The Cursed Queen (The Impostor Queen #2)(103)

The wounds that mar my body are nothing, not with her hands on me, not with her mouth on mine. Our enemy could be storming the gate right now, and I still smile and nip at Thyra’s bottom lip. I still grin when her fingers twist in my hair. I still gasp as she yanks up my tunic and lays her cool palm on my bare skin.

The trapdoor slams open and makes both of us jump. I crane my neck and see Halina’s upside-down face, her bright eyes, her grin. “Everyone settled down there,” she says.

“Nisse’s guard?” Thyra asks.

“Surrendered to about three dozen foreign fighters. The tower is under our control.”

Thyra gives me one last, brief kiss before sliding off me. She winces as she raises her head and sways in place. “Jaspar and his warriors? He must have reached them. We heard the signal that he was coming to lay siege to the tower.”

I push myself up to sitting on shaking arms, and Halina gives both me and Thyra a concerned look. “Do you have tunnels that could help us get a message to Preben and Bertel?”

“No need, little red. Jaspar isn’t coming. He had different plans than old Nisse. Guess he wasn’t so loyal after all.”

“What’s happened?” Thyra asks, her voice going flat and sharp.

“He ran,” Halina says. “Everyone was clustered up here in the north of the city, so once he reached his seven hundred fighters, you think he came here to face hundreds of Vasterutians, Korkeans, and Ylpesians who wanted a taste of Krigere blood? No. He gave up. He took them south and they escaped the city. Stole any horse they could find on the way. Bunch of their families running too.”

“Is anyone trying to stop them?” Thyra asks.

Halina shakes her head. “We want them gone, Chieftain,” she says softly, her gaze somber.

Thyra looks over at me, and I read the worry in her eyes. The Vasterutians want us gone too. We are merely guests here now. “I understand,” Thyra says slowly. “I hope you will give us time to recover from this battle.”

Halina nods. “Of course. We honor you as an ally now. You will be able to stay until you know where you will find your new home, whether it be Kupari or elsewhere.”

Thyra gives me a speculative look. “Let me consult with my war counselor here,” she says, reaching for my hand. Our fingers clench tight, holding each other up. “And then we’ll let you know.”





CHAPTER THIRTY


I heal faster than Thyra does. Faster than Sig, too. He tells me it is because of the magic, and if I work at it, maybe I can even heal others. “Like Kauko?” I ask.

Sig’s mouth crimps with distaste. “I know another who heals,” he replies. “In Kupari.”

“Is he among the group who attacked you and chased all the priests from the temple?”

Halina translates for him. Somehow, she and Sig have formed a bond, and she seems to understand him better than anyone. She knows he has a story to tell but won’t tell it for him.

Sig sighs and looks away, muttering something in Kupari. Halina touches his arm. “He says this man was his friend before. He says maybe . . . but that is all he says.”

“I have to know this story, Sig. We need to reach out to the impostor queen. We need her to understand who I am and what it means.”

Thyra shifts next to me and glances at Preben and Bertel, who look gaunt but otherwise healthy after their ordeal barricaded in the east. We are all sitting around the table in what is now her chamber. She refuses to call it a war chamber, but we all stare down at the map of Kupari painted on the table’s surface. “If she can be made to understand that we want peace . . .”

“And a home,” I say as Halina murmurs the translation to Sig. Because this is where Thyra and I landed—apparently Kupari is a vast land, with the city at one end of the peninsula, and the rest of it occupied by a stretch of largely uninhabited marshland and mines. There’s enough room for us there. We could make a home and figure out who we are now, and who we want to become.

Because I am the rightful queen of Kupari. All that remains is convincing the impostor to step down.

“Elli,” Sig says, continuing on in Kupari.

“He says the impostor’s name is Elli,” Halina translates. “He says that she is the one who scarred him as he tried to kill Kauko.”

My fists clench. “I can repay her for you.”

Thyra’s hand closes over mine, and I relax slightly. “Our aim is not revenge.”

Sig mumbles something, and Halina frowns. “He says she is not a mere impostor.”

Sig leans over and touches the cuff, which has not left my body since that day in the tower a few weeks ago, when it helped me save my chieftain. “Sig says she is . . . this.” Halina points at the cuff too.

“What? She has one of those?” Preben asks. “I thought you said she had no magic? What good would it do her?”

“No,” says Halina. “She is one of these. And she has an ice wielder at her side . . . and he is as strong in that ice as Sig is in fire.”

“Like two halves,” Thyra murmurs, looking between me and Sig.

Bertel leans forward, and his white beard brushes the tabletop. “So perhaps we have a chance. She’s not powerless, but neither are we.”

Preben nods. “If we can come together, surely we can negotiate a lasting compromise that will result in a permanent home for our people.”