The Cursed Queen (The Impostor Queen #2)(25)

There’s a heavy cold in my chest that isn’t caused by my curse. “Cyrill was a great warrior, Gry. I’m sorry he was lost.”

She sniffles and shoos Ebbe off to play with his older sister, who is killing time with a game of jackstraws using sharpened twigs. “Not as sorry as I am,” she says in a choked voice.

“We will make sure your family is provided for.”

“I know. And I believe in Chieftain Thyra, no matter what the others say. But”—she gives me a pained look—“I miss Cyrill’s laugh. I miss how he made me laugh.”

I rub my chest. “He made me laugh even as he lay wounded. He was in good spirits until the end, Gry.”

“You were with him?” She swipes the sleeve of her gown across her face.

“He cursed the fact that he was stuck with a bunch of baby warriors.”

Her chuckle is raspy with grief. “Thank you for that.”

I glance around. “Where is your slave?”

“Hulda? I sent her to gather kindling. Why?”

I shrug. “Just hoping she hadn’t run away. Many have.” I take a step backward, already knowing where I’m headed next. “If you or your children need anything on this journey, find me. All right?”

She gives me a flickering smile. “Thank you, Ansa.” She looks away. “Cyrill always spoke highly of you. Said you were among the fiercest he’d trained.”

My throat hurts as I say, “I will live up to that; I promise.”

I jog to the other side of camp, the edge of the great forest. It used to lean right over the shore, but over the years as we built our longships, it shrank back and back and back, leaving only a muddy field of stumps. A few andeners, slaves, and children pick their way along, hunting twigs and leaves to stoke morning fires for the meal before we depart. I spot Hulda by herself at the far edge of the field, right at the forest’s new edge, dropping handfuls of short twigs and splintered wood into a cloth bag. Her weathered brow furrows as she sees me approaching, and she backtracks into the woods as I draw near. “Cyrill’s!” she says in a shrill voice.

She’s afraid I’m going to claim her as plunder.

I put my hands up. “No. I don’t want you.”

Her eyes narrow. She’s healthy and stout, with hair the same color as mine. The same as the witch queen’s. “I need to ask you something. About the witch.” I wish I could take back the word as she scowls. “I mean, the . . . Valtera?”

She gives me a quizzical look.

I try again. “The Valia?”

“Valtia?” she asks, leaning forward to look into my eyes.

I nod. “I need to know about her power.”

From the scrunched-up look on her face, I can tell she’s trying to translate my words. “Ice,” she says. “Fire. She has the two, the same.” Her accent is . . . round. And trilling. Even the Kupari language is soft and weak. I push down a swell of contempt even as I recall the witch’s black-robed minion grinding out those trilling words—just before he prepared to hurl fire at me.

“Ice and fire,” I say. “She controls both?”

“Both. Together and”—she spreads her hands—“apart. Many ways she has magic.”

“And she curses people.”

Hulda tilts her head. “Curse?”

“Yes,” I say through gritted teeth. “She sticks this ice and fire inside people.” I mimic the arc of the witch-made lightning that struck me six nights ago. “How might one break such a curse?”

Hulda blinks at me. “Curse?” she asks again. “Valtia has ice and fire, together and apart—”

“Yes, I know.” My frustration is already making me sweat, and I remind myself to stay calm. “But how do people get rid of it?”

She looks utterly baffled. “Get rid . . . of magic?”

“Sure, if that’s what you all call it. How do they do that, once she curses them with it?” An idea occurs to me. “If she were to be killed—”

Hulda tilts her head. “Some born with ice and fire, some not. But Valtia . . . her power comes from other Valtia.”

“You mean there’s two of them?” Thyra will need to know immediately.

“No, not two.”

My hands rise in irritation. “Then what in heaven are you talking about?”

The woman looks me over with curiosity, then touches her own coppery hair and points to mine. “First, Valtia is a Saadella,” she says, though I’ve never heard that word in my life. “Her hair is this color. Kupari.”

“My hair is not Kupari.”

“Copper,” she says slowly. Then she points to my eyes. “And her eyes is that color.” She lets out an amused grunt. “You could be Saadella.”

“What did you just call me?”

Hulda steps back in alarm as a frigid gust of wind swirls around us. Her gray eyes go round as the breeze whips her coppery hair from its braid, and her teeth chatter as she says, “Nothing! I said nothing!” She stumbles and falls backward, landing hard on her backside. Her eyes are bright with tears. “Please! Please!”

Her cries will draw attention to us, the last thing I want. Cold hatred for this stupid, cowardly slave rushes through me, especially when she screams again. She’s staring at the ground and inching back, pure horror etched into the lines of her face. I look down to see what on earth could be frightening her.