The Impostor Queen (The Impostor Queen, #1)(86)
Oskar’s eyes pop open, dark as a thundercloud. He sits up with me still on his chest, so I end up in his lap. He coils his arm around my waist. The cold pulses from him, already stronger than it was. “She’s not going anywhere with you.”
Sig gives him a ghostly smile. “Oh, but she is. Just ask her.”
Oskar’s gaze snaps to mine. “I have to,” I murmur.
Raimo uses his walking stick to pull himself to his feet. “Elli struck a deal with Sig,” he says mildly. “But it barely matters. We’re all going.”
Aira, Ismael, and Veikko glance back and forth between me and Raimo with identical looks of confusion. “Us, too?” Veikko asks.
“Oh, yes,” Raimo says. “It’s time.”
Oskar looks like he’s been hit over the head. “What?”
Raimo sighs, so stooped that he’s only a head taller than Oskar, who’s sitting on the ground. “You’ve put this off for so long, Oskar, but you can’t deny what you are anymore, or what you were meant to do.”
“I’m not meant to do anything,” Oskar says, moving me off his lap so he can get to his feet. “Except to care for my family.”
“You’re the Ice Suurin!” Raimo yells, his arms shaking as he holds on to the stick. “This war will find you whether you want it or not.” He watches as Oskar pulls me to my feet and brings me close. “It already has, I’d say.”
I touch Raimo’s gnarled hand. “Tell us what you know. Please. You can’t expect Oskar—or any of us, for that matter—to go into this blind. We’re all here. We need to understand.”
Raimo glances at his wooden box and rubs his palm over his bald head. “I suppose you are all here.” He lets out a bemused cackle. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for so many years that it seems odd that it’s actually happening.”
“You were a priest,” I prompt him. “And somehow you came into possession of the prophecy that’s been missing from the temple for ages, didn’t you? That’s how you know all these things.”
He grins, showing all his yellow teeth. “I stole it.”
“But wasn’t it kept in the temple?” Oskar asks.
“No. We were all living in the old fortress by the lake,” Raimo says, picking up his box and hobbling over to the community hearth. He sinks onto the stone with the box in his lap. “The temple was still under construction at that time.”
We all gape at him. “The Temple on the Rock is over three hundred years old,” I stammer.
Raimo gives us all an amused look. “True. And so am I.”
CHAPTER 22
We settle ourselves around the old man, hungry for answers, stunned by the understanding that he’s older than the temple itself. But somehow I can’t bring myself to doubt it, and I can tell by looking at the others that they don’t either. It makes a strange kind of sense.
Raimo’s fingers slide over the carvings on the surface of the box. “Contrary to what many like to believe, the Kupari are not native to these lands. Our ancestors had only arrived here a few hundred years before I was born, fleeing the murderous warrior tribes of the far north.”
Veikko’s eyes go wide. “The Soturi?”
Raimo nods. “I suspect they are the very same, though they have only recently crossed the Motherlake in any number. Our ancestors made the great journey guided by the stars, believing they were safe on this peninsula surrounded by the vast waters. And so they were, for a long time. They discovered the copper that runs through the veins of this land, and here they settled.”
“Did they know the magic came from the copper?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “That was a slow, mysterious process, so gradual that the link was not clear for centuries. Our people were fed by the magic in these lands, growing strong over generations as it seeped into our blood. And then, here and there, it began to manifest. Wielders were born.” He looks over at me. “The first Valtia rose up, so powerful with ice and fire that she was named the queen. She ruled from that fortress on the northwestern shore. It’s in ruins now. The platform in the square is made with some of the original stones. But it was within those walls that the first priests were initiated into her service.”
His thumb toys with the clasp of the box. “Wielders walked free, but many of us were eager to learn and serve the magic—and the queen who seemed to have so much of it. But though any wielder can learn to control and refine the power he has”—Raimo’s pale gaze flicks to Oskar, and he arches his eyebrow—“wielders have only as much magic as they’re born with. Not everyone was satisfied with that, and some went in search of ways to increase the magic inside them.”
“Like shutting themselves inside trunks of solid copper,” I say with a shudder.
Raimo rolls his eyes. “Yes, and other, equally ill-advised methods. Some fasted, some had themselves whipped or put themselves through near hanging or drowning, and some decided to rid themselves of . . .” He clears his throat and makes a snipping motion with his fingers. The men around us quietly cringe, but Raimo cackles. “I always thought it was a stupid practice myself. And none of it worked, except to band together those who’d been through it in a warped kind of brotherhood.” He opens the box. The only thing inside is a torn, creased sheet of parchment. “But some of us turned our eyes to the stars, just as our ancestors had, looking for wisdom, answers, portents of the future. After all, the stars were how we survived the scourge of our enemies and found a refuge where we could live in peace. We created the charts and argued over what they predicted.” He chuckles, a phlegmy, weak sound. “Fun times.”