Sander falls as if held up by a cloud, slow and agonizing. I see every second, and I know the screaming I hear is my own. I shove and push, calling to the wind to bear him up, and a gale swirls around us, battering the crowd. His body slows in its plunge from on high, but not enough. He hits the ground at the base of the tower, and I finally break free to reach him. I skid to my knees and wrap my arms around him. “Ansa?” he says weakly, blood flowing unchecked from his mouth, his eyes black and unfocused.
“I have you,” I say, glancing up at Sig, who has his back to me, fire still sitting on his palms—he’s making sure the mob doesn’t attack us in their frenzy. He looks over his shoulder, and I can tell by his expression that he has no hope for Sander. It squeezes in my chest, only confirming what I already knew.
“I failed,” Sander says, his voice as broken as his body. Unbelievably, his fingers are still wrapped firmly around the hilt of his dagger, as if not all of him has admitted defeat.
“You didn’t fail. You fought until the very end.” I press my lips to his bloody forehead. “And Hilma will welcome you when you get to heaven.”
He closes his eyes, and a tear slides down his cheek, the only one I’ve ever seen him shed. But when he speaks, it isn’t of his lost mate. “Get Thyra,” he says in a halting voice. “The foreign fighters . . . won’t attack us if she’s chieftain. That was the bargain . . . we made with the Vasterutians.”
I don’t want to leave him. These are the final minutes of his life, and I don’t want him to be alone. But . . . I close my hand over his—the one that holds the dagger. “Give this to me now. I will carry on your fight,” I say, my voice cracking beneath my grief. “My victory will be yours.”
He smiles. “I would choose no other warrior for the task. Blood and victory, sister.”
“Blood and victory, brother. I will return your weapon when the battle is over,” I murmur, gently laying his broken body down. His great shuddering sigh is his last breath. When I rise from the ground, the cuff around my wrist makes my whole arm tingle, power craving a target. But if I were to unleash my grief-driven magic now, it would destroy every soul in this courtyard. I look down at Sander’s weapon and pray it is enough. “We have to get to Thyra,” I say to Sig, and he nods and begins to walk forward, his hands outstretched, the deadly fire dancing at his command.
There’s a thunderous noise down the hill—the foreign fighters approaching our undefended tower, and possibly the entire able-bodied population of Vasterut hard on their heels. Empowered by new allies, I have a feeling they’ll attack us with hammers and scythes, whatever they can wield. This is a people ignited after a year of being held down. If they are not willing to honor the deal they apparently made—to spare our tribe if Thyra is made chieftain— then we will all be slaughtered. No matter that our warriors will kill hundreds before they go down. With no leader and the city engulfed in confusion, chaos will reign.
“Hurry,” I say, pushing Sig’s sweaty back. I don’t know if Nisse understands what’s at stake—the lives of his warriors may hinge on whether he keeps Thyra alive. The entrance to the castle is blocked by Vasterutians, pushing to get back inside. At first I think they’re trying to find shelter and protection from the oncoming horde of foreign fighters, but then I hear Nisse’s name, shouted over and over. They are calling for his blood.
“Can you clear that entrance?” I ask Sig. I don’t trust myself—there must be fifty Vasterutians between us and the arched doorway, and half of them are beating one of our warriors to death. Their fists are clenched, their eyes wide. They will not be denied their vengeance—or their freedom. “Try to do it without killing anyone. It would only enflame them.”
Sig chuckles, a shaky, unstable mirth. “Enflame?” He wiggles his fingers, and the tiny infernos in his palms grow tendrils, spiraling up like vines made only of sunlight.
I touch his back. “No killing.” Part of me can’t believe I’m saying that—two months ago I dreamed of kill marks every night. But now that wish seems petty in the face of all that is at stake—and the possibility that I could preserve life.
Sig nods as his fire grows, moving almost playfully as it slithers over the heads of the Vasterutians. His control is terrifying to me, but so is the extremity of his power—his body is drenched in sweat. It flows down his neck and soaks his robe. His skin is pink from the heat. My ice magic seems to protect me from it, but he has none of that. I close my eyes and think of a cool breeze, then lean forward and blow a frosty breath against his back and neck. He shudders and looks over his shoulder, a tiny smile playing on his silver-scarred face.
Then he turns around and pushes the fire forward. It arcs over the crowd and doubles back, sliding down the wall of the tower. The people at the front scream as the flames creep down the walls over the archway. For all the world it looks like the tower is on fire. They throw themselves back from it, and when the ones behind them catch a glimpse, the entire writhing mass of them switches directions, fleeing through the courtyard. I don’t know if they’re heading back out into the city or merely seeking another entrance, but we don’t have time to find out. As soon as a path opens up, Sig and I are running for it, stopping only to drag an unconscious Krigere warrior to the safety of a little alcove near the steps that lead up to the castle entrance. With any luck, invading foreign warriors will think him dead and pass him over. “I’ll be back for you,” I whisper as I rise from his side and leap back onto the steps.
Sig moves aside and lets me pass him at the entrance, then summons a fire to burn in the archway to discourage anyone else from following us. The courtyard is still a churning storm of humanity, and the riders are approaching the base of the hill that holds our tower. We only have a few minutes to—
There’s a crash and a thunk, and I whirl around to see Sig hit the ground in a boneless sprawl. His fire dies, and I blink in the sudden gray wash of daylight. Jaspar stands just inside the arch with a chunk of splintered wood in his hands. Sig’s blood decorates the edge of it. “Kauko wanted him alive,” he says to me as he kneels next to Sig and feels for the pulse at his throat.
I back up, brandishing Sander’s dagger as Jaspar rises to his feet. He wears a smirk that hardens his face and makes him look more like his father. “Lovely disguise. The paunch is a particularly nice touch.”
I grit my teeth and keep my eyes on him as I shed the overlarge black robe and yank the pillow from my middle.
Jaspar chuckles as he watches me tighten the rope around my waist. “I suppose it would be difficult to tussle with one’s pants around one’s ankles,” he says, then purses his lips. “Depending on what type of tussling we’re talking about.”
“The kind that leaves you bleeding at my feet.”
“Are you going to kill me, Ansa?”
“Like you killed Sander?” My grief is a clenched fist in my chest.
“Can you blame me? Sander turned on us!”
“He was your best friend,” I shout. “And he was serving his chieftain.”
“It didn’t matter,” he says. “Like you, he didn’t choose us.”
My brow furrows at his flat, cold tone. “Where’s Thyra?”
He arches an eyebrow. “Are you imagining you’ll rescue her?” he asks, tossing his wood club to the side and drawing his dagger, still stained with Sander’s blood.
“I’m not imagining,” I say, dropping into my fight stance.
He grins. “Ah, Ansa. This is what I love about you. It’s always so simple. Fight. Kill. I envy you that.”
Simple—fight, kill. Right now nothing could be further from the truth. “I suppose I’ve changed. You don’t know me at all.”
His amusement falls away. “I wanted to, though. That was real. It always has been.”
“Liar. You wanted to control me. You wanted to steer me in whatever direction suited you and your father. You soothed me and comforted me—you tried to stop me from thinking! I’m not your dog, Jaspar. I’m nobody’s dog.”
“That’s not how it was. Think about what we shared,” he says, circling slowly—putting himself between me and the spiraling stone staircase.
“I am thinking now.” Finally. Finally, I can see it clearly. That moment I heard Thyra’s footsteps in the wood, the instant I pushed Jaspar away from me—the look of triumph on his face as he saw her there. “What I think is that you were always trying to hurt her. You used me to do it.”
His lip curls. “An added benefit. The kissing was quite nice as well, however.”
“Did you know that your father was going to poison her? Were you in on it all along, even from the beginning?”
He stops his circling, because now he’s between me and the stairs. “Was I in on it?” He closes his eyes and breathes in, then exhales his deadly truth. “Ansa, I did it all. I’m the one who poisoned her cup.”
A chill runs across my skin. “And Nisse?”
“Doesn’t know. And doesn’t ever need to.”
And in the moment it takes me to swallow my new reality, he attacks. I barely parry his strike. His fist collides with my stomach, sending me staggering back, but I get my feet up in time to kick him away. When I roll to my feet, sucking hard to get enough air into my lungs, my magic pulsing inside me loud as my heart, Jaspar is waiting.
“If I had my way, and if Thyra hadn’t ruined everything,” he says, “all this would have been over a year ago. My father would have been Lars’s heir, and the succession would have shifted to our line.”
“And you saw yourself as the someday-chieftain,” I say, the words bitter as bile. “For all your questions, this was never about loyalty for you. It was about your thirst for power.”
“Power is the only thing worth having! I am a true Krigere. So is my father. So are you, Ansa.”
“I don’t yet know what I am,” I admit. “But now I know why I fight.” I slice at his dagger hand, quick as lightning, fire magic tingling so hard inside me that sparks fly off the edge of my weapon.
Jaspar’s eyes go wide as he sees the flame dripping from my blade, and then he laughs. “Careful, Ansa. Wouldn’t want you to burn yourself again.”
Me neither. Though the cuff of Astia is warm and comforting and heavy on my arm, I don’t know how to use it—no one ever taught me. And the fear of all the times I’ve lost control still looms. Even as Sig’s exasperated command to be echoes in my head, I push down the magic as best I can. I know how dangerous it is, and I haven’t had time to practice.
Jaspar charges me again, not intimidated in the slightest—he’s seen the magic turn on me over and over. We collide, and this is no friendly tussle—his jaw is hard and his blows are merciless, and soon I’m fighting just to soften his strikes and keep them from my most vulnerable spots. The fire and ice crackles in my chest, as if offering to take over, and my breath gushes icy from my mouth when he lands a solid hit to my side.
I dive for the ground and roll, desperate to catch my breath, and then I hear Sander’s voice in my head, almost as if he’s next to me. The way he always used to analyze an opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, because he knew I never bothered to notice—I just fought with instinct. I always thought he was showing off, but now I realize . . . he was trying to help. He was being my true brother. My true friend. Jaspar is weaker in the forearms and wrists, he whispers. Stretch him out so he can’t use his chest and upper arms to power in those blows and strikes.
I jump to my feet and backtrack just as Jaspar comes forward again, and as he pursues me, I dance just out of his reach, dodging and slashing at his hands, his fingers. His mocking smile becomes a grimace of frustration. “You’re running out of time,” he says between heavy breaths. “Those riders are going to charge in here at any minute and kill us both. That was probably Thyra’s plan all along.” He spits on the floor.
“You, of all people, accuse her of being conniving?”
“Isn’t she? You claim I used you—but you don’t think she’s done the same thing?”
Somewhere in the near distance, a horn sounds off. The distant rumble of horse hooves reaches us, vibrating through the stones beneath our feet. “Maybe she has,” I admit. “She is a chieftain, and that’s her prerogative. But I think she just wanted me to be my best self.” Now I see her for what she is—human, striving, aspiring, reaching past power to cling to the light, and hoping others will do the same.
“So I guess that leaves it up to me to choose.” I feint, and he lunges forward to block it. Leaping to the side, I slice downward, opening a gash in his sword arm. He cries out and hits the ground, and I jump away as he grabs for my legs.
I back up—the stairs are now just behind me. “You were right. I choose her,” I say. “I’m nobody’s dog. But I guess I’ll always be her wolf.”
I have another choice now, as Jaspar gasps and cradles his arm to his chest. I could continue this fight until I finish him. Or I can go after Thyra. And it’s not just her I’m trying to save. I glance over at Sig, who is stirring against the wall just inside the tower entrance. If anyone comes barreling in, he’ll be safe from being trampled. I look out into the daylight of the courtyard, where a din of war cries battles with the thunder of horses for supremacy. And then my eyes meet Jaspar’s, and they shine green and pleading.
But I feel nothing for him. No love. No regret. No rage. “We are not tribe,” I say. “And if I ever see you again, you will not survive it.”
I leave the would-be prince of Vasterut to face the oncoming horde and sprint up the steps.