He took her hand, pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “My ruthless Zoya, I’ll load the gun myself.”
13
NINA
NINA AND HANNE TOOK TURNS DOZING, shoulders pressed together, making a show of sleeping as their “guards” stood by. When both of them were in danger of giving in to exhaustion, they asked each other questions: favorite sweet, favorite book, favorite pastime. Nina learned that Hanne loved cream buns filled with vanilla custard; had a secret taste for the gruesome novels popular in Ketterdam, the gorier the better, though translations were hard to find; and that she was fond of … sewing.
“Sewing?” Nina had whispered incredulously, remembering the way Hanne had ridden into the clearing the previous night, rifle at the ready. “I thought you liked hunting and brawling and…” She wrinkled her nose. “Nature.”
“It’s a useful skill,” Hanne said defensively. “Who darned your husband’s socks?”
“I did, of course,” Nina lied. Though soldiers were supposed to learn their way around a needle and thread, she’d never managed it. She’d always just gone with holes in her socks. “But I didn’t enjoy it. The Wellmother must approve.”
Hanne rested her head against the wall. Her hair had dried in thick, rosy brown waves. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you? But apparently needlework is for ladies and sewing should be left to the servants. So should knitting and baking.”
“You can bake?” said Nina. “You have my attention.”
In the morning, Nina beamed at the men crowded into the room and insisted that they make sure to visit Lennart Bjord’s house on their way through Overüt.
“Why can’t we escort you now?” asked the bearded man.
“We’d be delighted, of course,” Nina said through gritted teeth.
To Nina’s surprise, Hanne chimed in, “We didn’t think you’d want to stop over with us to do our penance with the Women of the Well. But how wonderful! I understand the sisters there are happy to perform the skad on any male visitors for only a small fee.” Nina had read about the skad. Enduring it was a stamp of Fjerdan manhood but also occasionally a death sentence. It required a three-month vow of celibacy and ritual purging with lye to cleanse the spirit.
The bearded man blanched. “We’ll take you to the outskirts of Gäfvalle, but then we have duties … uh … elsewhere.”
“Yes,” added the man with the tufty brows. “Many duties.”
“Where exactly will we find Lennart Bjord’s house?” another asked as he followed them outside. A thick layer of snow had covered the ground, though Nina could already see some of it melting away with the rising sun. The hard wind had dwindled to a soft breeze. The Brute must have tired himself out.
“Just head to the main square in Overüt,” Nina said. “It’s the grandest house on the boulevard.”
“Look for the one with the biggest gables,” added Hanne. “The pointiest in town.”
“Is that your horse?” he said. “Where is your sidesaddle?”
“It must have been lost in the snow,” said Nina, glad Hanne rode bareback and they didn’t have a man’s saddle to explain. “We’ll just walk him to Gäfvalle.”
When they were well out of view of the lodge, they mounted Hanne’s horse.
“The skad?” Nina asked, resting her hands lightly at Hanne’s lean waist as their thighs braced together.
Hanne glanced over her shoulder and cast Nina a surprisingly wicked smile. “My religious education should be good for something.”
They circled back toward camp, and now that the snow had stopped they had no trouble spotting the yellow flag and Adrik’s tent.
He waved to them, and Nina knew his relief that she had survived the storm was real, even as he made a great show of seeming incensed about Hanne’s trousers.
“I thought the Zemeni didn’t care about such things,” Hanne grumbled.
“His wife is Zemeni. He’s Kaelish, and he’s concerned about why you were out on your own. Actually … what were you doing out here yesterday?”
Hanne tilted her face up to the sky, closing her eyes. “I needed to ride. When the weather is about to turn is the best time. The fields are empty then.”
“Won’t you be in trouble for spending a night away from the convent?”
“I volunteered to fetch fresh water. The Wellmother will just be glad she doesn’t have to tell my father his daughter died of exposure in the middle of a storm.”
“And your friends? They didn’t come with you?”
Hanne kept her gaze on the white horizon. “It’s a game to them. A childish bit of dress-up, a chance to be daring. For me…” She shrugged.
It was survival. There was something solitary in Hanne. Nina couldn’t pretend to really understand it. She loved company, noise, the bustle of a crowded room. But for a girl like this? To be forever trapped in the convent, watched by the sisters, and constantly forced to perform pious Fjerdan womanhood? It was a dismal thought. Even so, Hanne’s presence at the convent meant she might be a source of information about the factory. Though she was only a novitiate, she had to hear about the Springmaidens’ visits up the mountain.
“Ride with us a little longer,” Nina said to Hanne as she mounted her own horse.
Hanne looked like she wanted to bolt, but Nina knew the other girl didn’t want to risk offense when she was still desperate to ensure Nina’s silence.
“Come on,” Nina urged gently. “I won’t keep you long.”
They set a moderate pace, Adrik trailing them with the sledge.
“How old are you anyway?” Nina asked.
Hanne’s jaw set, her profile sharp against the silvery sky. “Nineteen. And yes, that’s old for a novitiate.”
So Nina was right; they were almost the same age. “You aren’t ready to take vows.” Hanne gave a curt shake of her head. “But you can’t go home.” Another shake of the head. “So what, then?”
Hanne said nothing, her gaze fixed on the snow. She didn’t want to talk, or perhaps she felt she’d already said too much.
Nina cut her a sidelong look. “I can tell you’re eager for a last chance to ride before you go back.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“I can see it in the way your eyes stray to the horizon, the way you hold the reins.” Nina hesitated, then added, “The trick of acting is to believe the lie yourself, at least a little. Acting begins in the body. If you want to convince anyone of anything, you start with the way the body moves. It tells a thousand stories before you ever open your mouth.”
“And what stories am I telling?”
“Are you sure you want to know?” It was one thing to see the truth of someone. It was another to speak it back to them.
“Go on,” said Hanne, but her hands were tight on the reins.
“You’re strong, but you’re afraid of anyone seeing it, so you hunch and try to make yourself smaller. You’re only at ease when you think no one is watching. But then…” She reached out and tapped Hanne’s thigh. “Then you’re glorious.”
Hanne shot her a wary glance. “I know what I look like.”
Do you? Nina would have liked to tell Hanne that she could stroll into Os Alta, all six feet of her, with her chestnut-dipped-in-strawberry-syrup hair and her copper-coin eyes, and a thousand Ravkan courtiers would write songs to her beauty. Nina might be the first. But that would lead to a few questions.
At least she could offer Hanne something. “I won’t tell anyone what you are.”
Hanne’s eyes turned hard. “Why? They’d reward you. Informing on Grisha carries a weight of silver. Why would you be that kind?”
I’m not being kind. I’m earning your trust. But I won’t sentence you to death if I can help it.
“Because you dove in to save my life when you might have ridden by,” Nina said, then took the leap. “And because I don’t believe that Grisha power makes you evil.”
“It’s a sin,” Hanne hissed. “It’s poison. If I could rid myself of it, I would.”
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“I understand,” said Nina, though every part of her wanted to protest. “But you can’t. So the question is whether you want to hate what you are and put yourself at greater risk of discovery, or accept this thing inside you and learn to control it.” Or abandon this Saintsforsaken country altogether.
“What if … what if I only make it stronger?”
“I don’t think it works that way,” said Nina. “But I know that if Grisha don’t use their power, eventually they begin to sicken.”
Hanne swallowed. “I like using it. I hate myself every time, but I just want to do it again.”
“There are some,” Nina said cautiously, “who believe that such power is a gift from Djel and not some kind of calamity.”
“Those are the whisperings of heretics and heathens.” When Nina didn’t reply, Hanne said, “You never told me what happened to your sister.”
“She learned to contain her power and found happiness. She’s married now and lives on the Ravkan border with her handsome husband.”
“Really?”
No, not really. Any sister of mine would be a Heartrender waging war on your ignorant, shortsighted government. “Yes,” Nina lied. “I remember a great deal from the lessons she received. There was some concern that I might have a latent … corruption, and so I was taught alongside her. I may be able to help you learn to control your power too.”
“Why would you ever take such a risk?”
Because I intend to pump you for information while I do it and knock some sense into you at the same time. After all, Nina had managed to get through to one thickheaded Fjerdan. Maybe she’d prove to have a talent for it.
“Because someone once did the same for my sister,” she said. “It’s the least I can do. But we’ll need a pretext for spending time together at the convent. How do you feel about learning Zemeni?”
“My parents would prefer I continue to work on my Kerch.”
“I don’t know Kerch,” Nina lied.
“I don’t wish to owe you a debt,” Hanne protested.
She’s afraid of her power, Nina thought. But I can take away that fear.
“We’ll find a way for you to make it up to me,” she said. “Promise. Now go, get a last ride in before the next snow comes.”
Hanne looked startled, almost disbelieving. Then she dug her heels into her horse’s flanks and took off at a hard gallop, body low, face turned to the wind, as if she and the animal were one, a hybrid creature born of the wild. How few people had been kind to Hanne that she would be so surprised by a small gesture of generosity?
Except you’re not being generous, Nina reminded herself as she nudged her own mount forward. You’re not being kind. She was going to use Hanne. If she could help her in the process, so be it. But Nina’s duty was to the lost girls on the mountain, the women in their graves. Justice.
All Nina could do was throw this girl a rope. Hanne would have to be the one to seize it.
* * *
An hour later, Nina and Adrik entered the stables at the convent. They’d been gone one night, but to Nina it seemed as if a long season had passed. Her mind felt overburdened with emotion and new information. Matthias. Trassel. Hanne. The women buried at the factory. The puncture marks throbbing on her forearm. She’d been attacked by wolves, for Saints’ sake. She needed a hot bath, a plate of waffles, and about twelve hours of sleep.
Leoni waved when she saw them. She was perched on a low stool in a shadowy corner of the stables, hidden from the curious eyes of passersby by a few of the crates Nina and Adrik had left behind. She’d set up a small camp stove, and the space around her was littered with the pots and glass vials she must have been using to test the water samples.
“I thought you’d be back sooner,” she said with a smile.
Adrik led his horse to a stall. “Nina decided to have an adventure.”
“A good one?” asked Leoni.
“An informative one,” said Nina. “How long have you been at this?”
“All night,” Leoni admitted. She didn’t look well.
“Let’s go to town for lunch,” said Nina. “I can’t handle another meal of convent mush.”
Leoni stood, then braced her hand against the wall. “I—” Her eyes rolled back in her head and she swayed sharply.
“Leoni!” Nina cried as she and Adrik rushed to her side, just managing to reach her before she collapsed. They laid her gently back beside the camp stove. She was soaked in sweat and her skin felt like fire.
Leoni’s eyes fluttered open. “That was unexpected,” she said, and then she had the gall to smile.
“This is no time to be in a good mood,” said Adrik. “Your pulse is racing and you’re burning up.”
“I’m not dead, though.”
“Stop looking on the bright side and tell me when this started.”
“I think I botched the testing,” said Leoni, her voice thready. “I was trying to pull the pollutants from the samples, isolate them. I may have absorbed some into my body. I told you poisons are tricky work.”
“I’ll take you back to the dormitories,” said Nina. “I can get clean water—”
“No. I don’t want the Springmaidens getting suspicious.”
“We can tend to her here,” said Adrik. “Get her settled behind the sledge. I can make a fire and brew clean water for tea.”
“There’s a tincture of charcoal in my kit,” said Leoni. “Add a few drops. It will absorb the toxins.”
Nina arranged a bed of blankets for Leoni out of sight of the main courtyard and tried to make her comfortable there.
“There’s something else,” Leoni said as she lay back.
Nina did not like the gray tinge to her skin or the way her eyelids fluttered. “Just rest. It can wait.”
“The Wellmother came to see me.”
“What happened?” Adrik said, kneeling beside her with a steaming cup of tea. “Here, try to take a sip. Did one of the novitiates talk about seeing us in the woods?”
“No, one of them died.”
Nina stilled. “The girl who fell from her horse?”
“I didn’t realize her injuries were so serious,” said Adrik.
“They weren’t,” said Leoni, sipping slowly. “I think it was the river. She was in the water for a while, and she had an open wound.”
“All Saints,” Adrik said. “What the hell are they doing up at that factory?”
“I don’t know, but—” Nina hesitated, then plowed ahead. “But there are graves all over that mountain. Behind the reservoir, all over the factory yards. I felt them everywhere.”
“What?” said Adrik. “Why didn’t you tell us? How do you know?”
Leoni’s eyes had closed. Her speeding pulse seemed to have slowed a bit—a good sign.
“Is there more clean water?” asked Nina. “We should try to ease the fever. And will you see if there’s some carbolic in her kit?”
“Why?” Adrik asked as he fetched his canteen and the disinfectant. “Is she wounded?”
“No, I am. I got bitten by a wolf last night.”
“Of course you did.”
Nina shrugged off her coat, revealing her torn and bloodied sleeve.
“Wait,” said Adrik. “You’re serious?” He sat down beside Leoni and rubbed his temples with his fingers. “One soldier poisoned, another attacked by wolves. This mission is going swimmingly.”
Nina pulled a length of cloth from the sledge and tore it in two. She used one half to make a compress for Leoni and the other to clean and bind the wound on her arm.
“Then that girl Hanne rescued you from a wolf attack?” Adrik asked.
“Something like that.” Nina wasn’t ready to talk about Trassel. The last thing she needed was Adrik’s skepticism. “I think it’s possible there was parem in the bite.”
“What?”
Nina glanced at Leoni, whose eyelids fluttered. “I can’t be sure, but the wolves weren’t behaving normally. It felt like parem.”
“Then your addiction—”
Nina shook her head. “I’m okay so far.” That wasn’t entirely true. Even the suggestion of parem was enough to make her feel the pull of that animal hunger. But the edge of need seemed duller than she would have expected.
“Saints,” said Adrik, leaning forward. “If it’s in the water and Leoni was dosed with it—”
“Leoni isn’t acting like a Grisha exposed to parem. She would be clawing at the walls, desperate for another dose.” Nina knew that all too well. “But her other symptoms are similar to exposure, and enough parem could kill someone without Grisha powers, like the novitiate.”
“It wasn’t parem,” Leoni mumbled. “I don’t think.”
“I thought you were asleep.”
“I am,” said Leoni. “There’s something corrosive in the water.”
“Can you drink some more tea?” asked Adrik.
She nodded and managed to push up to her elbows. “I haven’t isolated it yet. Why didn’t you tell us about the graves when you found them, Nina?”
“You’re sure you don’t want to go back to sleep?” Nina asked, then sighed. She looked down at the folded compress in her hands. “I don’t know why. I think … They led me to the eastern entrance.”
“Who led you?”
Nina cleared her throat and patted Leoni’s brow gently with the cloth. “I heard the dead … speak. I heard them all the way back in Elling.”
“Okay,” Leoni said cautiously. “What exactly did they say?”
“They need our help.” My help.
“The dead,” repeated Adrik. “Need our help.”
“I realize I sound like I’ve gone loopy, but we need to get inside that factory. And I think I know someone who can help.”
King of Scars Page 21
