The Cold One
by Allister Nelson
part 1
When the Cold Ones come calling, they leave trails of ice and dead songbirds in their wake.
I was fourteen when I first saw him: Vex, the immortal, ageless, pitiless heir of rime and glaciers. The prince of Niflhel. Leader of the Wild Hunt.
I had strayed far from collecting roots and tubers for Nana’s stew, and she had been at home knitting by the fireside in our little wintery cabin. Neither of us knew that the Wild Hunt were riding the pine and birch forests of Lapland; else, we would have stayed inside.
But I had wandered too far from the path, straight into Prince Vex’s tracks.
How his elfin, white reindeer sparkled, their silver bells like icicles. Prince Vex rode alone, with a retinue of ethereal Snow Maidens dancing on the bitter wind.
Our church’s fairytale books did not lie: Vex had long white hair that fell in twin braids to his waist. His was a muscled, tall, angular form like a sword, with a black kaftan trimmed in silver, and burning splinters of sky for his eyes.
I froze quite literally in my tracks, noticing the beautiful elven bones laid out like cold earth beneath his icy skin.
Warm Blood. Vex called to me, like an arrogant father to a wayward child. But Ma and Pa had died five years ago, leaving my golden tresses bait for trolls, in the care of Nana. I did the hunting, housework, and cooking, letting Nana rest.
The Snow Maidens flurried around me as I dropped my reed basket of winter berries, nuts, and tubers on a snowbank. I bowed low, not daring to meet a Cold One’s frightening gaze.
“Y-yes, my lord?” I stammered, feeling that I was suddenly looking my death in the eye, dared I look up at all.
What is your name, little lost yearling? Vex’s voice was a tantalizing, sparkling music box in my mind, just like the dark-tressed village maidens in river pearls at a Yuletide dance.
“Kat - Katarina,” I said in a voice that was very small. “It is Katarina, my lord.”
“Well, little Rini,” Prince Vex mused, aloud this time. His voice was like a psalm whispered on a lover’s thigh. Only, I was too young to recognize that particular sound, but oh, how I would come to know it.
“Yes, my lord?”
“Do you know how dangerous it is for a yearling like you to stray off the path so far this time of year? There are beasts with sharp teeth aback the winds, that have no warmth of their own. They pray you can spare some hot blood under their fangs. I will not let that happen.”
His voice rolled over me like the tides of a glacial fjord, as if Vex would drown me.
I remembered Nana’s warning too late: Never give a Cold One your name.
“My... my lord, if I may?” I straightened my spine, shivering only slightly, and gathered the day’s foraging back into my fur-lined basket.
Vex looked bemused, his twin white braids whipping in the wind like war flags. His forest-cat grace was evident even now, as he toyed with the bridle of his reindeer, happy as a clam.
It looked like something had been troubling him, but now, focused on my pluck at confronting a Cold One — I only a decade and a bit old, my long blonde hair curling around my face in frosty tendrils — seemed to have made him merry. As if he did not see much challenge in his day to day.
“Dare if you must, Rini,” Vex chuckled. “I don’t remember them making village girls so brave.”
I gathered my courage: “Are you not so different from the beasts with sharp teeth? The blizzard you sent five years ago: it made away with Ma and Da.”
A dark look crossed his face, then passed like the flight of a goose to Thule. “Am I to blame, yearling?” Vex smiled widely, toying with me. The smile made his fangs quite evident. Perspiration dripped down the back of my neck, then froze.
“But you are the Prince of Ice, Lord of Snow and Bliz... blizzards,” I stammered, my courage quickly failing.
He murmured a haunting rhyme of frozen limbs to himself. I did not understand the Old Tongue, only the melodious, creeping meaning. Then, Vex counted to five on his long, white, clawed fingers.
Vex’s silver-edged black kaftan wove in the winter wind, radiating the scent of fir, balsam, and salt mines.
“Ah yes,” Vex said slowly, a wistful glaze to those blue, blue eyes. “Five years ago, a maiden broke my heart. I apologize for the blizzard that may have caused. I do sometimes, unfortunately, have a temper that reaches from Niflhel to Lapland.”
Vex quirked his head, and with a flick of his wrists, the teasing Snow Maidens melted to a misty rain. “Say, Katarina—”
I winced at my name on his eldritch tongue. “Yes, my lord?” Beautiful bones, but danger. I stared into his eyes and could not fathom their meaning.
“How about I give you a ride back to Mannagarth, to make up for any lives from your family my wailings may have plucked?”
I shuddered, his beautiful, treacherous angles casting a sickly spell on me. “No, my lord—”
“Just ‘Vex.’”
“Prince Vex—”
“Not ‘Prince.’ Vex. Plain as day, Vex. I vex you.”
“VEX!” My cheeks puffed out red like a Juul Lad as I screamed his name. “Sorry.”
“Yes?” he threaded a bit of silver string round his talons, nostrils flaring. Then, without warning, he snapped it.
“Umm, I... I’ll take my chances in the woods. Regardless of your kindness, my lor... Vex.”
His boiling cerulean eyes narrowed. “That wasn’t a request, yearling. These woods are not safe for a maiden.”
I remembered my earlier point, about him being yet another beast with sharp, bloody teeth, and forced a small smile.
“Y-yes, my Lor... Vex. Nana will be thankful if I return home early.”
He smiled cruelly. “Or return at all.”
I frowned, but shimmied into the frozen sleigh. The Prince of Ice piled me high with blankets and patted me firmly on the shoulder.
“That too... the returning bit.” I admitted. “I am hungry.”
He handed me a candy apple. The caramel was so cold, I nearly chipped a tooth on it. Instead, I set to licking.
“There are beasts with two legs as well.” He grinned, starting the flying reindeer. “I don’t bite often, Rini.”
Prince Vex dropped me off right at our cabin on the forested, gabled outskirts of Mannagarth.
“Um, thanks, sir.”
“Do not thank a Cold One, yearling. Simply say, ‘An honor done is an honor earned.’”
“Oh, okay. An honor done is an honor earned.”
With that, Vex pulled a pink pearl carved into the shape of a blooming rose on a gleaming gold chain out of thin air with his magick, then fixed it on my neck.
“Thank you,” I gulped. “But I don’t deserve this. All I did was get lost.”
His face softened, wistful. “And yet, Katarina, you do.”
Vex gathered me close, his body frozen, smelling of that same balsam, salt, and sap, and a warm, spicy cologne.
“I came to these woods to die tonight,” Prince Vex whispered in a voice like a crater.
Tears pricked my eyes. They fell into his lap. “Why? You are beautiful. You are a Prince. You fall asleep with a full belly. You... you have perfect bones.” I sniffled, hugging him despite myself. Besides every warning horn in my head, saying, He is a Cold One, Rini. He knows your name.
A frozen tear clinked like a diamond on my hair. A single one, from his deep blue eyes. “I was tired,” Vex admitted. “But you proved to me — an old, bitter creature that has seen empires rise and fall — what lies beyond Hel’s gates and peered into Mimir’s Well: trust. Faultless trust. You climbed into this sleigh, knowing I was your death. And yet, you gave me life. You have proved to me that an ancient coward like myself still has his uses, now and then.”
Vex hugged me hard then helped me gently out of the sleigh.
I never went hungry again.
We had a pot on the stove. In it always bubbled reindeer, chicken, or fish stew with vegetables. The soup appeared hot and steaming out of thin air overnight, then kept warm all day long.
In our bread box, there was always a loaf of fresh bread. Our horse always had new shoes and was well-groomed, his mane braided with flowers and elf locks. In our closets appeared pretty, practical dresses each month, paired with new boots each season.
Nana never questioned it, simply said that was the way of the elves, if one gained their favor.
I never told her about Vex, or that I had told a Cold One my name.
And always, when I hunted or foraged, there was a silver-haired companion who rode with me aback his white reindeer.
Vex taught me to trap fish, how to rub clover ointment onto my eyes to see the elves at rune stones, how to fell bears and boars with my freshly carved and strung bow, then butcher, cook, salt, and smoke the remains in our smokehouse. Our stores grew fat off the rich of the land, our larder full.
Vex never talked of his past, or the realm he ruled in Niflhel, far from his mother Lady Hel’s Hall of the Dead. Instead, in those forest hollows and warm caves, Vex taught me the magic of words.
The runes. Isa. Jera. Hagalaz.
Spelling. Simple books. Soon, the Sagas and Eddas, then elven records and troll poetry. The literature of the Nine Realms. His favorites were the epics of war from the East of Midgard. I loved the journals of explorers.
I was sixteen when Nana died. My body had begun to change a year ago: monthly courses, blonde hair on my legs, small breasts like apples. It was more of a pain than anything, a reminder that I had no dowry, save a magic soup pot and an always full bread box. Perhaps, when I finally settled down, I could marry a local yokel who liked endless cups of reindeer stew.
I buried Nana, said the Old Rites, poured mead out for her, chanted the runes, then ran weeping to Vex in tears on elven roads at our usual hideout: an old cave in the woods, perfect for our adventures.
We had turned it into a fort in time, his weaponry and my books and arrows lined the walls, alongside objects of wonder he brought back from his business across the Nine Realms.
He was paging through a book of Frankish love poems, when Vex saw me collapse at the tented entrance.
“Rini, what’s wrong?” Vex urged, racing towards me. He wore a kelly green robe and white boots, threaded with golden stars.
I wept bitterly into his arms, not caring if snot got everywhere. “Nana died.”
Copyright © 2023 by Allister Nelson
