The Cursed Queen (The Impostor Queen #2)(69)
If I even hint that Halina has helped smuggle Thyra out of the tower, or that she is stirring some sort of resistance, she will be executed, made an example.
I should. I know I should. But every time I consider it, I think about the little boy and the baby, their round cheeks and big eyes, their faith that their family can keep them safe. I cannot bear to shatter that faith, to fill their world with more grief and blood. And Halina . . . she looks nothing like the mother who haunts my dreams, the red-haired woman on fire, her blood staining the dirt, who reaches for me with only love in her eyes . . . and yet, sometimes my Vasterutian attendant takes her place, and I see devotion that carries a person past fear of pain and darkness and monsters that come up from the water to take your entire world away. . . .
I wonder what carries a person past the fear that she is a monster. That she delighted in the violence. The magic did not make me this way. I embraced it ages ago.
I embraced it because I could not bear to be the prey, and my only choice was to become a predator.
I cannot force these thoughts away—they’re too powerful. I used to take such pride in killing. I dreamed of kill marks to my fingertips. And now . . . I have shed so much blood that it warrants marks down to my forearm, and I don’t want a single one of them. Hulda, Aksel, Flemming, all the others I destroyed . . . Another drop spilled and I might drown in it.
I may not have a choice, though. Now I will have to jump. Because Nisse has summoned me, and it can only mean one thing—word has come from Kupari. Halina helps me with my boots and clothes. Her hands shake as she fastens the ties. I reach down and touch her fingers. “I won’t betray you.”
She looks up at me, brown eyes wide. “Will you help us?”
I straighten. “I didn’t say that.”
“Same as betraying, then,” she mutters.
“Not by half,” I snap. “You should be grateful.”
“I should be grateful for your silence, when it allows the injustice to continue?” She curtsies. “Thank you for not trying to stop my people being turned out of their homes and left to starve in the cold. Thank you for doing nothing while the best food and fuel is given to the invaders, while the people who built this city grow skinny and weak and despairing. Thank you for being part of the monster that crushes us. You think because you don’t wield the knife, you have no part in the slaughter?”
“You are bold. Too bold.”
“Oh, forgive, little red. I should be quiet and sweet all the time, then? Would that make it easier for you?” She throws up her hands. “I’ve tried that. You value bravery, but only in the Krigere, I suppose. And you despise meekness, but you demand it of me if it makes you more comfortable!”
My heart thumps hard with confusion and frustration. “But I’m not telling Nisse of whatever you’re doing. I won’t cause your death.”
“If Nisse decides to invade, who do you think will carry your supplies and make your fires? Who will he drag into the winter cold to keep his warriors fed and watered?”
I step back from her, my mouth open to tell her about the andeners, but then I realize—the andeners always stayed in camp when we raided, waiting for us to return. But this, another invasion . . . “Vasterutians?”
She nods. “Able-bodied men and women whose backs can bear the load, whose legs can carry them far away, into the land of magic and treachery. Me included, and who cares about what happens to my baby boy? He’s just a Vasterutian, after all.” She lunges forward, so quickly that I fall back onto my bed with her standing over me. “Think I’m going to let that happen? Think I won’t fight?” She grimaces and steps back. “Think I won’t die?” she adds softly. “Think you won’t have killed me, just because you didn’t speak out against me? Thank you, then.”
I edge to the end of the bed and stand up. “Stop it. We don’t . . . we don’t even know what’s going to happen yet.”
She stares at me for a long moment, then laughs and shakes her head. “Right. Well, then.” She gestures to the hallway as the sound of footsteps reaches us. “I am eager to find out.”
Still reeling with her sudden brashness, I step into the hallway, relieved at the familiar sight of warriors, even ones who look at me with suspicion. Sander gives me a tight, barely perceptible nod as he steps behind me. Carina, on the other hand, keeps her fingers wrapped tightly around her sheathed dagger as she walks beside me. It’s a tense journey up to the top of the tower. I’m dying to ask Sander if there’s word of Thyra, or Preben and Bertel and the warriors who hold the eastern part of the city, but I know it’s not safe here.
When we reach Nisse’s council chamber, the guard steps back and lets me walk in alone. Nisse and Jaspar look up from the painted table as I enter. Nisse smiles. “Our rider returned from Kupari this morning. Their city looks worse than ours, apparently. Not the wealthy stronghold we expected.”
“Does that mean there is no witch queen in the temple?”
Jaspar shrugs. “Apparently there is, but they delayed her coronation.”
“Why?”
“Their politics are a mystery,” Nisse says, a smile pulling at his mouth. “But perhaps we can still uncover the truth. They have invited us to witness her ascension to the throne.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “So will you invade or not?” I hate the thoughts I’m having, of Halina and the other Vasterutians being taken away from their children, just to supply our force.