The Girl King (The Girl King #1)(53)

An undignified cry burst out of Min. Instinctively, she covered her face with her hands.

“It’s all right,” Brother reassured her, though he never took his eyes off the shamaness. “Don’t be alarmed. It’s just a sending. Not a real being. Think of it as a shadow that’s been left behind by its owner—the one who left it inside you.”

“Inside me?” Min squeaked. Stupidly, she pressed her hands against her abdomen now, as though she could feel something growing in there.

“Ssstupid little man!”

Min nearly leaped from her skin. The fire-woman lurched forward toward Brother, but she had no feet—her body merely tapered off into flame—and she was confined to the brazier. Set gave a start, moving swiftly in front of Min, as though to protect her. She clutched gratefully at the silk of his robes.

“You think you know anything?”

“It’s only a sending, it can’t hurt you,” Brother repeated at Min, holding up a hand as though to keep the fire-woman at bay. “It came from within you. Min, you have been cursed by a witch. This thing before you now is only an echo of what she was. Think of it as you would an internal parasite. A worm.”

“Charlatan!” the fire-woman roared. “I am a shade. I am revenge.” The fire crackling at her feet blazed malevolently again, surging up through her like wind in an atrium, whipping her hair of flames into a wild frenzy. Another shower of sparks fell around them. Min cowered, clutching tighter to Set’s robes.

“What do you know of sendings? I left this piece of myself inside the girl when she was only just conceived! A middling bit of flesh and salt in her wicked mother’s womb! I took the poison, the curse of magic from my own child and sent it into her. As she grew, so did I, consuming all the seeds within her. I ate her children, all the life she had to give.”

Min froze, her fingers loosening just slightly on her cousin’s robes. “My seeds . . . my children? Is she saying I won’t . . .” The thought was too horrible to put to words.

“That is right, little princess,” the fire-woman purred. “What you would have made life, I turned to death. The only thing you’ll ever birth is me.”

The fire-thing launched itself from the brazier with a crackling roar, swooping toward her. Min threw up her arms before her face. Set was gone—had jumped to the side. She was exposed, this kinetic wall of fire crashing toward her. But then, Brother was there. He hollered something in the same guttural tongue he had used to speak to the fire-thing earlier, and he flung something wet from a glass vial he had produced from his cloak.

The fire-thing howled and leaped into the air, dangerously close to the painted ceilings of Min’s bedroom. Where the liquid touched it, though, Min saw dark pits in the flames, and rising from them, smoke.

The fire-thing slunk back into the brazier, like a wounded animal, but it was too late. The embers there had cooled, and the thing rapidly shrank. It emitted a high, keening sound as it went, until all that remained was a narrow column of smoke. The room filled with a gamey damp odor, like wet fur. It stung Min’s eyes, and tears sprung up in its wake.

They all stared in stunned silence at the smoldering brazier. Wordlessly, Min strode over to her bedside table and grabbed the gaiwan of cold tea that had been sitting there since the morning.

“What are you . . . ?” Set began, but fell silent when Min dashed the contents of the gaiwan into the brazier, damping out the remains of the fire.

“Good girl,” Brother said pensively. Min tossed the porcelain gaiwan into the brazier as well with a shudder, backing away. “Brave girl,” he added.

“What does it mean?” Min demanded into the silence. Her voice came out louder than she had intended, pitchy and high. “Is . . . what it said, is it true? I can’t give the emperor children?” Tears stung her eyes. She’d scarcely been married an hour and already everything was ruined. She was ruined.

“My dear,” Brother said eagerly. “Think hard, now. Has anything . . . unnatural ever happened to you? Inexplicable things? Predictions that came true or strange dreams? Things bending to your will?”

Her vision clouded and all at once Min saw her mother’s hands upon her father’s face, pouring the poison into his mouth, holding his mouth closed—

No. She could not share that. It was too impossible, too absurd. They’d never believe it. And worse, if they did, that might mean it was true . . .

“I broke a cup,” she blurted. “At the betrothal—at the dinner to welcome Set to the capital. I-I got angry, so angry, and the cup Snowdrop was holding broke . . .”

When she said it aloud, it sounded crazy. But it was true, she realized. She couldn’t admit it at the time, but she’d broken the cup with her fury.

She burst into tears.

“Is there nothing we can do? Am I cursed for good?” she asked, sobbing.

“Dear one, this is not a curse,” Brother told her. “This is a gift.” He leaned over and took her hand. His was firm and cold.

“A gift?” she whispered.

“For you, and for us all. Do you know why I came to serve Set? I had a vision, a promise from the gods. A prophecy that I would guide the Hana scion south to wed the Hu princess. That only then could we conquer Yunis, reuniting the old knowledge of magic with the new knowledge of firepower, to create a weapon unlike any the world has seen before. A weapon that will grant Set complete control of the empire—and secure its future forever. But in order to create that weapon, we must first take the North, and you will help us do so.”