The Cursed Queen (The Impostor Queen #2)(26)

Thick, silver-white frost is creeping along the ground around me, edging closer to the hem of Hulda’s skirt, advancing like an army of ants. I gasp and clench my fists, trying to push the curse down, but when the ice keeps advancing, I rush forward, frantically shushing her. If she doesn’t shut up, the entire camp will come running, and then they’ll see the frost. They’ll know I’m cursed, and I’ll be stoned in the fight circle.

Hulda’s fingers are gray with cold, and she’s shivering violently as she points at me. She shrieks one word in her awful language over and over again, one that sounds like the hiss of a snake. The sound slithers into my ears, relentless and maddening, filling my head with memories of lullabies and fire and blood.

I drop to my knees and clamp my hand over her mouth.





CHAPTER EIGHT


I am so desperate to silence Hulda that at first I don’t notice that I have. My fingers, rigid with cold, freeze to the damp flesh of her face. Her hands scrabble along my arms. But I don’t feel it. I stare at her face, her coppery hair, and I hear her unfamiliar-yet-familiar language in my head, and suddenly her eyes are no longer gray. They’re blue and pleading and the light in them is fading, and there’s nothing I can do.

The distant whinny of a horse wrenches me back to the present, shivering and trembling, something hard tickling my palm. I look down, and with a cry, I throw myself backward, landing in a sprawl on damp, rotted leaves. Hulda does not move. Her gray eyes are clouded with frost, and her mouth is open. Her stiff fingers claw at empty air, as if she is begging heaven for mercy.

My breath fogging, I crawl forward and poke her arm. She is frozen solid.

I let out a wretched whimper as I wipe my palms on my breeches. “I didn’t mean it,” I whisper to her. And then I rise to my feet and kick her rigid body as my rage at the witch queen rises high enough to choke me. “I didn’t want to hurt you!”

“Hulda!” Gry is shouting for her slave from across the field, and the sound of her voice nearly makes my heart burst.

If I’m caught here, that’s it. My feet slip on the matted leaves as I sprint up the hill and deeper into the trees. I can almost hear the eerie laugh of the queen from across the Torden. Perhaps she senses what she’s done. Perhaps she knows her trap has sprung.

But I didn’t kill a Krigere. I killed one of her own. A slave. A Kupari. I have not killed one of my tribe. I double over and retch behind the fractured trunk of a lightning-felled tree. I should not feel this bad. Killing is as natural as eating or sleeping. It is the right of the victor over the conquered.

I grit my teeth over a sob and pull the collar of my tunic up against my throat with shaking hands. With my eyes closed and my head bowed, I imagine cramming the witch’s curse back inside, burying it deep under layers of dirt, covering it with stones. Despite my frantic efforts, it still managed to slip free, and I can’t let it happen again, for my sake and for Thyra’s. I have to be her wolf. I cannot be the witch’s sword.

I stay hidden in the forest until my breathing has slowed, until it is once again warm and steady, until I feel like myself again. Faint cries from several hundred yards behind me make me wonder if Hulda has been found, and thinking about it nearly makes me retch again. So does my fear of anyone finding out what I’ve done. I weave my way further into the woods, to a stream that leads down to the beach, and then I trek back up to camp that way, so no one will suspect where I came from. I return to my shelter like a wary, kicked animal, ready to dart away from the slightest hint of threat, and for the first time, I am glad that we are starting our journey today.

As far as I’m concerned, we cannot possibly leave soon enough.

*

I shiver, even as sweat trickles across my shoulders and into the collar of my tunic. We are a fog of scent and noise and grief stretched along the shore of the thunder-gray lake, slowly drifting to the southeast. I stare out at the rough waters as a cool breeze sends another hard chill down my spine.

I can’t stop thinking about Hulda’s eyes.

My stomach clenches and I forget to watch my steps. I hiss with pain as my knee strikes a rock. A hand slides around my upper arm and yanks me up like I’m a sack of grain. It belongs to Preben, his eyes like lumps of charcoal. “It’s only the first day,” he says. On his other side, Aksel lets out a grunt of laughter at the implication that I’m already struggling to keep up.

I yank my arm from Preben’s grasp. “And no matter what day it is, I can regain my footing on my own.” I quicken my steps and get in front of the two of them, my cheeks burning. Up ahead, I hear a whistle. Smoke stains the darkening sky. I shift my bundle of scavenged belongings—blanket, spare tunic, sharpening stone—on my back. It’s not heavy, but the weight of my secret bends my spine toward the ground. Hoping to relieve my burden, I slide the bundle—secured by one stretch of rope and a strip of leather I plan to make into a belt—down my arm and jog ahead to find Thyra. She’s been hiking near Jaspar all day, surrounded by his warriors and some of ours. I think she’s afraid that they’ll scheme if she doesn’t hover like a fly over a corpse.

She’s probably been wondering where I am. She expected me to hike at her back. But for the first many hours of our journey, I did not trust myself to be around other people.

Maybe I still shouldn’t, but I can’t simply disappear either. I am needed.