The Cursed Queen (The Impostor Queen #2)(37)

My grip tightens as he tries to push his dagger closer to my throat.

“Thyra doesn’t want what’s best for us,” he says. “She only wants the power, but she doesn’t want to fight.”

I let out a startled laugh. “She’s ready enough to fight you.”

“But not the Kupari.”

“Who cares about that right now? She’s more focused on keeping us whole in Vasterut! Who are you fighting for, Aksel? Yourself? Your family? Or someone else?” Jaspar’s green eyes flash in my mind.

His only response is to force the blade toward my skin. Panic strikes hard inside me—he’s intent on a killing blow. Aksel, with whom I’ve joked and tussled since childhood, who was one of the first to congratulate me after I became a warrior, who I sat next to in quiet support after he lost the fight to be part of the first wave, both of us staring out at the water and craving what lay across it. And it turns out it’s us, fighting for our lives.

“Stop.” I gasp as the iron bites at my throat. The pain hits me like a bolt, traveling straight down my spine, awakening heat like I’ve never known before. I stare up at Aksel, my vision going red, lighting his face with an orange glow, enough to see his eyes going wide and his mouth dropping open in a grimace.

“Your eyes!” he cries.

Taking advantage of his surprise, I roll onto him as he tries to escape me. “Tell me why you’re so intent on killing,” I say as my breath rushes searing from my mouth. “Whose lies have you chosen to believe?”

Aksel screams, and I keep one hand wrapped over his wrist while I clamp my fingers around his throat. He thrashes beneath me and makes a strangled sound, and I abruptly realize his skin is blistering, sizzling, splitting, and steaming. I throw myself backward, frantically trying to calm my panicked heartbeat, but the pain in my neck, the hot trickle of blood over my throat, the sight of Aksel writhing in the sand, clawing at his chest and stomach . . . The curse will not go quiet, no—it rages and roars. My own flesh burns and stings, and then ice rushes up, making me shudder and ache. This curse works its will, though I try in vain to muscle it down.

Aksel’s eyes go so wide that I half expect them to pop out of their sockets as his body arches up and begins to smoke. Then, slowly, it sinks back to earth, curling in on itself. He’s still moving, but I realize it’s not because he’s alive, not anymore.

It’s because I’ve cooked him from the inside, drawing his muscles taut with blazing heat.

I sag onto the sand, pressing my palm over the wound in my throat. The air is filled with the scent of cooked meat, and I stare up the bluff toward the camp. I’ve just done it again. Lost control. Killed one of my own. Aksel sealed his own fate when he drew my blood, but if anyone sees this, they’ll know I’m cursed. Shaking, I lick my finger and hold it up, nearly crying with relief as I realize the wind is blowing toward the lake.

Aksel lies, still smoking, in a pathetic ball. His messy hair is gone, and his scalp is a charred dome.

“Aksel?” a voice shouts from up the beach, jolting me from my dazed pondering.

It’s Sander.

I leap to my feet and hook my fingers beneath Aksel’s rigid, greasy shoulders, and I haul him backward, further behind the outcropping that hid him from me in the first place. I can hear Sander’s footsteps on the pebbles—he’s not trying to be stealthy. He shouts Aksel’s name again.

My heart is thumping like the wings of a dragonfly. Sander is close to Jaspar. He already suspects me of witchcraft. If he sees that I’ve killed Aksel—and how—the entire tribe could turn against me . . . and Thyra, too. My fear rises hot inside me, and a glow at my sides draw my gaze down.

My fingertips are dripping fire.

“Aksel! Where in heaven are you?” Sander shouts. He’s just on the other side of the outcropping. I have to decide how to handle this. I have to get control of this evil force inside me before I kill again.

Unless Sander is also Jaspar’s wolf. That would change things.

I clench my fists in an effort to contain the curse-fire. Then I step from the shadows.





CHAPTER ELEVEN


Sander freezes when he sees me emerge from behind the outcropping. I inhale the thick night air, wishing for a cold wind to blow the stink of cooked flesh out over the water.

Sander’s short, dark hair flutters as the breeze gusts over him. He squints at me in the darkness. “Are you bleeding?”

I glance down at my tunic, the collar of which is stiff with my blood, dried under the heat of my curse. “Just a little.” I whip out one of my own daggers. “I lost my footing while I had it unsheathed.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “And nearly cut your own throat?”

“The trail is treacherous in the shadows.”

“Such truth,” he says, his voice thick with suspicion. “Have you seen Aksel?”

“Not since he went away to pout like a child.” The heavier my conscience, the easier the lies flow, it seems.

Sander chews on the inside of his cheek for a moment. “Any chance he slipped and fell onto your dagger too?”

My laugh is ugly and loud. “He always was a little clumsy.” My stomach turns as I catch a whiff of him. “But I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.”

Sander steps toward me like he means to go around the outcropping, and I move to block him. “He’s definitely not back there. I’ve just walked along that stretch. I was the only living soul for miles.” I smile and tuck my arm—the one Aksel sliced as he attacked me—behind my back. “Why are you looking for Aksel? Thyra sent me to find him.”