The Cursed Queen (The Impostor Queen #2)(66)

“You think I’m a monster. Say it. You hate what I am.”

“I don’t know what you are anymore,” she shouts. “But I could never hate you.”

My hands shake as I push them through my hair, knocking off the frost clinging to my brow. It falls in a glittery powder as I glare at her. “You make a very good show of it. But then, you made a good show of loving me, so I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Ansa, please. I never wanted it to be this way between us.” Her hand crosses the distance.

“Don’t touch me,” I snap, jerking back. My shoulder hits the door frame. “I don’t want to hurt you.” But I will. I swear, if she puts her hands on me, something terrible will happen.

“I’ve made mistakes and so have you,” she says. “But I need you just as I always have. Our tribe is depending on us. Don’t abandon me.”

“You abandoned me first!” I yell, and the Vasterutians wince at the sound of my voice.

“You’ll be heard,” says Halina. “Krigere warriors and andeners have commandeered some of these living spaces, and squads of warriors roam the streets to keep people scared and crush any hint of rebellion. Please. Don’t do this here.”

I glare at her. “You never should have brought me, then.”

“We thought you might help, for her sake.” She inclines her head toward Thyra. “Because of what you did for her in that fight circle.”

“I will do nothing for her sake. Not anymore.” I turn my icy gaze to Thyra. “First you want me to deliver a message, but then what? Use my power to burn Nisse in his bed? Freeze Jaspar solid? It would be convenient for you, wouldn’t it? How many more Krigere would you like me to kill on your behalf, Chieftain?”

“None! I don’t want you to use magic at all!”

Heat sears its way along my bones. “Right. ‘Hold it in, Ansa. Control yourself, Ansa. For once.’?”

“I’m trying to save us! I want to find a way for our whole tribe to live and thrive.”

“By asking them to fight against their own?” I ask.

“If I can avoid that, I will.” She looks over at the Vasterutians. “But freedom has a cost.”

“You’d rather sacrifice your entire tribe than allow them to fight at Nisse’s side in Kupari. You’d rather them die for you than live for anyone else.”

Thyra steps back as if I’ve punched her. “It seems I’ve truly lost you.”

The pain in her voice, the betrayal there, causes sparks of confusion and rage to flare and catch inside me. My arms burn and itch and tingle, and there is something wet and sticky running down to my wrists—new blisters burst under the heat. Or the cold. I don’t even know which, only that I am full of it, so full that it leaks from me, eating me alive. Halina rises to her feet and pushes her son behind her. “She’s losing control, Thyra.”

A distant shout from the maze of shelters outside the door makes Thyra pull her hood up over her face. “That’s only one of our concerns—Nisse’s guard is coming. They must have heard us.”

“What are you going to do?” Efren asks her. “We have to get you back to your chamber before your guards wake up.”

“Did you poison them, too?” I ask.

Thyra doesn’t answer. She heads for the door, her movements smooth but urgent. “I’ll buy you time. If they catch you and Ansa here . . .”

Halina presses her son’s head to her thigh, her eyes shining with tears of terror that strike a painful note inside me, but Thyra waves her hands. “I’m not going to let it happen, Halina. I made you a promise.”

“But if you’re caught—” Efren begins.

“This is why I stored the herbs in my own chamber and put them in the guards’ goblets myself. No one will take the blame but me.” Thyra opens the door just far enough to slide out, and then I hear her footsteps descending to the alley.

I turn to the Vasterutians. “What’s she doing?”

Halina rushes toward the door. “We have to get you back to your chamber.” She beckons me out into the night with only a brief, loving glance at her family. “If you’re caught out, it will be bad for everyone.”

I follow her, my cloak billowing around my throbbing arms, my thoughts a maelstrom. Thyra wants to align with the Vasterutians against Nisse. It seems there’s no limit to how far she’s willing to go to remain in control of our tribe. But . . . all the reasons I loved her still beat within me, refusing to melt or evaporate no matter how hot my fury burns. Blindly, lost in the churn and shatter of devotion and deception, I trail Halina until her arm shoots out and bars my path.

“Shhh.” She peeks out, then shrinks back. “Oh . . . this is bad.”

“What is it?” But already I hear the sounds of a struggle. I push past Halina to peer from the shadows.

Thyra is on the ground in the middle of a wide lane, surrounded by Krigere warriors. My fingers curl into the stone wall of a shelter as one of them kicks her in the ribs. Her breath explodes from her mouth and she draws her knees to her chest, curling in on herself. From the way her limbs shake with pain and weakness, I know that’s not the first time she’s been struck.

Stay down, I think.

She rolls to her stomach and clumsily gropes for a dagger sheathed along one of the guards’ calves. He knees her in the chest and she falls backward. “I know we’re not to bruise her face, but if she doesn’t stay down—”