struggles to regain control. The skull mask recedes slowly, painfully, flesh flowing like wax to reshape his features. The antlers shrink, the claws retract. With each change, his body shudders as if fighting itself.
When he finally looks up, his face is mostly human again, though his eyes still glow faintly.
"I apologize," he says stiffly. "That was... unintentional."
A hysterical laugh bubbles up from somewhere deep inside me. "No kidding."
His brow furrows, clearly not expecting humor. "You're not afraid."
It's not a question, but I answer anyway. "I'm terrified. But also... fascinated."
"You should run."
"Into a blizzard? Not a great survival strategy." I sit up slowly, keeping the furs around me. "Besides, if you wanted to hurt me, you've had plenty of chances."
He stares at me like I'm the impossible thing in the room. Maybe I am. Maybe normal people would be catatonic with fear right now.
"What are you?" I ask, finally voicing the question that's been building since I first saw him in the storm.
