by Sarah Fine
I clench my fists. I’m the one who allowed Jaspar to live. “The riders and the Vasterutian resistance have flooded the streets. He’ll be lucky to reach them.”
“Jaspar will find a way.” His eyes shine with the simple faith and pride of a father in his son.
“Jaspar has destroyed you,” Thyra says. “He pitted us against each other, playing us both for fools. But now we can—”
“At what point will you stop scheming?” Nisse pricks Thyra’s throat, making her bleed. “My son is loyal, and he will not fail me. You, on the other hand, have more than earned your execution. I wait only until Jaspar sends the signal that he’s on his way back for me.”
A signal that could come at any minute if Jaspar is half as determined as I know him to be. I only injured his arm, not his legs, and given the time that has passed, if he was able to escape the courtyard, that signal could come at any moment. The foreign fighters will take the tower because there were no Krigere to stop them, but with all of them here, it won’t be hard to place it under siege as long as Jaspar’s warriors can intimidate the Vasterutian people into staying back.
My mind spins with all the possible outcomes, but then Nisse takes another step back from me, and I am caught by a painful flash of memory—Jaspar throwing Sander over the edge of the parapet. “Don’t take another step.”
Nisse smiles. “Why, Ansa? Are you going to stop me?” He presses the blade tighter to Thyra’s throat.
I draw Sander’s dagger, and when I lift it, the cuff of Astia shines in the bright sunlight directly over our head. Nisse squints at it. “What is that?”
“Balance,” I say. “A gift from elder Kauko.”
Nisse’s face twists with rage. “That priest betrayed me?”
“Weren’t you going to betray him?”
“All he wanted was you, and we delivered you to him!”
I smile with the realization—no matter what I chose, Nisse would have betrayed me. He is no innocent victim—he only fathered a snake because he is one himself. I couldn’t be wielded as a weapon because I couldn’t control the magic, and so he gave me up. “Because I was worth something to Kauko. Or, my blood was.”
Nisse looks me over, appearing to notice my wounds for the first time. “And it seems you’re shedding quite a lot of it. I’m surprised you’re still standing.”
I aim the dagger at him, focusing on the beating pulse in his neck. “Let her go, or you’re the one who will be on the ground.”
He laughs. “You seem to forget that I’ve watched you for weeks. If you aim your magic at me, you’ll kill Thyra as well. You’re a storm, Ansa. You’ll take everyone down with you.”
A drop of fear slips icy down my back as my chieftain’s blue eyes meet mine. Suddenly I’m in the fight circle on a new spring day, and I’m bleeding and hurting and defeated as Sander walks away from me, and hers is the one voice I hear shouting for me to get up. Like I could that day, I can read the simple faith written across the planes of her cheekbones, etched into the curve of her mouth.
A distant horn blows once, and then again, pulling Nisse’s lips into a lethal grin. “And now we’re out of time,” he says, pressing a hard kiss against Thyra’s bleeding temple.
He draws back his blade, preparing to cut her throat.
“I love you, Thyra,” I whisper, and then I let the magic loose, fueled by devotion and determination and all the adoration that’s in me, powered by hope in the future and acceptance, finally, of who I have become. The ice winds along the blade of Sander’s dagger, but this time, instead of focusing on its progress, I focus on my target. It’s the size of my fingertip.
Nisse’s jugular.
As his weapon descends, I thrust my blade forward, even though I know the iron will never touch his flesh.
Nisse makes a strangled grunt and his dagger swings away from Thyra. One hand claws at his frozen throat as he staggers back, the weapon falling from his hand as it grasps desperately for something to stop his collision with the edge.
His fingers find the back of Thyra’s tunic. Her mouth drops open as she reaches for me, and I lunge forward as both of them tumble and fall.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
My hands close around her ankles. A rending yank from below pulls me forward, and for a moment I know I am heading over the edge as well, but I refuse to let go of her. She is mine, and I am hers. Her wolf, her blanket, her fire, her dagger. And then I am jerked to a halt, and I glance over my shoulder to see ice fastened like manacles around my ankles, spread over the floor of the tower, rooting me in place.
My fingers dig into the leather of her boots as she screams. In the courtyard, so far below us, Nisse’s body hits hard, falling only feet from where Sander lies, still and broken. All around them are black-robed fighters, swords drawn, staring up at us. Maybe waiting for us to fall too.
“I’ve got you,” I say from between gritted teeth.
She lets out a laugh. A laugh. “I know.” Her flesh slips beneath the thick shield of her boots, and she screams again. My fingers grasp at her with white knuckles, and ice grows from my fingertips, snaking around her ankles.
I gaze at it with wonder. “I’m pulling you up.”
With my feet fastened and Thyra’s ankles encased in ice, it’s now up to me to bring my chieftain to safety. My body is so torn, a faulty, fragile vessel for the magic that has brought us both to this point. But it has been my ally for far longer than the fire and ice that have now made me their temporary home. I draw in a breath and pull, ignoring the agony of my legs, my back, my arms, my chest. I tug until my rear sits on my ice-encased heels, until Thyra’s knees rest on the edge.
“Up to you now, Chieftain. Can you sit up?”
She grunts, and I can feel her effort as her trunk rises off the wall of the tower, as she brings herself up and up, and as she reaches for me. Like it understands what I need, the ice around my right hand, the arm that bears the cuff, melts instantly, and I grasp her hand, our fingers entwining. I pull her back, and the ice around my ankles melts and turns to steam as I land on my back with her on top of me.
It is the best feeling in the world, and it makes all my pain disappear. She strokes my hair back. “I thought you would be furious when you discovered that Halina deceived you.”
“I deserved to be deceived. I refused to help you reach our warriors. You did what you had to do.”
She kisses my forehead, and the feel of her lips is heaven itself. “I had no idea Kauko was going to take your blood. I would have found a way to warn you.”
“Sig tried.”
“Thank heaven for him.”
I hope heaven is not where he is right now. “Will our warriors be safe?”
She lays her forehead on mine. “I hope so. I told them to stay where they were and hold the barricades. With any luck we’ll find them alive. And hungry, probably.”
“Will they be able to help us when Jaspar and the other warriors lay siege to this tower?”
“They’ll do all they can, I have no doubt. They have proven their loyalty time and time again. My father’s memory is clearly a powerful thing.”
“It’s not just his memory,” I say, stroking her cheek. “You gave them something to believe in, however foreign and strange it might be.”
She smiles. “I had no idea how dangerous peace truly was, but I’ll fight for it anyway.”
That is why I love her. It’s why I don’t care that we aren’t really meant to be mated. It’s why I crave this moment like water and air. It’s why I draw her down and press my mouth to hers. And when she moans and parts her lips, a taste of heaven is my reward. My magic simmers and shivers inside me, drawn tight and chaotic by the churn of want surging along my bones, but with the cuff of Astia around my wrist, the storm is quelled, and our kiss is just that. Because we are reconciled, because the magic is part of me now, maybe it recognizes her as someone I could never hurt, someone I would die to save.
The wounds that mar my body are nothing, not w
ith her hands on me, not with her mouth on mine. Our enemy could be storming the gate right now, and I still smile and nip at Thyra’s bottom lip. I still grin when her fingers twist in my hair. I still gasp as she yanks up my tunic and lays her cool palm on my bare skin.
The trapdoor slams open and makes both of us jump. I crane my neck and see Halina’s upside-down face, her bright eyes, her grin. “Everyone settled down there,” she says.
“Nisse’s guard?” Thyra asks.
“Surrendered to about three dozen foreign fighters. The tower is under our control.”
Thyra gives me one last, brief kiss before sliding off me. She winces as she raises her head and sways in place. “Jaspar and his warriors? He must have reached them. We heard the signal that he was coming to lay siege to the tower.”
I push myself up to sitting on shaking arms, and Halina gives both me and Thyra a concerned look. “Do you have tunnels that could help us get a message to Preben and Bertel?”
“No need, little red. Jaspar isn’t coming. He had different plans than old Nisse. Guess he wasn’t so loyal after all.”
“What’s happened?” Thyra asks, her voice going flat and sharp.
“He ran,” Halina says. “Everyone was clustered up here in the north of the city, so once he reached his seven hundred fighters, you think he came here to face hundreds of Vasterutians, Korkeans, and Ylpesians who wanted a taste of Krigere blood? No. He gave up. He took them south and they escaped the city. Stole any horse they could find on the way. Bunch of their families running too.”
“Is anyone trying to stop them?” Thyra asks.
Halina shakes her head. “We want them gone, Chieftain,” she says softly, her gaze somber.
Thyra looks over at me, and I read the worry in her eyes. The Vasterutians want us gone too. We are merely guests here now. “I understand,” Thyra says slowly. “I hope you will give us time to recover from this battle.”
Halina nods. “Of course. We honor you as an ally now. You will be able to stay until you know where you will find your new home, whether it be Kupari or elsewhere.”
Thyra gives me a speculative look. “Let me consult with my war counselor here,” she says, reaching for my hand. Our fingers clench tight, holding each other up. “And then we’ll let you know.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
I heal faster than Thyra does. Faster than Sig, too. He tells me it is because of the magic, and if I work at it, maybe I can even heal others. “Like Kauko?” I ask.
Sig’s mouth crimps with distaste. “I know another who heals,” he replies. “In Kupari.”
“Is he among the group who attacked you and chased all the priests from the temple?”
Halina translates for him. Somehow, she and Sig have formed a bond, and she seems to understand him better than anyone. She knows he has a story to tell but won’t tell it for him.
Sig sighs and looks away, muttering something in Kupari. Halina touches his arm. “He says this man was his friend before. He says maybe . . . but that is all he says.”
“I have to know this story, Sig. We need to reach out to the impostor queen. We need her to understand who I am and what it means.”
Thyra shifts next to me and glances at Preben and Bertel, who look gaunt but otherwise healthy after their ordeal barricaded in the east. We are all sitting around the table in what is now her chamber. She refuses to call it a war chamber, but we all stare down at the map of Kupari painted on the table’s surface. “If she can be made to understand that we want peace . . .”
“And a home,” I say as Halina murmurs the translation to Sig. Because this is where Thyra and I landed—apparently Kupari is a vast land, with the city at one end of the peninsula, and the rest of it occupied by a stretch of largely uninhabited marshland and mines. There’s enough room for us there. We could make a home and figure out who we are now, and who we want to become.
Because I am the rightful queen of Kupari. All that remains is convincing the impostor to step down.
“Elli,” Sig says, continuing on in Kupari.
“He says the impostor’s name is Elli,” Halina translates. “He says that she is the one who scarred him as he tried to kill Kauko.”
My fists clench. “I can repay her for you.”
Thyra’s hand closes over mine, and I relax slightly. “Our aim is not revenge.”
Sig mumbles something, and Halina frowns. “He says she is not a mere impostor.”
Sig leans over and touches the cuff, which has not left my body since that day in the tower a few weeks ago, when it helped me save my chieftain. “Sig says she is . . . this.” Halina points at the cuff too.
“What? She has one of those?” Preben asks. “I thought you said she had no magic? What good would it do her?”
“No,” says Halina. “She is one of these. And she has an ice wielder at her side . . . and he is as strong in that ice as Sig is in fire.”
“Like two halves,” Thyra murmurs, looking between me and Sig.
Bertel leans forward, and his white beard brushes the tabletop. “So perhaps we have a chance. She’s not powerless, but neither are we.”
Preben nods. “If we can come together, surely we can negotiate a lasting compromise that will result in a permanent home for our people.”
“As long as Jaspar and Kauko don’t interfere,” I say. This is the galling truth—when our warriors went down to retrieve Kauko, to secure him before he awoke, they found him gone—chains sliced through with what was probably a broadsword.
Our best guess is that Jaspar rescued him and took the crafty old wielder with him as he escaped the city. And now he’s out there, possibly trying to find the refugee priests and apprentices, along with hundreds of warriors. The Vasterutians tracked them to the Loputon, but were thwarted by a fire that drove them back, with winds coming from the west. Either it was very bad luck—or there was a very powerful wielder pushing the flames in their direction to cover his tracks.
“I don’t know what Jaspar wants now,” says Thyra. “Apart from my death.”
“He’ll never have his satisfaction, then,” I reply, moving a little closer to her.
She looks over at me, and then at the others. “Give us the room, please,” she says quietly.
Sig, Halina, Preben, and Bertel rise and do as she asks. Thyra walks over to the window on the far side of the chamber, which looks out over the city. I follow, and I lay my hand on her back, needing the contact. I can feel each of her ribs, but she stands straight, steady once again. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she says.
“None of us do. That’s the annoying thing about the future.”
She chuckles. “Very annoying.” She touches my cheek. “How will this go, Ansa? For now, I’m your chieftain, but if our future unfurls as we hope, you’ll be queen of your own land.”
My hand slides down the bumps of her spine to settle at her waist. “We can rule together,” I tell her. “It’s not like I know anything about being in charge, anyway.”
“Neither of us knows anything about the customs of these people. They’ll be terrified to find out their Valtia is actually a Soturi.”
“A Soturi is still a person,” I say. “A Valtia is a person.”
“Not just a person,” she whispers, leaning her head down until it touches mine.
I close my eyes, savoring this moment, knowing that what is coming will test us. “I don’t feel like a queen, Thyra,” I admit, my throat going tight.
“Shh.” She brushes a kiss across my lips. “You’ll do what you think is right, always. All you have to do is remember the people you serve. Remember that what you do is for them.” She raises her head, and a shadow flickers behind her eyes. “Not just for me, all right?”
My cheeks burn as she traces the outline of my devotion, as she tries to pry it from my hands and place it on a shelf. “But I’m your wolf,” I mumble.
She tips my chin up with her fingers. “Promise me. Promise me that if it comes down to protecting your p
eople, our people, or protecting me, you’ll choose them.” When my lips press tight, she gives me a disapproving tilt of her head and squeezes my cheeks.
“Fine,” I say. “As you wish.” But I silently swear that it will never come to that. Thyra is my people, and I will be her castle, her sword and shield.
She smiles. “All right.” She kisses my cheek. “We’re agreed.”
“We are,” I murmur, staring beyond the walls of the city to the distant line of green beyond. The trees are budding. Spring is on us. And with the warmer weather comes the future, all the blank swirl of mystery, all the possibility, all the danger, and all the hope. We have nearly two hundred warriors and a few thousand andeners to care for. We are not a powerful invading army. We are only two girls who bear the responsibility of our people on our backs. But with my arms around Thyra, the weight is lighter, because we share it.
We stare at the world beyond these walls, a world we are about to explore, the next step on our journey. Kupari and Krigere, enemies whose future is entwined. Together, Thyra and I will save them all.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to the team at McElderry for all their work and advocacy, including Justin Chanda and Natascha Morris, and particularly my editor Ruta Rimas, whose thoughtful questioning about arc and character somehow pushes me miles down the road every single time. A huge thank you also goes to Zlatina Zareva who captured all of Ansa, both warrior and Valtia, with one powerful image and design, and to Leo Hartas for designing the map of the wider world of the Krigere, Kupari, and Vasterutians, and to Debra Sfetsios-Conover for the beautiful overall book design.
To my agent, Kathleen Ortiz, what to say? This is book number fifteen and we’re still going strong. Thank you for everything. And my gratitude also goes to the team at New Leaf Literary for all manner of assistance, organization, and support. In addition, thank you to Gaby Salpeter for marshaling the online charge—I am so happy you tolerate me.
