The Cursed Queen

by Sarah Fine

  It was a moment. Nothing more than that. But when I heard the crunch of boots on fallen leaves, I shoved Jaspar away from me and saw Thyra standing, frozen, on the other side of the clearing.

  I will never forget the look on her face. Her blank expression, her big, solemn blue eyes . . . the sinking feeling in my stomach, the pit that lasted for days.

  But she pretended like it didn’t matter. Like she didn’t care. Like it never happened, even.

  Until today.

  * * *

  I sit only a few feet from where Thyra lies, watching the flickering embers of flame chase shadows along her brow. She deserves this rest. Needs it. And I will guard her so she knows she’s safe.

  I’m her wolf.

  I need sleep too. I’m woozy and addled after so many nights of startling awake for fear of sinking too deep. Sleep is dangerous right now, for so many reasons.

  I spent the rest of the day helping the andeners in the shelters near mine ready themselves for the journey, bundling supplies into blankets, sneaking a few abandoned blades into my boots and arm sheaths. I always feel better when I’m armed. I watched Thyra during supper, when we took down the rope around the fight circle and gathered as a tribe, as she positioned herself right over the bloodied dirt that marked the place where Edvin fell, as if to remind the other warriors she had earned her status. She spoke to Jaspar and a few of the others with a smooth, assured voice. But when she retired to the shelter, I saw the wariness in her gaze. The weariness, too.

  She feels hunted. When I told her that Jaspar had vowed she would be treated according to her status, she scoffed. “That’s a deliberately vague thing to say, if you think about it.”

  “You are his fallen brother’s daughter,” I said. “Surely that means something.”

  Her laugh was dry as summer sand. “Oh, it most certainly does.” Then she scrubbed her hands over her face. “I am only worth reckoning with if I have my warriors behind me,” she said. “This journey will determine whether I arrive in Vasterut a master or a slave.”

  I scoot a few inches closer to her. We’re in the council shelter—the chieftain’s carved chair sits on the other side of the space. There are guards at the perimeters, and Jaspar and his warriors have set their camps at the hunting trails leading north and west, claiming to offer protection. I think they are trying to make sure we do not escape.

  It’s begun already. That’s what Thyra said to me, just before she fell asleep. And now she breathes slow and even, and I hope that means she’s shed the barbed pain of defeat, that her dreams are full of victory. An ache spreads through my chest as I think of how beautiful she was today, the lithe spread of her arms, the elegant strike of her blade, the way she made it look like a dance. I suspect I look like an animal when I fight, all bared teeth and frenzied motion, but not Thyra. She is long and lean and made of lethal grace. And now she is being forced to lead us into the unknown, because there is no other choice.

  I reach out and take her limp hand. “I’m with you,” I whisper. “I’ve always been with you.”

  If she’d ever asked me about Jaspar, I would have explained. But she never acted like she wanted or needed that, and so I would have felt foolish saying it aloud. She is so guarded, even with me, no matter how I crash against her walls. Until the witch queen plunged us into a new upside-down world, Thyra created no space for these sentiments, and so all of them remained stuffed inside me, hot as burning pitch. If it had been you, I wouldn’t have let go. I have wanted to tell her this for so long. If you had made the cut, I would have been on my knees. I would have pulled you down with me. I would have bruised you by holding too tight.

  Thyra winces and swipes her hand across her brow, which is drenched with sweat. I yank my hand from hers as heat warps the air between us. My breath bursts from my throat as I realize I’m doing it again. Fire kisses my fingertips as I rise to my feet, my eyes stinging, horror crushing me like a storm wave.

  Why do I think I can protect her? She’s facing the fight of her life. She needs all her wits—the survival of our tribe depends on it. What she does not need: the taint of witchcraft to make people doubt and question.

  And I’m about to burn her alive with a witch’s curse.

  Pulling my cloak around me, I jog for the doorway, desperate for the open air.

  A hand closes over my shoulder, and I whirl around, the fear like ice in my veins. Thyra yelps and stumbles back as our fire gutters out with a frigid blast of wind, then flares to life again when my gaze flicks toward the pit. When light fills the shelter once more, the flames are reflected in Thyra’s round eyes.

  “The fire,” she says, her voice breaking.

  It’s massive, licking the thatch, and I give it a pleading look. The flames shrink like I’ve just reprimanded them, and Thyra gasps. Her fingers are clawed in her cloak. “Ansa. Did you do that?” Her voice trembles. “The two shelters that burned . . .”

  My back hits the door frame of the shelter. “I’m sorry.”

  “But this is like—” She shudders as the air becomes so cold that it makes my bones ache. “Are you doing this on purpose?”

  “The witch queen cursed me.” I clench my fists because I can feel the ice and fire trying to seep through my skin. It’s taken me over. Tears overflow and streak down my face. “Thyra, I’m sorry.”

  And then I run, my feet pounding the dirt, my heart a gash in my chest.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I sprint for the water, unsheathing a blade as I flee, the cursed red mark on my leg pulsing with icy fire. Each step reminds me what the witch has done, how she has taken the one thing I’ve always fought for—my family, my tribe. As I run, the fiery memory rises as if the witch herself summoned it—my mother’s outstretched hand, the monsters all around her, their blades glinting in the flames. I am helpless as I watch her die.

  I never wanted to be helpless again. I refuse to be helpless. I won’t let the witch win.

  Thyra hits me so hard that the dagger flies from my fist, and then we’re on the ground, skidding through the loose stone near the shore. I claw my way toward the weapon, but Thyra grabs my wrists, pressing me to cool earth. “Have you lost your mind?” she says in my ear.

  The sound of her voice only sharpens the pain. I slam my forehead into the stone. “Get off me before I hurt you.”

  She lets out a tight burst of laughter. “Try.”

  I buck, sudden and brutal, and my shoulder hits her chest. She slides off, and I lunge forward, spinning around to face her. I crouch, feral and panting, as she gets to her feet, rubbing a spot above her breast. The wary look on her face makes bile rise in my throat. “Walk away from me, Thyra.”

  “Not until you tell me what’s happening to you.”

  “I have no idea!”

  “You said she cursed you. How do you know?”

  I sink forward onto my hands and knees, my exhaustion catching up and making my limbs heavy. “There’s no other explanation. Fire bursts from my hands no matter how I try to hold it back, and I saw one of her black-robed minions do the same thing on the Torden. The cold rolls off me like a winter gale, and I can’t control any of it! But I swear, Thyra, I’m not doing witchcraft on purpose. It just . . . happens.”

  “So that’s what it was,” she whispers. My head jerks up, and she raises her hands as if to calm me. “I saw it happen, Ansa. That bolt of light arced over the lake from the south, not straight down from the sky so much as something hurled from across the water. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  My breath fogs from my mouth, chilled with confusion and betrayal. Thyra’s eyes widen as she stares. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask. “You said it was lightning!”

  “Sander said that, and I had no idea what else it could be. I was just glad you were still alive.” She takes a cautious step toward me.

  “Sander knows there’s something wrong with me.”

  “I know. He came to me this evening. He told me about your escape from the shelter fires�
�I hadn’t realized you were so close to the flames. And I saw his throat. He said he felt his blood turning cold when you attacked him. I didn’t want to believe him.” She rolls her eyes. “His instability after the battle made it easy for me to dismiss him, no matter how solid he has been since.”

  I draw my hand through my hair. “What was his theory?”

  “He was at a loss. But he thought it might have been the arcing light that hit you as well. He didn’t seem to think you were doing it intentionally.”

  “If he tells anyone, I’m dead anyway, Thyra. You’ve heard the talk around camp. They’ll happily stone me just to make themselves feel a little safer.” Our eyes meet. “Maybe I should let them.”

  “Stop that. Sander hasn’t told anyone. I ordered him to stay silent, or I would kill him for telling lies.”

  “He wouldn’t be lying.” I inch backward, glancing around for my dagger. It was my sharpest.

  “Looking for this?” She slides it out of the folds of her cloak.

  “Sometimes I hate you.”

  The corner of her mouth lifts. “No, you don’t.”

  My gaze drops to her lips and then away, because the sight weakens my resolve. “I can’t stay, Thyra. I’m dangerous.”

  “You’ve always been dangerous.” Her voice is heavy and makes me shiver.

  “I can’t control this.” I wave in the direction of camp, toward the burned shells of the two shelters I razed with fiery dreaming. “It’s a wonder I haven’t killed someone yet. I think that’s what she wanted.” I get to my feet, drawing a dull dagger from my boot as I do. “It’s why she let me live. She sent me back here to hurt our people. But I won’t let her use me.”

  Thyra sheathes the dagger I dropped, tucking it under the rope belt that holds her breeches up. She watches me cautiously, a look I recognize from the fight circle. She’s waiting for me to move. “Is there a chance it will go away? Wear off?”

  I think of the way my red birthmark throbs as the cursed ice and fire rush through me. “It’s inside me, Thyra. Like a fever.”

  “It’s possible to overcome a fever.”

  I let out a bitter chuckle. “Like the one that killed your mother and Hilma?”

  “But left me and my father alive. Many others as well. Those who were strong enough.”

  I take a step back. “There are some things that can’t be borne or survived, no matter how strong the warrior. Some wounds are fatal.”

  She frowns. “Is it making you sick? You do look dead on your feet.”

  “This will be my fourth night without sleep,” I say quietly.

  “You can’t expect to be strong and well if you don’t rest.”

  “When I rest, things catch fire. When I’m scared, things freeze. When I wish for wind, it rises from nowhere and gusts hard over the camp.” I swirl my dagger in the air, hot frustration coursing through me. “That happens even when I don’t wish for it!”

  As if to mock me, a burst of warm wind whirls around Thyra, blowing her short hair. She blinks as it makes her cloak flap. “I don’t know what to make of this,” she says unsteadily. “Did you really do that?”

  “Not on purpose.”

  “Can you control it at all?”

  I bite my lip and turn away. “As you have pointed out many times, control is not my strong suit.”

  “But maybe if you . . . try? You made the flames settle down in the shelter just now.”

  “I didn’t make them do anything! I just looked at them!”

  “Have you truly made an effort?” She takes a few slow steps closer to me, and I can’t bring myself to retreat. “You’re so strong, Ansa. Maybe you can keep it imprisoned inside?”

  Tears burn my eyes. “I’m trying.”

  Her eyes crinkle with what looks like pity, and she closes the distance between us. She catches my wrist, her fingers sliding down to mine where I clutch my dagger tight. “Don’t make me take another weapon from you tonight.”

  “You have to let me go,” I whisper, even as I ache to lay my head on her shoulder.

  Her fingertips smooth the hair off my brow, and as I did not do with Jaspar, I let her. “Your skin is so warm,” she murmurs. “It always has been.”

  “Only when you touch it,” I breathe, barely giving sound to the thought.

  “I won’t let you go this easily, Ansa. I can’t.”

  I look up at her face, lit by moonlight. “Your leadership is being tested at every turn. How can you—”

  “That’s why I can’t.” Her forehead touches mine, and my fingers go slack, dropping the dull blade. “You’re the only person I trust in this entire camp.”

  I can’t breathe. I’m too shaky inside, working hard to keep the ice and fire in a cage.

  “If you abandon me, I don’t think I’ll make it,” she whispers.

  My eyes fall shut, and my throat tightens as she swipes hot tears from my cheeks. I grab her hands and pull them from my face. Warriors do not behave like snotty-nosed babes, and I am embarrassing myself. In front of my chieftain. “I’m sorry,” I say hoarsely.

  “We survived the witch queen’s storm. We survived the journey back.” She takes me by the shoulders, refusing to let me turn away. “We will survive this. We’ll show the witch queen that her curse is not strong enough to destroy the Krigere.”

  “You make it sound so easy.” I choke on a sob and wrench myself away, feeling the ice creeping along my bones, pushing through my skin and crystallizing like frost on marsh grass.

  Her eyes flash with anger. “You make it sound like she’s already beaten you. Have you surrendered before fighting to your last breath?”

  I rub the cold sweat from my arms. “This is not an enemy with a blade.”

  “What does it matter? It’s an enemy nonetheless. And you’re a warrior.”

  I look down at the dagger at my feet.

  “Do you remember the day you earned that title?” she asks.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Truly, it seems as if you’ve forgotten.”

  I snatch the dull blade from the ground.

  “Sander left you in a heap, bleeding in the dirt. They all thought you’d lost.”

  I remember the cheers as he walked away from me, and then Thyra shouting my name, cutting through the haze of defeat. “He turned his back because he thought I wouldn’t get up.”

  She smiles. “The sight of you leaping onto his back, the sound that came out of his mouth when you bit him . . .” Her laugh melts the rest of the frost on my skin. “I may have been the only one who wasn’t surprised.”

  “That was different.”

  “It’s not different at all. This curse has bloodied you, Ansa, but you’re not dead yet.” She ducks her head until I’m looking at her again. “And until you are, you have no right to surrender if you wish to call yourself a warrior.”

  My shoulders slump. “If I were to hurt our people . . .”

  “I won’t let you.” She pries the dagger from my grip and sheathes it at my wrist before slipping her hand into mine. “We’ll find a way to suppress it. If there’s a way to lift this curse, we’ll puzzle it out.”

  “We have no idea what we’re dealing with.” Even as I say it, I remember—Cyrill had a Kupari slave. If I can find her and question her, perhaps she can tell me more about the witch queen’s magic. Cyrill’s shelter is a bit of a hike, but maybe—

  “Come back to my shelter,” Thyra says. “We need to rest before we leave tomorrow.”

  When I hesitate, she tugs my hand. “We’ll sleep in shifts. I’ll watch over you, then you watch over me.” Her smile is uncertain but so sweet that I want to taste it. “I’ll wake you if anything starts to smoke.”

  “I’ll come, but you must promise you’ll let me go if . . .”

  She squeezes my hand. “If it comes to that, you’ll talk to your chieftain.” She raises her eyebrows, and the laugh bursts from me unbidden. Then she leads me back to her shelter. I can practically feel the glares of Jaspar’s gu
ards as we trudge past their post, but I don’t look up. The weight of relief and gratitude is so heavy on me that I can barely lift my feet. Thyra guides me onto her own blanket and wraps it over me. “You’ll be better able to rid yourself of this curse if you aren’t half dead from exhaustion. Rest, Ansa. I’m depending on you.”

  If I trusted myself, I would touch her face. But I am afraid I would burn her. “I’m sorry for asking this,” I say quietly. “What is your plan?”

  I hold my breath as she cups my cheek in her palm. “It’s a worthy question, and you don’t need to be sorry.” She sighs. “My father would never have wanted us to be led by a traitor. But not only that—I don’t trust Nisse to do right by our widows. He put forth some very backward ideas when he was still a member of our tribe, and I don’t want that to infect us now, especially when they are so vulnerable. We have a commitment to honor with our andeners—and to the memory of our fallen brothers and sisters—and I am responsible for seeing it through.”

  Now I understand why she was discussing sowing crops in the spring. How else could we keep thousands of bellies full, with so few warriors to journey out to raid and hunt? “I don’t suppose we could send a contingent of warriors while the rest of us remain here.”

  She shakes her head. “Jaspar was very clear. Our andeners are valuable, and Nisse requires their presence in Vasterut.”

  “Is it possible his intentions are good?”

  “I don’t know. I just . . . hope he will be willing to move on from the past.”

  She shakes her head, as if she were casting off something heavy, and not for the first time, I wonder what really happened last winter, and why she won’t talk about it. “Go to sleep,” she says, turning her face away. “I mean it.”