“But you wanted to go.” I watch him as he walks to the window and peers out. “Do you miss sleeping under the stars and raiding in the morning?”
“Ah. You know me too well.” He leans on the stone sill. “Shall we walk? I think we both need the air.”
I glance nervously at the door. “I’m not eager to face more hateful stares.”
“Come.” His smile is warm as sunlight. “You’ll breathe free when we’re up high.” When I don’t move, he goes to the door and opens it. “You’ll feel like a bird, I promise.”
“Why—are you going to push me off the parapet?”
“Only if you leap on my back and bite my ear off.” He winks and heads into the hallway. I follow, my shoulders drawn up when I hear the laughter of warriors coming from a chamber down the corridor. But Jaspar ducks into the staircase that spirals up, and we walk until we reach a door directly over our heads. “Wait until you see,” he says, pushing the door open.
What I see is sky, and it calls to me like a lover. I smile as he boosts me into the cold winter air and scoot to the side as he pulls himself up to join me. It’s a relatively large space, enough for a ring of twenty archers to kneel comfortably. I crawl over to the low wall and gasp as I see the Torden, vast and white-gray under scattered, wispy winter clouds. The cold nips my nose and fingers but is pushed back immediately by the fire inside me. I shake my head in confusion as Jaspar joins me.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Sometimes this curse protects me, and sometimes it causes me agony. I can’t tell what it wants or how to please it.” I bite my lip. “Or how to rule it.” I know that’s what Nisse wants.
Jaspar looks down at my hand, where scarring swirls across my knuckles. “I am sorry you have suffered so much. Do you ever regret surviving the storm that day?”
I stare at the waves, only ripples compared to the churn of water in my memory. “That is a complicated question.”
He traces a fingertip along a swirl of silver across the back of my hand. “I hope someday it will be simple. And that the answer will be no.”
“Me too,” I whisper.
“There is no one fiercer or stronger to bear this burden, though,” he continues. “I have no doubt about that.”
I laugh. “I do.”
“I know. But only because you’ve been pushed there.”
“What do you mean?”
“What if you had a chieftain who loved what you are, instead of fearing or despising it?”
I groan. “Are you here to convince me to join Nisse?” I am so tired of being the animal hide in this game of tug of war.
“I don’t want to convince you of anything. You’ll make the decision on your own. I’m just asking you the same kinds of questions I’ve been asking since the moment I saw you again, standing so strong at my cousin’s side—without knowing what she’d done, or who she really was.”
“She didn’t—” I clamp my lips shut. I was about to tell him she hadn’t denied the accusation when I asked her, but that would reveal that I’ve spoken to her. “I don’t know why she didn’t just tell me the truth in the first place.”
“I do. She knew you would have struggled with the truth, because you are an arrow, Ansa. You fly straight. You find your target. You do not twist and bend.”
“I certainly feel like I’ve been tied in knots now.”
“Who could blame you? It should be simpler. For you especially. Whether you can’t wield your magic because of the blow to the head she gave you—or the shame she’s piled upon you for simply being who you are—”
“I lied to her, Jaspar. I killed that slave, a woman who hadn’t threatened me. It was an accident, but I did it to keep her silent. I’m not innocent. I killed Aksel, too.”
“Out of necessity, I have no doubt.” Jaspar looks down at me, looking entirely undisturbed. “Thyra has never accepted you just as you were. Even before you were cursed.” He lets loose a grunt of laughter. “She doesn’t accept anything. Always sowing doubt. But when she had to swallow that bitter brew herself, as she did on our journey from the north, she bristled with the taste. And yet, still, she seems intent on destroying us.”
My brow furrows. “That’s not . . . I don’t think that’s what she wants. It wouldn’t make any sense. She could have ordered us to fight to the death when you came to the camp—she had every reason to fear coming here. But instead, for the sake of the andeners and her warriors, she came quietly. And when she had the chance to beg for her life in the fight circle, she only asked for the safety and health of her warriors.”
“I’m sorry, Ansa. It’s hard for me to see past the damage she’s done. And when I look at you, I can see her marks on you. I see you struggling to hide who you are, and to hold everything inside to meet her approval. . . .” His hand covers his chest, his fingers fisting over his tunic. “It enrages me. Why do you love someone who doesn’t love who you are?”
Tears sting my eyes and I turn away from him. “Stop,” I say hoarsely. “No more.”
“My father and I—we see who you are. We value that.”
I close my eyes. “Thank you.”
His hand covers mine, careful and warm. “I hope it helps. Doubting yourself and what you can do—and whether you should wield the power you have—that cannot be healthy for you. And I wonder if that is why it’s hurting you.”
I sniffle. “I hadn’t considered that.”
“I know.” He smiles and squeezes my hand. “And that is why I needed to make sure I said it. And now, I want to ask you something.” He nudges my shoulder with his own. “Will you spar with me?”
“What? Are you addled?”
He purses his lips. “Maybe? But I have missed it so.”
“You might be taking your life in your hands.”
“Stepping into a fight circle with you is always that way.” He rises and holds his hand out. “Let’s give it a try. Just grappling. Please?”
I let him pull me away from the wall. “Here?”
“Why not?”
My heart is skipping with an eager, happy rhythm. “Are you sure you’re not just planning to throw me over the side?”
He widens his stance, beckoning me forward. “I guess you’ll have to trust me.”
My laughter is high and happy and real. “Fair enough.” And then I charge.
* * *
I lie on the cool wooden floor of my new chamber, staring up at the timber braces above. I ache all over, but not with new blisters. Instead, it is a pure pain, one I welcome—I’ve been sparring with Jaspar every afternoon for the past three days. I can feel my strength returning, the simple, uncomplicated joy of fighting with only my wits and my speed. I am nowhere near as good as I was, nowhere near able to subdue Jaspar, but I can get away from him nearly every time, which is almost as good—he can’t keep me down. And his grin every time I rise from the ground makes me feel like a conqueror. It has helped keep my mind off the mission to Kupari, what might happen when Nisse and Thyra return—and the fact that I am running out of time.
Halina has just taken my noonmeal scraps away, and I know she will be gone for a good long while, cleaning up and chatting with the other attendants in the kitchen, where no warriors bother to go. I’ve noticed this. I have no idea what the Vasterutians are discussing as they mull about down there, whether they have rebellion or pot scrubbing on their minds, and I push thoughts of it away. It doesn’t matter right now.
All that matters is the curse, and whether I can control it. Regardless of what happens, wielding this power will help me. I close my eyes, seeking the fire and ice inside me. It rushes forward eagerly, like a child who wants a sweet, or perhaps just to be noticed. I breathe slowly as it floods my chest. It feels huge, as if I’m poised on the crest of a giant wave, deadly potential and unstoppable momentum. I remember this force as it rushed to my aid that day in the fight circle, as it rolled deadly and vicious from my hands and thoughts. The memory is both terrifying and seductive. Are we frien
ds, or enemies?
I spread my palms and turn them toward the ceiling. So many times over the last many days, I have pressed the magic down, knowing that allowing it into my consciousness would bring more pain, more burns. Before that night in the fight circle when I let it loose, before I gave in to it so completely, it did not hurt me, but once I wielded it with intention, somehow it burrowed deep inside me, setting roots inside my marrow. Now my arms are raw meat, and there are spots of agony along my torso and my legs. The disease has spread, and when Halina saw the damage, her shocked expression told me exactly how hideous it was. But if I can wrestle the curse into submission, I will find my way back to my people. I will be able to walk among them without fearing the jab of a knife or a stare just as sharp and lethal.
I could be Krigere again. I could forget everything else. I crave the safe simplicity of it.
Carefully, I think of ice. Not a blizzard, not a gale, but only frost on leaves and grass, a kiss of cold in the still air. And I feel it caress my brow, so gentle. The quiet creep and crackle of it draws my gaze, and when I turn my head I see the maze of crystals growing around my body, slithering slowly along the floor as my breath fogs the air. It feels so good. This cannot possibly be wrong.
I sigh and settle into it, summoning the heat now, letting it scamper up from where it was hiding and burst into the open. It is hungrier than the ice, but more playful too. Wisps of flame appear above me, spiraling around my body, making me dizzy. The fire glows, melting the ice, though the frost re-forms only moments later as if challenging the heat.
Surely I can control this. Surely this magic won’t hurt me. It seems to love me. It kisses my skin so sweet, like relief, like joy. And I need it, after so much fear and pain. I sit up slowly, hope taking root. Here is the ease I craved, that I feared would never be mine. This curse, given with malice, has a life of its own, but now it belongs to me, not the witch. It doesn’t do her bidding. It is mine.
I rise, my palms upturned. On one hand sits a ball of fire, and on the other, a swirl of frost and untainted cold. I tickle them with my fingers, and they dance for me. Jaspar was right—I should not question what I am anymore, even if I question where I belong. I should not listen when Thyra urges me to doubt, when she tells me to control myself.
Why do you love someone who doesn’t love who you are?
A swell of resentment surges within me. It’s not my fault I was cursed and invaded, burned and frozen by the violation of fire and ice.
Suddenly the ball of fire on my palm is as large as a shield. I gasp and clench my fist, but it becomes a maelstrom, rising toward the ceiling.
The wooden ceiling.
“Stop,” I whisper. “Obey me.” But my heart is beating so hard, full of fear and anger, and that is what it seems to be listening to. I grasp at the flames and hiss as they cling to my fingers, biting too hard. I summon the cold to fight it, and blades of ice form and spin on my other hand. They begin to stab at the fire as a bitter chill descends on the room, so sudden and frigid that my face is numb in an instant. I cry out, and the fire rises higher and spreads wide, blackening the ceiling and reaching for my bed.
“No!” I shriek as my blanket catches fire, and then the straw tick pad beneath it. My breath comes out in a spray of frost as the fire doubles back on me.
My tunic catches fire, and I scream.
A shout from the hall is followed by a crunching crash, and Sander and Jaspar barrel into the room. I flail, my sleeves aflame, as Jaspar grabs the pitcher on a side table and flings its contents at me. My back hits the floor and shouting fills my ears. More water splashes onto me, followed by soaked, heavy cloth and an unyielding body that presses me down. “Calm yourself,” Sander huffs. “Please. Don’t kill me, too. Ansa. Please. Be still.”
I collapse under the weight of failure and despair and horror, the pain so intense that it makes me writhe and shiver. Voices bark various orders above me, for more water, for bandages, for Halina, for medicine, for a fire in the grate, for no fire at all. Confusion reigns as I wish for darkness and quiet. But there is no such mercy for me. I am completely aware as I am peeled from the floor and doused with water yet again. Sander shouts at someone to bring him heavy leather gloves, and I realize I must be burning him. But when I wish for the cold, he yelps and lets me go, stung by the ice. Someone, probably Carina, offers to kill me, but Jaspar roars at her to leave the room. “My father wants her alive!” he shouts at her retreating form.
Nisse wants me alive.
I am his broken sword.
Tears run down my face as I begin to laugh. My skin is ruined and weeping and steaming, all over now, not just my arms. The fire and ice are rabid and mad, and I’m not strong enough to wield them. They slide silent and venomous back inside me as I am laid on a fresh blanket on the floor. Sander leans over me. “Your attendant is coming,” he says. “She will do what she can for you.”
But I hear the crack in his voice, the rasp of helplessness. I remember it from that day on the Torden. “Am I going to die?”
His eyes meet mine. “I don’t know.”
There is a shout from the corridor. “Are you sure?” Jaspar calls from his spot just behind Sander, where he holds a full water pitcher, just in case. When he hears the answer to his question, he nods. “Tell them to get up here immediately, then! We’ll take whatever help we can get!”
“What’s happening?” I whisper.
“The party from Kupari has returned,” Sander says, sounding bemused. He looks down at me again, and I see my own ruined face reflected in his dark eyes. “And apparently they’ve brought someone who can help you.”
I am shaking with agony as dark-cloaked figures rush into the room. “Better hurry,” Jaspar says. “I think she’s dying.”
Thyra reaches me first, her eyes wide with horror. “Oh, Ansa,” she whispers, “I’m so sorry. But this will all be better soon. I promise.”
I blink up at her through swollen eyelids. “H-how—”
Nisse leans into my line of sight. “She’s right, Ansa. Try to stay calm.” He raises his arm, welcoming a third person to my side.
This one has the thick stubble of black hair around his jaw and over his head, as if he had shaved it all off but now it’s growing back. His lips seem swollen, two fat slugs sitting on his face. But his eyes are alight with curiosity. He says something in the trilling, looping language I recognize as Kupari. Halina is shoved to her knees next to him. “He says you must have a great deal of fire, to have done this to yourself,” she says in a flat voice, wrenching her arm away from Sander.
“Ice, too,” Jaspar says, and Halina translates for the dark stranger, who nods. He smiles down at me and speaks again. His voice is gentle. Comforting.
“He says he’s going to heal you,” Halina says.
“Please,” I murmur. “It hurts.”
The stranger looks up at Thyra and Nisse and gestures for them to give us space. He asks a question. Halina turns to Nisse. “He wants to know if his apprentice has been provided for.”
“He’s been put into a bed chamber to rest,” says Nisse.
Once Halina conveys this to the stranger, he smiles and nods, then pokes his fingers at my body while babbling in his ridiculous language. “He wants to know what pains you most,” Halina translates.
My heart. But that doesn’t make sense. He can’t help me with that. “My face.”
“Then close your eyes,” Halina says as the stranger speaks. “He says it won’t hurt.”
I obey, and almost immediately thereafter I feel the strangest sensation across my cheeks—wisps of fire and ice, sinking into my skin, making it tingle. It feels like a million tiny needles poking me at once, and yet somehow it numbs me instead of causing more pain.
“Amazing,” Nisse murmurs.
“Oh, thank heaven,” Thyra says, her voice thick with tears.
I remain still, grasping any straw of hope, relieved that the horror has left their voices. I sink into the sensation as it move
s across my scalp, and then into my throat, across my chest, down my torso, along each of my legs and then my arms. . . . I am turned over, and the tingling begins anew across my back.
The stranger asks Halina something. “Yes, the scars on her arms are over a month old.” She waits and listens to his reply, then says, “He says he can’t fix those. Only new wounds.”
“Then we’re grateful we got here when we did,” says Nisse. “She looks so much better.”
I open my eyes as I’m turned onto my back again. The pain is gone. I glance down at my body, my scarred arms, the rest untouched . . . and covered in soaked, blackened rags. I shiver, and Jaspar calls out, “A blanket, please!”
Sander strides over with a fresh wool blanket a moment later, and Thyra spreads it over me. I blink up at the people around me. One would think that after what has happened, I would have more on my mind than embarrassment, but it rises just the same. I don’t like that all of them are looking down at me with their eyes full of questions. I glance at Nisse. “I was trying to use the magic,” I say, my voice a ruin from all the screaming.
Nisse looks at the stranger. “So here, obviously, is the warrior I was telling you about.”
Once Halina translates, the stranger chuckles as if that were obvious.
“Who is he?” I ask. “What’s happening?”
“Oh, forgive us, Ansa. We are only just catching our breaths.” Nisse gestures at the stranger. “This is Kauko. He was an elder in the temple of Kupari.”
“He has quite a story to tell,” says Thyra, suspicion in her voice.
“And we’ll hear him out once Ansa has had a chance to rest,” Nisse says firmly, glaring at her.
“How did he heal me?” I ask as I look up at Kauko, who is wearing the same kind of black robe the witch queen’s minions wore.
Kauko smiles down at me and answers slowly, so Halina can translate. “He says he wields the same magic you do, little red.” Kauko leans forward as he continues to talk, setting his large hands on his thighs. Halina’s eyes go wide as she listens, then takes a breath before translating. “And he says if you let him, he can teach you how to use it too.”