The Cursed Queen (The Impostor Queen #2)(29)
“And that included leaving my slave dead in the forest?”
“I never saw her!” I shout. I hate the way Thyra is looking at me, the questions in her eyes. Her doubt is a knife. “I went looking for her, but she was nowhere to be found.”
Lies and lies and lies. What I wouldn’t give to fly across the Torden and cut that witch queen’s throat.
“How was she killed?” Jaspar asks, yanking me from my bloody thoughts. He glances over my arms and calves, where my weapons are sheathed.
Gry’s mask of righteous rage slips. “I don’t know. I just know she was.”
A line forms between Jaspar’s brows. “If Ansa killed her, wouldn’t there have been a wound?” He gestures at me. “When she kills you, you tend to know it.”
Sander lets out a begrudging grunt, but everyone else is silent. I look to the other side of the fire and see him staring back. He runs his hand over his scabbed throat and I look away.
Gry folds her arms over her chest. “No wound. She was cold when I found her.”
I grit my teeth, and Thyra frowns. “And when was that?” Thyra asks.
“Midmorn. Just as we were leaving.”
“So she had been dead for a while,” Jaspar says, moving to stand right next to me. A vote of confidence that sits like honey on my tongue.
One I do not deserve.
“She was only steps inside the tree line,” Gry snaps, her keen eyes on me. “How could you have gone into the woods and not have seen her?”
“How am I supposed to know?” I say, my stomach a pit of snakes. “Forgive me for the fact that I had a thousand other things to do this morning. When I didn’t see her, I turned around and left. I don’t have time to search for careless slaves in the woods.”
“Could she have died of natural causes, Gry?” Thyra asks with a much more appropriate tone to take with a widow. “Hulda was reaching the end of her middle years.”
“And was stout as an ox,” says Gry. She closes her eyes and lets out a breath. “The look on her face, Chieftain.” Her voice breaks, and her eyes fill with tears as she looks up at Thyra. “There was such terror there.”
“That kind of look doesn’t require an external source,” I say. I am earning every second I will spend in hell someday. “Her heart could have seized.”
Jaspar nods in agreement, but Thyra is still staring down at Gry, whose cheeks are sunken, whose nose is red. Gry, who used to wear a smile like the sunrise, whose laugh was a gift, and whose love for Cyrill was like a blazing torch. “So she died afraid,” Thyra says, stroking Gry’s hair. “Is there anything else to suggest she was killed, instead of a more natural, though deeply unfortunate, death?”
A tear slides down Gry’s face as her eyes meet mine. “Nothing I can prove,” she says, her voice trembling. “But when I say she was cold . . . there was melting frost on her skin. Her body was stiff with it.” She shudders. “It wasn’t natural, Chieftain.”
A hissing, anxious whisper comes from somewhere behind me, but I hear it like it’s been shouted in my ear: witchcraft.
“All right, I think we’ve let this go on long enough,” Jaspar says loudly, and Thyra steps back suddenly, a look of shock on her face. “Carelessly hurled accusations are sparks on dry tinder after everything this tribe has been through. Gry, we’ll compensate your household for the slave. And—”
Thyra gives him an imperious look. “Gry is of my tribe.”
Jaspar pauses, his mouth still half open, and then he smiles. “My mistake, Chieftain Thyra. By all means. Lead.” He gestures at Gry.
Thyra’s cheeks are red as she puts her arm around Gry and guides her away from the fire, away from dozens of warriors’ stares, back toward her camp up the trail. She murmurs quietly to the widow as they walk. Jaspar chuckles. “I suppose the same words are sweeter if delivered with a soft touch and a gentle voice.” His warriors lift their waterskins to him in salute, and he grins before reaching over to squeeze my shoulder. “Are you all right? It’s not every day one is accused of murdering a slave by”—his brow furrows—“freezing?”
I shiver, letting out a bitter laugh. “Yes. See? A lot has changed since you left. Now I don’t need these.” I hold up my arms, showing off the sheathed daggers strapped between my wrists and elbows. “All I need is to think cold thoughts.”
He guffaws. “Then I’ll redouble my efforts to inspire only warmth in you.” He glances at Thyra’s retreating figure before looking at me again. “Remember what I said, Ansa, hmm? Think about what you deserve in return for that iron loyalty of yours.” He leaves my side and joins his warriors.
I turn and stalk toward the woods on the far side of camp, my thoughts a mess of ice and fire and panic. I’ve just reached the trees when I hear footsteps behind me. Thyra stalks through the dark toward me. She wears the moonlight like a crown, and her eyes are like chips of quartz. “Did you do it?” she asks in a harsh whisper.
“What?” I take a step back.
“You said the witch cursed you to hurt our people. Did you? Are you her weapon now?” Her doubt slices into my side, seeking my vitals. I should admit what happened. I should tell her. But she’s looking at me like I am a stranger, and I recognize the suspicion in her eyes—it’s the way she looked at me when I was first brought to camp all those years ago, a filthy raid prize passed from one tribe to another. She was the daughter of the chieftain, and I was no better than one of the wild dogs who prowl around camp looking for scraps. I fought and I fought and I fought to become one of the Krigere, to have a place and a home. I thought she accepted me as one of them, fully and completely. Now her doubt cuts through that hard-won safety, slicing me away from my tribe, from my love.