The Impostor Queen (The Impostor Queen, #1)(62)
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.”