“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Gryla said, narrowing her eyes. “You’re no better. Lazy beast. You used to terrify villages. Now you nap, eat smoked fish, and hiss at delivery drones.”
The cat blinked, unimpressed.
Gryla leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand. “It’s Gunnar I worry about the most,” she admitted softly. “My quiet one. Always brooding, always carving things instead of speaking to people. A craftsman’s heart, a warrior’s strength. And the social skills of a snowdrift.”
She sighed again. “Handsome, though. If he’d just stop glowering long enough for someone to notice. Well, that and leave his cave once in a while.”
The Yule Cat made a chuffing sound that might have been agreement.
“I’ve tried everything,” Gryla continued, ticking off fingers. “Love charms. Dream visions. Sending him to festivals. He just grunts, buys lumber, and comes home with another chair.” She glared at the cat. “A chair, Ketty. Not a woman. A chair.”
The cat meowed as if she found this hilarious.
“Well,” Gryla said, straightening in her chair, “enough is enough. If my sons won’t find love on their own, I’ll simply have to assist.”
She rose, and the cave seemed to stretch with her, shadows climbing the walls as her magic stirred. Snow fell softly outside, then harder, swirling like a thousand glittering feathers.
“Maybe,” she mused, her eyes twinkling, “he just needs a little motivation. A storm, perhaps. A lost traveler. Someone with a warm heart and a stubborn streak.”
She waved her hand, and the fire dimmed, replaced by a flurry of glowing embers that danced like snowflakes. A vision shimmered in the flames. A human woman, bundled in a red coat, trudged through the Icelandic wilds with determination and truly terrible footwear.
“Ah,” Gryla said, smiling. “Perfect. A mortal artist, no sense of direction, and a penchant for picking up rocks. He’ll never know what hit him.”
The Yule Cat yawned again.
“Oh hush,” Gryla said, swirling her cocoa. “It’s for his own good. I’m tired of brooding silence and woodworking metaphors. My boy needs love. A storm should do it.”
She lifted her mug in a toast to herself and took a long sip.
“Let’s see you carve your way out of this one, my dear Gunnar,” Gryla said with a grin. “Mother knows best.”
Chapter
One
The cave was blessedly quiet.
Only the soft crackle of the hearth broke the silence, firelight licking the carved runes along the walls, their faint glow shifting like lazy lightning bugs in the dim. Gunnar liked it that way—peaceful, predictable, and absolutely devoid of his brothers.
He ran the edge of his knife along a length of rowan wood, shaving curls that caught the firelight. The scent—sharp and clean, like winter air—rose around him. Rowan was a tree of protection, or so the humans said. Gunnar mostly liked how it cut beneath his hands, smooth and true, but he supposed there was poetry in a troll crafting charms from a tree meant to ward off monsters.
He’d carved thirteen this winter alone. His mother would call that avoidance therapy. He called it productive, not that he did much with his carvings.
Gunnar wiped the blade on a rag and held the charm up to the firelight. A rough little troll face stared back at him—horns crooked, mouth set in a permanent scowl. “Accurate,” he muttered, setting it aside with the others.
That was when the frost began to creep across the walls.
“By the stones, not again,” he grumbled, dropping his knife.
The temperature plummeted. Flames hissed. A swirl of icy mist coalesced by the entrance, and before Gunnar could so much as swear properly, his mother swept into the cave in a storm of snow and drama—followed by her hissing cat, Ketty.
The damned beast hated him and all his brothers, though maybe because they’d tormented the cat when they were in their terrible teen centuries. But the cat gave as good as she got, really. Gunnar had the scars to prove it.
“Out,” he growled, pointing toward the cave mouth. “No cats. I’ve just cleaned the furs.”
Ketty’s eyes glowed like twin embers as she ignored him completely, leaping onto his workbench and swatting one of his rowan charms onto the floor with deliberate spite.
“Perfect,” he muttered. “Another one for the firewood pile.”
