The Cursed Queen (The Impostor Queen #2)(7)

A bald, black-clad man in one of the other skiffs shouts, “Valtia!”

I jerk around to see him raising his arm, his chubby finger pointing straight at me. My eyes water as the air around me warps with heat and the lake turns scalding. Hissing with pain and twisted up with confusion, I kick away, desperate again for the icy feel of the storm. This water is cooking me. I face the sky, my legs pumping.

The witch turns and looks down at me as I wriggle like a speared fish. Her brow furrows. Her face is oddly cracked, the whiteness chipped away in places to reveal rosy skin beneath. The sight reminds me of my purpose, and I lunge for the hull of her skiff even as my flesh begins to blister. It doesn’t matter, as long as I take her down before I die.

My raw, red hand clutches at the bow of the skiff. With her copper-decorated arm still raised to the sky, the witch stares into my eyes. She doesn’t look scared. One corner of her mouth is still quirked up in a tiny, victorious smile, but I swear, there is a completely different kind of war within her pale blue gaze.

Another bald, black-robed man sitting at the stern lazily swishes his hand at me and speaks to the witch in the odd, trilling language I recognize as Kupari. He sounds undisturbed. Like I’m no threat, merely an inconvenience.

Hate is my fuel. My right hand raises the blade above the surface of the lake as I strain to escape the searing water, to heave myself into the boat and draw blood.

But the witch merely considers me as I struggle, looking pensive. “You’re wrong. She’s not a boy,” she says softly, almost to herself.

I am caught by the sound of her voice—and the fact that I understand what she said. Like her gaze before, her voice reaches inside me, and this time, I feel when it takes hold, when it squeezes. My chest is filled with a feeling I cannot name, so powerful that it robs me of my will. I cannot possibly kill her. I cannot harm a hair on her head. My mouth drops open and the dagger falls from my upraised fist.

The black-robed man barks at her, trilling words gone harsh and hateful, lips pulled back from his teeth. I think he’s telling her to kill me.

The witch looks over her shoulder at her dark companion. “I . . . can’t.” She sounds as puzzled as I feel.

He spits a few more words from between his bared teeth, and a ball of flame bursts from his palm.

I don’t have time to be surprised. The witch whirls around again, and before I can blink, she pushes her palm toward me. A cold wave rises beneath me, ripping me from the side of the skiff and bearing me upward, away from the boat. I catch one more glimpse of her pale face and the glimmer of her crimson-copper cuff before I am plunged back into the jaws of the storm. A bitter wave crashes over me, sending me tumbling head over feet, helpless and lost and sure of only one cruel thing.

I have failed.





CHAPTER THREE


I am tossed up, sucking in a gasping breath, to see ships aflame and sinking, bodies all around me, emptied of the noble spirits who once resided there. The lake pulls them down, aided by the weight of their axes, their helmets, their cloaks. When I am forced deep by another swell, the lightning above reveals a lake full of thrashing arms and legs.

And me, clawing for air, battling the storm and my own despair. Surrender is weakness. I swim for one of the few longships still floating, only to watch a thick bolt of white lightning cleave it in two, sending warriors flying into the air with flames to cushion their fall. Another wave hits me, this one square in the back, pushing my face into the water and drawing my legs up, sending me into the depths yet again. Something hard slams into my head, a splintered mast or a rowing bench, maybe, lacing the water with my blood. My mouth opens in a gasp, and I inhale the Torden, which burns my lungs as my entire body revolts. Blackness rims my vision and then closes in.

The thought flashes in my head—Give up. It’s done.

But I remind myself: A Krigere is granted passage into heaven only after a victory, or if she dies fighting. Though my only enemy right now is the lake, I will battle it until the end.

I stroke and kick and convulse. My fellow warriors do the same. The water invades and conquers, and as I struggle, I see so many of my brothers and sisters lose the fight. I know my time is coming too, but I don’t—

The wind calms so quickly that it’s like a heavy blanket smothering a campfire. The waves sink into the depths. The heavy, violent clouds swirl into nothing. The tempest folds in on itself like a melting ice crystal, and then it’s gone. I blink up at the sun. Its beauty makes my eyes burn, and I let out a bemused croak of a laugh. I float on my back as the elation that comes with life after the certainty of death gives way to a completely different kind of understanding. Somehow I know to keep my eyes on the sky. If I gaze on the world as it is now, it will be the fatal, crushing blow. The silence alone is evidence of the totality of our destruction.

I should let the water take me. Sometimes wounds bleed too much. A warrior can die in victory on the battlefield if she fought to the end, if she gave all she had. And I did. I gave everything, including the chance to die in Thyra’s arms, to look at her face one more time. Surely I can simply let go now . . . ?

“Ansa!”

One word, one cry, one voice pulls me back from the brink.

“Ansa! Answer me or I swear I’ll cut your throat.”

I turn my head. Thyra paddles toward me on a large scrap of hull, her face smudged and dripping, her eyes bright with horror. Sander is behind her. He is bleeding from a gash on his temple, the blood staining his jaw and dripping into the collar of his tunic, but he still looks strong as he steers the makeshift vessel with a broken oar. Cyrill is draped across the middle, half his blond beard singed away, his formerly handsome face a mess of black and blisters.