Page 91 of Winter Lost

“No.”

He could be lying. But I didn’t think he was. “Why not stop the storm, then?” I asked.

Instead of talking, he found a pair of brushes and handed one to me. Then he hopped over the five-foot panel with an ease that was more than human. I used the gate—it required less effort, and I wasn’t trying to show off. I didn’t think that he was, either.

He started to work on one horse; I took the other. Kept in a clean, dry pen, neither horse was more than dusty, but grooming horses was soothing. I had been horse crazy when I was twelve and thirteen. When I was fourteen, my foster parents had died, one after the other; afterward, horses had not been as important.

“You know what the wedding accomplishes,” he said. It wasn’t really a question.

“Liam, the green man at the hot springs, told me,” I said. “The wedding must take place tomorrow or the hound Garmr is released. If he is free, when he howls, Ragnarok begins.”

“Do you believe that?” he asked me. “Does Coyote’s descendant”—something happened to his voice, surprise maybe—“Coyote’s daughter believe in fate?”

I gave that a little consideration. “Let’s say that I’d rather be allowed to keep my belief that there is no such thing as fate than have my belief disproved when Garmr is released and the world is destroyed.”

He might have laughed. My horse’s back was taller than my head, so I couldn’t see him to be sure.

The horse raised his head as I hit an itchy spot. I switched out the brush for my fingers so I could dig in a bit heavier. The big horse stuck his nose in the air and peeled his lips away from his teeth in pleasure as I rubbed his belly.

“The chances of this wedding happening look pretty bleak,” I said. “Last we heard, the groom was going to try to fly into Spokane. The road between here and Spokane was bad when Adam and I drove it yesterday. I’d guess it’s impassable by now.”

He didn’t say anything, and I said, pointedly, “There’s this big winter storm.”

“I made a vow,” he said. “Upon my power, I swore that everyone at the lodge would remain trapped where they were until my harp is back in my hands.” He paused. “Or until all of the people at the hot springs are dead. I cannot release the storm until one or the other of the conditions is met.”

“That might take a while,” I said. “The lodge has food stores and water.”

“If the wedding does not happen,” the frost giant said, “and the Great Spell is broken, the backlash will kill everyone at Looking Glass—excepting only the spirit of the lake. One way or another, this storm does not have long to live.”

“That is added incentive,” I said.

I supposed that if the end of the world was coming, it didn’t matter that we were all going to die if Adam and I couldn’t find the harp in time. It felt like it mattered, though.

“I, too, will be gone,” he said, not sounding particularly upset about it. “I do not know if there is among the remaining Jötnar one who can claim my name and live. If not, then my magic will die with me.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Because I created the Great Spell that binds the fate of the world,” he said. “I know what a world ruled by my kind looks like. I did not—do not want it to happen here.”

We worked awhile.

“I made it out,” I said. “Out of Looking Glass Hot Springs, I mean.” I wasn’t sure that it was bright of me to point that out.

“I let you come here today,” he said. “I could allow you, because you were not there when I made my vow.”

“You knew I’d be here,” I said.

“I hoped for it, yes.” His voice deepened a little. “I felt that we two should talk.” I heard the scruff, scruff of his brush. Then he said, “I thought if you came to take care of the horses, we might have a few things to say to each other.”

“What does it matter that you called it a harp when it looks like a lyre?” I asked, moving from my horse’s belly to his rump. He huffed a disappointed sigh but went back to eating. “And what does that have to do with the winter solstice—or the wedding?”

“The instrument is the key to the Great Spell,” he said. “When the renewal is close, those bindings loosen. Then Garmr can choose the shape of the leash that holds him. A hundred and forty-four years ago, he chose a lyre. That I am now calling it a harp means that is the shape it is to become. A shadow of the future.” I heard him pat his horse.

I stopped brushing. “Garmr chose the shape?”

“He had no say when I bound his voice,” the frost giant said. “It is right that some part of the magic responds to his will.”

I rubbed my forehead, and the gelding I’d been grooming gave me a look. It made a certain sort of sense that a being who cared for the needs of horses he’d put in jeopardy—by dealing with their caretaker—would concern himself with the needs of another kind of beast.

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