The Cursed Queen (The Impostor Queen #2)(98)

Then he turns around and pushes the fire forward. It arcs over the crowd and doubles back, sliding down the wall of the tower. The people at the front scream as the flames creep down the walls over the archway. For all the world it looks like the tower is on fire. They throw themselves back from it, and when the ones behind them catch a glimpse, the entire writhing mass of them switches directions, fleeing through the courtyard. I don’t know if they’re heading back out into the city or merely seeking another entrance, but we don’t have time to find out. As soon as a path opens up, Sig and I are running for it, stopping only to drag an unconscious Krigere warrior to the safety of a little alcove near the steps that lead up to the castle entrance. With any luck, invading foreign warriors will think him dead and pass him over. “I’ll be back for you,” I whisper as I rise from his side and leap back onto the steps.

Sig moves aside and lets me pass him at the entrance, then summons a fire to burn in the archway to discourage anyone else from following us. The courtyard is still a churning storm of humanity, and the riders are approaching the base of the hill that holds our tower. We only have a few minutes to—

There’s a crash and a thunk, and I whirl around to see Sig hit the ground in a boneless sprawl. His fire dies, and I blink in the sudden gray wash of daylight. Jaspar stands just inside the arch with a chunk of splintered wood in his hands. Sig’s blood decorates the edge of it. “Kauko wanted him alive,” he says to me as he kneels next to Sig and feels for the pulse at his throat.

I back up, brandishing Sander’s dagger as Jaspar rises to his feet. He wears a smirk that hardens his face and makes him look more like his father. “Lovely disguise. The paunch is a particularly nice touch.”

I grit my teeth and keep my eyes on him as I shed the overlarge black robe and yank the pillow from my middle.

Jaspar chuckles as he watches me tighten the rope around my waist. “I suppose it would be difficult to tussle with one’s pants around one’s ankles,” he says, then purses his lips. “Depending on what type of tussling we’re talking about.”

“The kind that leaves you bleeding at my feet.”

“Are you going to kill me, Ansa?”

“Like you killed Sander?” My grief is a clenched fist in my chest.

“Can you blame me? Sander turned on us!”

“He was your best friend,” I shout. “And he was serving his chieftain.”

“It didn’t matter,” he says. “Like you, he didn’t choose us.”

My brow furrows at his flat, cold tone. “Where’s Thyra?”

He arches an eyebrow. “Are you imagining you’ll rescue her?” he asks, tossing his wood club to the side and drawing his dagger, still stained with Sander’s blood.

“I’m not imagining,” I say, dropping into my fight stance.

He grins. “Ah, Ansa. This is what I love about you. It’s always so simple. Fight. Kill. I envy you that.”

Simple—fight, kill. Right now nothing could be further from the truth. “I suppose I’ve changed. You don’t know me at all.”

His amusement falls away. “I wanted to, though. That was real. It always has been.”

“Liar. You wanted to control me. You wanted to steer me in whatever direction suited you and your father. You soothed me and comforted me—you tried to stop me from thinking! I’m not your dog, Jaspar. I’m nobody’s dog.”

“That’s not how it was. Think about what we shared,” he says, circling slowly—putting himself between me and the spiraling stone staircase.

“I am thinking now.” Finally. Finally, I can see it clearly. That moment I heard Thyra’s footsteps in the wood, the instant I pushed Jaspar away from me—the look of triumph on his face as he saw her there. “What I think is that you were always trying to hurt her. You used me to do it.”

His lip curls. “An added benefit. The kissing was quite nice as well, however.”

“Did you know that your father was going to poison her? Were you in on it all along, even from the beginning?”

He stops his circling, because now he’s between me and the stairs. “Was I in on it?” He closes his eyes and breathes in, then exhales his deadly truth. “Ansa, I did it all. I’m the one who poisoned her cup.”

A chill runs across my skin. “And Nisse?”

“Doesn’t know. And doesn’t ever need to.”

And in the moment it takes me to swallow my new reality, he attacks. I barely parry his strike. His fist collides with my stomach, sending me staggering back, but I get my feet up in time to kick him away. When I roll to my feet, sucking hard to get enough air into my lungs, my magic pulsing inside me loud as my heart, Jaspar is waiting.

“If I had my way, and if Thyra hadn’t ruined everything,” he says, “all this would have been over a year ago. My father would have been Lars’s heir, and the succession would have shifted to our line.”

“And you saw yourself as the someday-chieftain,” I say, the words bitter as bile. “For all your questions, this was never about loyalty for you. It was about your thirst for power.”

“Power is the only thing worth having! I am a true Krigere. So is my father. So are you, Ansa.”

“I don’t yet know what I am,” I admit. “But now I know why I fight.” I slice at his dagger hand, quick as lightning, fire magic tingling so hard inside me that sparks fly off the edge of my weapon.