The Impostor Queen (The Impostor Queen, #1)(38)
“Then do so. Come back for Elli in . . . let’s make it eight days. I’ll look after her until then, but any longer than that isn’t possible. I’m pushing it already.” He pauses for a moment before adding, “And if we happen to be visited by constables again, do us all a favor and don’t mention you brought her here, hmm?”
“Did she tell you something about where she came from, or why she was banished?” Oskar asks.
“No,” Raimo replies quickly. “But you were right—she’d been whipped. Whoever did it might be searching for her, and the last thing we need is to be accused of kidnapping servants from wealthy families.”
“They’re much more likely to come here because of what Sig did to the miners than because I came to the aid of a banished servant.” Oskar’s voice has gone low and bitter.
Raimo grunts. “Perhaps, but we don’t need to give them any more reason to bring temple-dwelling wielders to our doorstep, do we? Now leave me alone, and I’ll see you in eight days.”
Grumbling, Oskar thumps out of the cavern, and Raimo’s gnarled fingers close over my shoulder. “Necessary lies,” he says, but I’m already drifting again, and if more words fall from his lips, I don’t hear them.
Raimo is an excellent medicine man, even deprived of magic. Over the next several days, he comes to know my body as well as I do, perhaps better, and though it’s awkward and embarrassing to allow him to attend to my every need, I have no choice. Besides, I’m accustomed to having people take care of me. It’s just that they’ve always been women. I have no energy to waste on modesty or protest, though, and I doubt Raimo would do anything but cackle at me if I did.
Within the cave, I have no sense of day or night, only sleeping and waking. Raimo feeds me stew and constantly presses a cup to my lips, urging me to drink some concoction that coats my tongue and makes me gag. He is the most persistent and attentive of physicians, caring for every wound, applying new poultices every few hours. My right hand throbs and aches as if my fingers were still attached and badly mangled. The sensation invades my dreams, where I relive the trap slamming shut over and over again. But when I wake up whimpering, Raimo is always at my side. He never offers words of comfort, but his touch is gentle as he sponges my sweating brow with a warm cloth.
A few times, in the hopeful moments before I remember where I am, I mistake him for Mim, and I strain to move closer, to catch her scent. You’re a jewel, she whispers, her bright smile making my stomach swoop. I long to twist my finger into the curls at the nape of her neck. I am desperate to hear her say my name. But when I reach with my good hand, when my fingertips brush over skin, it is dry and veiny instead of soft and warm, and I jerk back with the wrongness of it.
Please be safe, Mim. And please don’t forget me.
That is my prayer to the stars, mouthed over and over in the darkness.
I shed more tears during these days than I have in the first sixteen years of my life. I mourn what I thought I was. I worry about what I really am. I drift in and out of restless sleep, my dreams full of blood and ice and fire. I surface again, full of questions that Raimo assures me we’ll discuss when I am lucid enough to remember his answers.
“Oskar is coming for you today,” he tells me after one such waking. “Remember what I told you about guarding your secret. We can’t afford for word of your true nature to spread.”
“But I still don’t understand my true nature!” And I’m horrified to discover I’ve run out of time to learn from him. I push myself into a sitting position with my left hand, keeping my right folded against my chest. “If you’re sending me away today, I think you’d better tell me.”
Raimo’s eyes narrow. “You must have seen the adornment the Valtia wears around her forearm, yes?”
Only every time I saw her. “The cuff of Astia.”
He nods. “And you know what it does?”
I bite back impatience. I may not know much about magic, but I’m not an idiot. “It helps her amplify and project her power. She told me she didn’t need it most of the time. Only when she performed large-scale magic, like creating the dome of warmth in the winter months.” And when she created the storm that killed her.
“Exactly. It is a tool. Like the copper lightning rods that jut from the roofs of every house in the city. It conducts and magnifies that power, but also absorbs it, helping the wielder maintain balance. By itself, it’s merely a hunk of metal, albeit a very special one.” The corner of his mouth twists as he looks at me. “It’s pretty, but not that useful. Like you at the moment.”
His words sting, but objecting would only draw his mockery. I’ve heard how he talks to Oskar.
“But when wielded by a person who possesses fire or ice or both at once,” Raimo continues, “the cuff of Astia becomes the key to victory.”
“So I’m a tool,” I say in a dead voice. “Or maybe a weapon.”
“That’s the least interesting way to think about it,” he replies. “It would be smarter to ponder this: you are a living, breathing, thinking Astia.”
“Raimo!” a deep voice barks, causing me to jerk with surprise.
“Remember,” Raimo whispers. “Tell no one. Gather your strength. If I’m right, a war is coming, but with true winter descending and no Valtia to push it back, you may have some time. Stay close to Oskar, who avoids trouble like it’s his life’s calling. Stay alive, please. Focus on healing.” He snorts. “And on learning how to be useful. No one here has time to wait on you.”