The Cursed Queen

  I have failed.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I am tossed up, sucking in a gasping breath, to see ships aflame and sinking, bodies all around me, emptied of the noble spirits who once resided there. The lake pulls them down, aided by the weight of their axes, their helmets, their cloaks. When I am forced deep by another swell, the lightning above reveals a lake full of thrashing arms and legs.

  And me, clawing for air, battling the storm and my own despair. Surrender is weakness. I swim for one of the few longships still floating, only to watch a thick bolt of white lightning cleave it in two, sending warriors flying into the air with flames to cushion their fall. Another wave hits me, this one square in the back, pushing my face into the water and drawing my legs up, sending me into the depths yet again. Something hard slams into my head, a splintered mast or a rowing bench, maybe, lacing the water with my blood. My mouth opens in a gasp, and I inhale the Torden, which burns my lungs as my entire body revolts. Blackness rims my vision and then closes in.

  The thought flashes in my head—Give up. It’s done.

  But I remind myself: A Krigere is granted passage into heaven only after a victory, or if she dies fighting. Though my only enemy right now is the lake, I will battle it until the end.

  I stroke and kick and convulse. My fellow warriors do the same. The water invades and conquers, and as I struggle, I see so many of my brothers and sisters lose the fight. I know my time is coming too, but I don’t—

  The wind calms so quickly that it’s like a heavy blanket smothering a campfire. The waves sink into the depths. The heavy, violent clouds swirl into nothing. The tempest folds in on itself like a melting ice crystal, and then it’s gone. I blink up at the sun. Its beauty makes my eyes burn, and I let out a bemused croak of a laugh. I float on my back as the elation that comes with life after the certainty of death gives way to a completely different kind of understanding. Somehow I know to keep my eyes on the sky. If I gaze on the world as it is now, it will be the fatal, crushing blow. The silence alone is evidence of the totality of our destruction.

  I should let the water take me. Sometimes wounds bleed too much. A warrior can die in victory on the battlefield if she fought to the end, if she gave all she had. And I did. I gave everything, including the chance to die in Thyra’s arms, to look at her face one more time. Surely I can simply let go now . . . ?

  “Ansa!”

  One word, one cry, one voice pulls me back from the brink.

  “Ansa! Answer me or I swear I’ll cut your throat.”

  I turn my head. Thyra paddles toward me on a large scrap of hull, her face smudged and dripping, her eyes bright with horror. Sander is behind her. He is bleeding from a gash on his temple, the blood staining his jaw and dripping into the collar of his tunic, but he still looks strong as he steers the makeshift vessel with a broken oar. Cyrill is draped across the middle, half his blond beard singed away, his formerly handsome face a mess of black and blisters.

  I reach for Thyra’s outstretched hand, so grateful that she’s alive that I can’t find my words. She clutches my shaking, scalded fingers and drags me up, and Sander lays down his oar and helps her pull me onto the raft. I clamp my teeth together to keep from crying out. It feels like I’m about to shed my skin, and right now, I wish I could.

  While Thyra leans over me, Sander says, “We can’t take on more weight. We’ll sink.”

  She nods, then touches her forehead to mine, her palms on my cheeks. “Don’t you ever try to steal my rightful kill again,” she whispers harshly, but then she plants a hard kiss on the top of my head.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, my voice as broken as the rest of me. “I failed you.”

  She lets out a strained chuckle as she sits up and looks around. “We all failed.”

  Wincing, I push myself up on one elbow. We’re floating in a sea of bodies and debris, beneath a rich blue sky and the sinking early autumn sun. A cool breeze ruffles my hair, but that’s not what sends the cruel chill down my back. Not a single ship survived. In the distance, I can see a few warriors on another section of splintered hull, pulling a limp body onto their platform. But even as they succeed, a section of it dips, and all of them slide into the lake. They let out feeble cries as they struggle to climb back to safety. “We have to try to make it over there,” Thyra says.

  “Are you addled?” snaps Sander. “We’ll be lucky if we don’t meet the same fate.”

  She glares at him. “There were thousands of us on these waters. And we have andeners at home waiting for word—and protection.”

  Sander laughs. “Protection? Thyra, look around. We’re dead.”

  “Not yet,” she says, and begins to paddle toward the other survivors, her eyes scanning the waters for others.

  Next to me, Cyrill moans. I put a hand on his back. “Keep breathing. Keep fighting.”

  “Blood and victory,” he says weakly.

  My throat tightens. “Blood and victory.” But I know Sander’s right. We’re corpses with heartbeats. I peer at the horizon. Three tiny specks are receding into the deep blue. “There they are. The witch and her dark minions.”

  Thyra pauses in her paddling, drawing her soaked arms up from the lake. The fading sunlight glints off her silvery kill marks. If her gaze were an arrow, it would strike true and lethal. “For a moment, I thought I had the target,” she murmurs.

  It’s as good as an accusation. “And if you’d stood your ground long enough to throw the dagger, you would have ended up just like your father,” I say, coughing at the strain of so many words.

  “And here I thought your dearest wish was to see me kill,” she whispers.

  “How did you know the danger?” Sander asks. “You pulled her away just in time.”

  “Instinct, I suppose. The witch had just struck Lars down the same way. I could see her looking at Thyra.”

  “You could see her that clearly?”

  I turn to Sander, annoyance burning at the back of my tongue. “So could Thyra. We were close.”

  “If we’d had enough oarsmen, we might have been able to ram her,” he says bitterly.

  Another accusation. “We never would have reached her. She wouldn’t have allowed it.”

  He arches an eyebrow, pure suspicion. “If you really thought that, why did you swim for it? Or were you just jumping overboard to save yourself?”

  My brow furrows, and I look to Thyra. “The ship came apart only a minute after you went over the side,” she says quietly.

  Sander’s gripping the oar as if he’d like to hit me with it. “Did you know that by instinct too? We needed you on board!”

  I rip one of my knives from the sheath at my wrist, but Thyra grabs my arm, which makes me hiss with pain. “Stop it now, both of you,” she barks. “If you knock us into the water, I’ll kill you before you have a chance to drown.”

  “So many dire threats, Thyra,” drawls Sander. “You actually expect us to believe them?”

  Thyra’s eyes go wide at his insolence. He’s never dared speak like this to her. No one has. But her father is dead now.

  She strips my knife from my grip and has it pointed at Sander in an instant. “I said to stop it.” She stabs the blade into the wood of the hull, leaving its hilt bobbing only inches from Sander’s knee. “Though I choose not to shed blood often, it doesn’t mean I won’t.”

  “I’m just wondering what Ansa was really doing while our entire crew was battling the storm.”

  Thyra opens her mouth, probably to threaten him again, but it snaps shut as I murmur, “I made it all the way to her skiff.”

  Cyrill stops his moaning and turns his head to look at me. My cheeks burn as I gaze after the three black specks on the horizon. “I nearly had her, but the water . . . somehow, they turned it hot.” I show them my raw, red arms and hands. “And one of her attendants had fire in his palm.”

  Sander rolls his eyes. “You’re both addled.”

  “Our world was just destroyed by a witch-brewed storm,” Thyra say
s in a flat voice. “What’s more addled than that?”

  Sander leans forward. A drop of blood from his chin lands on Cyrill’s sodden tunic. “The fact that Ansa’s still breathing. If she got that close to the witch, how is she still alive?”

  All of them stare at me again, and I fight a strange fluttering inside me at the memory of the witch queen’s face, the way she was looking at me before the end. “I don’t know,” I mutter. “I tried to strike, but then . . .” I swallow my next words, and they taste like shame. I dropped my weapon for no good reason. I had the chance and the strength. I might have been injured, but not severely. If I had lunged, I could have sunk that blade into her thigh. I was that close. But my heart went soft all of a sudden. And if I admit that, I might lose the thing that is most important to me in this world, more important than my own life.

  Other warriors’ respect.

  “A wave caught me and pulled me away,” I say quickly, realizing I have been silent for too many seconds.

  “Why didn’t she bring a bolt from on high to cook you in the water?” Sander asks. “Since that seemed to be her strategy for eliminating threats.”

  “Again, I don’t know.” Except . . . I don’t think she wanted to kill me. Her attendants seemed to want her to do exactly that. The one in her boat, with the fiery hands, was going to do it himself. Instead of striking, though, she summoned the wave that bore me away.

  She saved me.

  The thought turns my stomach, and I lean over and retch into the lake, giving it back some of the water I gulped down as I drowned. I press my forehead to the soggy hull and listen to Cyrill’s wheezing breaths, not wanting to raise my head and see how my three fellow warriors are looking at me. My skin is hot and cold at the same time, and hard shivers are making me tremble. A spot on my leg throbs, then sends icy bursts of sensation up my thigh. Startled, I shove the edge of my boot down my calf.

  “Are you injured?” Thyra asks.

  I stare down at my red birthmark, which is now pulsing hot, and shake my head as I pull my boot back up to cover it. “It’s nothing.”

  Thyra curses. “They’ve disappeared.”

  I slowly raise my head and look out on the watery battlefield. The only sound is of gulls crying above us. Some of them have descended on our dead. The warriors we saw slide off their own improvised raft are nowhere to be found. Sudden fury rushes through me, and I yank my knife from the hull. I reel back to throw it at one of those hateful birds and nearly pitch into the water, but Sander brings up his oar and slaps me hard between the shoulders, sending me down with a huff on top of Cyrill. “Cursed to survive with only three baby warriors as my allies,” he says with a moan.

  “Quiet, Cyrill,” Thyra says, command in her voice. “Your eyes would be in a gull’s stomach if not for us.” But she squeezes his shoulder, and he offers a weary smile.

  “What now?” asks Sander. “If there are others who made it through, they’ve drifted too far for us to find them.”

  Thyra stares out at the gently rolling waves, which are indeed carrying our dead and the remnants of our invading force further out into the Torden. “We go home,” she says.

  Sander laughs. “It took us nearly half-daylight to get here, and that was with the wind at our backs and twelve pairs of oars!”

  He brandishes his broken oar, but Thyra rises on her knees with threat in her eyes. “And what would you prefer to do, Sander? Lie down like a weakling and let the Torden sing you to sleep?” She snatches the oar from his grip before he can think to stop her. “Take your spot next to Cyrill, then. Lie down and rest.”

  “Hey, don’t cut me from the same cloth as this cub,” Cyrill rumbles. He tries to push himself from the planks, but then groans and sinks back down. “If I wasn’t so broken, I would help you row.”

  She grimaces. “Stay where you are.” I hate the look in her eye, the worry and despair she’s trying to hide. The twist of her lips and the bright sheen on her eyes—this is how she looked as she stood over the fallen, weeping old man in that coastal village during the summer’s eve raid. When her hand shook, when she said in a broken whisper, I will risk my father’s wrath. This man has done nothing to warrant such a death, and when the sight of her hesitation and shame made me draw my own blade and plunge it into his side. Though it is forbidden, I gave her the kill mark—her father had told her not to come home without a new one.

  Like then, I cannot help but save her. I grab a floating plank from the water and hold it like a paddle. As Thyra plunges her broken oar into the Torden, I do the same, and together we move the raft, the shattered hull of what used to be a great warship, a few feet closer to home. The wind pushes my hair off my forehead as I glance over to find her looking at me in a way that warms me from the inside.

  Red-cheeked, Sander snags himself the blade of another broken oar and joins us. He’s at the “prow” of our unsteady little vessel, and so he sits on his knees and reaches forward, drawing the flat blade straight back toward the jagged edge before pulling it up again. The three of us paddle in silence as the sun dips at our backs and the sky turns dark once more, this time with night. Stars wink from the safety of the outerworld, mockingly cheerful as we slowly pull ourselves closer to our home shore in the northeast. The moon lights our way, showing us nothing but black waters all around.

  Thyra is the first to notice that Cyrill’s spirit has departed for eternity. She stops midpaddle and presses her fingers to his neck, then bows her head. “Stop for a moment.”

  Sander sits up and tosses his oar blade down next to him, rolling his shoulders and wincing. “What is it?”

  “Cyrill’s gone,” I say unsteadily. I let out a shuddering breath and brace my palm on the planks. The birthmark on my leg is throbbing steadily now, to the point of pain. I can’t tell if it’s hot or cold, only that it burns. Thyra gives me a concerned look, and I wave her off. “I’m fine.” I think I am, at least. The shivers haven’t stopped, even though I’m sweating. Perhaps it’s the scalding I took in the water. I’ve had fevers before, but it hasn’t felt like this. Something inside me has gone unsteady and brittle, one collision away from shattering.

  “We have to get rid of him,” says Sander. “We’ll be lighter if he’s gone.” He reaches over and plucks Cyrill’s dagger from the sheath at his side, and I feel a pang of memory. Just last night, his beard dripping mead, his mouth split into a drunken grin, Cyrill drew that very blade and joked about how he’d ram it into the guts of any Kupari who stood between him and the twenty fine horses he planned to own before the invasion was done. His andener, Gry, laughed and kissed him, her fingers twisting in his beard, her joy and pride and love so big that all of us could feel it.

  “Put that back,” I say quietly, wishing I could stop shaking. My mouth suddenly feels too dry, like I could drink the entire Torden and still be parched.

  “Why?” says Sander. “It’s an excellent blade, and it’ll do me a lot more good than it will him.”

  “It’s his,” I snap. “And a warrior is buried with his weapons.” If he’s not, he goes to the heavenly battlefield unarmed and shamed.

  “We’re not burying him, Ansa—you see any dirt around here?” shouts Sander, his voice breaking, his fingers white-knuckled on the hilt of Cyrill’s dagger.

  “He died with honor!”

  “Stop it, both of—” Thyra begins.

  “Death is pathetic, no matter how it strikes, and Cyrill died helpless and wounded and weak,” roars Sander.

  “Like Hilma did?” I ask quietly.

  Sander hurls his broken oar blade at me, but I duck and snatch my dagger from the planks. Its edge reflects the moon. My palm is so sweaty that I almost drop it, though. “Stop letting your grief twist you up, Sander. Cyrill earned your respect in life, and I won’t let you take it from him now!”

  “How will you stop me, runt? You look like you’re about to join him.”

  “You first.”

  Thyra yelps as Sander strikes with Cyrill’s dagger, bu
t I draw a second blade from the sheath along my calf. I block his strike with the back of my forearm, the impact rattling my teeth but forcing Sander to catch himself with his other hand to keep from falling into the lake. Taking advantage of his stumble, I straddle Cyrill’s back to slide my blade up against Sander’s throat. “Drop it,” I growl, my teeth chattering. It feels as if someone’s sunk a red-hot brand into my calf, and it’s all I can do not to groan.

  “Do it.” Sander smiles as the blade bites his skin, and he leans forward to show he isn’t scared. His dark eyes are full of rage and challenge. “Do it before I rip this knife from your grip and cut you open.”

  I am shaking so violently now that I can’t hold the blade steady. Sander is grinning. “We’re all going to die,” he whispers, even as his smile crumples into a grimace. “Do you think she’ll be waiting for me?”

  Thyra reaches for Cyrill’s dagger, still locked in Sander’s grip. “Sander—”

  “Shut it, Chieftain,” Sander snaps, his eyes glittering.

  Our eyes are locked. He is past caring, past respect, past hope. Suddenly, the urge to kill him is almost as powerful as the massive, tremulous thing inside me that has been growing by the minute, taking me over. Sander used to be full of light and life, and now he courts death like he wants it for his new mate. I brace to make the cut before I fall apart, but Sander rears back, perhaps because his body wants to survive even though he has lost his will to live. But his weight and the sudden movement sends the other end of the hull rising into the air. As Cyrill’s body starts to slide, I dive for the higher edge while Thyra tumbles off the other side. With a splash and a cry, Sander goes into the lake too, and Cyrill’s body promptly lands on top of him. The hull splashes back flat onto the water, soaking me. I hear Thyra begin to shout at Sander, but a roaring fills my ears, deafening me.