The Impostor Queen (The Impostor Queen, #1)(50)
“But you do,” I say, gesturing at the fire, the rocks, the shelter. “And you believe Oskar does as well.”
She gives me a flickering smile. “Oh, yes. I have hope.” She touches a warming stone. “And I will protect it to my last breath, with whatever strength I have, however small it may be.” Her eyes meet mine, and I read the message there. Oskar is her hope. Her family is her life.
She is trusting me—and warning me. Does she know that Oskar is a wielder—and does she suspect I know as well? I want so badly to ask her why he’s hiding, why he suffers like he does, but I have too many secrets to keep myself.
“If I had a family of my own,” I say slowly, “I would protect them, as you do.”
Her gaze is unwavering. “But right now, we are your family.”
“Then this is the family I will work to protect. Even if all I can do is heat stones by the fire.”
Maarika squeezes my arm and then disappears back into her private area, and I stare at the place where she was, hoping I passed the test she just set before me.
The next afternoon I go down the trail into the dark rear caverns with Freya, where the underground stream sends icy water rushing through a wide trough before disappearing under the rock again. We peel off our stockings to wash. “Does Oskar seem all right to you?” I ask, haunted by my memories of his tortured sleep the night before.
Freya shrugs. “He’s always grumpy in the winter, but it’s definitely worse this year.”
“It’s more than grumpiness,” I say, wincing as the soles of my feet touch the water. I only wash with my left hand, because my right is fearfully sensitive to cold now, something I discovered the hard way the first time I dipped it into the stream. It took hours for it to stop hurting, and the whole time, I thought of Oskar, how pained he looks when he comes in from the icy marshlands. “Do you think he might be sick?”
I’m so eager for her reply that I forget to be careful.
“Hey,” she says when she spots the blood-flame mark on my calf. “What’s that?”
I quickly yank my gown over it. “Just a scar,” I say, my voice loud and creaky. “Once when I was little, I got too curious around the fire and burned myself with a poker.”
Freya cringes. “That must have hurt terribly,” she says quietly. “Burns are the worst.”
I thank the stars that she believes me. “Yes. I’ll never do something that stupid again.”
After we wash, me shivering from the frigid water and Freya oddly seeming to enjoy it, we return to the shelter and retrieve two baskets, then head out to gather twigs for kindling. I wrap my right hand in three layers of wool to try to protect it from the chill wind and sorely wish I owned a pair of gloves. As we exit the cave, we meet Aira and her father—Ismael, who has a bushy black beard, a scar that slices through one of his eyebrows, and, I recall, the ability to coax fire from damp leaves. Aira’s carrying a saw, and Ismael’s hauling a string of fish. Both are wearing light cloaks despite the bitter cold.
Veikko is with them, wrapped in a thick cloak of fur and wearing heavy gloves on his hands. “—got in through the front gate this time,” he’s telling them. “There’s a shortage of vegetables in the city, so when I offered the constable a bag of potatoes, he let me right in!”
Ismael scowls. “Worse and worse,” he says. “Soon the city dwellers will be coming out here and raiding us!”
Veikko looks down at the string of fish. “Most citizens have no idea how to fend for themselves. They’re used to things being easy. Spoiled by the warmth and plenty. Now that it’s gone, they’re like orphaned baby birds.” He raises his eyebrows. “They’d better hope a hungry weasel doesn’t find the nest before their mother returns.”
“If that weasel has longboats and broadswords,” Aria scoffs, “it might not matter.”
Freya and I meet them in the middle of the wide-open area in front of the cavern, surrounded by the high, steep stone walls of the hills that hide this cave entrance from view. Aira smiles at me. I believe she’s noticed how Oskar doesn’t treat me differently than he treats others, and she no longer considers me a threat to her romantic hopes. I smile back, despite the now-familiar ache in my chest every time I think of him. “If there are food shortages, is the temple sharing some of their surplus with the citizens?” I ask them. “They have food aplenty from their own gardens, and all the magic they need to keep things growing.”
“The temple’s not sharing a thing.” Veikko frowns. “It’s shut up tight now. Only the elders dare show their faces in town.”
“Because the people are afraid of them.” I remember how they made way as Aleksi and Leevi passed. I used to think it was awe and respect, but now I wonder if I was wrong, as I was about so many things.
“Aye,” says Ismael, scratching at his beard. “No one dares approach them. But as people get hungrier, their desperation will outweigh their fear.”
“It’s already happening,” says Veikko. “There was a riot in the market over food prices yesterday, made worse by a rumor that the priests have been hoarding copper in the temple that could be used for trade. A few people were shouting that they should raid the temple.”
I shake my head. “The elders are worried about a copper shortage.”