They had kept her warm while she slept. The bears had saved her life. “Oh, my,” she repeated as her knees caved. Bears rolled back to support her as she slid to the ground.

Cassie turned her head—and stared directly at the nose of a polar bear. He huffed at her. She ogled back. “You’re bears,” she said. “You aren’t even magical bears.” She didn’t understand. The fog in her brain wouldn’t lift. She couldn’t think. Why had the bears saved her?

A bear prodded her with his muzzle.

“What? Don’t eat me.” Her words were slurred. She leaned backward and felt another bear behind her. This one pushed in the middle of her back. “What do you want?” Another push. Did they want her to stand? She tried to make her brain function. Was she dreaming? She didn’t feel like she was dreaming. She hurt too much to still be asleep. Wincing, Cassie lurched to her feet.

Had Bear sent them to save her?

The bears parted, uncovering Cassie’s pack.

“I can’t,” she said. Her eyes felt hot, near tears. The bears were helping too late. She didn’t have the strength to go on. “I’m tired. I’m hungry.” She mimed chewing. “You know, hungry?” She made sucking noises.

Obligingly, a female bear rolled, exposing four round nipples. Cassie licked her cracked lips. Lolling her head, the bear looked at her. Half-falling to her knees, Cassie knelt and crawled to the sow’s stomach. She looked over at the bear’s face, and the bear placidly closed her eyes.

Cassie pulled off a mitt and her face mask. Taking a deep breath, she touched the nipple. It felt as firm as a thumb. She squeezed it, and milk welled at the top: life. When the bear did not maul her—in fact, did not move—Cassie leaned in and held her tongue catlike under the milk. She squeezed hard, and the milk squirted onto her tongue. It was oily, tasted of seal. Rich and thick, it clogged her throat.

She managed three swallows, then had to rest, leaning her head against the sow. She drifted into sleep and woke a few seconds later to swallow more milk. She alternated, drinking and sleeping, until she felt human again.

I’m going to live, she thought as she lay against the mother bear. From beyond the ends of the earth, Bear had found a way to save her. And somehow, she thought, I’m going to find a way to save him.

CHAPTER 19

Latitude 84° 42’ 08” N

Longitude 74° 23’ 06” W

Altitude 3 ft.

Squinting into the sun’s glare, Cassie scanned the softening ice. In the twenty-four-hour sun, icicles dripped into melt pools. The constant drip sounded like the second hand on a clock. Heading toward Ward Hunt Island, she’d traveled with the bears for three weeks, stopping only to drink bear milk and eat the strips of seal and fish that the bears had brought her. Often the bears had carried her while she slept so she wouldn’t lose time. But it hadn’t been enough.

I’m not going to make it, she thought.

She tried to ignore the knot of fear that lodged inside her rib cage. Sweat pricked the back of her neck underneath the flannel and wool. Everywhere, the ice was splintering. In five-foot-wide cracks, the ice was packed mush that moved with a hollow sound. Murres and gulls wheeled overhead, diving for cod in the widening cracks. She was not going to make it to land before the ice receded from the shore. Not going to make it, her mind whispered over and over. Not going to make it.

Summer was coming.

Facing a stretch of thin ice, Cassie mounted one of the bears. With giant paws like snowshoes, he walked across the green-gray ice. It wobbled in waves. Holding her breath, she watched the frost patterns for cracks. She stayed mounted as the bears continued to plod over thin ice and alongside ice rivers.

Five days later, Cassie and the bears reached the end of the ice.

Ahead of them, ice tossed in the waves, and then crumbled into semifrozen gruel. The slush undulated. Eventually, it dispersed into open ocean. Miles and miles of open water lay between her and land.

Cassie stared at the water. It was over. She was too late. She was stranded on the pack ice. All her grand resolve to reach the ends of the earth… All she’d done was reach the end of the ice.

The sun sparkled like golden jewels on the ice and the water. Blinking fast, she focused on the dancing waves. She knew better than to cry in the cold. Her father had taught her that years ago. And did he also teach you to quit? she asked herself. Was it to be a family tradition to fail to reach the troll castle? Like father, like daughter? “Snap out of it,” she whispered. “You aren’t dead yet.” She had options: Max could still come, or… She could not think of a second option.

Hoping for inspiration or a miracle, she looked around her at the army of polar bears. An arctic fox, diminutive beside the behemoths, trotted among them. Light as a cat, he didn’t have to worry about weak ice, she thought. If she were the size of the fox, maybe the bears could have swum her across any open water without drenching her. Cassie looked at the glittering black water and shuddered. As Dad would have said, it was death water: In fifteen minutes, the muscles would seize, consciousness would fade, and death would come. As things were, without a munaqsri to warm her, she’d freeze if she tried to swim.

So all she had to do was find herself another munaqsri. Problem solved.

She snorted at herself. Like it was so easy. Billions of people spent their lives without seeing a munaqsri or even knowing they existed. Of course, she did know they existed, even if they moved too fast to see, but unless she just happened to know of an imminent birth or death…

The answer came so quickly that she nearly shouted out loud. If she were present at a creature’s death… Cassie slid off the polar bear, her eyes fixed on the arctic fox. She’d seen foxes dogging the polar bears for weeks now. Arctic foxes were scavengers, living off the remains of bear kills. But with so many bears together, every kill was thoroughly stripped—there were few remains. She felt her heart race, thudding against her rib cage.

Somewhere on the ice behind them, there had to be a starving arctic fox.

“We’re going back,” she said, slapping the bear’s shoulder. “Come on. Back the way we came.” If she could find another munaqsri, he could help her off the ice. Even better, he could take her to Bear!

Cassie trudged north through her sprawling polar bear army. The bears milled around the ice and watched her with their black, inscrutable eyes. She stroked their fur as she passed, trying to reassure them. “I’ll save him,” she said. “I promise I’ll bring your king home.”

After five hours of walking, she saw a small dusty white shadow, nearly yellow against the blue-white ice. Loose snow swirled like fast-moving clouds around it. The shadow raised its head as she approached—it was an old fox. He was so thin that she could see his ribs pressing up through his fur. Poor thing, she thought. If the polar bears hadn’t banded together, he might have had a chance at one more season, but he hadn’t been able to compete with all the bears.

Shedding her pack, she knelt on the ice beside the fox. He laid his head back down and closed his eyes. His breathing was labored. She watched his ribs jerk up and down, his breath a harsh huff against the hiss of the wind.

Behind her, Cassie heard the soft puffing of bears. She saw them out of the corners of her eyes, blurred by the frost on her goggles. “Just a little longer,” she promised them. And then she’d be off the ice and on her way to Bear… if this worked.

It had to work. The fox munaqsri had to come, didn’t he?

No one would come when a polar bear died, she thought. Their souls would… She didn’t know what would happen to their souls. And with no one to transport the souls to the newborn, then these bears, these beautiful bears, would be extinct in a generation. No soul, no life.