The Cursed Queen (The Impostor Queen #2)(100)

“Does Thyra know all of this?”

“She negotiated the agreement. Got a promise of cooperation from her warriors, that they wouldn’t get in our fighters’ way.”

“The whole story about them emerging through a tunnel—that was a lie, wasn’t it? You made sure I overheard it, hoping I would take the information to Nisse.”

Her mouth twists in apology and she takes a few steps away from me, as if she’s afraid I’ll strike at her. “Had to make him believe it, little red. And if it came from you as well as—”

“I know. It’s all right. You knew I would try to protect my tribe.”

“That I did.” She smiles. “Always clawing your way to the light. All any of us can do.” She rubs at her round cheeks, and I see the tearstains there. “But it went all wrong on the parapet. Sander and Thyra thought they could best Nisse and Jaspar, but those two . . .”

I swallow back the cost of their victory. “Now Nisse holds captive the one person we need to survive the day.”

Tentatively, she squeezes my arm. “I’ll help you get to Thyra. You’re the only one who might be able to do it.” She touches the cuff around my wrist. “That crazy boy said he would get this for you.”

“He’s downstairs.”

“Dead?”

I shake my head. “Hurt, though.”

She frowns. “So many will die today.”

My cheeks burn—she is not saying as much as she could. All these weeks, she’s held back, maybe out of kindness, perhaps out of hope that I would come to it on my own.

This is the price of their freedom, won back from those who took it from them—my people.

“I’ll do whatever I can, Halina.”

“Then so will I.”

My brain shifts through my memories of the top levels of the tower. “How high can we get?”

“There are windows maybe two lengths of a man below the top. And the guards are just beneath that trapdoor.”

“How many?”

“Six. And they have nothing to lose.”

But maybe I could save them, too. Not by confronting them, though. “Can you distract them?”

She bites her lip. “I can try.”

“That’s all any of us can do. Come on.” I re-enter the staircase with her behind me, my dagger drawn. Below us, I imagine I can hear the shouts of warriors, but it may just be the roaring in my ears or the rush of magic in my veins. I need it now. I can’t go without it anymore. But that means I have to trust the foreign thing inside me. I have to accept it as mine. I have to accept it as me. And suddenly, Sig’s instruction makes sense. My heart races as I consider what I’m about to do, and I barely breathe as we creep our way to the level just beneath the guard. Halina is utterly silent behind me, a ghost tracing my steps. She grips my wrist as we huddle in the corridor outside the staircase.

“What are you going to do?”

I sheathe Sander’s dagger and look down at my hands. “Claw my way toward the light, I suppose.” And hope she’s still alive when I reach her. I walk toward a window set into the curved outer wall of this narrower level near the top. We are two levels above the parapet, and I can see much of the city from here—the streets are filled with people, too far away to discern if they’re fleeing or fighting or rioting or cheering. I look to the east, but the view is obscured by a cluster of tall shelters. I can only hope Preben and Bertel have kept our warriors in safety as the world collapses around them.

Cautiously, I lean out and look up. Three of my body lengths above me, I see the round, flat wall that rings the roof of the tower, the place where Jaspar and I sparred, the place where he tried to poison me, not with powder or toxic berries, but with carefully crafted words. And now Nisse is up there with my chieftain while doom closes in.

“Give me a few minutes,” I whisper. “If my body doesn’t plummet past this window, do your best to keep the attention of those guards.”

“And you?” She points at the cuff. “Are you Kupari or Krigere right now?”

I lift the cuff to the light, examining the blood-red runes along its surface. “I’m both,” I say, knowing only as I hear myself speaking that this is the only way I can be, and that it will never be simple again. “From now on I will always be both.”

Refusing to let terror close its fingers around my heart and mind, I jump onto the stone sill and dig my fingers into the rough spaces between jagged rocks. I will have eyes only for the sky. Please, I whisper to the magic, do not let me fall. We are together in this.

A hard breeze gusts at my back, pushing me against the outer wall of the tower. I think that’s all the reassurance I’m going to get. With my whole body clenched tight, I begin to climb, slowly inching toward the top. It’s not terribly far, but from my position clinging to the side of the tower, it feels like miles. Sweat beads and trickles from my brow, but is dried by the steady wind at my back. I don’t know if it’s a gift from the Torden or the push of my magic, and I don’t care. All my focus is on not falling to my death. I kick and wiggle my toes into crags and crevices, pushing my bleeding fingers into any place that will give me a good hold. I ignore the throbbing pain in my side, the slick smear of blood as my belly slides upward.

Finally, when I am just beneath the edge of the roof, I hear the low rumble of Nisse’s voice. “By now Jaspar will be on his way to our warriors,” he is saying. “You’ve made a nice effort, but like before, you will fail to defeat us.”