The Impostor Queen

  This is a thing I never thought I’d experience, yet something I have imagined more than a few times. I know that Oskar and I are friends—that he appreciates what I do for him and cares for me because I do it—but for a moment I close my eyes and pretend. His other hand is on my waist, and one of my feet is tucked between his calves. I inhale his scent, wood smoke, sweat, and something crisp and fresh that I can only think of as the purest kind of ice. It fills me with the crazy desire to curl my fingers into the fabric of his tunic, to press my lips to his skin and taste him.

  I can’t help but think he would taste delicious.

  I should move, but I can’t quite summon the will. I want this to go on and on.

  I should be cold, molded against the body of a powerful ice wielder, but heat is rushing through my veins. My body tightens, curving into him, edging closer. I’m not sure what I’m seeking, but I crave it like I’ve never craved anything before.

  The slow swish of Oskar’s breath falls silent. For the barest instant, his fingers tighten in my hair. And then he turns on his side, rising on his elbow. His hair hangs down, shadowing his features as his face hovers above mine. But I feel his eyes on me. Trembling, I reach up and touch the tiny bow in the center of his upper lip. His breath gusts warm over my fingertips as he begins to lower his head.

  “Don’t mind me,” Freya says cheerfully as she pops out of her chamber. “Wouldn’t want to interrupt.” She strides out of the shelter, probably headed for the relief chamber.

  Oskar sits up abruptly, tugging his cloak around his body as he peels himself from my side. He rises from the floor, scrubbing his hand over his face. “I, ah . . . I should . . . yes. I should.” He walks out of the shelter, leaving me sitting on the floor, my hair a mess, my heart thumping in my once again hollow chest.

  Freya returns a few minutes later and sits next to me by the smoldering fire. “You didn’t think you were fooling me, sneaking out every night?”

  I pull one of the fur blankets over my lap, twining my fingers in the soft pelt. “I guess I did.”

  Freya’s dark-brown hair is loose and wavy, and she has her skinny legs pulled to her chest under her thick woolen nightgown. “You’re not very stealthy.”

  “Are you angry?” I swallow hard and look over my shoulder at the curtain of pelts that covers Maarika’s chamber.

  “She knows, Elli.” Freya tosses a stray bit of wood onto the fire. “But Oskar’s been happier in the last few weeks than he’s been in a long time. It’s hard to be angry about that.” She snorts. “I can think of a few people who might be, though.”

  “Oskar and I aren’t . . .” I have no idea what we aren’t. Or what we are. But I have the niggling fear that what happened between us just now might have complicated everything. And despite that, I want to relive it over and over. To understand. To savor.

  Freya pokes my arm. “Oh, sure you aren’t. I might be ten, but I’m not stupid.”

  I laugh. “Well, lucky for you. I’m sixteen, and right now I feel really stupid.” I get to my feet and grab one of the empty pails. “I’m going to fetch some water.”

  Oskar’s little sister gives me a saucy, raised-eyebrow look. “Make sure Aira’s nowhere nearby when you do. She just might push you in.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Something tugs on my toe, and I jerk my foot away. Then it catches my ankle and pulls, and I emerge from sleep all at once. Oskar’s shape fills the gap in the curtain. “Elli,” he whispers.

  “I’m coming.” And full of relief—Oskar never came back to the shelter last night, and I was afraid he didn’t want to sleep next to me anymore.

  But when I clumsily crawl out of the little chamber, I notice Oskar’s wearing his boots. “Where have you been?” I ask, trying to sound casual. “Is everything all right?”

  He rubs the toe of his boot over a loose stone. “It’s a thaw today. Unseasonably warm.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I can feel it coming.” He gives me a half smile. “I was wondering if you wanted to go for a walk.”

  My eyebrows rise. I’ve gone hunting with him a few times in the past week, mostly on the wickedly cold days when I feel worried for him out in the snow, alone with no heat to guide him home. The pain that gnaws at my scarred knuckles for hours afterward is worth it—if I hold his hand, he weathers it better. But why would he need me on a warm day?

  Why am I asking so many questions? The only one that matters is: do I want to go with him?

  “Give me a moment.” I cram my feet into my boots—I have my own pair now, which Oskar acquired from Jouni’s father in exchange for a wolf pelt and several pounds of elk meat. I scurry to the relief chamber, do my business, then run down the trail to the rushing stream, where I splash my face. By the time I return, Oskar’s ready to go. He wraps my cloak around my shoulders—another new possession, this one from Senja in exchange for four white hare pelts to make a wrap for Kukka. Oskar hands me a dry biscuit, which I eat as we hike out of the cave. On the way, he lights a torch in the cinders of the smoking central fire pit, and we march up the trail.

  Oskar was right—even though it’s still dark out, the air is beautifully cool instead of bitterly cold. “We’ll have a good melt today,” he says. “The last weeks have been awful. I’m wondering if the Valtia has finally decided to offer us some warmth.”

  I stop dead, grief weighing me down as the faces of Sofia and Mim roll to the front of my mind. It’s followed closely by guilt—what right have I to be as happy as I’ve been without thinking of them, and of the people? All we’ve heard over the past weeks from the cave dwellers who sneak into the city is that Kupari is falling into chaos. Crime in the streets, constables accepting bribes, riots in the markets, farmers with sharpened scythes fighting off hungry citizens, and rage simmering in the hearts of the people. Toward the copper-hoarding priests. Toward the absent queen.

  Could they have found her, the true Valtia? Could this be the solution to everything? “Amazing,” I whisper. It is at once a pang of sadness and a burden lifted from my shoulders. “You’re sure?”

  “It’s not a seasonal warmth,” Oskar says. “This is the coldest month of the year. It has to be magic. The Valtia must be putting her grief aside, thank the stars.”

  “I would think you’d despise her. Didn’t your mother flee from the city to prevent you from being taken to the temple?”

  Oskar nods. “But I have no quarrel with the Valtia herself.”

  “The priests, though?”

  Oskar kicks a stone that’s sticking up out of the melting snow. “Well, let’s just say I have no desire to be one of them. I’ve always wondered what it’s like, locked away in that temple. I hear the Saadella never goes outside except for the planting and harvest ceremonies, and the Valtia emerges only slightly more often. How can that be good for a person?”

  I pull my cloak tight around me. “Maybe, if she never knows what it’s like, she doesn’t know to miss it.”

  He grunts. “Like a wild beast living in captivity. I think, within its soul, the creature knows it’s missing something.”

  The words strike me in the chest. I can’t help but think of old Nectarhand, the fat, lazy grizzly who could barely walk, and I wonder what he might have been like if he had the entire north woods as his home. And then I think of how much I’ve changed in the last six weeks, and how for the twelve years before that, all my needs and whims were met without me ever having to ask. “But it’s living in a gilded cage, most certainly,” I murmur.

  “A gilded cage is still a cage. I have to have the sun, and the trees and the grass. I want to come and go as I please.”

  I smile. “You don’t sound like that little boy who wanted to stay inside by the fire all the time, carving wooden animals. Though you’re still good at it.” I’ve kept that little carved dove tucked away under my pillow, where I can look at it whenever I want.

  He chuckles, his cheeks darkening. “Well, I didn’t have much choice, once we left the city.
But in the summer I rarely seek shelter. It feels so good to be out here in the heat.” His smile is as bright as a sunrise. “It feels like summer to me today.”

  We reach the start of the marshlands, strands of stiff grass poking from the snow. The sun hasn’t yet emerged, but it’s beginning to spread pink, purple, and orange streaks across the sky. Oskar turns to the southeast and walks toward the light, shortening his long strides so that I can comfortably stay beside him.

  “What are we hunting?” I finally ask. The caverns are over a rise to our right and down a steep drop. One little boy tried to take that shortcut a few weeks ago and broke both his legs. We needed Raimo, but of course the old man couldn’t be found. “We’ve never gone this way before.”

  Oskar purses his lips. “I wanted to show you something.” He leads me around a bend and veers off the main trail, hiking the slope of the craggy hill that conceals our caverns from prying eyes. After several minutes, he points his torch at a jumble of boulders. “I thought maybe . . . you’d enjoy the sunrise.”

  My brow furrows as I look up at him. “You brought me out here to see the sun come up?”

  Anxiety flashes in Oskar’s eyes. “We don’t have to. I just think it’s rather pretty and—”

  “No, it’s lovely.” It’s also completely confusing.

  He searches my face. “Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  He grins and takes my hand, tugging me toward the boulders at a pace that requires me to jog just to keep up. When we reach them, it’s apparent that someone has cleared all the snow off them. They’re dry and smooth and waiting. Oskar plants his torch in a crack in the rock and boosts me up onto a squat boulder with a relatively flat top, then climbs up after me. We sit next to each other, our legs hanging down, facing the rising sun. I am a jangling mess of nerves and puzzlement as his hip nudges mine.

  “I watch it from here, some mornings before I go hunting,” he says. “This is the best spot.”

  I stare at the horizon as a line of orange seeps up from the ground and spreads itself thin over the land. At first it looks so fragile, so easy to smother or stamp out, but then a golden dome of sun rises up, relentless and unstoppable. Like magic inside a new Valtia, I think sadly. It’s a sensation I’ll never know. I didn’t expect to feel this way, but as I think of another girl in the temple, wearing the cuff of Astia, wearing the crown, I can’t help the ache. I’m glad. Relieved. But it also reminds me of everything I thought I was, and how it turned out to be a lie.

  I push all of that away. It’s over now, and the people have what they need, and everything will be all right now that the true Valtia has been found—I won’t let it ruin this moment. “It’s beautiful. I’m glad you brought me out here.”

  Oskar clears his throat. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  My nerves ball up in my stomach like a clenched fist. “All right.”

  “Yesterday morning, I . . .” He pauses and tucks a loose lock of hair behind his ear.

  Stars, my face is so hot. “I know you were probably embarrassed when Freya saw us.”

  “No, I wasn’t embarrassed.” Oskar’s eyes trace my cheek, and then he hesitantly follows the path with his fingers, which only makes my skin blaze hotter. He sighs as his fingertips linger. “Oh, this warmth,” he says quietly. “I woke up to the feel of it pressed against me.” His gaze drops to my lips, and my stomach does a wobbly little flip. “It was the best thing I’ve ever felt. Better than a thousand summer days.”

  I can barely breathe as his finger slides lower, along my neck. “For me, too,” I whisper. Every part of me is tingling.

  He leans down, touching my forehead with his. “I didn’t know what to do with the want it awakened in me. And . . . I was afraid.”

  “I am too.” I’ve never been this close to anyone, not even Mim. Oskar’s lips are only a few inches away. “But I’m not scared of you.”

  The corner of his mouth curves up, and then he brushes his lips over mine. They’re cool and soft and it’s over way too soon. We stare at each other. “Can I do that again?” he whispers as his fingers slide into my hair.

  I nod, my nose skimming against his as I eagerly offer him my lips. My body is tight and shaking as he leans in, pressing his mouth to mine, gentle but sure. And though he is made of ice, he sets me on fire with desire and uncertainty and fear. His arm wraps around my waist, and he draws me close as our lips touch and bump and nudge and slide. His thumb strokes along my jaw as his tongue caresses mine. Every place he touches tingles with his magic. I don’t know if I’m doing it right—or if he is—but I know it feels good. I know I want more. So much more. My hand lifts to rest on his chest. His heart is beating as fast as mine, and I find it oddly reassuring.

  Oskar kisses the corner of my mouth. “Stars, you are so beautiful, Elli.”

  My fingers skim over his rough cheek, his stubble pricking my skin. “So are you.”

  He laughs. “No one has ever said that to me.”

  “But you must know.” I’ve seen Aira watching him from beneath her lashes. I’ve seen her gaze trail him as he strides out of the caverns—and she’s not the only one. “Many girls probably wish they were in my position.”

  “Ah, well, they wouldn’t if they actually kissed me. I might accidentally freeze our mouths together.” He chuckles. “That actually happened to me the first time I kissed a girl.”

  My stomach drops, even though he’s still smiling. “Because of your cold magic. I didn’t realize it would affect—”

  He rubs the back of his neck. “If I drop my guard, the ice rises up quickly.” He grins. “But I don’t have to worry about that with you.”

  My hand falls away from his chest as the hollow space in mine opens wide. “That’s convenient.” Suddenly my doubt bubbles up like Oskar’s magic, powerful and unstoppable. Did he kiss me because of who I am—or what I do for him?

  His smile falters. “I didn’t mean . . .”

  “It’s all right.” But my throat’s gone tight, and my eyes are stinging. I blow a shaky, slow breath from between my lips, hating that this doubt could eat my happiness so quickly. “I—I just never expected to kiss someone,” I babble. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  Oskar gives me a strange look. “You never expected to kiss someone?”

  I look away, panic wrenching itself loose inside me. Oskar’s going to think I’m insane. I remember the moments when I wondered how it might feel to be in someone’s arms, to know he wasn’t there because I had commanded him to stay, but because he wanted it as much as I did. Now Oskar’s right next to me, handsome and strong, actually asking if he can touch and kiss me . . . and all I can do is wonder if his affection is real, or whether he feels about me the way the people feel about the Valtia. Yes, they love her, but when her magic doesn’t serve them, how long does the adoration last?

  I lean over and kiss Oskar’s rough cheek, which causes his brows to rise in pure puzzlement. “I’m sorry. I’m not good at this,” I whisper, blinking idiotic tears away. What in stars is wrong with me? “And I’ve got chores to do.” I scoot to the edge of the boulder and slide off.

  Oskar’s feet hit the ground at the same time as mine. “Wait—Elli! Didn’t you want me to kiss you?” He sounds perplexed. And more than a little frustrated.

  So am I. My mind is a mess of questions and fears and wants and wishes, and all I know is that I need to get away from him or I’m going to cry. I begin to walk, but I don’t make it more than a few steps before Oskar’s in front of me. “What did I do wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I say honestly as I try to step around him. “It just happened so fast. I’m . . . I’m not sure I’m ready. . . .” I grimace, bowing my head to make sure he doesn’t see.

  Oskar takes me by the shoulders. “If you’re not ready, I can accept that. But I’m having trouble believing that’s all that’s going on.” He pulls me closer, his gaze hard on mine. “Please. I’ve held myself back so many times. I’ve tried not to pry. But I can tell
that there’s a war going on behind those eyes, and I’m desperate to understand it.”

  “Oskar, if you’d never discovered what I can do, would we be standing here right now?”

  He frowns. “How could I possibly know that?” He takes my face in his hands. “All I know is that a minute ago, I had you in my arms, and you kissed me back. It felt right.” He hesitates. “Didn’t it?”

  It felt so right. But something inside me has gone all wrong. I want to tell him everything so he can help me figure it out, but Raimo’s warnings keep my secrets locked tight inside. As long as they’re there, I’ll never know the truth of Oskar’s feelings, because he’ll never know what I really am. I barely know what I really am. I lay my palms on his chest. “This isn’t fair to either of us right now. I—I think it would be better if we kept things as they were.”

  What am I saying?

  Oh, stars, why am I saying this?

  Oskar’s gray eyes flicker with pain. “If that’s what you want.”

  No. It’s not. In fact, I want him to argue. I want him to challenge me. I want him to say again that we’re right, that this is good, that he can’t let me go because his heart won’t allow it. I want him to fight.

  But instead he lets me go and runs his hands over his hair. “I didn’t mean to push you.”

  “I’ll still siphon your magic,” I say quickly, because he’s backing away from me, not meeting my eyes. “You can still—we can still touch at night. You don’t have to worry about that. Nothing has to change.”

  He looks up at the sky and lets out a strangled, hoarse laugh. “Right. What a relief. Nothing has changed.” He pivots around. “I’d better hunt. The others are probably already in the forest.” He stalks up the trail, back around the crest of the hill.

  I follow, swiping my hands across my eyes, reeling in his wake. I feel hollower than ever. If my doubt hadn’t grown like a poisonous mushroom inside me, maybe Oskar and I would still be on those rocks, his lips on mine, his hands on my body. Now he looks like he’ll never touch me again. And maybe I should be glad, because I’ve shielded my heart and his from the danger of my secrets, but instead I want to curl up on the stiff grass and cry myself dry.