The Impostor Queen (The Impostor Queen, #1)(72)

I laugh, then gasp as my head throbs. I press the cloth-wrapped ice to my temple. “A bit of an arse? You hit me in the head and tried to burn me to death.”

He offers a sheepish smile. “Well, in my defense, I thought you were the Valtia and would defend yourself. I’m still thinking you might be her.”

I sigh. “Sig, if I were the Valtia, you’d be a pile of bones and ash right now.”

“If you’re not the Valtia, then what are you?” He turns to me, taking my face in his hands. His scent is sharp and hot in my nose. My free hand rises to push him away, but his grasp is firm. “Don’t lie. I know many ways to hurt a person that don’t involve magic.”

My mind whirls as I weigh the need to keep my secret with my need to convince Sig I’m not the Valtia. I focus on the feel of his palms on my cheeks, wondering why I don’t sense the fiery maelstrom of his magic infusing my skin, gathering in my hollow chest. “I’m . . . something else. I’m not sure exactly.” I decide on the truth—but only the half that will work in my favor. “Sometimes I . . . absorb magic.”

His hands jerk away from me like he’s been burned. “What?” He wipes his palms on his trousers.

It’s hard to hide my smile. “I can’t help it. I’m immune to fire and ice magic, and if I touch a wielder, sometimes I siphon it off.”

He’s looking at me like I’m poisonous. “Did Oskar know? Has he known this whole time?” Then he laughs, bitter and hard. “Oh, let me guess. Did he beg you to drain away all his magic? You must have been an answer to all his desperate prayers.”

“You seem awfully interested in a man you think is a coward.”

Sig kicks at the sand, the toe of his boot leaving a deep divot. “He’s wasting his gift! And he won’t lift a finger to fight for himself.”

I pull the ice pack from my temple. “But he’ll fight for others. I’d be dead if he hadn’t fought for me.” I toss the bloodstained cloth to the ground and thrust my hand into my pocket. My hand closes around the wooden dove. “You might know him, but you don’t understand him.”

Sig’s face crumples and he turns away quickly, leaving me to stare at the silver lash marks on his back. “He’s my brother,” he says quietly. “Not by blood, but by magic and circumstance. He seems to have forgotten that, but I never will.” He takes my elbow again and leads me forward until we reach the stony expanse of the bluffs. Beyond it stretches the frozen Motherlake, her winter ice glittering under the afternoon sun. “Did he tell you anything about me?”

“Oskar’s not the most talkative person.”

He lets out a short, amused breath. “True.” There is the faintest spark of longing in his deep-brown eyes. I was so wrong. He doesn’t hate Oskar. He misses him. Something we have in common.

“Would you like to tell me about yourself, Sig?”

He gives me a cautious look, then conceals it with a grin. “Why not? Perhaps that’ll make things easier.” His smile turns fierce. “And maybe we’ll find we have a common enemy.”

He holds his palm over a broad patch of crusty snow, and it melts away instantly. The melt-off boils, then turns to steam. Sig doesn’t stop until the sand beneath is dry. He guides me to sit down, and I feel its vague warmth seep through my gown.

“When I was fourteen, I was an apprentice to my father—he was a locksmith. My mother died when I was a little boy.”

His pale fingers trace the outline of a key in the sand. “The priests called my father to the temple one day, to install a new lock for one of their chambers. He invited me along. Said it was a great honor. He joked that maybe we’d see the Valtia. Or perhaps the Saadella. She would have been about eleven at that time.” He leans in and whispers, “Which could make her about sixteen now.”

My cheeks burn and he chuckles. “I thought so. You were the Saadella. Let me guess—did they torture you when you turned out to be a magical dud?”

I clench my teeth. “I thought you were going to tell me about you.”

His mirth melts away. “Fine. I didn’t want to go to the temple. I tried to get out of it. I was terrified.”

“You knew you had magic.”

He nods, still tracing that key in the sand. “But I’d managed to keep it hidden. A year before, my friend Armo accidentally froze water in a pump right outside the city council building. The priests came that night and took him, and I remember thinking it was as if he had died.”

“Armo is an apprentice now,” I say, deciding not to mention that he’s the person who whipped me. “One day he’ll be a priest.”

“How nice.” Sig lets a stream of white-gold sand spiral from his closed fist. “That was the last thing I wanted to be. And I figured, as long as I could conceal the magic, I could live just fine. I suppose it was arrogant to think that would work.” He sighs. “It was one of the elders who escorted us into the temple. As my father worked, the elder asked me about my studies. I tried to be polite. He offered to show me some of the star texts, and I went with him.”

“Do you know which elder?”

He shrugs. “Dark eyes. Dark shadow of hair on his shaved head. Round belly.”

“Aleksi. Or . . . Kauko, maybe.” Both are dark. “They’re distinguishable only by their actions.”