There will be no ceremony of farewell. Jaspar insists we leave at new daylight, taking no chance that the snow will catch us out on our journey. We have no choice but to obey, and Thyra realizes it quickly as she sizes up the force Jaspar has brought. None of us argue, because most of us realize the same thing, and the others wanted this outcome from the moment our shattered hull washed ashore.
Thyra looks pale and troubled, but she keeps her chin up as she orders the warriors to ready their own households for the journey, and then to assist the widowed andeners in their preparations. It’s an unbelievable amount of work, but Jaspar orders his warriors to help.
One look into Thyra’s eyes tells me she’s caught in another storm, the kind that’s tearing her apart inside. “What can I do?” I ask.
“Find out their true intentions,” she murmurs as her gaze follows Jaspar, who is already speaking with Preben and Bertel, who have not yet had the opportunity to wash Edvin’s blood from their hands. His smile flashes as he shows them his sword, a gorgeous blade that is probably of Vasterutian make, with a set of long blood grooves down its center.
“Why me? Wouldn’t Sander be a better choice?” He’s already headed over to admire the weapon, and Jaspar’s clapping him on the back. I remember the first time they faced each other in the fight circle, two lanky eleven-year-olds determined to prove themselves. An hour later they staggered out, bloodied best friends.
“Sander would probably have gone with Nisse’s rebels if he hadn’t already paired with my sister, and if she hadn’t been with child.” Hilma died from the fever only a month later, and I can tell Thyra wonders if he regrets his decision to stay.
She touches my arm. “But I know I can trust you.” Her blue gaze loses its warmth. “And you hold charms for Jaspar that Sander does not.”
My mouth goes dry as Jaspar glances toward us and looks away just as quickly, as if he was checking to see if we’d been watching. “Please, Thyra. Let me stay with you.”
“Nonsense.” She gives me a humorless smile. “It will be just like old times.”
Humiliation freezes my tongue to the roof of my mouth.
Thyra’s fingers squeeze my upper arm. “Draw Jaspar away now. I must have a chance to speak to Preben and Bertel before he wins them over. Their support will be important as we begin this journey. If they are with me, the others will feel more confident.”
I hear the pleading in Thyra’s voice, the note of desperation beneath the authoritative steadiness she’s trying to project. If we do not make this journey united, by the time we arrive in Vasterut, Nisse will be the chieftain of us all. A traitor and would-be assassin will be our new master. Honor will not protect us, nor will rules. And Thyra, as the chieftain of the defeated tribe, will be in the most danger. It’s so clear to me that the only reason she’s agreeing to this journey is to save our lives.
I throw back my shoulders, even as misgiving burns inside me. “As you wish.”
“Make him remember.” She leans close. “Because I will never forget.”
How foolish I was to believe that when Jaspar fled on the heels of his father and the other traitor warriors, he would take our past with him. “As you wish,” I whisper again.
“Don’t make it too easy. He’ll sense it if you aren’t yourself.”
I’m not myself, though. I’ve been cursed by a witch. I glance down at my hands, which are stiff with cold. My veins run blue beneath my pale skin.
“Have you lost something, Ansa?”
The sound of Jaspar’s good-natured voice brings my head up. Don’t make it too easy. I scowl. “Nothing that can’t be taken back with blood.”
His laugh echoes through camp. “You haven’t changed.”
“You know nothing.” I give Thyra one last look and then walk past Jaspar and the others, heading for the shelter where I’ve been sitting awake at night while others sleep. The crunch of his footsteps on the trail behind me brings me both triumph and dread.
“I know your temper is sweet as ever,” he says as he falls into step with me.
“Am I supposed to greet you with open arms?”
“That might have been nice.”
I give him a sidelong glance. “Why are you following me? I thought you were busy showing your big blade to the other boys.”
That laugh. I close my eyes and push memories away as he says, “I’d show it to you, too, if I didn’t believe you’d strip it from me and chop my head off.”
I enter the shelter and glance around, realizing I don’t have any great reason for being here. After a few faltering steps, I head for my little pile of scavenged belongings in the far corner, intending to pack them for the journey. “How long is the march to Vasterut?”
“Only four long days of hard riding, but on foot, with the andeners and children in tow, it will take at least two weeks. With luck, we could make it before the snow closes in.”
“Nisse moved quickly then, to send you here.”
“Chieftain Nisse, Ansa,” he says quietly. “He is ruler of Vasterut now and deserves respect. And as his heir, so do I.”
I turn to him, wishing I was taller so I could look him in the eye. “At whose expense?”
“Thyra will be treated according to her status. I promise. Is that what you’re worried about?” He reaches to brush my hair from my forehead, but I step backward out of his reach. His hand falls to his side, and he sighs. “I suppose we’re not allies anymore. But I want us to be. And I only want what’s best for the Krigere. Our warriors are too precious to abandon to the winter.”
“We’d be fine here.”
“I’ve been in this camp less than a quarter-day, and the stink of despair is everywhere. Don’t tell me you’re fine—and don’t pretend a pathetic little ceremony will do anything but ease the guilt of your chieftain.”
I stare out the doorway of the shelter, at the bustle of camp, all moving in the same direction once more, just as we were on the morning of our great invasion. “So the solution is to march to Vasterut and bow to a—” I clamp my lips shut over the word traitor.
“Ansa, Vasterut is only a four-day quick-march from Kupari. Two days riding. Five hours on the oars, up from the south.”
The awful-beautiful face of the witch queen rises in my memory. When Jaspar sees the look on my face, he nods, his jaw hard. “Think of the possibilities.”
“Tell me,” I say in a low voice.
He waggles his eyebrows and takes a few steps back. “In good time. But I think perhaps this is conversation best reserved for our chieftains, eh?” He gives me a mischievous grin. “As I recall, Thyra doesn’t like to be surprised.”
The fire at the center of the shelter flares so high that it frames Jaspar with light. He turns when he feels the heat at his back and puts a bit of distance between himself and the reaching flames.
It gives me a moment to think cold thoughts. “Then go talk to her,” I say.
His look of surprise relaxes into a familiar, teasing smile. “When she’s ready. I should go pay my respects to your surviving senior warriors.” His fingers close over the hilt of his sword. “I hope we’ll have more time to talk as we travel.”
Thyra’s plea to discern his true purpose is still in my head. “We might.”
“We will.” He looks me over, his eyes as bold as stroking fingers. “I missed you, Ansa. More than I expected to.”
He turns and walks away, leaving me with a memory—a fall afternoon, my blood singing with victory after my first raid kill. The curve of Jaspar’s mouth as he asked if he could make the cut, my very first. The slice of pain, the red trickle of warmth down my bare arm, the way his fingers closed over my elbow. And then we were kissing and I barely knew how it had happened, only that it was. That’s all it was too. I had just wanted that moment, high from the fight and needing something vital to match the battle-lust still beating at my temples. Jaspar tasted of sweat and heat as he pushed me against that tree, as his knife fell to the ground with my blood still on the blade.
It was a moment. Nothing more than that. But when I heard the crunch of boots on fallen leaves, I shoved Jaspar away from me and saw Thyra standing, frozen, on the other side of the clearing.
I will never forget the look on her face. Her blank expression, her big, solemn blue eyes . . . the sinking feeling in my stomach, the pit that lasted for days.
But she pretended like it didn’t matter. Like she didn’t care. Like it never happened, even.
Until today.
* * *
I sit only a few feet from where Thyra lies, watching the flickering embers of flame chase shadows along her brow. She deserves this rest. Needs it. And I will guard her so she knows she’s safe.
I’m her wolf.
I need sleep too. I’m woozy and addled after so many nights of startling awake for fear of sinking too deep. Sleep is dangerous right now, for so many reasons.
I spent the rest of the day helping the andeners in the shelters near mine ready themselves for the journey, bundling supplies into blankets, sneaking a few abandoned blades into my boots and arm sheaths. I always feel better when I’m armed. I watched Thyra during supper, when we took down the rope around the fight circle and gathered as a tribe, as she positioned herself right over the bloodied dirt that marked the place where Edvin fell, as if to remind the other warriors she had earned her status. She spoke to Jaspar and a few of the others with a smooth, assured voice. But when she retired to the shelter, I saw the wariness in her gaze. The weariness, too.
She feels hunted. When I told her that Jaspar had vowed she would be treated according to her status, she scoffed. “That’s a deliberately vague thing to say, if you think about it.”
“You are his fallen brother’s daughter,” I said. “Surely that means something.”
Her laugh was dry as summer sand. “Oh, it most certainly does.” Then she scrubbed her hands over her face. “I am only worth reckoning with if I have my warriors behind me,” she said. “This journey will determine whether I arrive in Vasterut a master or a slave.”
I scoot a few inches closer to her. We’re in the council shelter—the chieftain’s carved chair sits on the other side of the space. There are guards at the perimeters, and Jaspar and his warriors have set their camps at the hunting trails leading north and west, claiming to offer protection. I think they are trying to make sure we do not escape.
It’s begun already. That’s what Thyra said to me, just before she fell asleep. And now she breathes slow and even, and I hope that means she’s shed the barbed pain of defeat, that her dreams are full of victory. An ache spreads through my chest as I think of how beautiful she was today, the lithe spread of her arms, the elegant strike of her blade, the way she made it look like a dance. I suspect I look like an animal when I fight, all bared teeth and frenzied motion, but not Thyra. She is long and lean and made of lethal grace. And now she is being forced to lead us into the unknown, because there is no other choice.
I reach out and take her limp hand. “I’m with you,” I whisper. “I’ve always been with you.”
If she’d ever asked me about Jaspar, I would have explained. But she never acted like she wanted or needed that, and so I would have felt foolish saying it aloud. She is so guarded, even with me, no matter how I crash against her walls. Until the witch queen plunged us into a new upside-down world, Thyra created no space for these sentiments, and so all of them remained stuffed inside me, hot as burning pitch. If it had been you, I wouldn’t have let go. I have wanted to tell her this for so long. If you had made the cut, I would have been on my knees. I would have pulled you down with me. I would have bruised you by holding too tight.
Thyra winces and swipes her hand across her brow, which is drenched with sweat. I yank my hand from hers as heat warps the air between us. My breath bursts from my throat as I realize I’m doing it again. Fire kisses my fingertips as I rise to my feet, my eyes stinging, horror crushing me like a storm wave.
Why do I think I can protect her? She’s facing the fight of her life. She needs all her wits—the survival of our tribe depends on it. What she does not need: the taint of witchcraft to make people doubt and question.
And I’m about to burn her alive with a witch’s curse.
Pulling my cloak around me, I jog for the doorway, desperate for the open air.
A hand closes over my shoulder, and I whirl around, the fear like ice in my veins. Thyra yelps and stumbles back as our fire gutters out with a frigid blast of wind, then flares to life again when my gaze flicks toward the pit. When light fills the shelter once more, the flames are reflected in Thyra’s round eyes.
“The fire,” she says, her voice breaking.
It’s massive, licking the thatch, and I give it a pleading look. The flames shrink like I’ve just reprimanded them, and Thyra gasps. Her fingers are clawed in her cloak. “Ansa. Did you do that?” Her voice trembles. “The two shelters that burned . . .”
My back hits the door frame of the shelter. “I’m sorry.”
“But this is like—” She shudders as the air becomes so cold that it makes my bones ache. “Are you doing this on purpose?”
“The witch queen cursed me.” I clench my fists because I can feel the ice and fire trying to seep through my skin. It’s taken me over. Tears overflow and streak down my face. “Thyra, I’m sorry.”
And then I run, my feet pounding the dirt, my heart a gash in my chest.