Арнальдур Индридасон - The Shadow District

The new president’s speech echoed across the historic assembly site with the rain, and Flóvent was proud that day of being an Icelander, despite his anxiety about the future and his sense of unease. He was living in treacherous times; the world was in turmoil, and there was still a foreign military power occupying the land.

As he stood by the stage, studying the ranks of parliamentarians massed behind the president, Flóvent spotted the cold profile of Hólmbert’s father between upturned collar and hat. Their eyes met for an instant and the MP inclined his head.

Flóvent had tried not to dwell too much on Jónatan’s tragic death, had tried to bury the memory he found so hard to endure. But it hadn’t really worked. He stamped his feet and raised his eyes to gaze out over the lake into the wide blue yonder, and as he did so the shades of two girls came flying back to haunt him, one from the dark corner behind the National Theatre, the other from the cliffs of Dettifoss. As though they were begging him not to forget but to stand vigil over their memory, as though they were the only thing of true value in this newly independent land.

Deep in a remote cleft in the lava, too deep for the roar of the waterfall to reach, lies the realm of eternal cold and darkness. The cleft narrows as it deepens, its rugged walls sheer and perilous, its depths inaccessible even to raven and fox. The walls are overgrown with ferns and mosses, down which water seeps from the nearby springs, transforming the fissure into a fairy-tale palace in frosty weather. At the bottom a cold silence reigns, which neither the moaning of the wind nor the crying of birds can break, ensuring that the palace’s only guest, the unfortunate elf maiden, never wakes from her long sleep.