Prince Rasmus stared at them. His coughing ceased and his breaths came in great gasps, as Hanne’s healing gift soothed his inflamed lungs and opened the airways.
Bare seconds later the royal guards surrounded them, pulling Hanne and Nina away as the king and queen rushed toward them.
“No!” Rasmus gasped. His voice was weak, thready. He was starting to cough again. “Bring her back. Bring them back.”
But the crowd was already surging around them and Rasmus was rushed through a pair of doors behind the royal dais, leaving the ballroom awash in shocked and baffled whispers.
Brum was suddenly next to Hanne and Nina, herding them away, as Ylva and Redvin helped to keep the curious crowd at bay. Flanked by drüskelle, they were ushered down a corridor, and then through the twisting passages that led back to their chambers.
“Prince Rasmus—” Hanne began, but Brum silenced her with a look.
“The servants,” he said quietly as they made their way to the room Brum used as his office. It was all dark wood and white stone, and through the frost-lined windows, Nina could see it had begun to snow.
Ylva vanished, then returned with a bowl of warm water and two soft cloths that she handed to Nina and Hanne. Nina hadn’t realized the prince’s blood was on her too. She wiped her face and hands clean.
She made her eyes wide, forced her lip to tremble, but every part of her was watchful, alert, ready to move into fight mode if Hanne had to be protected. There was a graveyard on the White Island, bodies she could call to her service as soldiers. What had Brum seen? What did he know?
Hanne looked terrified. She’d used her power in front of the entire Fjerdan court, healing the prince without thinking of it. Nina’s mind reeled at the risk of it, the carelessness. And yet, even in her fear and anger, Nina knew Hanne couldn’t help it. She couldn’t watch someone suffer and not act. It was her nature to try to fix things, when all Nina did was destroy. Had any of the onlookers realized what she’d done? Had Brum? He was a trained witchhunter. Here, away from the pomp and drama of the court, Nina’s ruse of prayer felt impossibly flimsy.
“What happened?” Ylva asked, a desperate, frightened edge to her voice.
Brum’s face was grim. “The prince is very ill.”
“But not like that!” cried Ylva. “He collapsed!”
“Why do you think they keep him away from the public?”
“He … he has never been one for social occasions, but…”
“Because the king and queen have coddled him. They let him appear in public only for short times and in highly controlled situations like the start of Heartwood today.”
“What do you suppose brought this fit on?” asked Redvin, taking a swig of something from a flask.
Brum shrugged. “Too much noise. Too much heat. Who knows?”
“His weakness is appalling,” said Redvin.
“He’s a child,” protested Ylva.
Brum sneered. “He’s eighteen years old. You forget because he is so far from what a man should be.”
At that, Hanne’s gaze hardened. “He cannot help what he is, how he was born.”
“Maybe not,” said Brum. “But has he pushed himself? Challenged himself? I’ve done my best to help him, to be a mentor and a guide. He is the heir to the throne, but if the extent of his infirmity became common knowledge, do you really think Fjerda would accept him as their king?”
Again, Nina wondered what game Brum was playing. She had no doubt he believed all this nonsense he was spewing about manhood and Fjerdan strength. It was also clear he had no respect for the prince. But was there more?
In the week since Fjerda’s defeat at Nezkii and Ulensk, Brum had done his best to hide his frustration. The failed invasion meant that Fjerda had to at least entertain the possibility of diplomacy over war. But if the prince died or was incapacitated, Fjerda would have only the old king and the younger prince to rule. It might be a perfect opportunity for someone to step in and take the reins for a grateful royal family. And once that was done, just who would convince Brum to hand them back? He had the respect and support of the military. He knew the workings of the court inside and out. Nina felt dread like a yoke around her neck. Fjerda’s policies had grown only more brutal under Brum’s influence. What would it mean for her country and for her people if there was no check on his power?
Ylva shook her head. “Why did you never tell me the prince’s case was so dire?”
“Our position at court and my position with the military are closely tied to the favor of the royal family. After the prison break and the destruction of the treasury … I’ve had to fight for our place here, and I could not risk indiscretion. The Grimjers will do everything they can to minimize this incident and to discredit those who witnessed it most closely.”
“I had his blood on me,” said Hanne. “He’s dying.”
Nina wanted to kick her. They needed to stay quiet until they knew what Brum had seen or what he thought he’d seen. And yet she was starting to think they’d gotten away with Hanne’s breach. Maybe Brum had been too focused on the prince’s public display of weakness to understand what had really happened.
“Probably,” said Brum. “But he’s doing the throne the discourtesy of dying slowly. The royal family will want to silence Hanne. Young women gossip.”
“Not Hanne!” cried Ylva.
“But how are they to know that? She has no reputation at court. She’s been gone so long, few could speak to her character.”
“Surely you can protect her?”
“I don’t know.”
Ylva moaned. “Tell me they won’t harm her.”
“No, but they might send her away.”
“Exile?” Ylva threw her arms around her daughter. “I won’t allow it. We waited too long to have her back with us. I won’t let her be taken from me again.”
Nina watched Hanne’s mother cling to her daughter in fright and didn’t know what to do. She could feel danger speeding toward them. She was good at anticipating threats, she’d had to be, but this one had seemed to come from nowhere in the fragile body of a boy.
A knock sounded at the door. It was a young man in a drüskelle uniform. Nina recognized him from the prince’s retinue in the ballroom.
“Joran.” Brum waved him in. “Joran is bodyguard to the prince.”
“Is he all right?” asked Hanne.
Joran nodded. His training was too good for him to twist his hands together or fidget, but Nina could see he was nervous. “Sir,” he said, then hesitated. “Commander Brum, the royal family has ordered the presence of your daughter and her maid.”
A soft sob escaped Ylva. But Brum simply nodded. “I see. Then we must go.”
Joran cleared his throat. “They were specific in their invitation. Only the girls are wanted.”
“Djel, what is this?” Ylva said, tears streaming down her cheeks now. “We can’t let this happen. Hanne cannot face them alone.”
“I’m not alone,” said Hanne. She was trembling slightly, but she rose. “I have Mila.”
“Change your dress,” said Brum.
She glanced down at the bloodstains. “Of course. I’ll need a moment.”
Ylva grabbed Hanne’s arm. “No. No. Jarl, you cannot let her do this.”
“She must.” He laid his hand on Hanne’s shoulder. “You are my daughter and you will not hang your head.”
Hanne lifted her chin. “Never.”
The look in Brum’s eyes might have been pride.
Hanne and Nina hurried to their rooms to change their clothes.
As soon as they shut the door, Hanne blurted, “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know, I know,” Nina said, already choosing a new gown for Hanne, chaste ivory wool, with none of the glamour of the sparkling amber thing she’d gotten to wear for such a brief time. She selected a similarly drab brown gown for herself.
“Do you think the prince knows?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know. He was in no condition to
think straight.”
“My father—I thought he saw.”
“I know.”
Nina couldn’t believe that Hanne had healed the prince before Brum’s very eyes without his knowledge. But people saw what they wanted to see. Brum would never believe his daughter had been born an abomination.
Hanne pulled on the gown. She was shaking. “Nina, if they test me…”
There were Grisha amplifiers kept as prisoners at the Ice Court, people gifted with the ability to call forth another Grisha’s power.
“There are ways around that,” said Nina. She’d learned them from the Dregs. Jesper Fahey had covered his arms in paraffin so that he could play in high-stakes card games where Grisha—able to manipulate everything from a shuffle to a man’s mood—were not welcome. But there might not be time to deploy those techniques. Nina didn’t know if she could protect Hanne. They were trapped on the White Island in the middle of the Ice Court, and if Hanne was revealed to be a Grisha, there would be no path open to escape. “If they find you out, they’ll put you in prison to face trial. That will give me time.”
“Time for what?”
“To make a plan. To break you out.”
“How?”
“I learned from the best in Ketterdam. I’ll find a way.” She held Hanne’s gaze. “Never doubt it.”
Joran was waiting when they emerged. He led them out of their chambers and back to the palace through a series of confusing passages. Nina didn’t think she’d be able to make her way back. Maybe that was the point.
“The prince is well?” Nina asked.
Joran said nothing. His shoulders were rigid. Nina knew the drüskelle, especially those still in training, were fastidious about maintaining protocol, but this one seemed even more tautly wound. He was tall, even by Fjerdan standards, but he couldn’t be more than sixteen or seventeen—still a boy, made even more boyish by the fact that he wasn’t permitted to grow any kind of beard.
“How long have you been the prince’s bodyguard?” she asked.
“Nearly two years,” he said curtly.
Nina and Hanne exchanged a glance. They weren’t going to get much out of him. Nina reached for Hanne’s hand; her fingers were cold.
They arrived at a door flanked by royal guards and were escorted into a sitting room layered in cream and gold cushions. Its vast windows looked out over the gleaming expanse of the Ice Bridge, which linked the White Island to the outer ring of the Ice Court, and they could see soft flurries of snow gusting past the glass in the gray afternoon light. Nina had assumed they’d be brought before some kind of royal tribunal, but other than the servants in their royal livery, the only other person in the room was Prince Rasmus, propped on a sofa embroidered with gold brocade.
“It’s not much of a view, is it?” said the prince. He was pale and fragile as an eggshell, nearly the same shade as the heap of white pillows upon which he was settled. There was a blanket over his legs, and a cup of tea in his hands.
When Hanne said nothing, Nina murmured, “I was just thinking it was very grand.”
“Only if you never want to see more of the world. Sit.”
They lowered themselves onto two plush chairs that had been designed to ensure that no one would ever be seated higher than the crown prince.
“Leave us,” the prince instructed the servants with a wave of his hand. Joran closed the door behind them and stood at attention, his gaze fixed on nothing at all. “I trust Joran with my life. I have to. We have no secrets from each other.” Nina noted the slight clenching of Joran’s jaw. Interesting. Maybe some secrets after all.
“Joran is two years younger than I am, barely sixteen, but he is taller and stronger than I’ll ever be. He can carry me up a flight of stairs as if I weighed no more than kindling. And to my great shame, he’s had to do so more than once.” Joran’s face remained inscrutable. “He never shows emotion. It’s quite comforting. I’ve had more than my share of pity.” He studied Hanne. “You look nothing like your father.”
“No,” said Hanne, a slight tremor to her voice. “I take after my mother’s people.”
“I don’t seem to take after anyone,” said the prince. “Unless there was a goblin somewhere in the Grimjer line.” He leaned forward and patted Hanne’s hand, then Nina’s. “It’s all right. I’m not going to let them exile you. Go ahead and pour yourselves tea.”
Hanne still looked terrified, and Nina felt only wary as she served first Hanne then herself. It was hard to indulge in much relief after everything Brum had said.
“Nothing will happen to you!” the prince said. “I forbade it.” He leaned closer and dropped his voice. “I threw quite the fit. There are benefits to being able to turn blue.”
“But … but why, Your Highness?” Hanne asked.
It was a reasonable question but a perilous one. Did he know Hanne was Grisha? Was he playing with them?
The prince leaned back on his cushions, his air of mischief van- ishing. “I’ve been sick my whole life. Since I was a child. I can’t remember a time I wasn’t an object of scorn or worry. I’m often not sure which is worse. Other people shy away from my weakness. You … you drew closer.”
“Sickness is sickness,” said Hanne. “It’s not something to fear.”
“You had my blood on your hands. On your skirts. Did they tell you to change?” Hanne nodded. “You weren’t afraid?”
“That’s mugwort in your cup, isn’t it?”
The prince glanced down at the cup, which now sat cooling on the table beside him. “It is.”
“I was educated at a convent in Gäfvalle, but I was most interested in herb lore, in healing.”
“The Springmaidens taught you? That doesn’t seem like a subject the Wellmother would encourage.”
“Well,” Hanne said carefully, “I may have taken it upon myself to learn.”
The prince laughed and then began to cough. Nina saw Hanne’s fingertips flex slightly. She shook her head. No, this is not a good idea.
But Hanne couldn’t see suffering and not respond.
The prince’s cough ceased and he took a long, shuddering breath.
“The convent at Gäfvalle,” he continued, as if nothing had happened. “I thought that was where they sent difficult girls to beat the spirit out of them and make them ready to be good wives.”
“It is.”
“But your spirit is still intact?” said the prince, studying Hanne closely.
“I hope so.”
“And you have no husband.”
“I don’t.”
“Is that why you came back to the Ice Court? Put on that fanciful gown?”
“Yes.”
“And instead you got a lapful of wheezing prince.”
Nina nearly choked on her tea.
“It’s all right to laugh,” said the prince. “I won’t have you beheaded.” He cocked his head to one side. “Your hair is shorn. That’s a sign of devotion to Djel, is it not?”
“It is.”
“And you both prayed over me.” His eyes fastened on Nina. “You took my hand. People have been executed for daring to touch the hand of a prince.”
“It was not I,” said Nina piously. “It was the spirit of Djel that moved through me.”
“So, you are true believers?”
“Are you not?” asked Nina.
“It’s hard to believe in a god that would deny me breath.”
Hanne and Nina stayed silent. That was blasphemy, pure and simple, and not something either of them were free to remark upon. Who reigned in this room? Djel or the prince?
At last, Rasmus said, “Healing and herbs are not the province of most noblewomen.”
Hanne shrugged. “I am not like most noblewomen.”
The prince took in Hanne’s set shoulders, the stubborn line of her jaw. “I see that. If devotion to Djel will make me as sturdy as the two of you, perhaps I’ll take up prayer after all.” He smoothed the blankets over his waist. “You will come to see me again soon.
I find your presence … comforting.”
Because Hanne is healing you as we speak.
“Go,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Joran will see you back to your rooms. Give my regards to your father.”
There was no mistaking the sour edge to his voice. So Brum’s disdain had not gone unnoticed.
Hanne and Nina rose, curtsied, backed out of the room.
“You were healing him,” Nina whispered in accusation.
“The spirit of Djel moved you?” Hanne said beneath her breath. “You’re shameless.”
Joran led them out the doors, but before they could go more than a few paces down the hall, they were stopped by two royal guards.
“Mila Jandersdat,” one said. “You will come with us.”
“But why?” exclaimed Hanne.
Nina knew they would get no answer. It was not for commoners to question the royal guard.
She grabbed Hanne in a quick hug. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
As they led her down the corridor, she glanced over her shoulder and saw Hanne watching, fear in her eyes. I’ll come back to you, she promised. She could only hope that was true.
* * *
The corridor changed as Nina followed the guards, and she realized she was in a part of the palace she’d never seen before. The stone here seemed older, its color closer to ivory than white, and when she looked up, she saw that the walls had been carved into ridges so that it felt like they were passing through the rib cage of some great beast, a tunnel of bones.
This place had been built to intimidate, but the ancient architects of the Ice Court had chosen the wrong motif. Death is my gift, Nina thought, and I do not fear the lost. She always made sure to have two thin spikes of bone tucked into her sleeves to use as darts if she needed to. Her buttons were bone too. And then, of course, there were the dead. Kings and queens and favored retainers had been buried on the White Island since before the Ice Court had been built around it, and Nina could hear their whispers. An army awaiting her command.
The guards stopped in front of two tall, narrow doors that reached almost all the way to the ceiling. They were emblazoned with the Grimjer wolf rampant, a globe beneath its paw and a crown hovering above its pointed ears. The doors opened and Nina found herself in a long room lined by columns carved to look like birch trees. The whole place glowed blue as if it really had been hewn from ice, and Nina felt like she was entering a frozen forest.
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