Edith Pattou - East

My queen was well pleased with the evening. And even with all she had to do, was ever thoughtful of my comfort. When she saw how tired I was, she sent me off to bed, with Tuki attending. She said she would look in on me before going to sleep herself but that I needn't wait up for her, as she had to look after her guests. Before I left her my queen asked me about the troll girl in the moon dress. I told her she did not dance well but was pleasant. I did not tell my queen of the girl's odd behavior, of her voice and the language she spoke, and of the ring she thrust on me. And that she seemed to be wearing some kind of mask. I don't know why I did not speak of those things, except that I thought it might displease my queen in some way and the girl might be punished. I do not think the girl meant any harm.

Before getting into my nightclothes, I took the ring out and gazed at it. Why did it look familiar and yet not familiar? It made no sense. I placed the ring on my finger. It fit. Perhaps I had been wrong and it was mine, from long ago. And yet why would a troll girl I did not know have it? Or was she a troll? Her voice, and the mask ... But I was too tired to think any longer.

I took the ring off and placed it in a drawer. My queen would know the answer. I would ask her in the morning, without telling her where I had gotten it.

Tuki brought my slank as usual. Then he, too, asked me about the girl in the moon dress. I repeated what I had told my queen and thought I saw a look of disappointment cross his face. I believe he wanted to talk more, but I was too exhausted. I told him to leave. I did not even care that his eyes looked bright with unshed tears at the shortness of my tone. I was so tired.

My bed felt inviting and I fell swiftly into a deep sleep.

I dreamed of the girl in the moon dress. We were dancing and I could not take my eyes from her eyes. Purple, like fleur-de-lis ... In truth, I had barely noticed the troll girl's eyes while I danced with her, but in the dream they were bright and dark and full of some kind of feeling I could not put a name to. As we danced I felt happy, happier than I had ever thought possible. It was a different kind of dancing, too, flowing, moving in wide circles, my hands at her waist. I did not want the dance to end.

Then I looked down at my chest, and I was no longer sporting the handsome jacket I had been wearing that evening but instead a soft white shirt. I noticed there was a stain on the front of it and I was embarrassed, thinking I had spilled on myself during the banquet. I thought I would make an excuse so that I could go and change my shirt, but when I looked up into the girl's face to tell her I must stop dancing, I saw an unspeakable sadness in those dark eyes.

And then I woke up. There were tears on my face.

Absently I brushed at the wetness with my hand, and suddenly, out of nowhere, I remembered the shirt I had been wearing when I first came to the ice palace. In a daze I rose and crossed to my chest of drawers. At the back of the bottom drawer was a white shirt. It had a silver brooch of a flauto at the neck, and as I shook the shirt out, I saw that it had a stain on the front.

In wonderment I placed my finger on the stain. It was hard. Like dried tallow. My thoughts heaved. Suddenly I saw the girl, the girl in the moon dress, only her face was different. She was leaning over me, in a small golden circle of light. Then I felt a pain, a burning on my skin. But that was all; I could remember no more. I let out a groan, pressing my face into the white shirt. It smelt of soap and candle wax.

There was a light knock at the door to my room.

"Yes?" I said, quickly stuffing the shirt back into the drawer.

My queen entered. "You are still awake?" she said, curious.

"I was just a little restless," I replied.

"Have you had a nightmare?" she asked.

"No," I said evenly, thinking of the happiness in the dream. No, it was not a nightmare.

"Some slank will help you rest," she said, making a move toward the door.

"No, thank you," I said. "I had it earlier. I am fine."

"Very well." She crossed to me then and looked into my eyes. I kept my thoughts concentrated on her, on her beauty, her goodness to me, my queen who in a day would be my wife.

We embraced. And then she left the room.

I reopened the chest of drawers. I took out the white shirt, crossed to my flauto case, opened it, and wrapped the instrument in the soft white fabric of the shirt. Then I closed the case and returned to my bed.

Rose

KENTTA MURHA. The freezing field, or killing field, for that is what I came to know the words to mean.

This was where they brought the softskins who had outlived their usefulness.

It was like some horrible outdoor sculpture garden. Stiffened bodies, naked, frozen in all different positions, scattered across the wide valley. It had not snowed in some time, at least not since the most recent arrivals, and in the blazing light from the sky, I could see several faces that were familiar to me. The young girl with the cough that hadn't gone away. The elderly man who had lived on my corridor, who shuffled off every morning to his job in the dishwashing room.

The trolls took them out there, stripped them of their protective clothing, and then left them to freeze to death. It was cruel and barbaric, and I was filled with a bottomless rage at those monsters, those trolls. I shuddered to think how many bodies lay stacked up under the layers of ice and snow.

Human beings, taken from their families, their villages, the lives they knew. Then filled with poison that erased that which made them human but kept their bodies useful. And when their bodies were no longer useful, they were cast off in this forsaken place, to die.

At least it would be a quick death, I told myself. But that fact did not take away my rage.

Suddenly I thought of him, of the man who had been a white bear. Would he someday end up here, at kentta murha, when he had outlived his usefulness to the Troll Queen?

And then, with a sudden and intense certainty, I knew that the man I had come to know inside the skin of a white bear was not a man who could ever truly care for a creature who was capable of such cruelty. If he felt affection for the Troll Queen it was born of poisoned slank and of ignorance. He did not know of kentta murha. He could not.

And just as suddenly, it did not matter whether the man cared for me or I for him. The only thing that mattered was giving him his life back, as well as helping all the softskins whose lives had been stolen by the trolls.

I mounted Vaettur again, and we made our way up the slope to head back to the ice palace. I snuck in a back stable entrance, gave Vaettur a bag of oats, and then returned to the servants' quarters. The door to my room was shut, along with all the other doors lining the hall. I pulled open the heavy door and entered. I took off my coat, first removing the troll mask from a pocket and straightening and reforming it as best I could. Then, still wearing the moon dress, I slipped under the pile of fur-skins. I lay there, trying to make plans, to figure out what I must do, but I was too exhausted even to think. My eyelids closed.

When I awoke the next morning the door was still shut. Through the murky translucent walls I could tell the sun had climbed up fairly high in the sky. The wedding was to take place when the sun was directly above. The morning troll with his cart of slank was late.

Suddenly I remembered the tail end of a conversation between two trolls I had overheard the day before. I had only understood the words " no softskins " and " wedding " and had thought that it meant that the Troll Queen did not want softskins present at her wedding. I had assumed we'd still be working behind the scenes. But the truth was clear now. We were to be kept shut up in our quarters until after the wedding.