The Cursed Queen (The Impostor Queen #2)(17)
But she already is. When I get to the roped off circle, she’s standing in the center, in her boots and breeches, wearing only her chest wrap and undershirt. Her kill marks are silver pink on her tanned skin, and the lean muscles of her arms are tense as she faces off against Edvin, a barrel-chested old warrior with arms the size of young oaks. He holds his battle ax and paces in a slow circle around her. He’s easily twice her weight, but she’s nearly as tall as he is. Her chest rises and falls slowly as she waits for him to attack, and she holds a dagger in her right hand, her grip light.
All around us, warriors and andeners shout and cheer. Some for Thyra, some for Edvin, most for the sheer normalcy and reassurance of blood, I suspect. Edvin’s andener stands proud near the entrance to the circle, looking sure of her mate’s victory. Aksel stands next to his mother, his brown eyes fierce with pride as he stares at his father. There is no one there for Thyra—her parents are dead. She has no brothers, no sisters. Not anymore. The open space in that place of prestige is gaping. Our chieftain is all alone. I am desperate to make my way over there, but I don’t want to distract her now that the challenge has begun.
Most fights in this circle are for sport. Or to gain status. This is where I faced off with Sander the day I became a warrior, the moment I spit a part of his ear in the dirt and smiled at him with bloody teeth while Lars roared with laughter.
Warriors usually clasp arms at the end. We all bleed red.
But in a challenge fight for the chieftain’s chair, only one will leave the ring. It’s a fight to the death.
“I’ll make it quick, Thyra,” Edvin says in his scratchy sand and lakewater voice. “I respected your father.”
Thyra’s eyes flicker with pain. “You should have had faith in me, Edvin. You haven’t even given me a season to prove myself.”
“Too much at stake for that.” He whirls his ax, and the blade catches the sunlight.
Cold emanates from the ball of ice inside me, wrenching a shiver up my back. A frigid gust of wind blows over us, making the people around me draw their shoulders up and wrap their arms around themselves. I glance over to see Sander giving me a queer look as he tugs his collar over the red, blistery streaks I left on his throat. I swallow hard and focus on the fight circle again.
Sander leans down. “Edvin’s going to rely on brute strength. Always has. Thyra should be all right if she—”
“Shh.” I can’t listen to his detached, pompous observations right now. This is no ordinary fight.
Thyra looks so thin and fragile as Edvin lumbers toward her, but as she adopts her fighting stance, the cold inside me dissipates. Her face is solemn and smooth as he lets out a war cry and swings his ax in a sideways strike, like one might chop at a tree. Thyra throws herself to the dirt and rolls before jumping up again, her movements lithe and graceful. She never takes her eyes from his face. Edvin breathes hard, and his bushy gray-brown beard swishes with a burst of warm breeze. He strikes at her again, clearly aiming for her side—a height impossible to jump over and hard to duck under, too quick to run from. But instead of doing any of those things, Thyra spins inside his guard in an instant and leaves a slash across his ribs before dodging away. Like she’s dancing, graceful and controlled. Edvin staggers, his mouth half open as he touches his fingers to his side. He laughs when they come away bloody. “Lars would be so proud! He used to boast about you when he was nose-deep in his goblet.”
“He wouldn’t have wanted to see this,” she says, still in her stance, ready for his next attack.
“End it, Edvin,” shouts a grizzled old warrior, wrinkled lips curling over missing teeth. “Stop playing with the child.”
Edvin charges again, this time holding the ax closer and guarding his body as he swings. I grit my teeth. Thyra could throw the dagger, but if the strike isn’t true, she’ll be weaponless. Instead, she ducks under one swipe and blocks another, but the power of it sends her stumbling. Edvin presses, slamming his ax down in a blow that will cleave her spine, but she leaps to the side and the blade thunks hard into the muddy ground, buried deep.
Thyra’s moving before Edvin can pull his weapon from the earth. Aksel screams a warning to his father, but it is no good. Her dagger slices into Edvin’s throat just above his collar, and red drops fly as she pulls it loose and ducks behind him, transferring her dagger to her other hand. She strikes him again from the other side, a quick, mercilessly deep stab. And then she stands with her back to him, a sign of pure confidence—or contempt—and stares steadily at the shriveled old warrior who called for her quick death, while Edvin’s blood slides along her blade, dripping onto the toe of her boot.
Edvin sinks to his knees, his eyes wide and stunned. Thyra turns around and stands behind him as his hands fall from his ax handle, leaving it sticking up from the ground. He’s making the most terrible noises, animal grunts and cries, as he claws at his wounds, perhaps trying to find the air as he drowns. Thyra meets the eyes of Edvin’s andener, a woman the age Thyra’s mother would have been, had she lived.
“I offer mercy,” she says to the woman, who bows her head as Aksel stands frozen beside her, white with shock. Finally, as Edvin lets out another pained cough, his mate nods, an abrupt jerk of her head.
Thyra grabs a fistful of Edvin’s hair, wrenches his head back, and cuts his throat. He falls onto his stomach as his partner shrieks her grief, falling into her son’s arms. Thyra kneels next to the fallen warrior and murmurs something in his ear, then rises and addresses the crowd. “I’ll be in the council shelter if anyone else would like to challenge me.”