Idunnir watched Caius as the strange man fussed about the entrance to the valley. He’d been concerned about others finding it, just because they might harm it. As she watched, he talked to the stack of small stones he had piled up next to the stream. “Hide this place from those who won’t respect it.”

  Obediently, the rocks briefly flashed with light.

  And with that, she led the way back downstream. It had been a truly bizarre few days since they’d spotted Caius by the roadside. When she had first seen him, she had briefly thought he was a Frostling.

  She had dismissed the children’s tales of Frostlings and trolls long ago, knowing they were just stories. In fact, even as a child she had know the adults felt little belief in the stories. But as soon as she was confronted with something completely unexpected, she fell right back on those old stories.

  Even if she knew the stories weren’t true, they gave her a way to fit the stranger into her worldview. After all, he had been standing there in a summer tunic, utterly indifferent to the biting cold. Standing on top of the snow, no less.

  But of course she had known better as soon as she felt him. Marcus had taken some reassurance…

  Remembering Marcus brought back the emotions. Very little grief, a lot of guilt for not feeling grief. More guilt for failing to protect him. Before, when her world was either lifeless or filled with the euphoria of blue tea, it was easy to ignore the feelings.

  Idunnir stopped walking for a moment, and concentrated on Caius’ feelings instead of her own. At the moment he felt little, a sort of grey apathy. She let it fill her, the emptiness easier to bear than guilt.

  Noticing her stop walking, Caius also came to a halt and looked at her. He tilted his head slightly, a voiceless question. She reassured him that it was nothing, and they moved on.

  The guilt had passed, and Idunnir stopped concentrating on Caius’ emotions.

  Aside from that one problem, she was absolutely delighted. Energy filled her limbs and her mind was clear. She would say she felt a decade younger, but she hadn’t felt this good when she was eighteen either.

  Unable to restrain herself, she took a few quick steps and jumped up onto a boulder. Even with the bulky pack she was carrying, it felt as if she weighed less than a feather. The cold barely even registered today.

  It couldn’t last. She would have to get the flask from Marcus, drink some more tea to extend this feeling…

  Marcus wasn’t there. His familiar presence wasn’t in the back of her mind, glowing with devotion.

  Caius was looking at her again, and she stifled her emotions with his. Instead of guilt, she focused on how impressed Caius was with her strength. There was no envy in him.

  Keeping an eye on their surroundings was effortless, years of practice allowing her to split her attention between potential threats and her own thoughts. Usually she didn’t have the spare brain power to do both, and she reveled in the feeling.

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  He was still there, still walking along at his own pace. Scanning the ground ahead of him and placing each foot carefully.

  Trying to understand him was a fascinating experience. Not that he was more complicated than anyone else. Idunnir was aware, more than anyone, that every human being was as complicated as any other.

  Most people weren’t aware of it, but her… Caius had called it her talent… forced her to pry into the lives of everyone around her whether she wanted to or not. Noticing things others overlooked or didn’t think about.

  Like back in Threpin. Halli the butcher bickering with Ippa the handyman because of some bone deep insult from decades ago that Halli remembered every day, but Ippa had long forgotten. Halli was also a model, devoted husband despite the fact that he found his wife unattractive.

  Halli hid it so well that the woman was unaware. And he loved their children as fiercely as any father Idunnir had ever felt.

  There was a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye, and Idunnir twisted her head to look more carefully. But it was only a rabbit. She continued to observe, checking for the strange behavior those wolves had shown. Nothing. Just a small animal.

  She was stuck by the urge to chase after the creature. After all, why not?

  Indeed, why not.

  Setting down her oversized pack, Idunnir reassured Caius with a quick smile and dashed off towards the animal. She felt weightless as she bounded across the snow faster than she ever remembered moving before.

  Of course the rabbit spotted her approach. Brown leather armor didn’t exactly blend into their surroundings the way its white fur did. It made a dash for its nearby burrow. But it was already too late.

  Idunnir snatched it up while it was in the air, leaping for the opening to its burrow. She did pause to make sure there weren’t any baby rabbits in the burrow. It was the wrong season for them, but you never knew. There weren’t any, so she smashed the rabbit into a tree to kill it and dressed the body with practiced ease.

  Caius was delighted when she returned, thanking her for her effort. They sped up their pace slightly, wanting to cover more ground before lunch. She found his insistence on eating three meals a day a bit odd, but it definitely explained the fat around his middle.

  He was briefly distracted by something. Judging by what he felt, it was likely visions of roasted meat. It occupied his mind enough that he planted a foot wrong. Since he had been stepping closer to the stream to get around a tree, the misstep send him down the bank.

  She had stepped around the other side of the tree and didn’t manage to catch him in time. Her hand caught his pack, but he didn’t manage to hold onto it and she was left holding it as he slid down the relatively gentle slope. Caius ended up on his hands and knees in one of the muddier sections of the stream.

  Idunnir flinched as a rush of emotion washed out from the man. It was entirely disproportionate to the moderate inconvenience. Frustration, disgust and anger. Underneath all those was a despair so deep that Idunnir would have sworn that Caius briefly considered slitting his wrists into the river. All over falling and getting muddy.

  This was the second time she could recall something like this happening. On the road just out of Threpin Village, he had collapsed in tears with little cause.

  Caius’ emotions were at all times like a pile of badly stacked firewood, ready to collapse if the wind blew from the wrong direction. Despite everything she liked about Caius, it was unpleasant to be around a man who could crack like thin ice underfoot at any moment.

  He did that odd gesture where he held one wrist to his forehead and clutched at his chest. It seemed to slowly calm him. Eventually he had himself back under control. Cleaning himself up as best as he could, he carefully climbed back up the bank of the stream and collected his pack from where Idunnir was still holding it.

  “Sorry about that. Must be as unpleasant for you as it is for me.” He said with a wan smile. She could feel his genuine regret at causing her discomfort.

  It melted her heart, just a little. So she patted him on the shoulder and told him it was alright. The two set off again, following the path of the stream.