Now I understand why the witch let me live. It is the only thing that makes sense. And as the truth sinks in, it drives my hate for her deep into my bones.
She cursed me. Instead of giving me an honorable death, she filled me with her poison and sent me back to our people. She killed all our warriors, but it wasn’t enough for her. I had thought the warm wind, which rose from nowhere to blow our scrap of hull back to our home shore, was a gift from heaven.
It was just a part of her plan to kill us all. She means to use me as a sword against my own, but I won’t let her.
I crouch against the dune and stare across the water. The knife slips in my sweaty palm. My head is buzzing with lack of sleep—I haven’t allowed myself to do more than doze since the second fire.
One burned shelter is an accident. But two makes people wonder. A third will make them sure. Witchcraft, they will whisper. Witch, they will think when they look at me. In the five days since we were crushed, superstition has sprouted like mushrooms from the soil of an empty burial ground—haunted by warriors who will never be properly laid to rest. Thyra has been working with the widows of our most senior warriors to plan a ceremony of farewell to soothe our uneasiness and grief. We will not get to share our blood with our lost brothers and sisters one last time, nor can we arm them for eternal battle, but Thyra says our spirits and memories will be the wind that carries them to their final victory.
She cannot silence the whispers, though, nor can she quell the fear. The wolves of heaven no longer guard us. We are prey now. We have been cursed.
And we are all looking for a place to lay blame.
A low sob bursts from my mouth. I could not bear it if they knew that I am the cursed one, but I am; I know it. Fire drips from my fingers if I do not focus on suppressing it. Just as bad, frost creeps along my arms and bitter cold whirls around me at the worst moments. So far, they all draw their cloaks around their shoulders and blame it on the coming winter, but soon they’ll realize it comes from me. I feel the ice inside. It’s a blade on a stone, growing sharper by the day, destroying me.
I pull the collar of my tunic wide and hold the knife angled downward, the point touching the soft skin at the base of my throat. One solid thrust, and it will pierce my heart. I know how hard to push. I’ve felt flesh give way, the strike vibrating through a hilt to my palm, up my arm. I’ve felt the shield of bone, the resistance of gristle, the slide of viscera. I know to twist, to leave nothing untouched in my wake, to shred and tear and leave no possibility of recovery. I’m going to earn one more kill mark today, though I won’t be alive to ask for it.
I squeeze my eyes shut and turn my face to the heavens. Why me? There were thousands of warriors on the Torden that day. Why was I the one she sent to hurt my people? Did she know how hard I’d fought to be one of them? Did she know my tribe means more to me than anything else?
I wrap my other hand around the one clutching the hilt. It will be over soon.
“I thought I saw you sneaking away.”
I pivot on the balls of my feet, whipping the knife behind me. “I didn’t sneak,” I say breathlessly as Sander steps into view.
His brow furrows as he examines my face. “Are you crying?”
I grimace and swipe my hand across my cheeks. “Are you addled?”
“We were scheduled to take watch this afternoon, but—”
But I had planned to be dead by then. “Yes, this afternoon. So leave me alone.”
“What are you hiding from? Why weren’t you at noonmeal?”
I stand up, annoyance blazing through me. But fear is hard on its heels as I feel the heat sprout from my fingertips. I clench my fists, and sweat beads across my forehead as I wrestle the curse back. “Just because I wanted to get away from the gloom of camp, I’m hiding?”
He rubs his palm over the back of his head. “You haven’t been the same since we returned.”
“I can’t imagine why. I only watched everything I love burn and splinter, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.” My lip curls. “I think the better question is why you’re suddenly the perfect warrior, Sander. Did you realize Hilma would have thought you a coward, for the way you acted on the Torden?”
With a strangled growl, he lunges at me. I sidestep, but he catches a handful of my tunic and sends me stumbling over his legs, into the sand. I roll away as he tries to dive on top of me, then land a kick to the side of his head as he comes for me again. He grunts and rises to a crouch, ready to pounce. But as he does, I hurl a handful of sand into his face.
“You conniving little runt!”
“Maybe I haven’t changed as much as you thought.”
Sander chuckles as he blinks sand from his eyes. “Oh, you have. Setting fire to your own blanket two nights in a row, and somehow you’re untouched by the flames? Slinking around for the last few days with a cloud of bitter cold around you? Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
This time I’m the one who attacks, out of pure terror at his words. I plow into him, wrapping my fingers around his throat for an instant before he yowls with pain and grabs my wrists. I slam my forehead into his face. Cursing, he wrenches my hands behind my back, barely avoiding my snapping teeth. “Cut it out, Ansa!”
“Why should I?” I’m still struggling, trying to get my legs beneath me so I can thrust my knee into his crotch. “Are you reliving our last turn in the fight circle? This time I could bring you death if you like. Fight hard enough and Hilma might even welcome you to heaven.”
He shoves me away, and I land on my back in the sand, knowing I’ve poked an unhealed wound but too shattered to care. I need him to come at me, to give me a reason. I’m hoping he’s remembering that bright spring day, when he thought I was easy game, when he beat me until I could barely stand . . . when he turned his back on me and gave me the moment I needed. As I scramble to my feet, blood drips from his upper lip while he gingerly prods several red streaks along his throat. I glance down at my hands and ball them in my tunic. Did I just burn him?
“Your fingers . . . ,” he says slowly as his hands fall to his sides.
My heart thumps in time with my panicked thoughts. “I’ve had a fever lately.”
He squints at me. “They were so cold that I thought my blood would turn to ice.”
Saliva fills my mouth and I nearly retch. “I had just washed them in the lake.”
“Liar,” he says quietly, then puts his hands up as I start forward again. His steps are quick, like he’s nervous. And he should be. If he accuses me of witchcraft, I’m going to kill him.
“Ansa, I didn’t come here to fight you,” he shouts as I start forward.
“Now who’s a liar?”
“It’s Thyra! I was coming to tell you—just listen!” He has his hands out in front of him as I move closer, alarm ringing like a bell in my ears. “She told me to come find you. She was challenged.”
“What? By who?”
He glances over his shoulder, toward the camp. “Edvin laid his claim to the chieftain’s chair at noonmeal.”
“The second-wave commander thinks he can do better than she can?”
“He said he wouldn’t let Thyra turn us into land drudges. They were going straight to the circle. And I knew that you—”
I’m running now, my only thought of getting to Thyra. Sander catches up with me as I hit the trail. My mind is a whirl of questions, but I’m too panicked to ask him. My feet pound the rocky path as I sprint into camp. I can already hear the shouts coming from the big open area in front of the council shelter—where the fight circle lies.
I should have been at her side. She said she needed me! Instead, I crept away like a coward, too focused on my own problems to watch her back. When I reach the crowd, I use my small size to my advantage, weaving between hips and shoulders and legs to get to the edge of the circle. Sander gets shut out behind me. I hear him grunting as he tries to get through. But I don’t stop to wait. I can’t bear the thought of Thyra facing this alone.
But she already is. When I get to the roped off circle, she’s standing in the center, in her boots and breeches, wearing only her chest wrap and undershirt. Her kill marks are silver pink on her tanned skin, and the lean muscles of her arms are tense as she faces off against Edvin, a barrel-chested old warrior with arms the size of young oaks. He holds his battle ax and paces in a slow circle around her. He’s easily twice her weight, but she’s nearly as tall as he is. Her chest rises and falls slowly as she waits for him to attack, and she holds a dagger in her right hand, her grip light.
All around us, warriors and andeners shout and cheer. Some for Thyra, some for Edvin, most for the sheer normalcy and reassurance of blood, I suspect. Edvin’s andener stands proud near the entrance to the circle, looking sure of her mate’s victory. Aksel stands next to his mother, his brown eyes fierce with pride as he stares at his father. There is no one there for Thyra—her parents are dead. She has no brothers, no sisters. Not anymore. The open space in that place of prestige is gaping. Our chieftain is all alone. I am desperate to make my way over there, but I don’t want to distract her now that the challenge has begun.
Most fights in this circle are for sport. Or to gain status. This is where I faced off with Sander the day I became a warrior, the moment I spit a part of his ear in the dirt and smiled at him with bloody teeth while Lars roared with laughter.
Warriors usually clasp arms at the end. We all bleed red.
But in a challenge fight for the chieftain’s chair, only one will leave the ring. It’s a fight to the death.
“I’ll make it quick, Thyra,” Edvin says in his scratchy sand and lakewater voice. “I respected your father.”
Thyra’s eyes flicker with pain. “You should have had faith in me, Edvin. You haven’t even given me a season to prove myself.”
“Too much at stake for that.” He whirls his ax, and the blade catches the sunlight.
Cold emanates from the ball of ice inside me, wrenching a shiver up my back. A frigid gust of wind blows over us, making the people around me draw their shoulders up and wrap their arms around themselves. I glance over to see Sander giving me a queer look as he tugs his collar over the red, blistery streaks I left on his throat. I swallow hard and focus on the fight circle again.
Sander leans down. “Edvin’s going to rely on brute strength. Always has. Thyra should be all right if she—”
“Shh.” I can’t listen to his detached, pompous observations right now. This is no ordinary fight.
Thyra looks so thin and fragile as Edvin lumbers toward her, but as she adopts her fighting stance, the cold inside me dissipates. Her face is solemn and smooth as he lets out a war cry and swings his ax in a sideways strike, like one might chop at a tree. Thyra throws herself to the dirt and rolls before jumping up again, her movements lithe and graceful. She never takes her eyes from his face. Edvin breathes hard, and his bushy gray-brown beard swishes with a burst of warm breeze. He strikes at her again, clearly aiming for her side—a height impossible to jump over and hard to duck under, too quick to run from. But instead of doing any of those things, Thyra spins inside his guard in an instant and leaves a slash across his ribs before dodging away. Like she’s dancing, graceful and controlled. Edvin staggers, his mouth half open as he touches his fingers to his side. He laughs when they come away bloody. “Lars would be so proud! He used to boast about you when he was nose-deep in his goblet.”
“He wouldn’t have wanted to see this,” she says, still in her stance, ready for his next attack.
“End it, Edvin,” shouts a grizzled old warrior, wrinkled lips curling over missing teeth. “Stop playing with the child.”
Edvin charges again, this time holding the ax closer and guarding his body as he swings. I grit my teeth. Thyra could throw the dagger, but if the strike isn’t true, she’ll be weaponless. Instead, she ducks under one swipe and blocks another, but the power of it sends her stumbling. Edvin presses, slamming his ax down in a blow that will cleave her spine, but she leaps to the side and the blade thunks hard into the muddy ground, buried deep.
Thyra’s moving before Edvin can pull his weapon from the earth. Aksel screams a warning to his father, but it is no good. Her dagger slices into Edvin’s throat just above his collar, and red drops fly as she pulls it loose and ducks behind him, transferring her dagger to her other hand. She strikes him again from the other side, a quick, mercilessly deep stab. And then she stands with her back to him, a sign of pure confidence—or contempt—and stares steadily at the shriveled old warrior who called for her quick death, while Edvin’s blood slides along her blade, dripping onto the toe of her boot.
Edvin sinks to his knees, his eyes wide and stunned. Thyra turns around and stands behind him as his hands fall from his ax handle, leaving it sticking up from the ground. He’s making the most terrible noises, animal grunts and cries, as he claws at his wounds, perhaps trying to find the air as he drowns. Thyra meets the eyes of Edvin’s andener, a woman the age Thyra’s mother would have been, had she lived.
“I offer mercy,” she says to the woman, who bows her head as Aksel stands frozen beside her, white with shock. Finally, as Edvin lets out another pained cough, his mate nods, an abrupt jerk of her head.
Thyra grabs a fistful of Edvin’s hair, wrenches his head back, and cuts his throat. He falls onto his stomach as his partner shrieks her grief, falling into her son’s arms. Thyra kneels next to the fallen warrior and murmurs something in his ear, then rises and addresses the crowd. “I’ll be in the council shelter if anyone else would like to challenge me.”
A strange silence has fallen over us. Usually, at the end of a fight, there’s celebration and drink. Blood and victory. But this . . . there’s a tang of fear in the air. I’ve never seen a battle for the chieftain chair—Lars was already chieftain when I was brought to this camp, and no one ever dared challenge him, including his ambitious younger brother. But still, I’d imagine someone would be cheering, wouldn’t they?
I shove my way along the edge of the fight circle, but no one puts up any resistance. Everyone seems subdued as Preben and Bertel, Edvin’s dearest comrades, trudge into the circle to carry Edvin’s body away. As I pass, Aksel stares at me with a new, frigid blankness in his eyes. I manage to catch up with Thyra just before she enters the council shelter. Her head is bowed as she absently wipes her blade on her breeches and sheathes the weapon at her hip.
“Thyra!”
She turns as I run up to her. “Where have you been?”
“Who cares? Are you all right?”
For a moment, her cheek twitches and her eyes grow shiny, but then she sucks in a deep breath and lets it out. “Edvin had fought at my father’s side since before I was born.”
“But he challenged you. You had no choice.”
“We only have two hundred warriors left. We need every sword arm we have. Even the old ones.”
“Not if those arms are raised in defiance against you.”
She lets out a sharp laugh and shakes her head. “You always make killing sound so easy.”
“And you make it unnecessarily difficult.”
“Maybe it should be, sometimes.” She turns to walk away, but I grab her arm.
“I’ll make your kill mark for you.”
She rips her arm from my grasp. “I don’t want it,” she snaps. Her blue eyes meet mine. “I have to go meet with the senior warriors about distribution and storage of our supplies for the winter, and then I must meet with the andeners to make the final plan for the farewell ceremony. They need any measure of peace I can offer.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“It would bore you. We need you on watch anyway.”
She’s pushing me away again, and it makes me desperate. “You were brilliant, Thyra,” I offer. “Lars really would have been proud. Everyone will think twice before challenging you again. You proved that you will kill without hesitation.”
She grimaces, and I know I’ve said the wrong thing, though I don’t know why it’s wrong. “That was the point,” she says quietly.
“What did you say to him, as he died?”
She looks down at the spatter of Edvin’s blood on her boot. “I told him I’d take care of his family.”
Carefully, I reach out and touch her arm, focusing on keeping my skin cool. Normal. “You are a noble chieftain. You just united the tribe by earning their respect.”
“I might have united them, but I’m not sure I won them. Those are two different things, and I need both to keep us whole.”
“You deserve the chair.”
“I must earn the chair every day. And I plan to. It’s the only way to grow their faith in me—and in themselves.” She sniffles and wipes her nose on her collar. “But I need you at my side next time,” she says, her voice breaking. “I had to send Sander to find you. Don’t disappear again.”
I grin, eager to raise her spirits. “Because I cheer louder than the rest?”
Her small, reluctant smile is the best reward. “Because of the way you look at me.”
“I think perhaps I understand that.” Because the way she’s looking at me right now makes me feel like I could fly. “I’ll come find you after I finish my watch.”
“Good. We’ll have supper together.” She sounds so weary, and I vow to guard her sleep tonight, if she’ll let me. I won’t be slumbering anyway. I have to stay alert to hold down the curse. Now all my thoughts of killing myself are evaporating. Thyra needs me. I have to find a way to control this, and to keep it secret, so I can support her while she establishes her leadership. The last thing I want to do is shame or distract her, especially as her smile gains a delicious warmth that I feel in my bones.
“Chieftain Thyra,” cries a guard as he sprints up the path. “Armed riders approaching!”
Thyra pivots quickly, her movements sharp. “How many?” she barks as other warriors jog over and gather around, looking to her for instructions.
“Dozens.”
“Hostile?”
The guard puts his hands on his knees, breathing hard. “They’re flying a yellow and white flag.”
“That’s Vasterut,” she says in a flat voice as the men and women around us begin to murmur among themselves, even as the clatter of hooves reaches us from the edge of camp.
“To me!” Thyra yells, and draws her blade again.
I pull a knife from my boot, the one I was planning to use on myself not long ago. We stand shoulder to shoulder as the riders draw near, and a cold wind blows as Sander pushes into position next to me. “Chilly, isn’t it?” he asks, giving me a pointed look.
I press my lips together and stomp that evil cold down as the first rider comes into view, cantering up the road with his followers just behind him. His golden hair shines with flecks of red in the sunlight, and though he’s still yards away, I know his eyes are green, green, green.
“Jaspar,” whispers Thyra.
Unease churns in my gut as he reins in his horse and halts perhaps ten yards from our assembled warriors. “Greetings, Cousin Thyra,” he calls.
“It’s Chieftain Thyra,” I yell.
Jaspar’s eyes flash as his gaze shifts to me. The corner of his mouth curls, and my cheeks burn with memories. “Ah. So Lars’s daughter has claimed the chair.” He inclines his head, a gesture of respect that somehow seems to drip with defiance. “Like she always wanted, and like we always knew she would.”
Thyra’s gripping her dagger so tightly that her hand is shaking. “Why are you here?”
“We heard of your misfortune at the hands of the witch queen of the Kupari.”
“And did you come to finish the job?”
“Quite the contrary. I’ve come under orders from my father. We will escort you and your tribe to Vasterut immediately, Chieftain Thyra.” He looks out over our force, a few hundred lesser warriors and the three of us who survived the storm, and then glances behind him as at least forty mounted warriors crowd in formation at his back. All of them have thick broadswords belted to their waists and shields strapped to their backs, and I recognize many as strong fighters, young and thick with muscle. Though we outnumber them five to one, if it came to a battle against those mounted warriors, we would be slaughtered, and the thousands of andeners and children we protect would be at their mercy.
“Vasterut is not an option,” Thyra shouts. “We have just lost four thousand warriors, and we are in final preparation to bid their souls farewell. But not only that—we are settled along this shore all the way up to Ulvi Point, if you recall, and with this many widows and orphans, the priority is to—”
“Chieftain Nisse is prepared to provide for all of you in Vasterut.” Jaspar’s smile is warm, but there’s no mistaking the danger. “He is eager to see our tribes united once more.” He leans forward, his gaze hard on Thyra. “And he will be particularly delighted to welcome you within his walls.”