My wish for sunlight is crushed as Halina leads me through a recessed wooden door to a staircase that descends further into the earth. But when I balk, she tugs at me, relentless. “Come now,” she whispers. “Time is never our friend.”
“How do you know our language?” I ask as I begin to follow her again, needing something to get my mind off the press of stone and dank air as we enter a tunnel so low that even though I’m not that tall, I must hunch to keep from conking my head.
“I am good with language,” says Halina. “I know Kupari as well. And Korkean. Ylpesian, too. My father was a trader and he took me on his travels when I was little. As for Krigere . . . I learned fast out of a sincere desire to survive.” She tosses me a smile pulled taut by the ghosts in her eyes.
I clear my throat. “Ylpesian? Korkean?”
“The city-states of Korkea and Ylpeys lie west of here, through the Loputon Forest.” She looks back, and her gaze is cautious. “Allies.”
“Does Nisse know of these city-states?”
Her eyes linger on mine. “Well, now. I don’t know, little red. What did his big map say?”
If she means his map on the table in the tower, the answer is no. The area to the south and west of Kupari was blank. Unpainted. “He’ll find out.”
“Because you tell him?”
I run my tongue along my teeth, uncertainty filling me again as all the revealed secrets of the afternoon stack on one another, high as the tower itself. “I don’t know.”
Her eyes narrow. “Maybe I’ll help you figure it out. Best believe old Nisse is cautious, though. He doesn’t allow riders to leave the city, not since we sent an envoy to the Kupari to beg for help after the initial attack. No one in or out, save Krigere. That’s the way of it now. Vasterutians are prisoners in our own city.”
But considering how easily we just departed my little prison chamber, perhaps things are not as locked down as Nisse hoped. “Where are we going?”
“Not far now.” She skitters along the passage, raw earth held up with wooden posts, some still green. As if it has been newly dug and braced, though such an endeavor would take months. Months . . . perhaps since the early spring.
I stare at her back with new suspicion. “Where do your loyalties lie?”
“What a question.”
“What an answer.”
She lets out a grunt of laughter. “Loyalty is precious, little red. Hard won, hard lost. Easily given, easily betrayed.” She pushes through a door, and suddenly we are outside the tower, outside the stake-wall that surrounds it . . . and below the hill on which it sits. I’m in a narrow lane between two tall shelter buildings, ankle deep in snow that melts away from my boots as if afraid of me.
Halina stares down at the retreating ice and whispers something in her own language. Or, who knows, perhaps Korkean or Ylpesian. She is full of surprises. “Ooh. Be careful there. Your tracks will be easy to spot.”
I am outside the tower without permission, without Nisse’s knowledge. I smile down at the snow, a friendly, welcoming look, I hope. The frost stops fleeing from my ankles and nestles close, reforming as ice. Halina frowns. “And now they’re frozen. Great,” she says in a rueful voice. “I’m not going to regret this at all.” She jabs her finger at me. “Best remember that you have as much to fear from the Krigere as any Vasterutian.”
“Just tell me where we’re going!”
Her mouth twists. “My brother’s house. Because I often make risky decisions. Hopefully I won’t regret this one.” She grabs my hand and pulls me along the snowy lane. The air is crisp and bitter, but the walls are close and radiate warmth. Somewhere inside one of these shelters, a baby is crying. Someone is singing. Others arguing. All in a language I do not understand, though I recognize the round honey sound as Vasterutian.
Halina treks through a maze of these shelters until finally she stops in front of a rickety set of wooden steps leading up to the second level of a building. Light pours from within. “Up there,” she whispers before starting her climb.
The stairs creak and rattle as we ascend, and a head pokes out of the doorway at the top, a wild spray of black curls framing a heart-shaped face. “Mama,” says the little boy, who is perhaps three or four and begins babbling in Vasterutian. Halina answers, her voice firm, and he disappears within once more. She purses her lips when she sees my surprised expression.
“My husband was one of the king’s guards. Old Nisse’s raiders cut his throat from ear to ear. The day the Krigere came to Vasterut was the day I became a widow. I do whatever I have to do to stay alive—for that little boy in there.” She doesn’t look away from my gaze as she lets her words sink in, and then she enters the shelter with me on her heels.
The chilly room is tiny and cluttered with wooden toys and cooking implements. A low table and a stool are the only furniture. Three figures hunch by the fire, covered in patched cloaks with hoods drawn up. The boy has withdrawn to a corner, his feet wrapped in thick cloth, wearing an ill-fitting, filthy wool tunic. He’s crouching next to a basket containing a baby, rosy cheeked and sleeping. Both children have round faces and earth-brown skin.
Halina gestures toward the fire and says something in Vasterutian, and two of the cloaked figures, a woman and a man, toss back their hoods. One of them is the man with the shaved head and black beard who was serving with Halina in the great hall. The other woman doesn’t look familiar, but she, too, has a round face and curly black hair, though hers is tamed and pinned against her head.
“This is my brother, Efren,” Halina says. The bearded man nods. “And his partner, Ligaya.” The woman gives me a wary jerk of her head.
I glance toward the third hooded figure and arch an eyebrow. “And . . . ?”
The third figure pushes back her hood with pale fingers. My breath catches in my throat and I stagger back as Thyra turns to me, looking worried and thin and anxious. “We won’t hurt you, Ansa,” she says quickly. “You must stay calm. These people mean no harm.”
“What are you doing?” I whisper.
Her blue eyes are deep and sorrowful. “Whatever I have to, like I always do.”
Her words send a pang straight through me. Today Nisse told me of a Thyra different from the one I thought I knew, one who framed him as an assassin after he caught her plotting to poison her own father. A clever, ruthless Thyra.
Exactly the kind of person who could use someone’s love and trust against them. “I’ve heard a bit about what you have had to do.”
Her lip curls. “I know who’s been whispering lies in your ears.” She looks up at Halina and says a few words in halting Vasterutian before adding, “For bringing us here.”
“You’re welcome.” Halina pulls an offered cloak over her own shoulders. “But I didn’t do it for your benefit alone. Now I want to talk about how we help each other.”
Thyra gives me a sidelong glance. “Give us a moment?”
Halina’s nostrils flare, but she says something in Vasterutian to Efren and Ligaya, who step away from us. The three of them turn to the corner where the children are, talking in low, round tones. When I look back at Thyra, she is nearer to the fire, staring into the flames. “You’re too skinny,” she says quietly.
“Weeks lying flat on one’s back with a cracked skull does cause a person to shrivel.”
She bows her head. “I had to do it, Ansa. You know that, don’t you?”
“Do what?” I ask lightly, even as the curse-fire awakens in my chest, cinders glowing and stinging. “Try to kill me?”
She presses her forehead to her clasped hands. “If our positions were reversed, I’d hope you would do the same.”
I look at her in shock. “I would never hurt you.” I leave the rest unsaid, but it hangs ugly between us—she hurt me. So badly I can barely breathe now that she is so near. I was in her arms. I thought she loved me. And her heart was cold as stone as she slammed her hilt into my skull.
The fire in the hearth swells with my resentment, snaking tentative tendrils over the stones as if waiting for my command. Thyra scoots back. “Our warriors are in danger,” she says. “A great number of them fled the tower the night I was challenged. They were joined by the warriors outside the walls and have barricaded themselves in a group of shelters at the eastern edge of the city.”
“Displacing a good number of our people in the process,” Efren growls from the corner.
Thyra gives him a troubled look. “I am working to correct all that has gone wrong.”
Ligaya tosses her hair and makes a skeptical clucking noise with her tongue, but then the Vasterutians return to muttering among themselves.
I frown as I consider the plight of our tribe. Nisse did not mention any of this when we met this afternoon. “Nisse values warrior lives.”
“He values his army.” Thyra scoffs. “If he valued their hearts and souls, he would let me speak to them. Instead he keeps me locked away for my own protection.”
“And yet, here you are. Free within the city.”
Thyra smiles and glances toward the three Vasterutians in the corner. “There is help within the tower, offered at great risk.”
“For those who defy Nisse,” I guess. “What are you doing? If he finds out—”
She jabs a finger toward Halina’s back. “If he finds out, they will be gutted in the square, and their children left to starve, assuming they aren’t killed as well,” she whispers harshly. “Is that what you want?”
“I don’t want more warriors killed. I want our tribe to be strong again.” But I can’t help glancing toward the little boy in the corner. I can’t help thinking I was about his age when my family was destroyed.
Thyra’s fingers tighten over her knees. “You sound like Sander. Does it matter what the price is, Ansa? Will you follow anyone?”
My throat constricts. “I followed you until I realized what you were capable of. You cast me aside and almost ended my life, and still you demand my loyalty?”
Thyra gives the fire a nervous glance. Its tendrils are growing like a vine straight out of the hearth, fingers of flame seeking someone to embrace. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Ansa. I had to stop you, though. Can’t you understand that? Do you remember anything about that night?”
“I remember Jaspar trying to stop the archers and you . . .” Pretending to care about me so you could sneak inside my guard.
“You saved me,” she says, reaching to touch my cheek.
I lean back out of her reach, unwilling to be snared yet again.
Her hand falls back to her side. “I was trying to do the same for you.”
“Jaspar definitely was,” I say. “He stood between me and the danger.”
“You were the danger.” Her expression turns hard. “Has it occurred to you that he was trying to save them? You were about to kill those archers.”
“You didn’t have to hit me!”
“I had no idea how to stop you. There were flames in your eyes, and your arms were on fire, your tunic burning black and falling right off your body, even as you juggled knives of ice. You didn’t even seem aware that the magic was devouring you.” She shudders. “I don’t regret what I did.”
She still sees the monster when she looks at me, I can tell. “Why did Halina bring me here, then? You seem to wish I’d never risen from the ground where you left me.”
Her eyes flare with surprise and pain, and she presses her lips together. She turns back to the fire, as if to confront it directly as it tries to caress her. She says nothing to defend herself, nothing to stave off the flames. She merely stares at them, as if daring them to touch her. And the sight reminds me of that night in the fight circle, the way she faced Nisse, and instead of begging for her life, she told him to respect her warriors. Not the act of sacrifice I would expect from a traitor.
The flames pull back, as confused as I am.
She glances at me from the corner of her eye. “I need you to get a message to our warriors. They will not emerge from their enclave if they do not hear from a member of our tribe—if they do not trust the words come from me. They are rapidly running out of supplies, and Nisse has assigned a heavy guard to block all access to them. But I can trust y—”
“Now you suddenly trust me again?”
She flinches at the sharp snap of my words. “I’m sorry, Ansa. I regret some of the things I said to you.”
“Is that only because you need me right now?”
“No. It’s because I’ve had plenty of time to think about it while held prisoner by a man who is only keeping me alive until he figures out how best to use me.”
“So you’ve hit upon the best way to use me—as your messenger. I’m seeing a family resemblance.”
Her mouth is tight, as if she is trying to hold her words captive. Finally she says, “My uncle needs our numbers if he’s going to invade Kupari. We comprise nearly a quarter of the warriors within this city. But if Nisse invades Kupari while the snow is thick on the ground, our warriors will emerge from their exile only to die. Imagine what the witch could do with all that ice and cold.”
“She might be dead. They may have no ruler.”
“Yes. Nisse has sent someone to find out.”
Now I know he spoke the truth when he said he had kept her informed. “If the witch has fallen, we could take them over.”
She waves her hand toward the Vasterutians. “Like he took them over? You see what he has done here? He’s sowing the seeds of our destruction and he doesn’t even recognize it because he believes so strongly in our superiority. He is blinded by arrogance.”
“I see that our warriors sleep safe in a warm city instead of freezing by the northern shore.”
“Are we safe?” She waves her arm toward the door. “We are enclosed in a wall of stone, along with an unknown number of people who crave freedom more than their own safety, and another many thousand only awaiting a sign that freedom is possible.”
Halina raises her head. Her young son is curled on her lap, his head against her shoulder, and her arms are tight around him. “Old Nisse might have cowed us for a time, but that does not mean our spirits are crushed. We’re going to take our city back.” She gives Thyra a frustrated look. “And you said little red would help.”
My mouth drops open as I turn back to Thyra. “You did what?”
“I said you would be an ally,” Thyra says slowly. “You saved me that night in the fight circle, Ansa. It made both of us dangerous outcasts among Nisse’s tribe.”
But Nisse promised me redemption, if only I do as he asks. I swallow those words. I have a feeling I know what she would say to that, and I’m not in the mood for her questions—they always tear the lid off things I thought were locked down. “So you thought I would join you in helping the Vasterutians defeat the Krigere?” I ask, my voice shaking. “Now who is the traitor?”
Thyra winces and gives Halina an apologetic look. “The Vasterutians want the same things we do, Ansa. We are not so different.”
“We are different! We’re warriors and they aren’t.”
“There’s the arrogance that blinds our tribe,” she says. “Don’t we all bleed red?”
“It’s not arrogance—it’s pride in who we are! And our chieftain should have it in abundance.”
“I am proud of who we are.” Her brow furrows. “I cannot always be proud of what we do. I love our people—and that is why another invasion must be stopped. It is lunacy.”
All my doubt and frustration over her refusal to avenge our tribe rises to the surface once more. “At least Nisse is taking action! He means to give our warriors their vengeance, and their pride.”
“So you’ve chosen your side, little red?” asks Halina.
“I haven’t done anything except wake up from a stupor and find myself hopelessly tangled in intrigue and lies!” I glare at Thyra. “But perhaps I was before as well, and I simply didn’t realize it.”
Efren reaches beneath his cloak, possibly for a weapon.
“If any of you make a move against me, you will instantly regret it,” I snarl. “I don’t need fire or ice to make people bleed.” I don’t care if I’m half starved and scarred; I know how to turn people’s weapons against them.
“Ansa won’t hurt anyone,” Thyra says to Efren, then turns her authoritative gaze on me. “She’s smarter than that.”
“You still haven’t told me exactly what you’re planning. And don’t give me that ‘whatever I have to’ dung. I don’t want to hear it. Are you stirring some sort of rebellion?”
“We don’t need either of you for that,” says Halina. “But you could help save lives. Krigere and Vasterutian both.”
Thyra sighs. “Haven’t you ever questioned our way of life, Ansa?”
I squint at her. “Why would I?”
“We live by taking from others.”
“Because we are warriors. What else are we to do?”
“Here in the south, they trade with one another.”
“So? Why trade when you can simply ride in and snatch what you want?”
“We don’t treat our andeners that way.” Her jaw tightens. “Or, we shouldn’t.”
“Our andeners are tribe.”
“Ask Nisse how he’s treating them next time you see him.”
I groan. “What are you getting at?”
“Ansa, do you ever wonder what happened to your parents? Your real parents. The ones who birthed you and loved you?”
I edge backward. “No. And I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
Because it’s too painful. “Because they were victims!” I jump to my feet, my breath rushing from my throat in a cloud of frost as the image of my mother invades my mind. She reaches for me with eyes full of love as she bleeds and burns and dies. “Because they were weak,” I say, my voice cracking. Too weak to protect me from the monsters.
I push the thought away yet again before confusion can swamp me.
When I open my eyes, Thyra has risen to face me. “Look at her,” she says, pointing to Halina, who is hunched protectively over her child. Efren and Ligaya are in front of her, putting themselves between the children and me—the enemy. “Is she weak, Ansa? Is she a victim?” Thyra leans forward. “She’s still fighting. Just not with daggers or axes.”
I look into Thyra’s blue eyes. “Is she like you, then? Does she fight with poison instead?”
Her gaze flickers with suspicion. “What exactly did my uncle tell you?”
“That he never tried to assassinate Lars. But that you did.” I watch her, waiting for her to bluster with the outrageous accusation.
She goes still. “And you believed him?”
“I never would have. Never.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “But now, after that night in the fight circle . . .”
“I had no choice!”
“You sound so righteous, Thyra. I think you could convince yourself of anything.” And me too, sadly. But not this time. “Is that why you framed Nisse for the crime? Because you had no choice?”
Her face is like polished granite, so perfect, so unyielding. “I saw the chance and took it. And if I see another chance, Ansa, I’m going to do the same. Halina told me you met with Nisse this afternoon. The fact that you’re still breathing only confirms what I suspected—he wants to use you. And that means you might be the only person who can carry a message to our trapped warriors.”
“What about Sander?”
“I haven’t talked to him or seen him since that night in the fight circle. Please, Ansa. Do this for our warriors. Tell them that we can liberate ourselves from this city and make our way north again. Nisse might have sealed the exits to this city, but with the help of the Vasterutians, we could get out. In return, we’ll help them get their city back.”
I stare at her in disbelief, then suck in a deep breath, pushing the ice and fire down, down, down. “I am such a fool,” I whisper, my teeth chattering. “I actually felt bad for lying to you about Hulda and Aksel. Your anger was so sharp that it pierced my heart. And here you are, telling me how you’ve been lying to me all along, and you’re not even sorry.” I look over at Halina. “She’s the one responsible for what happened here! If she hadn’t schemed to get Nisse banished, he never would have come here!”
“You don’t think Nisse was urging my father to sack this place as well?” Thyra asks. “The Torden itself couldn’t quench his thirst for power and domination. He wants to turn the entire south into his domain.”
“And you unleashed him, and your silence kept everyone from knowing the truth of your part in it.”
“My father forbade us to speak of it at all! It seems I’m the only one who honored his wish, though. And as for you . . . I was scared, Ansa. I didn’t know how to help you, and we were nearly to the gates of the city when you killed Aksel. I knew what awaited me here, and I was afraid that if you were close to me, it would expose you to more scrutiny and suspicion, right when you seemed most vulnerable to being discovered. I had to keep you at a distance.”
“You’re a liar. You were only trying to protect yourself,” I say in a mockery of her voice, her words. “Now be honest, because I see how you look at me. You’re only talking to me because you want to use me. But you’re still disgusted and horrified at what I’ve done.”
She puts her hands up, as if trying to calm me down. “Ansa, that’s not true.”
“You think I’m a monster. Say it. You hate what I am.”
“I don’t know what you are anymore,” she shouts. “But I could never hate you.”
My hands shake as I push them through my hair, knocking off the frost clinging to my brow. It falls in a glittery powder as I glare at her. “You make a very good show of it. But then, you made a good show of loving me, so I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“Ansa, please. I never wanted it to be this way between us.” Her hand crosses the distance.
“Don’t touch me,” I snap, jerking back. My shoulder hits the door frame. “I don’t want to hurt you.” But I will. I swear, if she puts her hands on me, something terrible will happen.
“I’ve made mistakes and so have you,” she says. “But I need you just as I always have. Our tribe is depending on us. Don’t abandon me.”
“You abandoned me first!” I yell, and the Vasterutians wince at the sound of my voice.
“You’ll be heard,” says Halina. “Krigere warriors and andeners have commandeered some of these living spaces, and squads of warriors roam the streets to keep people scared and crush any hint of rebellion. Please. Don’t do this here.”
I glare at her. “You never should have brought me, then.”
“We thought you might help, for her sake.” She inclines her head toward Thyra. “Because of what you did for her in that fight circle.”
“I will do nothing for her sake. Not anymore.” I turn my icy gaze to Thyra. “First you want me to deliver a message, but then what? Use my power to burn Nisse in his bed? Freeze Jaspar solid? It would be convenient for you, wouldn’t it? How many more Krigere would you like me to kill on your behalf, Chieftain?”
“None! I don’t want you to use magic at all!”
Heat sears its way along my bones. “Right. ‘Hold it in, Ansa. Control yourself, Ansa. For once.’ ”
“I’m trying to save us! I want to find a way for our whole tribe to live and thrive.”
“By asking them to fight against their own?” I ask.
“If I can avoid that, I will.” She looks over at the Vasterutians. “But freedom has a cost.”
“You’d rather sacrifice your entire tribe than allow them to fight at Nisse’s side in Kupari. You’d rather them die for you than live for anyone else.”
Thyra steps back as if I’ve punched her. “It seems I’ve truly lost you.”
The pain in her voice, the betrayal there, causes sparks of confusion and rage to flare and catch inside me. My arms burn and itch and tingle, and there is something wet and sticky running down to my wrists—new blisters burst under the heat. Or the cold. I don’t even know which, only that I am full of it, so full that it leaks from me, eating me alive. Halina rises to her feet and pushes her son behind her. “She’s losing control, Thyra.”
A distant shout from the maze of shelters outside the door makes Thyra pull her hood up over her face. “That’s only one of our concerns—Nisse’s guard is coming. They must have heard us.”
“What are you going to do?” Efren asks her. “We have to get you back to your chamber before your guards wake up.”
“Did you poison them, too?” I ask.
Thyra doesn’t answer. She heads for the door, her movements smooth but urgent. “I’ll buy you time. If they catch you and Ansa here . . .”
Halina presses her son’s head to her thigh, her eyes shining with tears of terror that strike a painful note inside me, but Thyra waves her hands. “I’m not going to let it happen, Halina. I made you a promise.”
“But if you’re caught—” Efren begins.
“This is why I stored the herbs in my own chamber and put them in the guards’ goblets myself. No one will take the blame but me.” Thyra opens the door just far enough to slide out, and then I hear her footsteps descending to the alley.
I turn to the Vasterutians. “What’s she doing?”
Halina rushes toward the door. “We have to get you back to your chamber.” She beckons me out into the night with only a brief, loving glance at her family. “If you’re caught out, it will be bad for everyone.”
I follow her, my cloak billowing around my throbbing arms, my thoughts a maelstrom. Thyra wants to align with the Vasterutians against Nisse. It seems there’s no limit to how far she’s willing to go to remain in control of our tribe. But . . . all the reasons I loved her still beat within me, refusing to melt or evaporate no matter how hot my fury burns. Blindly, lost in the churn and shatter of devotion and deception, I trail Halina until her arm shoots out and bars my path.
“Shhh.” She peeks out, then shrinks back. “Oh . . . this is bad.”
“What is it?” But already I hear the sounds of a struggle. I push past Halina to peer from the shadows.
Thyra is on the ground in the middle of a wide lane, surrounded by Krigere warriors. My fingers curl into the stone wall of a shelter as one of them kicks her in the ribs. Her breath explodes from her mouth and she draws her knees to her chest, curling in on herself. From the way her limbs shake with pain and weakness, I know that’s not the first time she’s been struck.
Stay down, I think.
She rolls to her stomach and clumsily gropes for a dagger sheathed along one of the guards’ calves. He knees her in the chest and she falls backward. “I know we’re not to bruise her face, but if she doesn’t stay down—”
“She will,” says a stout female warrior as she quickly kneels behind Thyra and wraps her arm around her throat. Thyra makes a wheezing, choked sound as her face turns crimson. She claws weakly at the warrior’s sleeve. The air around us starts to steam as my unspoken guilt and panic simmer inside.
“She’s pulled their attention away from finding us,” Halina whispers as Thyra goes limp. “Don’t betray yourself now—she sacrificed herself for your safety.”
Nisse’s warriors yank Thyra up by the arms. She is limp, barely conscious. Her feet drag against the frozen ground as they lug her back to the tower.
Halina tugs on my cloak. “Come on,” she whispers. “I know another way to get back to the tunnel. Come with me now if you don’t want to share her fate.”
I have always wanted to share Thyra’s fate. Always.
Until today, when I realized I didn’t understand her at all. And now she belongs to her enemy once again.
Without another word, I whirl around and follow Halina back to safety.