The Cursed Queen

by Sarah Fine

  I should be guarding her while she rests, but I can’t fight my own exhaustion anymore. Tomorrow, yes. I will search for a way to lift this curse, and the Kupari slave will be the first step. Tomorrow, I’ll rise and fight again.

  But for now . . . the ice-fire throb of my red mark subsides to a faint pulse. I fall asleep feeling the sweet slide of Thyra’s palm over my hair, and my dreams are black as the deep waters of the Torden.

  * * *

  We rise with the sun, and our fire bursts to life the moment I shiver with the morning chill. Thyra glances with alarm at the pit—there’s no fuel there to burn. With a shudder, I walk away, and I feel the moment the heat fades to nothing, leaving only the stain of humiliation on my cheeks. She’s counting on me to control this, to get rid of it, and to keep it secret in the meantime. It will all fall on her if I am revealed as some sort of witch. I’ll be dead, my brains bashed out and my bones shattered—and she might be next.

  For a moment, I think of that kind of death. The most awful thing about it wouldn’t be the pain. It would be the looks on their faces as they hurled their stones. It would be the bite of their hatred, the despair of knowing my tribe was no longer mine.

  If I’m honest, I’m not just fighting to keep Thyra safe. I cannot think of a worse agony than that of being abandoned. And with that realization, another memory creeps up like a snake—me clawing at the monster as he carried me to the boat. I stare at the glow at the top of the hill, knowing my parents can’t reach me. That they won’t save me. That I am truly alone.

  I stomp at the ground, savagely crushing the past beneath the heel of my boot.

  The mood in and around the sprawling camp is hard to read. People load horses and their own backs with all the things they own, all the things we’ve plundered and captured in our raids over the years. Some of the andeners have fled with their families—several shelters are empty, the fires cold. They must have snuck along the shore, avoiding the well-worn paths Jaspar and his warriors were guarding. They were willing to risk the bite of the north to avoid what awaits us in Vasterut, and I have a feeling Jaspar will be furious. Thyra will feel the loss too—those who left might have supported her over Nisse. Though our andeners may not be fighters, all of them have valuable skills—weapon forging and repair, food preparation and storage, breeding and child rearing, weaving and mending, wound stitching and healing. They know what warriors need, and how to keep us battle ready. We protect them and provide for them, and in return they keep us whole.

  Now we are shattered. A broken people facing many choices with no good options. Our only chance lies with Thyra.

  I thread my way past some of the older warriors who were meant to lead our second wave, those who called Edvin their commander. My stomach drops as I pass Aksel in hushed conversation with Preben, whose long beard is the color of wet iron, and Bertel, whose hair has gone white over the last few years, in contrast with his dark brown skin. Neither of the older men notices me, but Aksel tosses me a look as cold as the Torden in new spring, and I look away. I have no time for conversation or confrontation—once we leave, we’ll be stretched over at least a mile along the perimeter of the lake, hiking leagues to get to the southern shore. I might not have another chance to get the information I want.

  When I reach Cyrill’s shelter, I find his andener, Gry, bundling her children into as many layers as they can possibly wear—she means them to carry all their clothing on their backs. Her thin blond hair hangs in a lank braid as she kneels in front of her youngest, a rosy-cheeked boy named Ebbe who Cyrill used to carry around camp on his broad shoulders. She glances over as I lean against the door frame. “No, you can’t have any of Cyrill’s blades,” she says sharply. “Heard you were taking them from the shelters of the dead yesterday.”

  “I have all I need.”

  “Good. Because we don’t.” Her face crumples and she turns away.

  There’s a heavy cold in my chest that isn’t caused by my curse. “Cyrill was a great warrior, Gry. I’m sorry he was lost.”

  She sniffles and shoos Ebbe off to play with his older sister, who is killing time with a game of jackstraws using sharpened twigs. “Not as sorry as I am,” she says in a choked voice.

  “We will make sure your family is provided for.”

  “I know. And I believe in Chieftain Thyra, no matter what the others say. But”—she gives me a pained look—“I miss Cyrill’s laugh. I miss how he made me laugh.”

  I rub my chest. “He made me laugh even as he lay wounded. He was in good spirits until the end, Gry.”

  “You were with him?” She swipes the sleeve of her gown across her face.

  “He cursed the fact that he was stuck with a bunch of baby warriors.”

  Her chuckle is raspy with grief. “Thank you for that.”

  I glance around. “Where is your slave?”

  “Hulda? I sent her to gather kindling. Why?”

  I shrug. “Just hoping she hadn’t run away. Many have.” I take a step backward, already knowing where I’m headed next. “If you or your children need anything on this journey, find me. All right?”

  She gives me a flickering smile. “Thank you, Ansa.” She looks away. “Cyrill always spoke highly of you. Said you were among the fiercest he’d trained.”

  My throat hurts as I say, “I will live up to that; I promise.”

  I jog to the other side of camp, the edge of the great forest. It used to lean right over the shore, but over the years as we built our longships, it shrank back and back and back, leaving only a muddy field of stumps. A few andeners, slaves, and children pick their way along, hunting twigs and leaves to stoke morning fires for the meal before we depart. I spot Hulda by herself at the far edge of the field, right at the forest’s new edge, dropping handfuls of short twigs and splintered wood into a cloth bag. Her weathered brow furrows as she sees me approaching, and she backtracks into the woods as I draw near. “Cyrill’s!” she says in a shrill voice.

  She’s afraid I’m going to claim her as plunder.

  I put my hands up. “No. I don’t want you.”

  Her eyes narrow. She’s healthy and stout, with hair the same color as mine. The same as the witch queen’s. “I need to ask you something. About the witch.” I wish I could take back the word as she scowls. “I mean, the . . . Valtera?”

  She gives me a quizzical look.

  I try again. “The Valia?”

  “Valtia?” she asks, leaning forward to look into my eyes.

  I nod. “I need to know about her power.”

  From the scrunched-up look on her face, I can tell she’s trying to translate my words. “Ice,” she says. “Fire. She has the two, the same.” Her accent is . . . round. And trilling. Even the Kupari language is soft and weak. I push down a swell of contempt even as I recall the witch’s black-robed minion grinding out those trilling words—just before he prepared to hurl fire at me.

  “Ice and fire,” I say. “She controls both?”

  “Both. Together and”—she spreads her hands—“apart. Many ways she has magic.”

  “And she curses people.”

  Hulda tilts her head. “Curse?”

  “Yes,” I say through gritted teeth. “She sticks this ice and fire inside people.” I mimic the arc of the witch-made lightning that struck me six nights ago. “How might one break such a curse?”

  Hulda blinks at me. “Curse?” she asks again. “Valtia has ice and fire, together and apart—”

  “Yes, I know.” My frustration is already making me sweat, and I remind myself to stay calm. “But how do people get rid of it?”

  She looks utterly baffled. “Get rid . . . of magic?”

  “Sure, if that’s what you all call it. How do they do that, once she curses them with it?” An idea occurs to me. “If she were to be killed—”

  Hulda tilts her head. “Some born with ice and fire, some not. But Valtia . . . her power comes from other Valtia.”

  “You mean there’s two of them?” Thyra will
need to know immediately.

  “No, not two.”

  My hands rise in irritation. “Then what in heaven are you talking about?”

  The woman looks me over with curiosity, then touches her own coppery hair and points to mine. “First, Valtia is a Saadella,” she says, though I’ve never heard that word in my life. “Her hair is this color. Kupari.”

  “My hair is not Kupari.”

  “Copper,” she says slowly. Then she points to my eyes. “And her eyes is that color.” She lets out an amused grunt. “You could be Saadella.”

  “What did you just call me?”

  Hulda steps back in alarm as a frigid gust of wind swirls around us. Her gray eyes go round as the breeze whips her coppery hair from its braid, and her teeth chatter as she says, “Nothing! I said nothing!” She stumbles and falls backward, landing hard on her backside. Her eyes are bright with tears. “Please! Please!”

  Her cries will draw attention to us, the last thing I want. Cold hatred for this stupid, cowardly slave rushes through me, especially when she screams again. She’s staring at the ground and inching back, pure horror etched into the lines of her face. I look down to see what on earth could be frightening her.

  Thick, silver-white frost is creeping along the ground around me, edging closer to the hem of Hulda’s skirt, advancing like an army of ants. I gasp and clench my fists, trying to push the curse down, but when the ice keeps advancing, I rush forward, frantically shushing her. If she doesn’t shut up, the entire camp will come running, and then they’ll see the frost. They’ll know I’m cursed, and I’ll be stoned in the fight circle.

  Hulda’s fingers are gray with cold, and she’s shivering violently as she points at me. She shrieks one word in her awful language over and over again, one that sounds like the hiss of a snake. The sound slithers into my ears, relentless and maddening, filling my head with memories of lullabies and fire and blood.

  I drop to my knees and clamp my hand over her mouth.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I am so desperate to silence Hulda that at first I don’t notice that I have. My fingers, rigid with cold, freeze to the damp flesh of her face. Her hands scrabble along my arms. But I don’t feel it. I stare at her face, her coppery hair, and I hear her unfamiliar-yet-familiar language in my head, and suddenly her eyes are no longer gray. They’re blue and pleading and the light in them is fading, and there’s nothing I can do.

  The distant whinny of a horse wrenches me back to the present, shivering and trembling, something hard tickling my palm. I look down, and with a cry, I throw myself backward, landing in a sprawl on damp, rotted leaves. Hulda does not move. Her gray eyes are clouded with frost, and her mouth is open. Her stiff fingers claw at empty air, as if she is begging heaven for mercy.

  My breath fogging, I crawl forward and poke her arm. She is frozen solid.

  I let out a wretched whimper as I wipe my palms on my breeches. “I didn’t mean it,” I whisper to her. And then I rise to my feet and kick her rigid body as my rage at the witch queen rises high enough to choke me. “I didn’t want to hurt you!”

  “Hulda!” Gry is shouting for her slave from across the field, and the sound of her voice nearly makes my heart burst.

  If I’m caught here, that’s it. My feet slip on the matted leaves as I sprint up the hill and deeper into the trees. I can almost hear the eerie laugh of the queen from across the Torden. Perhaps she senses what she’s done. Perhaps she knows her trap has sprung.

  But I didn’t kill a Krigere. I killed one of her own. A slave. A Kupari. I have not killed one of my tribe. I double over and retch behind the fractured trunk of a lightning-felled tree. I should not feel this bad. Killing is as natural as eating or sleeping. It is the right of the victor over the conquered.

  I grit my teeth over a sob and pull the collar of my tunic up against my throat with shaking hands. With my eyes closed and my head bowed, I imagine cramming the witch’s curse back inside, burying it deep under layers of dirt, covering it with stones. Despite my frantic efforts, it still managed to slip free, and I can’t let it happen again, for my sake and for Thyra’s. I have to be her wolf. I cannot be the witch’s sword.

  I stay hidden in the forest until my breathing has slowed, until it is once again warm and steady, until I feel like myself again. Faint cries from several hundred yards behind me make me wonder if Hulda has been found, and thinking about it nearly makes me retch again. So does my fear of anyone finding out what I’ve done. I weave my way further into the woods, to a stream that leads down to the beach, and then I trek back up to camp that way, so no one will suspect where I came from. I return to my shelter like a wary, kicked animal, ready to dart away from the slightest hint of threat, and for the first time, I am glad that we are starting our journey today.

  As far as I’m concerned, we cannot possibly leave soon enough.

  * * *

  I shiver, even as sweat trickles across my shoulders and into the collar of my tunic. We are a fog of scent and noise and grief stretched along the shore of the thunder-gray lake, slowly drifting to the southeast. I stare out at the rough waters as a cool breeze sends another hard chill down my spine.

  I can’t stop thinking about Hulda’s eyes.

  My stomach clenches and I forget to watch my steps. I hiss with pain as my knee strikes a rock. A hand slides around my upper arm and yanks me up like I’m a sack of grain. It belongs to Preben, his eyes like lumps of charcoal. “It’s only the first day,” he says. On his other side, Aksel lets out a grunt of laughter at the implication that I’m already struggling to keep up.

  I yank my arm from Preben’s grasp. “And no matter what day it is, I can regain my footing on my own.” I quicken my steps and get in front of the two of them, my cheeks burning. Up ahead, I hear a whistle. Smoke stains the darkening sky. I shift my bundle of scavenged belongings—blanket, spare tunic, sharpening stone—on my back. It’s not heavy, but the weight of my secret bends my spine toward the ground. Hoping to relieve my burden, I slide the bundle—secured by one stretch of rope and a strip of leather I plan to make into a belt—down my arm and jog ahead to find Thyra. She’s been hiking near Jaspar all day, surrounded by his warriors and some of ours. I think she’s afraid that they’ll scheme if she doesn’t hover like a fly over a corpse.

  She’s probably been wondering where I am. She expected me to hike at her back. But for the first many hours of our journey, I did not trust myself to be around other people.

  Maybe I still shouldn’t, but I can’t simply disappear either. I am needed.

  “Ansa!” Thyra waves from next to a circle of stones that will mark the gathering place tonight for this camp. We’ll have several, seeing as a few thousand of us are making this trek. Jaspar has assigned small squads of his own warriors to each cluster of people, in charge of making sure all of them keep moving in the same direction. We’re being herded like sheep, and we don’t yet know if our destination is lush new pasture or the butchering block.

  “Where have you been all day?” She glances meaningfully at Jaspar. “He’s being obstinately cagey,” she whispers. “I thought you said he wanted to be open with me, but he’s full of smiles and smoke just like his father.”

  She wants me to ferret information from him, I can tell. She has no idea the extent to which I’ve already failed her. I shiver and rub my arms, scowling at the memory of frost creeping across rotting leaves, and then across skin. “It’s been a long day,” I murmur.

  She gives me a concerned look. “You still look so tired.”

  “More than I want to admit.” I swallow hard as I watch Dorte’s widow, a woman whose skinny limbs belie her wiry toughness, striking flint against an old blade to light the dry leaves that have been stuffed amidst the gathered wood in the fire circle. Clinging to the back of her gown is a brown-eyed little girl, an adopted raid prize who Dorte brought as a gift two summers ago. If anyone has a right to be tired, it’s this widow. If anyone deserves warmth and rest, it’s her. If anyone deser
ves a reward for her determined strikes of stone and iron, she does. I stare at the flickering sparks, and they flare sudden and strong. The widow smiles as the flames take hold, and I blink in shock. Was that the curse? How could such an evil thing do something so merciful? I tear my eyes away from the woman. It was either a coincidence—or a trick, meant to lull me until it strikes again.

  We pass around rations and tend to our weapons as the andeners gather enough wood to last through the night. Bertel, Preben, Aksel, and Sander share raid stories with a few of Jaspar’s warriors just yards from where Thyra and I have settled in with our waterskins and hard biscuits. I am relieved that Jaspar himself seems to have disappeared for a while, and when he plops down between me and Thyra, I flinch.

  “Any blisters?” he asks.

  Quite a few. But our horses are loaded with supplies because we don’t have enough wagons. “None at all.”

  The corner of Thyra’s mouth twitches at my breezy tone. “It was a lovely stroll along the lake.”

  He chuckles and stretches his legs out in front of him. “Well, my feet hurt, anyway.”

  “You could ask an andener to rub them,” Thyra suggests, “though the smell might prove lethal.” She leans forward to grab another biscuit and knocks over the uncorked waterskin, which sends clean streamwater splashing over the stony ground, soaking the back of my breeches.

  I grab it and lift the opening, but it’s too late. The water is nearly gone. Thyra snatches the container from me. “I’ll go fill it up again.” She gives me a hard look before turning and walking toward the stream we passed several hundred yards back.

  Jaspar watches her departure. “That was . . . unusually clumsy of her. One would think a chieftain would have better things to do than fetch water.” He turns to me. “Does she hate me that much? I never actually did her any harm.”

  I’m not sure that’s completely true—I remember the look on Thyra’s face when she saw us together. But I shake my head and scoot closer to the fire, wanting to dry my breeches before I lie on my blanket for the night.