Chapter 11 Freya
Freya
Iwasn't supposed to come back so soon.
The plan had been practical, responsible: return to Canada, fulfill my contracts, organize my life, then maybe—maybe—return to Iceland in a few months to "continue my winter photography series." A reasonable timeline that would let me process everything that had happened with Vidar.
I lasted exactly twenty-seven days.
Twenty-seven days of waking with frost on my pillow. Of turning the shower to its coldest setting and still finding it too warm. Of watching my breath cloud in heated rooms while colleagues complained about the mild winter chill.
Twenty-seven days of feeling the cold inside me growing stronger rather than weaker, of dreaming in blue and white, of sensing a presence across an ocean that called to me with increasing urgency.
I tried to ignore it. Threw myself into editing the Iceland photos—the publishable ones, not the private collection of impossible images locked in my encrypted folder. Accepted new assignments. Paid bills. Called friends I'd neglected.
But each night, alone in my apartment, I'd place my palm against my window and watch frost bloom from my fingertips in patterns too perfect to be natural. Each morning, I'd wake to find delicate ice crystals on my ceiling, directly above where I slept.
The changes weren't fading with distance. They were intensifying.
On the twenty-seventh day, I was in the middle of a client meeting when frost suddenly covered my coffee mug, spiraling across the ceramic in elaborate patterns visible to everyone at the table.
I covered it quickly with my hand, making a joke about the air conditioning, but the incident left me shaken.
That night, I booked a flight to Reykjavík.
I told my editor it was for follow-up shots, to complete the winter series while conditions were still perfect. He didn't question it—the first set of Iceland photos had generated more interest than any of my previous work. If anything, he was eager for more.
The entire flight, I questioned my sanity.
What was I doing, dropping everything to rush back to.
.. what, exactly? A supernatural being with antlers who lived in the wilderness?
A connection I couldn't explain that was literally changing my body chemistry?
It sounded like the plot of a fantasy novel, not a rational life choice.
Yet the moment the plane touched down in Iceland, a sense of rightness settled over me. The cold air on the tarmac felt like a welcome rather than a discomfort. My breath, clouding more visibly than those around me, seemed to pulse in rhythm with something beyond myself.
I rented a car instead of contacting árni. This wasn't a professional trip, and I didn't want to answer questions about my sudden return. I drove north, following not a map but the pull I felt growing stronger with each mile. The frost in my blood knew the way, even if my conscious mind didn't.
When I reached the trailhead, I parked and continued on foot, camera around my neck more out of habit than intention.
The marked path felt wrong almost immediately.
I paused, closed my eyes, and felt the cold inside me reaching outward, connecting with the winter around me.
Without conscious decision, I turned off the trail and into the untouched snow.
I should have been concerned about getting lost. Instead, I moved with complete confidence, following a sense that grew clearer with each step. The forest thickened around me, the terrain becoming more rugged, but I never hesitated.
When the snow began to fall, I knew he was near. Not natural snowfall—too purposeful, too patterned. It swirled around me in welcoming spirals, not hindering my progress but encouraging it. The cold deepened, but instead of discomfort, it brought a sense of homecoming.
I rounded a stand of ancient pines, and there he was.
Vidar stood in a small clearing, tall and otherworldly, only partially concealed by his glamour.
The antlers were more prominent than when I'd left, the skull mask visible beneath his features like a double exposure.
His eyes glowed that impossible blue, fixed on me with an intensity that should have been frightening but instead sent warmth flooding through me despite the cold.
What followed was a reunion so intense, so all-consuming that it left me breathless. In the aftermath, as we lay together on snow that somehow didn't chill my skin, I felt more at home than I had since leaving Iceland.
"I have something to show you," Vidar said, his voice almost shy as he helped me gather my scattered clothing.
Hand in hand, we walked deeper into his domain, the forest opening before us in ways that defied natural explanation.
Trees bent their branches to allow easier passage, snow shifted to create a path where none had existed before.
The entire wilderness seemed alive, responsive to his presence in ways I was only beginning to understand.
After perhaps twenty minutes of walking, the trees thinned to reveal a small valley, sheltered on three sides by steep slopes. And there, nestled against the mountainside, stood a cabin.
Not like the utilitarian structure where we'd first met, but something that seemed grown rather than built—walls of ancient pine fitted together with such precision that they might have been a single living entity.
Windows larger than in his previous dwelling, glass clear as still water.
A roof that curved organically, following the natural slope of the mountain behind it.
I stopped, taking in the sight with both the practical eye of someone who has lived in cabins and the aesthetic sense of a photographer who recognizes beauty when she sees it.
"You built this?" I asked, wonder in my voice. "In a month?"
"Winter bends to my will," he replied. "Wood and stone are simpler still."
As we approached, I noticed details that made my breath catch—carvings around the door frame that mirrored the frost patterns on my skin, windows positioned to capture the best light throughout the day, a small covered area that could only be meant for viewing the surrounding landscape.
It wasn't just a cabin. It was a home designed with deliberate thought and... love? The concept seemed impossible for a being who had lived in solitude for centuries. Yet the evidence stood before me, solid and undeniable.
Inside, the space revealed even more. A large hearth built into the stone wall, designed to direct heat into the room without overwhelming the entire space.
A bed larger than the one in his previous cabin, covered in furs that looked softer than any I'd seen before.
Shelves built into the walls, some empty, others holding simple necessities.
And then I saw it—a desk positioned beneath the largest window, angled to catch the northern light that photographers prize.
Beside it, shelves specifically sized for camera equipment, with small drawers that could only be meant for memory cards and batteries.
A chair with a cushioned seat that would allow for comfortable hours of editing.
He had created a space for my work.
"You..." I began, but couldn't find words to continue.
"You are a photographer," he said simply, as if that explained everything. "It's part of who you are."
I ran my fingers along the smooth surface of the desk, feeling the care that had gone into its creation. "How long have you been planning this?"
"Since the moment you left." He spoke without hesitation, without shame. "I didn't know if you would return, but I needed to be ready if you did."
"And if I hadn't come back?"
He considered this, something like pain crossing his features before he controlled it. "Then the forest would have reclaimed it. As it has many things over the centuries."
The implications of that simple statement hit me with unexpected force. How many times had he watched things he valued return to the wilderness? How many centuries of solitude had taught him that nothing lasted, that everything eventually disappeared?
I crossed the room to him, taking his hands in mine. Where our fingers intertwined, frost patterns formed and faded in continuous cycles, visible evidence of our impossible connection.
"I don't know what this is between us," I said honestly. "I don't know how it works, or what it means long-term. But I do know I couldn't stay away."
"Nor I from you," he admitted. "Even separated by an ocean, I felt you. Sensed you."
"Did you..." I hesitated, then pushed forward. "Did you hear about me? After I left?"
Something like embarrassment crossed his features—another expression I wouldn't have expected from this ancient, powerful being. "I kept your radio," he confessed. "I heard reports about your photography exhibition. The praise for your work."
The admission surprised and touched me. The thought of him listening to news about me, seeking connection across the distance, made my chest tighten with emotion.
"So what happens now?" I asked, the question encompassing all the practical concerns we'd need to address.
He led me to the hearth, where a fire burned low—just enough for human comfort without causing him distress. We sat together on the fur rug, my back against his chest, his arms encircling me.
"Now we discover what this connection can become," he said. "Day by day. There are no maps for the path we walk."
I leaned back against him, watching frost patterns form and fade where his hands rested against my arms. "I had a life in Canada. Work. Obligations."
"Yes," he said, understanding in his voice.
"But I also have this—" I gestured to the frost on my skin, to the cabin around us, to him. "And I can't walk away from it. Not again."
"What are you saying?" he asked, a cautious hope in his voice.
I took a deep breath, the decision crystallizing as I spoke it aloud. "I'm staying. Here. With you."
He went still behind me, the frost patterns on my skin pausing in their constant dance. "For how long?"
"For good," I said, the certainty of it filling me with unexpected peace. "I'll need to go back briefly—to settle things, close my apartment, ship my equipment. But then I'm coming back. Permanently."
"Your career?" he asked. "Your life there?"
I turned to face him, taking his hands in mine. "My career can adapt. Remote work exists for a reason. I can still submit photos, take commissions that let me travel occasionally. But my home..." I squeezed his hands, frost patterns swirling where we touched. "My home is here now. With you."
"You would choose this?" The wonder in his voice broke my heart a little. "Isolation? Cold? A life apart from your world?"
"I'm choosing both worlds," I corrected him. "The human photographer and the winter guardian's companion. I can still create, still share my work with the world. I'll just do it from here, where I belong."
"My editor would never question it," I continued, the plan solidifying as I spoke.
"I'll tell him I'm relocating to Iceland permanently to focus on Nordic winter photography.
With my recent exhibition success, it'll seem like a smart career move rather than a woman following her heart to an immortal winter guardian. "
Vidar's lips quirked in that almost-smile I was coming to treasure. "A practical explanation."
"I've always been practical," I said, then laughed at the absurdity of that statement given my current situation. "Well, until I met you."
"And your friends? Family?" he asked, his concern touching.
"Few and far between," I admitted. "My parents passed years ago.
No siblings. A handful of friends I see a few times a year.
Most of my connections are professional, not personal.
" I hadn't realized how isolated my life had already been until I said it aloud.
"Photography has always been my first love. Until now."
The implication of those last two words hung between us, neither of us quite ready to voice the emotion that had drawn me back across an ocean against all reason.
"You would not be... confined here," Vidar said carefully. "You could still travel for your work. Visit your world."
"Our world," I corrected gently. "I'm just going to live in your part of it now."
The relief that washed over his features made my decision feel even more right. Five centuries of solitude, and now he wouldn't be alone anymore.
Outside, night was falling, the perpetual storm of his domain shifting into gentler patterns than I remembered from my first visit.
Snow fell in rhythmic cycles, beautiful in its controlled power.
The entire forest seemed at peace, responding to our reunion in ways I was only beginning to understand.
As darkness deepened around our sanctuary, I felt a sense of rightness that defied rational explanation. This impossible connection, this bridge between human and other, between warmth and winter—it shouldn't work. It defied every law of nature I knew.
Yet here we were, the winter guardian and the woman who carried frost in her veins, finding balance between worlds that were never meant to touch.
I turned in his arms, my hands framing his face where the skull mask had receded enough to show his features. "We'll make this work," I said with certainty. "I don't know exactly how yet, but we will."
"Yes," he agreed, his eyes glowing with that unearthly blue light that had once seemed so alien. "We will."