The Cursed Queen

by Sarah Fine

  Sig moves aside and lets me pass him at the entrance, then summons a fire to burn in the archway to discourage anyone else from following us. The courtyard is still a churning storm of humanity, and the riders are approaching the base of the hill that holds our tower. We only have a few minutes to—

  There’s a crash and a thunk, and I whirl around to see Sig hit the ground in a boneless sprawl. His fire dies, and I blink in the sudden gray wash of daylight. Jaspar stands just inside the arch with a chunk of splintered wood in his hands. Sig’s blood decorates the edge of it. “Kauko wanted him alive,” he says to me as he kneels next to Sig and feels for the pulse at his throat.

  I back up, brandishing Sander’s dagger as Jaspar rises to his feet. He wears a smirk that hardens his face and makes him look more like his father. “Lovely disguise. The paunch is a particularly nice touch.”

  I grit my teeth and keep my eyes on him as I shed the overlarge black robe and yank the pillow from my middle.

  Jaspar chuckles as he watches me tighten the rope around my waist. “I suppose it would be difficult to tussle with one’s pants around one’s ankles,” he says, then purses his lips. “Depending on what type of tussling we’re talking about.”

  “The kind that leaves you bleeding at my feet.”

  “Are you going to kill me, Ansa?”

  “Like you killed Sander?” My grief is a clenched fist in my chest.

  “Can you blame me? Sander turned on us!”

  “He was your best friend,” I shout. “And he was serving his chieftain.”

  “It didn’t matter,” he says. “Like you, he didn’t choose us.”

  My brow furrows at his flat, cold tone. “Where’s Thyra?”

  He arches an eyebrow. “Are you imagining you’ll rescue her?” he asks, tossing his wood club to the side and drawing his dagger, still stained with Sander’s blood.

  “I’m not imagining,” I say, dropping into my fight stance.

  He grins. “Ah, Ansa. This is what I love about you. It’s always so simple. Fight. Kill. I envy you that.”

  Simple—fight, kill. Right now nothing could be further from the truth. “I suppose I’ve changed. You don’t know me at all.”

  His amusement falls away. “I wanted to, though. That was real. It always has been.”

  “Liar. You wanted to control me. You wanted to steer me in whatever direction suited you and your father. You soothed me and comforted me—you tried to stop me from thinking! I’m not your dog, Jaspar. I’m nobody’s dog.”

  “That’s not how it was. Think about what we shared,” he says, circling slowly—putting himself between me and the spiraling stone staircase.

  “I am thinking now.” Finally. Finally, I can see it clearly. That moment I heard Thyra’s footsteps in the wood, the instant I pushed Jaspar away from me—the look of triumph on his face as he saw her there. “What I think is that you were always trying to hurt her. You used me to do it.”

  His lip curls. “An added benefit. The kissing was quite nice as well, however.”

  “Did you know that your father was going to poison her? Were you in on it all along, even from the beginning?”

  He stops his circling, because now he’s between me and the stairs. “Was I in on it?” He closes his eyes and breathes in, then exhales his deadly truth. “Ansa, I did it all. I’m the one who poisoned her cup.”

  A chill runs across my skin. “And Nisse?”

  “Doesn’t know. And doesn’t ever need to.”

  And in the moment it takes me to swallow my new reality, he attacks. I barely parry his strike. His fist collides with my stomach, sending me staggering back, but I get my feet up in time to kick him away. When I roll to my feet, sucking hard to get enough air into my lungs, my magic pulsing inside me loud as my heart, Jaspar is waiting.

  “If I had my way, and if Thyra hadn’t ruined everything,” he says, “all this would have been over a year ago. My father would have been Lars’s heir, and the succession would have shifted to our line.”

  “And you saw yourself as the someday-chieftain,” I say, the words bitter as bile. “For all your questions, this was never about loyalty for you. It was about your thirst for power.”

  “Power is the only thing worth having! I am a true Krigere. So is my father. So are you, Ansa.”

  “I don’t yet know what I am,” I admit. “But now I know why I fight.” I slice at his dagger hand, quick as lightning, fire magic tingling so hard inside me that sparks fly off the edge of my weapon.

  Jaspar’s eyes go wide as he sees the flame dripping from my blade, and then he laughs. “Careful, Ansa. Wouldn’t want you to burn yourself again.”

  Me neither. Though the cuff of Astia is warm and comforting and heavy on my arm, I don’t know how to use it—no one ever taught me. And the fear of all the times I’ve lost control still looms. Even as Sig’s exasperated command to be echoes in my head, I push down the magic as best I can. I know how dangerous it is, and I haven’t had time to practice.

  Jaspar charges me again, not intimidated in the slightest—he’s seen the magic turn on me over and over. We collide, and this is no friendly tussle—his jaw is hard and his blows are merciless, and soon I’m fighting just to soften his strikes and keep them from my most vulnerable spots. The fire and ice crackles in my chest, as if offering to take over, and my breath gushes icy from my mouth when he lands a solid hit to my side.

  I dive for the ground and roll, desperate to catch my breath, and then I hear Sander’s voice in my head, almost as if he’s next to me. The way he always used to analyze an opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, because he knew I never bothered to notice—I just fought with instinct. I always thought he was showing off, but now I realize . . . he was trying to help. He was being my true brother. My true friend. Jaspar is weaker in the forearms and wrists, he whispers. Stretch him out so he can’t use his chest and upper arms to power in those blows and strikes.

  I jump to my feet and backtrack just as Jaspar comes forward again, and as he pursues me, I dance just out of his reach, dodging and slashing at his hands, his fingers. His mocking smile becomes a grimace of frustration. “You’re running out of time,” he says between heavy breaths. “Those riders are going to charge in here at any minute and kill us both. That was probably Thyra’s plan all along.” He spits on the floor.

  “You, of all people, accuse her of being conniving?”

  “Isn’t she? You claim I used you—but you don’t think she’s done the same thing?”

  Somewhere in the near distance, a horn sounds off. The distant rumble of horse hooves reaches us, vibrating through the stones beneath our feet. “Maybe she has,” I admit. “She is a chieftain, and that’s her prerogative. But I think she just wanted me to be my best self.” Now I see her for what she is—human, striving, aspiring, reaching past power to cling to the light, and hoping others will do the same.

  “So I guess that leaves it up to me to choose.” I feint, and he lunges forward to block it. Leaping to the side, I slice downward, opening a gash in his sword arm. He cries out and hits the ground, and I jump away as he grabs for my legs.

  I back up—the stairs are now just behind me. “You were right. I choose her,” I say. “I’m nobody’s dog. But I guess I’ll always be her wolf.”

  I have another choice now, as Jaspar gasps and cradles his arm to his chest. I could continue this fight until I finish him. Or I can go after Thyra. And it’s not just her I’m trying to save. I glance over at Sig, who is stirring against the wall just inside the tower entrance. If anyone comes barreling in, he’ll be safe from being trampled. I look out into the daylight of the courtyard, where a din of war cries battles with the thunder of horses for supremacy. And then my eyes meet Jaspar’s, and they shine green and pleading.

  But I feel nothing for him. No love. No regret. No rage. “We are not tribe,” I say. “And if I ever see you again, you will not survive it.”

  I leave the would-be prince of Vasterut to face the onc
oming horde and sprint up the steps.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I barrel upward with Sander’s dagger clenched tightly at my side. Every single breath hurts. I wince and wrap my arm around my ribs, and my hand comes away slick with blood. Vaguely, I realize Jaspar must have sliced me, and perhaps I am just propelled by magic and will. If so, I’ll collapse when I’m done. But not until then. I am strong enough for this.

  My love for Thyra and my faith in her vision beats relentlessly inside me, as strong as any fire or ice. I don’t know exactly what she wants for our tribe, but I know what she believes in. I know she loves her warriors. And I know she loves me, enough to let me figure out my path.

  I am nearly to the level that holds Nisse’s chamber when a pair of hands shoots out from the floor below and yanks me off the stairs. I stagger and start to bring my dagger up, but wide brown eyes and a wild spray of black hair stops me cold. “You’re alive,” I say stupidly.

  “Thanks to Sander,” Halina says sadly. Then her brows draw together. “You’re bleeding bad, little red.” She comes forward, pulling her apron up to press it to my side.

  I gasp at the pressure and agony of it. “Where’s Thyra?”

  “Old Nisse has her up at the very top,” she says. “Don’t know what he’s going to do.”

  “Is she hurt?” I saw her go down, hard.

  “Don’t really know,” she says. “After Sander shoved me inside, I hid behind a tapestry until Nisse and the guard were gone. But they’re waiting at the top of the stairs. You can’t go that way.”

  “I have to try. Sander told me the foreign fighters and the resistance will spare the warriors if Thyra is established as chieftain.”

  She gives a quick, curt nod. “Efren was waiting for the riders on the other side of the stake-wall. He escaped through a tunnel as Nisse’s guard tried to arrest him. But our people can’t be easily appeased, little red. So many hungry for blood.”

  “Does Thyra know all of this?”

  “She negotiated the agreement. Got a promise of cooperation from her warriors, that they wouldn’t get in our fighters’ way.”

  “The whole story about them emerging through a tunnel—that was a lie, wasn’t it? You made sure I overheard it, hoping I would take the information to Nisse.”

  Her mouth twists in apology and she takes a few steps away from me, as if she’s afraid I’ll strike at her. “Had to make him believe it, little red. And if it came from you as well as—”

  “I know. It’s all right. You knew I would try to protect my tribe.”

  “That I did.” She smiles. “Always clawing your way to the light. All any of us can do.” She rubs at her round cheeks, and I see the tearstains there. “But it went all wrong on the parapet. Sander and Thyra thought they could best Nisse and Jaspar, but those two . . .”

  I swallow back the cost of their victory. “Now Nisse holds captive the one person we need to survive the day.”

  Tentatively, she squeezes my arm. “I’ll help you get to Thyra. You’re the only one who might be able to do it.” She touches the cuff around my wrist. “That crazy boy said he would get this for you.”

  “He’s downstairs.”

  “Dead?”

  I shake my head. “Hurt, though.”

  She frowns. “So many will die today.”

  My cheeks burn—she is not saying as much as she could. All these weeks, she’s held back, maybe out of kindness, perhaps out of hope that I would come to it on my own.

  This is the price of their freedom, won back from those who took it from them—my people.

  “I’ll do whatever I can, Halina.”

  “Then so will I.”

  My brain shifts through my memories of the top levels of the tower. “How high can we get?”

  “There are windows maybe two lengths of a man below the top. And the guards are just beneath that trapdoor.”

  “How many?”

  “Six. And they have nothing to lose.”

  But maybe I could save them, too. Not by confronting them, though. “Can you distract them?”

  She bites her lip. “I can try.”

  “That’s all any of us can do. Come on.” I re-enter the staircase with her behind me, my dagger drawn. Below us, I imagine I can hear the shouts of warriors, but it may just be the roaring in my ears or the rush of magic in my veins. I need it now. I can’t go without it anymore. But that means I have to trust the foreign thing inside me. I have to accept it as mine. I have to accept it as me. And suddenly, Sig’s instruction makes sense. My heart races as I consider what I’m about to do, and I barely breathe as we creep our way to the level just beneath the guard. Halina is utterly silent behind me, a ghost tracing my steps. She grips my wrist as we huddle in the corridor outside the staircase.

  “What are you going to do?”

  I sheathe Sander’s dagger and look down at my hands. “Claw my way toward the light, I suppose.” And hope she’s still alive when I reach her. I walk toward a window set into the curved outer wall of this narrower level near the top. We are two levels above the parapet, and I can see much of the city from here—the streets are filled with people, too far away to discern if they’re fleeing or fighting or rioting or cheering. I look to the east, but the view is obscured by a cluster of tall shelters. I can only hope Preben and Bertel have kept our warriors in safety as the world collapses around them.

  Cautiously, I lean out and look up. Three of my body lengths above me, I see the round, flat wall that rings the roof of the tower, the place where Jaspar and I sparred, the place where he tried to poison me, not with powder or toxic berries, but with carefully crafted words. And now Nisse is up there with my chieftain while doom closes in.

  “Give me a few minutes,” I whisper. “If my body doesn’t plummet past this window, do your best to keep the attention of those guards.”

  “And you?” She points at the cuff. “Are you Kupari or Krigere right now?”

  I lift the cuff to the light, examining the blood-red runes along its surface. “I’m both,” I say, knowing only as I hear myself speaking that this is the only way I can be, and that it will never be simple again. “From now on I will always be both.”

  Refusing to let terror close its fingers around my heart and mind, I jump onto the stone sill and dig my fingers into the rough spaces between jagged rocks. I will have eyes only for the sky. Please, I whisper to the magic, do not let me fall. We are together in this.

  A hard breeze gusts at my back, pushing me against the outer wall of the tower. I think that’s all the reassurance I’m going to get. With my whole body clenched tight, I begin to climb, slowly inching toward the top. It’s not terribly far, but from my position clinging to the side of the tower, it feels like miles. Sweat beads and trickles from my brow, but is dried by the steady wind at my back. I don’t know if it’s a gift from the Torden or the push of my magic, and I don’t care. All my focus is on not falling to my death. I kick and wiggle my toes into crags and crevices, pushing my bleeding fingers into any place that will give me a good hold. I ignore the throbbing pain in my side, the slick smear of blood as my belly slides upward.

  Finally, when I am just beneath the edge of the roof, I hear the low rumble of Nisse’s voice. “By now Jaspar will be on his way to our warriors,” he is saying. “You’ve made a nice effort, but like before, you will fail to defeat us.”

  “I hope your arrogance comforts you as you die at the hands of black-robed invaders,” Thyra says, then seems to stifle a whimper of pain.

  I press my forehead to the stones and hold in a sob made of fear and relief. She’s alive, and she’s at his mercy. And if I go up there now, Nisse’s personal guard will flood through the trapdoor and—

  A huge crash echoes up from somewhere below me, followed by a scream. “Witch,” Halina shrieks. “Witch!” She lets out another bloodcurdling wail that cuts off suddenly.

  She is possibly the cleverest person I’ve ever known.

  “Ansa is coming,�
� Thyra says weakly. “It seems your pet magic wielder couldn’t keep her caged.”

  Nisse curses. “Hold her back,” he shouts, presumably to his guards. “She can’t control that magic—if you can keep her at bay, it will turn on her! Go!”

  I’m about to find out if he’s right. With one last burst of effort, I heave myself up and over the side, rolling onto the floor of the roof and rising unsteadily to a crouch. Nisse is standing over the door, and Thyra is sitting at his feet. His thick fingers are curled into her hair, and she’s bleeding from a gash somewhere in her hair. She’s ghastly pale, but her gaze is clear as she focuses on me, just a moment before Nisse notices my presence.

  He curses and drags her up, holding her back pressed to his chest, a shield. “So you were in on the scheme too?” he asks. “Jaspar said you couldn’t lie to save your life. Another mistake.” His face is drawn tight with fear as he slides a dagger from its sheath and holds it pressed to Thyra’s throat.

  Thyra’s eyes meet mine. “Ansa wasn’t part of the plot. She found her way here on her own.” Her mouth is curved into a pained smile.

  “She used you, Ansa,” Nisse says. “She’s always used you. She had your Vasterutian attendant plant the story and—”

  “I know all that already.” I take a step forward, my fingers tingling. “I know everything, and I still made my choice.”

  “You’ll die up here with us, then.”

  “Maybe. Or you could let her go and allow her to save us all. Your son is the true schemer, Nisse. He tried to poison Thyra—she merely discovered the trap and struck back. Jaspar’s greed and deception was the birth of all your suffering—and your thirst for power allowed you to nurture it.”

  Thyra’s eyes flicker with a sudden uncertainty, as do Nisse’s. “You’re better at telling lies than I ever imagined,” he says.

  “No, I’m not. Let her go. You didn’t try to poison her. You can undo the damage Jaspar has done—to her and to you, and to everyone else.”

  “Uncle?” Thyra asks in a strained voice.

  He takes a quick step back, bringing him within a few paces of the low wall. “Or I could wait until Jaspar marshals all the warriors who went to the eastern part of the city. Once they surround this place, the fighters of the south will be forced to bargain.”