The Cursed Queen (The Impostor Queen #2)(81)

He nods, though his smile is drenched in sadness. “Then I suppose . . .” He sighs, looking up the hall to the six guards sitting outside Thyra’s door. “I suppose whatever strong thing you choose should depend on how you define strength. I’ve been thinking on that a lot lately.”

It feels like something massive is pushing against the walls of my skull, demanding attention I can’t offer right now. “Speaking of strength . . .” Eager to move away from the subject, I wave toward the guards, one of whom is using a stone to sharpen his dagger. “Is she so fearsome that she requires half a squad to guard her?”

“After Thyra escaped her chamber, Nisse tripled the guard and threatened all of them with death should they fall asleep during their watch. He won’t let anyone but his own hand-picked warriors near her.” He arches an eyebrow. “So I guess that means he trusts you now.”

Part of me feels pride and relief at that, but a small part of me, a tiny, tenacious kernel of loyalty to Thyra, itches and aches. “I’m only speaking to her for the sake of our warriors. They shouldn’t suffer for this loyalty.”

“Sometimes that’s what loyalty demands,” Sander says, coming to a halt halfway down the corridor. “And I will leave you now. I’m not allowed to get any closer.”

The guards have risen to their feet and are eyeing him. He waves, and they nod as he turns and walks away. “Nisse told us you would be coming,” says one, a young warrior with sandy hair and a scar cutting through his eyebrow. “Good luck in there. If she offers you anything to drink, I advise you not to accept.”

All of them laugh as he pushes the door open, and I enter with my heart galloping. Thyra sits on a straw pallet on the floor, her knees drawn to her chest. Her hair has grown these past many weeks, and it curls at the nape of her neck and at her temples. Her cheeks are hollow and her eyes are bloodshot. “I know who sent you,” she says, her voice raspy with disuse and weakness.

“He is worried about our warriors.”

“Our warriors? Whose do you mean?”

I sigh. “Is this the argument you want to have?”

She leans her head against the wall. “Should we bother talking at all? The last time we spoke, you seemed very determined not to hear half of what I said.” She looks toward the cold hearth. “And to deliberately misunderstand the rest.”

“Deliberately misunderstand?” My jaw clenches. “You are guilty of that, Thyra, not me.”

“Tell me, then, Ansa. Share your wisdom.”

I scoff. “You’ve always been the smart one between us, haven’t you?”

She smiles and shakes her head as her eyes grow shiny. “No. Just the one who couldn’t see the world in black and white, blood and victory.” She glances at me as she swipes her grimy sleeve across her face. “I tried, though. Everything would have been easier if I’d succeeded. Or perhaps I would have died a lot sooner. I’m not sure.”

“You’re talking in riddles.” And so softly I can barely hear. I can’t tell if she’s broken or quietly defiant.

“I considered becoming an andener. Did you know that?”

My eyebrows rise. “You’ve always been a warrior. And a good one.”

She nods. “But not the kind of warrior my father hoped for. Neither role really fit, but I couldn’t be both.”

I sink to the floor, remembering how Lars shouted at her to come back with a raid kill, or not at all. “Your father just wanted you to be strong.”

“Is that strength? The ability to pierce soft flesh with a sharp blade?”

“You make it sound petty when you describe it like that. But there is no greater power than the power to take a life.” I learned that the night my parents were killed.

“What about the power to preserve life?” she asks. “What about the power to sustain and nurture a people?”

“But that is how a chieftain nurtures us! He gives us a mission, and we reap the riches if we succeed. We come away from each raid and battle with the understanding that we are strong, and that no one can defeat us.” Something is so wrong inside me, making every word I utter exhausting. It’s like swinging a blade that’s too heavy, one that used to be easy to wield. And yet I press on, because stopping would force me to figure out what has changed. “If you don’t believe that, why did you ever want to be chieftain?”

She winces. “I was stupid enough to believe I had something to offer. I was so determined to change things. Think about it—as the tribes gathered from the north, as we began to build our ships and shelters—we had so many mouths to feed that raiding for our food would never have been sustainable.”

“And that is why we were sailing south,” I remind her. “To plunder here, where the riches are abundant!”

“So we are a pestilence,” she says. “Like locusts. We eat through one field, then find another.”

I groan. “How is it you can make anything sound pathetic and distasteful?”

She lets out a hoarse laugh. “That’s my gift, I suppose.” She runs her hands over her wavy hair. “Nisse was pushing so hard to invade Kupari the season before I became a warrior. He had my father convinced of the riches in the south, of the ease of the coming victory.”

“And you opposed it from the start.”