The Impostor Queen (The Impostor Queen, #1)(44)
He nods. “I know you have contempt for magic. Many people in the city feel the same.”
“It doesn’t seem that way on the ceremony days.”
“Maybe not for the magic itself, then . . .” Oskar shrugs. “But some are mistrustful of people who can do magic. I’m just saying I understand it if you feel the same. If you mention that around here, though, some will take offense.”
“Are they so loyal to the Valtia and her priests?” The idea is terrifying—what happens if they find out about me? Will they give me up?
Oskar scuffs his boot along the rocky floor. “No,” he mutters. “It’s not that.”
I meet his inscrutable gray eyes. “It’s because some of the people here are magic wielders too.” Like you.
He gives me a small smile, like he’s happy I understand. “Exactly. It’s best not to talk about it, though. Not to call attention to it if you see it.”
“I think I get what you mean.” I clench my jaw to keep the questions from bursting forth.
He’s picking up his hunting tools now, fixing some of them to the leather belt around his waist. “Nonmagical people get along fine here if they leave everyone else in peace. People aren’t looking for a fight.” His eyes narrow for a moment. “Well, most of them, at least.”
I’m dying to ask why none of these wielders are at the temple where they should be, especially because it brings the guarantee of education and three meals a day, of safety and belonging, but I manage to hold back. “So nonmagical people like me should keep their mouths shut.”
He pats my shoulder. “And like me. Just do as I do—you don’t have to keep your mouth shut, but don’t pry into people’s business.”
I stare at Oskar, turning his bold-faced lie over in my head. If I call him on it, he might toss me out of his home—especially because he didn’t want me here to begin with. “Thanks for the advice.”
He pulls his cloak over his shoulders. “I have to hunt.”
I watch his boots shuffling toward the exit to the shelter. “I won’t keep you.”
He’s quiet for a moment. But then—“Elli? My mother said you did an excellent job with the corn yesterday.”
My head bobs up, but he’s already gone. Even so, the strangest sense of accomplishment floods my chest. I’m not useless. I can grind corn, and put on stockings, and tie a kerchief, and relieve myself without an attendant holding my gown up for me. All things I’d never done before yesterday.
Over the next week, I learn to be useful in other ways. Maarika teaches me how to use the loom. She puts me to work using a thick copper needle to stitch a few pelts together. I chop herbs and pluck pheasants and patch holes in the elbows of Oskar’s heavy winter tunic, eager to stay busy in the shelter and avoid the mistrustful stares and general notice of the other cave dwellers. What if the elders are searching for me, as Raimo feared? Would they ever think to look here?
Maarika peeks in on me often, her gray eyes somber and fathomless. She never smiles, but she doesn’t scold, either. If I make a mistake, she merely shows me how to do it right, and she is careful with my damaged hand, patient when I can’t quite manage something. I put all my gratitude into my work. Every night I fall onto my pallet exhausted and hurting but relieved; I wasn’t a burden today. I was useful.
It is a livable life. I think of Mim every day, but the ache grows more bearable. The same is true of the realization that I will never be queen, that I will never feel the magic awaken inside of me—that I am already all I will ever be. Sometimes it even feels like I’m less, especially when my hand burns like it’s been dipped in molten iron, when it’s so sensitive to touch that the slightest brush against it forces me to stifle a scream. But I learn to endure that pain as well. I am scarred, and I will never be what I was before, but I’m growing stronger.
Oskar seems to be doing the opposite, though. He comes in from days of hunting with his sled piled high with field-dressed game, enough to make the other men grumble with jealousy, but his lips are gray with cold and it takes an hour in front of the fire for him to stop shaking. He’s grown his beard while many young men go clean-shaven. He eats his soup boiling and it’s never hot enough for him. And the nights are the worst. He tosses and turns, his racked breaths huffing from him in a glitter of ice crystals. As the days pass, colder and colder, he grows silent and weary.
I lose count of how many times I almost cross the room to lay a hand on his shoulder, in the quiet hope that I could offer him some comfort. There is something about him that tugs at me. I find myself wanting to put my hands on either side of his face and tell him that I know what he is, ask him how I can help. But the only time he looks at me is in the morning as he leaves. He always turns back right before he steps out of the shelter.
“Elli? You did a good job with the patching.” He raises his elbow and wobbles it in front of me, showing off my somewhat clumsy job. “Like new.”
He says something like that every day, but his smiles are so rare that I want to collect them in a basin and hide them away. I’m sitting in front of the fire one morning after he leaves, eating a dry biscuit and trying to remember what his laugh sounded like, when Freya emerges from her mother’s little chamber. “Get up, Elli. You’re coming with me.” She begins to fold pelts and place them in a basket.