The Cursed Queen (The Impostor Queen #2)(83)

“You’ve always been a force all on your own,” she says. “I loved watching you fight too. You possess a ferocity I lack.”

I let out a pained laugh. “And you have a grace that is foreign to me.” The lump in my throat makes it hard to speak. “But if you admired me so much, why did you push me away? Because you did keep me at arm’s length, even before I was cursed.”

Her blue eyes are steady on me, though the rest of her trembles. “I let you as close as I could, Ansa. Can’t you see that? Is there anyone closer? Has there ever been? But when one is born a stranger in her own tribe, when she must wear a mask every day to be accepted, can you blame her for being terrified to show who she really is?” She inclines her head toward me. “Especially to one who fits so perfectly. Regardless of how you came to us, you have always been more Krigere than I.” She laughs. “Even now, when you’re revealed to be the queen of a foreign tribe.”

“Do you have any idea how much I loved you?” I whisper.

She nods. “I also saw the fear and disappointment in your eyes when I refused to kill.”

“It seems neither of us could accept the other.” I swallow. “And I can’t control this magic if I don’t feel accepted, Thyra. You’ve made me feel as if I was evil. You said I was evil.”

“I said what you had done was evil.” A tear slips down her pale, sunken cheek. “But I never thought of you as anything but my Ansa.” She wipes the drop away. “That hasn’t changed. But how will you use this magic, now that it is a permanent part of you?”

“To bring us victory.” Assuming it ever learns to obey me.

“So you are to be Nisse’s sword on the battlefield,” she murmurs. “He will wield you as it suits him.”

I take a step back toward the door. “He wants me to be a good warrior. He is giving me a chance, Thyra—I can be accepted by the tribe again.”

“We always accepted you.”

“Because I fought! That’s the only reason I’m alive. I earned it.”

She sighs. “Do you ever wish you hadn’t had to? Do you ever let yourself feel the anger you must bear deep inside you, knowing it was the Krigere who stole you from your native land, who killed the people who—”

“That is deep in the past.” How I wish it felt that way. “And the present holds more than enough to occupy us.”

“We agree on that, at least.” Her eyes are bright with hope. “You are still part of our tribe, Ansa. You were never banished. Don’t act like you were.”

“Where is our tribe, Thyra?” I ask, waving toward the window. “They’re dying in some maze of mud and human waste, all for their loyalty to you!”

Thyra’s lips are a gray line as she nods slowly. “And what would Nisse have me say to them? What would you have me say to them, since you wouldn’t deliver my message?”

“Tell them to join us,” I snap. “Tell them to live and die like warriors, not mice!”

“And help Nisse destroy another people, another land? Your people, no less!”

“They are not my people!” My voice cracks over the denial.

She gives me a wary look, perhaps seeing the fire in my eyes. “As you wish. But tell me—why is Nisse so afraid of what I would say to our warriors that he’s cut me off from any communication with them at all? If he was so worried about them, so unwilling to let them die, why wouldn’t he allow Preben or Bertel to come to the tower and see me?”

“It’s not my place to know,” I say, backing toward the door as she sands away the last layer of my control.

“Oh, so it’s only your place to do his bidding now, without thought or question? You’re not his wolf, then—you’re his dog.”

“Shut up.” I close my eyes as fire and pain streaks along my limbs.

“Do you trust that elder he has training you? Do you believe the story he tells? How do you know he’s not leading everyone into a trap?”

“Nisse trusts him,” I say, because I can’t quite claim that I do.

“Nisse only cares about what you can do for him. He doesn’t care that the magic burns you. He doesn’t care about how it hurts you—and I can see that it does. Right now, even.”

“At least he lets me have a place at his side!” I roar, the fire dripping from my fingers onto the stone floor. “At least he lets me be who I am!”

“Is this who you are? Just fire and ice magic, controlled by rage and fear and a wild desperation to belong to a tribe, even a twisted, corrupted one? Because that’s when this power becomes vicious and unstoppable. Have you noticed? You have a perfectly good mind, Ansa—you’d be more powerful if you let that rule you, instead of fury and terror!”

I breathe and breathe and breathe, but the heat rises unbidden.

“I love you, Ansa,” Thyra says breathlessly, her skin turning pink as the air becomes searing. “I love you. And this magic is part of you now. You can kill . . . or show mercy. You will decide to be in control . . . or not.” Sweat streams down her face and she grimaces with the pain. “You can only . . . blame yourself. . . .”

She slumps against the wall as I slam the side of my fist into the door.

“Let me out, for heaven’s sake,” I shout, calling to the ice as Thyra faints.