The Cursed Queen

by Sarah Fine

  I should tell her the truth. Or at least admit that we’re lucky I didn’t just kill everyone out on the marsh, that the curse broke free and it took everything I had to hold it back. But the way she’s looking at me keeps me silent. The spark of desire in her eyes turns my blood hot.

  Her fingers slide over my cheek. “Oh, there’s that warmth I was missing.”

  When her lips touch mine, shock explodes inside me, but also happiness, pure and fierce. Thyra pulls back quickly, looking stunned, possibly a mirror of my own expression. “I’ve been telling myself not to do that,” she says.

  She shouldn’t have. I’m not worthy of it. But . . . “Just give me this moment.” Any compromise. Any bargain. I need her lips on mine again.

  As soon as she nods, I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her body to me, and she takes my face in her hands, lifting my chin. I rise on my tiptoes, my tongue sliding hungrily along her bottom lip, our chests touching, my whole body tingling. This, I think. This I would happily kill for, every day of my life. I press her closer, craving more even though I know very well that if she knew about my lies, she wouldn’t want to touch me at all. It’s a stolen treasure, and I am the greediest of thieves.

  Thyra lets out a whimper and pulls back, tugging my wrists away from her body. “Too hot,” she gasps. My throat tightens as I see the black scorch marks on her tunic. Horror rushes in like the black water of the marsh, quenching the flames of my joy. I give her a pained look, still burning at the loss of her kiss.

  She gives me an unsteady smile. “I know you’re still trying to figure it out, and I know you’ll succeed, just like you figured out how to save Gry’s family. You’ll make this curse your dog. It will cringe at your feet.”

  I stare at the black, singed fabric just above her belt. Her smooth skin lies just beneath it, so fragile. So precious. I was seconds away from setting her aflame.

  This curse is far from tamed.

  I force a smile. “Of course I will.”

  She kisses my cheek, a flutter of sweetness. Her body is shaking. “Maybe all you need is practice,” she says breathlessly, her cheeks pink and lovely. She looks into my eyes for a moment, then lets out a sudden, surprised, unbearably bright laugh. “I never thought I would be happy again after all that’s happened.”

  Then she turns and marches up the trail.

  I follow her, hope and dread waging a war inside me.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Over the next few days I am very careful, but Sander stares at me whenever we’re near each other. Still, he hasn’t said anything, and the farther we go, the more days we have without mention of witchcraft, the more I begin to feel almost normal again. Finally, we reach a vast stretch of dunes, and the sun sets on our left instead of our right, and I realize I’m facing north. We’ve hiked halfway around the great lake.

  “Tomorrow!” Jaspar announces as the warriors in our camp crouch in front of the main fire for the evening meal. “After one final push we’ll be at the gates of Vasterut by sundown. I’ve sent riders ahead to let them know of our approach.”

  “So there’s no escape,” mutters Bertel as he warms his gnarled hands, looking at Thyra with concern. In the last few days, she seems to have won over many. I think many of the warriors who were left behind during the invasion were the ones with milder spirits anyway, but Thyra’s endless efforts to connect with them, to listen, to speak with wisdom, appear to have solidified the support of our tribe—as did our rescue of the andeners and children on the marsh. I was afraid it would be seen as overcautious, but in the end, many warriors were shamed by their failure to protect our widows, as was their duty to their fallen brothers and sisters. Thyra’s unfailing dedication to that purpose, her willingness to sacrifice herself to save them, and her steady refusal to apologize for it have all reached them, and I am so proud of her that it makes my heart hurt.

  She hasn’t kissed me again. We haven’t had a moment. But she sits closer to me at meals, and lies near at night. Every time her skin touches mine, I shiver and tell myself to focus. I am working to get over my terror at nearly burning her so that I can earn the pleasure of touching her again. It is impossible not to resent the curse for stealing that joy from me.

  Her shoulder nudges mine as she turns to slap Bertel on the back. “We have each other, brother, and we’ll face our future together. United.”

  Jaspar’s green eyes meet mine over the fire, and then he looks at Thyra. His handsome face twists into a grimace as he wings a pebble into the fire, throwing up sparks. I wonder if he senses something has changed between us. He hasn’t approached me in days.

  “I still want you to be his friend,” Thyra says. “He knows more than he’s sharing. I need to know Nisse’s intentions.”

  “How do you know he hasn’t shared everything with Sander? Our earless brother is standing right next to the new prince of Vasterut.” He’s speaking to Jaspar in low tones while he casts suspicious glances my way, no less. On Sander’s other side, Aksel isn’t bothering to glance. He’s glaring at me and Thyra with his jaw set as he waits for his share of hard biscuit and dried meat. We’re down to our last rations, and tomorrow we’ll be hungry until we reach our destination.

  “I’ve never been to a city,” I say to Thyra. “Have you?”

  She shakes her head. “Father said they were like camps, but that the buildings are set on stone blocks, and sometimes they are tall.”

  “How tall?”

  “As the trees in the forest.”

  My eyes go wide. “How is that possible?”

  “We always used wood to build boats, to explore. Other tribes use wood to root themselves in one place.”

  “Which is exactly what we would do if you’d had your way, right?” Aksel says to her as he plops down on my left.

  Her smile disappears. “Can you truly not tell the difference between a plan to provide for a populace and the complete abandonment of who we are as a people?”

  He gives her a quizzical look. “I suppose not. You were going to strap us to plows like oxen.”

  “How else did you propose we eat, after nineteen out of twenty of our hunters and raiders were killed?” Thyra leans around me to look Aksel in the eye. “Be at peace with it, Aksel. Your father challenged me. If he had trusted in my leadership, he would still be at your side.”

  Aksel grimaces and shoots to his feet, so violently that he stumbles. “Someone had to do it,” he mutters.

  “What?” I snap.

  He takes a few unsteady steps back from the fire. He’s drawn most of the eyes around the fire, and he looks into each as he raises a waterskin in Jaspar’s direction. “I am grateful to be in this company,” he says in a loud voice. “Grateful to be entering the embrace of a true leader.” His red-rimmed eyes are shining with grief and he looks unhinged. “As a Krigere I want to hold my head high and my sword higher!”

  It’s the kind of statement that would usually draw shouts of agreement, so it’s a testament to how much work Thyra’s done on this journey that he’s greeted only with strained grumbles of appreciation over the sentiment, if not the insult to Thyra’s leadership.

  I slowly curl my fingers around the hilt of my dagger as Aksel draws his and thrusts it at the sky. “Does no one hear me?” he roars, a tear slipping down his cheek, shining on his almost-faded black eye.

  “I hear you,” Thyra says.

  I jerk my head around to look at her. She’s risen and is facing him. Her face is smooth, not red-cheeked and petulant with offense. “You grieve,” she says. “And I grant you one final night to howl and rage.” She slides a blade from the hilt strapped to her rope belt, and I feel the tension around the fire heighten just like the flames, which respond to my own rising emotions.

  Thyra steps around me, putting herself within striking distance of Aksel and showing she is not intimidated by his wild-eyed posturing. “But make no mistake, Aksel. If you cannot put this aside by the time we reach the walls of Vasterut, if you cannot show me the resp
ect I am owed as your chieftain, I will leave you drowning in your own blood at the gates.” She drops one leg back and spreads her arms just slightly, the graceful arc that indicates she’s ready to fight, ready to strike. “Or I could do it now, if it will relieve your pain.”

  Aksel’s face is crimson, though whether it’s from humiliation or the roaring flames, I know not. His muscles are knotted, and his hair is a tangled mess around his grimy face. His knuckles are white as he grips his dagger, and his hand is shaking.

  I take in the expressions of the warriors around the fire, and I know they see what I do—if Aksel strikes at Thyra, she will destroy him. Yes, he is taller, with better reach, though not by much. He outweighs her by at least a stone. But he has always been a step slower than most of us, and no one is faster than Thyra is—or better able to read her opponent’s moves before he makes them.

  “Put it down, lad,” Bertel says, his deep voice obliterating the taut silence. “It’s the last thing we need tonight. Let our chieftain eat her biscuit in peace.”

  Aksel looks over at Jaspar and Sander, who are standing still as boulders on the other side of the fire. Sten, the dark-haired warrior who criticized Thyra’s decision about the ropes, looks like he agrees with Aksel, but Jaspar shakes his head and lets out a weary chuckle. “I don’t know about you, Aksel, but I’m disinclined to fight on an empty stomach. Use that waterskin to wash this down.” He tosses his own biscuit over the fire, and it hits Aksel in the chest.

  Aksel blinks and steps back abruptly, sheathing his dagger as he does. He smiles like his lips are being wrenched up with metal hooks. “I suppose I could use a good meal. It’s been days,” he says, his voice unsteady. He picks up the biscuit and dusts sand off it. “Many thanks, Jaspar.”

  Shoving the hard lump of flour and salt and lard in his pocket, he marches toward the shore, his strides jerky and stiff.

  “That boy needs an andener. Immediately,” says the warrior named Carina, twirling her thick braid and rolling her hips, and everyone bursts into guffaws, probably not as much because of the joke as with gratitude that the tension has been shattered.

  Thyra is smiling as she sinks back down onto the sand, but her muscles are still drawn tight with readiness. She accepts the toasts of our warriors and the begrudging nods of a few of Jaspar’s—it seems her quiet confidence has impressed them as well. “Follow Aksel,” she says in my ear as everyone returns their attention to their food. “Make sure he’s keeping wise.”

  I meet her eyes. “You’re afraid he’ll do something rash?”

  “He’s lost his grip on reason. I wouldn’t put it past him to poison my water or sabotage the horses. Give him space, but watch him.”

  “I’m your wolf,” I whisper, and stuff the rest of my biscuit into my mouth. It tastes as good as I imagine the sand beneath my feet would. I pull a strip of dried meat from my pocket and chew on it while I follow Aksel’s trail through camp, where people are settled around small fires among the gently sloping dunes. His footsteps turn abruptly at the edge of camp, cutting toward the shore, and I peer around me, noticing his mother—Edvin’s widow—gathered with a few others near a small fire of their own. She gives me a hard look as I disappear around the edge of a massive sand hill and follow a rocky slope toward the pebbled beach. Stony outcroppings jut toward the water every several yards, and waves reach for them and fall short with each grasping effort. Aksel is nowhere to be found.

  I eye the ground and see a smashed sprig of greenery, freshly downtrodden. Thyra didn’t want me to get too close, but I need to make sure Aksel’s not looping back to ambush her at the western edge of camp. Surprise is his only hope of beating her. My steps quicken, but I plant my feet on larger rocks to avoid the crunching sounds that would announce my approach.

  I pick my way along slowly, peering around each outcropping and expecting to see Aksel, but he’s gone. Finally, as the sun kisses the water, I lean against a boulder and sigh. I must have missed his trail. I’ve never been the best tracker—I’m better at charging in and killing head on. And I’d better get back. I turn to retrace my steps.

  The blow comes from above, a hard punch to the side of my face that sends me sprawling in the sand. Panting, I roll onto my back and draw a dagger, blinking up at the dark form descending on me.

  “You’re not Thyra, but you’ll do.”

  I roll sharply to the side as I hear the malevolent whisper of a blade being drawn. “Aksel, cut it out.”

  The kick lands right in my ribs, and my breath explodes from my mouth. “What’s a warrior without her wolf?” he asks in a low, shaky voice.

  “Still strong enough to kill a conniving weasel,” I say, launching myself to my feet even as my lungs scream for air. Fury courses through my veins, hotter by the second. I leap back as Aksel slashes at me, a clumsy swipe of his blade, but I misjudge his distance in the shadowed twilight. Pain slices across the top of my forearm, forcing me to stifle a cry. “For heaven’s sake, Aksel, this isn’t a fight circle!”

  “Right, this is the real world, Ansa. And you’re serving the wrong master.” He stabs at me, but I throw myself to the side and parry the blow. His dark eyes glitter wetly in the gathering dark. “She’ll betray you, too, you know. As soon as you cease to be useful.”

  “Thyra’s never betrayed anyone.”

  “That’s what she’d like people to believe.”

  I take a step back. “Aksel, I know you’re grieving. But Thyra would give her life for this tribe.” My throat tightens. “She wouldn’t have traveled to Vasterut if the threat to us hadn’t been grave.”

  “From what I hear, she created that threat!”

  “Who have you been talking to?” But even as I ask, I know. It can only have been Jaspar and his warriors.

  Aksel’s lip curls. “She’s blinded you, Ansa. Ask yourself who had the most to gain from Nisse’s banishment.”

  The accusation sparks in my chest like flint on iron. “Stop blaming her for everything and accept that she’s chieftain now!”

  He lets out a strangled roar and dives at me, and I catch his blade arm as we go tumbling to the ground, rolling over each other in the loose sand. It flies into my eyes and ears and mouth, but I ignore the scrape of it as I jam my knee up to throw him off me. He grunts and jerks upward with the impact, but then flattens himself on top of me, the edge of his dagger pressed to my shoulder as I fight to hold it back. His teeth are bared as he stares down at me.

  My skin flashes hot, and I try to quell the fire in my veins, thinking of ice and snow and cold marsh water even as I hold his wrist, keeping the dagger a few inches from my jugular. “Stop this. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

  He chuckles, the vibrations spreading from his body to mine. “I can be a wolf too, Ansa.”

  My grip tightens as he tries to push his dagger closer to my throat.

  “Thyra doesn’t want what’s best for us,” he says. “She only wants the power, but she doesn’t want to fight.”

  I let out a startled laugh. “She’s ready enough to fight you.”

  “But not the Kupari.”

  “Who cares about that right now? She’s more focused on keeping us whole in Vasterut! Who are you fighting for, Aksel? Yourself? Your family? Or someone else?” Jaspar’s green eyes flash in my mind.

  His only response is to force the blade toward my skin. Panic strikes hard inside me—he’s intent on a killing blow. Aksel, with whom I’ve joked and tussled since childhood, who was one of the first to congratulate me after I became a warrior, who I sat next to in quiet support after he lost the fight to be part of the first wave, both of us staring out at the water and craving what lay across it. And it turns out it’s us, fighting for our lives.

  “Stop.” I gasp as the iron bites at my throat. The pain hits me like a bolt, traveling straight down my spine, awakening heat like I’ve never known before. I stare up at Aksel, my vision going red, lighting his face with an orange glow, enough to see his eyes going wide and his mouth dro
pping open in a grimace.

  “Your eyes!” he cries.

  Taking advantage of his surprise, I roll onto him as he tries to escape me. “Tell me why you’re so intent on killing,” I say as my breath rushes searing from my mouth. “Whose lies have you chosen to believe?”

  Aksel screams, and I keep one hand wrapped over his wrist while I clamp my fingers around his throat. He thrashes beneath me and makes a strangled sound, and I abruptly realize his skin is blistering, sizzling, splitting, and steaming. I throw myself backward, frantically trying to calm my panicked heartbeat, but the pain in my neck, the hot trickle of blood over my throat, the sight of Aksel writhing in the sand, clawing at his chest and stomach . . . The curse will not go quiet, no—it rages and roars. My own flesh burns and stings, and then ice rushes up, making me shudder and ache. This curse works its will, though I try in vain to muscle it down.

  Aksel’s eyes go so wide that I half expect them to pop out of their sockets as his body arches up and begins to smoke. Then, slowly, it sinks back to earth, curling in on itself. He’s still moving, but I realize it’s not because he’s alive, not anymore.

  It’s because I’ve cooked him from the inside, drawing his muscles taut with blazing heat.

  I sag onto the sand, pressing my palm over the wound in my throat. The air is filled with the scent of cooked meat, and I stare up the bluff toward the camp. I’ve just done it again. Lost control. Killed one of my own. Aksel sealed his own fate when he drew my blood, but if anyone sees this, they’ll know I’m cursed. Shaking, I lick my finger and hold it up, nearly crying with relief as I realize the wind is blowing toward the lake.

  Aksel lies, still smoking, in a pathetic ball. His messy hair is gone, and his scalp is a charred dome.

  “Aksel?” a voice shouts from up the beach, jolting me from my dazed pondering.

  It’s Sander.

  I leap to my feet and hook my fingers beneath Aksel’s rigid, greasy shoulders, and I haul him backward, further behind the outcropping that hid him from me in the first place. I can hear Sander’s footsteps on the pebbles—he’s not trying to be stealthy. He shouts Aksel’s name again.