The Cursed Queen (The Impostor Queen #2)(36)
Aksel blinks and steps back abruptly, sheathing his dagger as he does. He smiles like his lips are being wrenched up with metal hooks. “I suppose I could use a good meal. It’s been days,” he says, his voice unsteady. He picks up the biscuit and dusts sand off it. “Many thanks, Jaspar.”
Shoving the hard lump of flour and salt and lard in his pocket, he marches toward the shore, his strides jerky and stiff.
“That boy needs an andener. Immediately,” says the warrior named Carina, twirling her thick braid and rolling her hips, and everyone bursts into guffaws, probably not as much because of the joke as with gratitude that the tension has been shattered.
Thyra is smiling as she sinks back down onto the sand, but her muscles are still drawn tight with readiness. She accepts the toasts of our warriors and the begrudging nods of a few of Jaspar’s—it seems her quiet confidence has impressed them as well. “Follow Aksel,” she says in my ear as everyone returns their attention to their food. “Make sure he’s keeping wise.”
I meet her eyes. “You’re afraid he’ll do something rash?”
“He’s lost his grip on reason. I wouldn’t put it past him to poison my water or sabotage the horses. Give him space, but watch him.”
“I’m your wolf,” I whisper, and stuff the rest of my biscuit into my mouth. It tastes as good as I imagine the sand beneath my feet would. I pull a strip of dried meat from my pocket and chew on it while I follow Aksel’s trail through camp, where people are settled around small fires among the gently sloping dunes. His footsteps turn abruptly at the edge of camp, cutting toward the shore, and I peer around me, noticing his mother—Edvin’s widow—gathered with a few others near a small fire of their own. She gives me a hard look as I disappear around the edge of a massive sand hill and follow a rocky slope toward the pebbled beach. Stony outcroppings jut toward the water every several yards, and waves reach for them and fall short with each grasping effort. Aksel is nowhere to be found.
I eye the ground and see a smashed sprig of greenery, freshly downtrodden. Thyra didn’t want me to get too close, but I need to make sure Aksel’s not looping back to ambush her at the western edge of camp. Surprise is his only hope of beating her. My steps quicken, but I plant my feet on larger rocks to avoid the crunching sounds that would announce my approach.
I pick my way along slowly, peering around each outcropping and expecting to see Aksel, but he’s gone. Finally, as the sun kisses the water, I lean against a boulder and sigh. I must have missed his trail. I’ve never been the best tracker—I’m better at charging in and killing head on. And I’d better get back. I turn to retrace my steps.
The blow comes from above, a hard punch to the side of my face that sends me sprawling in the sand. Panting, I roll onto my back and draw a dagger, blinking up at the dark form descending on me.
“You’re not Thyra, but you’ll do.”
I roll sharply to the side as I hear the malevolent whisper of a blade being drawn. “Aksel, cut it out.”
The kick lands right in my ribs, and my breath explodes from my mouth. “What’s a warrior without her wolf?” he asks in a low, shaky voice.
“Still strong enough to kill a conniving weasel,” I say, launching myself to my feet even as my lungs scream for air. Fury courses through my veins, hotter by the second. I leap back as Aksel slashes at me, a clumsy swipe of his blade, but I misjudge his distance in the shadowed twilight. Pain slices across the top of my forearm, forcing me to stifle a cry. “For heaven’s sake, Aksel, this isn’t a fight circle!”
“Right, this is the real world, Ansa. And you’re serving the wrong master.” He stabs at me, but I throw myself to the side and parry the blow. His dark eyes glitter wetly in the gathering dark. “She’ll betray you, too, you know. As soon as you cease to be useful.”
“Thyra’s never betrayed anyone.”
“That’s what she’d like people to believe.”
I take a step back. “Aksel, I know you’re grieving. But Thyra would give her life for this tribe.” My throat tightens. “She wouldn’t have traveled to Vasterut if the threat to us hadn’t been grave.”
“From what I hear, she created that threat!”
“Who have you been talking to?” But even as I ask, I know. It can only have been Jaspar and his warriors.
Aksel’s lip curls. “She’s blinded you, Ansa. Ask yourself who had the most to gain from Nisse’s banishment.”
The accusation sparks in my chest like flint on iron. “Stop blaming her for everything and accept that she’s chieftain now!”
He lets out a strangled roar and dives at me, and I catch his blade arm as we go tumbling to the ground, rolling over each other in the loose sand. It flies into my eyes and ears and mouth, but I ignore the scrape of it as I jam my knee up to throw him off me. He grunts and jerks upward with the impact, but then flattens himself on top of me, the edge of his dagger pressed to my shoulder as I fight to hold it back. His teeth are bared as he stares down at me.
My skin flashes hot, and I try to quell the fire in my veins, thinking of ice and snow and cold marsh water even as I hold his wrist, keeping the dagger a few inches from my jugular. “Stop this. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
He chuckles, the vibrations spreading from his body to mine. “I can be a wolf too, Ansa.”