The Girl King (The Girl King #1)(84)

Snow, Min thought deliriously. It’s snowing inside . . . Why be afraid of a little snow?

One of the flecks caught her cheek. It was cold like snow, but hard. Ice? Then she felt the kiss of pain blossom in its wake.

Glass.

She turned, and with a strange calm she understood she had shattered every window in her room.

A few remaining shards fell from the emptied frames as she walked toward them, tinkling merrily to the floor. She took another step, heard the glass crunch under her slippered feet, crisp as autumn leaves.

She looked out onto the garden. This time, every nuna below looked back, standing frozen with wide eyes. The zither lay in the grass at Butterfly’s feet; it must have tumbled from her lap when she stood.

Min lifted a hand to wave, then realized her face was wet. When had she started crying? She touched her cheek. This time, when it came away red she did not shriek. She was not afraid anymore. Not of a little blood.

Everything is different now, said the voice that was hers and also not.

She heard stirring behind her and turned in time to see her mother stand, flecks of glass raining from her shiny black hair. The backs of her hands were bleeding from shielding her face, but she seemed otherwise unharmed. When she looked at Min, though, her eyes were vacant and unknowing as that of a doll.

“Min?” she whispered.

Min looked about her ruined bedroom. Brother was still standing by the table, his face aglow with something like awe. No—not quite. Hunger. Want.

She felt Set step in behind her, rest a hand upon her shoulder. She didn’t look at him, but she could feel his shock, his exhilaration, his fear, radiating like heat from his body.

This is what he wanted.

“What have you done?” the empress said, and her voice was pale with horror. At first it wasn’t clear who she was addressing, but then her bright eyes fixed upon Min. “What are you?”

Min felt her face move, the skin crying out from a hundred cuts she hadn’t felt before. She smiled, anyway. And when she spoke, her voice sounded like someone else. “Don’t you know me, Mother? I’m your baby.”





CHAPTER 27


Deal

Sometimes in Nok’s dreams, his sister lived. These were the worst kind; they meant he would have to watch her die.

But this dream was young yet, and Nasan scanned the horizon from atop a gnarled scrub tree, all ferocity and focus. She was the child she had been when he’d last seen her, looking vulnerably small against the milk-white sky. The northern plains were flat and barren, but Nasan was always clambering up what few trees and peaks she could find. Are you a wolf, Nok would tease, or are you a sparrow? Her fists like little stones would find his arms and belly until they were both on the ground giggling with it.

They’re here! she cried.

The visitors arrived in their cauls: the golden eagle of the Iarudi, the red bear of the Varrok, the cream-yellow antelope of the Keian, others whose names Nok did not even know. He watched with an envy like hunger as each creature passed through the welcome arch of the encampment. Then, as sand pours off flesh, the cauls fell away to reveal the man or woman who wore its form. Glossy feathers and coarse fur melted into desert-burnished ochre skin. Talons elongated into tapered fingers. Snouts retracted and reformed wide noses, full mouths. A gift from the gods. Elegant. As natural as breathing.

But not for Nok. Not—

He’s awake.

The men and women froze in their half-cauled states. As one, they turned and looked his way. A hundred pairs of eyes gleamed silently at him.

He’s awake.

He turned, and Nasan was in front of him, close enough, real enough that he could feel the heat of her, could smell sweat and worn leathers and unwashed hair. He didn’t think he could bear to see her die, not again . . .

“He’s awake.”

Warm fingers touched his face. His mother? Who else would be so soft with him?

But, no. His mother was dead. They were all dead. All except—

“Nok?”

He opened his eyes. His sister stared back down at him. Her face was older, worn. Odd, that had never happened in his dreams . . .

A dream. The worst sort of dream.

“Nasan . . .”

She was crouched beside him, concern and trepidation etching her face. “He’s awake,” she told a girl standing beside her. “Go tell the others.”

His sister spoke with stern authority, though the other girl couldn’t have been much younger than she. Nevertheless, she nodded and disappeared through the only door in the room.

No, not a dream.

Nok struggled to sit up. “Where am I . . . how . . . ?”

“Don’t get up,” Nasan scolded. The tone of her voice was so familiar as to hurt. Breathless, he complied.

“How are you here?” he asked, his voice cracking. “It’s not—I saw them . . .” Words were not enough. He seized at her wrists, pulling her hands to his face. They were whole and warm and solid. Her fingernails were dirty. “How are you alive?”

“How are you?” she shot back.

Not without a great deal of help. A cold thought seized him. “Lu . . . the girl I was with . . . ,” he said frantically, scrambling back upright.

“You mean the princess?” Nasan countered with a raised eyebrow.

He studied his sister. There was a challenge, a prodding in her voice he wasn’t sure how to interpret. He nodded. “Yes. The princess. Is she all right?”