“Don’t be a fool for her,” Aino warned me softly. Then she stepped back, straightening. “Wake me when it’s my turn. And call for me if anything happens,” she said in Drysian, in a tone that indicated Inkar would pay if she didn’t.
Inkar only nodded. Aino shut the servants’ door, but not quietly enough for a graceful exit. “Why does she dislike me so?” Inkar asked.
“You treat her like a servant,” I said.
A line appeared between Inkar’s brows. “She is a servant. And if she were a servant in my father’s court, she would be executed for the way she speaks to her betters.”
“You’re not better than her,” I snapped.
Inkar raised a brow. “I am sorry,” she said. “I did not know you would be angry.”
“That’s because you don’t know me. Aino does.” I walked over to my side of the bed and flopped without taking off my robe.
Inkar did not lie down. She still sat, upright, cross-legged, regarding me. Her dark eyes blinked, shuttering away thoughts that I could not fathom. And I was strangely sorry for that.
I pulled the covers up to my chin and lay still with my hands folded over my belly. But sleep refused to come. My skin tingled, and my blood rushed. All the coffee in the world didn’t help me in the daytime, but now I couldn’t even close my eyes. My lungs heaved without my permission. “Forget it,” I said finally. I sat up and adjusted my robe. “I can’t sleep, anyway. You might as well rest while I get some work done.” Maybe I could use my experience to make a few notes on the curse.
“I will not sleep. I have promised your—I have promised Aino that I will look after you.”
“Well, I can’t lie here.”
Inkar looked out the window at the blue-black night, the pinprick stars that wove through the sky like a tapestry. “Take me to see this city I have agreed to live in,” she said abruptly.
“What?”
“I would like to take a walk.”
“Do you realize how cold it is out there?” I said.
She smiled that sly, sidelong smile. “Are you asking me to keep you warm?”
“No!” I grew hot. Yes. “I only meant—you’re going to have trouble keeping yourself warm.”
She considered. “We go out. We walk until it is too cold. We come back in.”
“It’s already too cold,” I muttered. But if Inkar wanted to see what she’d gotten herself into, this was a good way to show her. Maybe I could find some way to annoy her without accidentally freezing her to death. “All right. But there’s no way you brought warm enough clothing. You’ll have to borrow some of mine.”
I peered out into the hall. My guards stood at either side of the door. One nodded to me, then frowned in confusion when he spotted the fur snowball behind me. “It’s Inkar,” I said. “We’re going for a walk.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” he said. He followed at a sedate pace.
“Saljo, I command you not to laugh at me,” Inkar grumbled. I looked around, confused, then I realized that Saljo was the name of the guard. How could Inkar know his name better than I did?
Saljo snorted. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“This is awful,” Inkar said. She kicked the inside of her skirt. “How am I supposed to protect you in a skirt like this?”
“You’re not supposed to protect me,” I said. “The guards protect me. They protect you, too.”
“I do not need protection,” Inkar replied. “Except you buried my axes under an entire sheep.”
“Right,” I said. I tucked my head, trying to stifle my smile. She was pretty and charming and clever. Was she really allowed to be adorable as well?
Focus on the negative, said Eirhan’s voice in my mind.
I’d almost drowned tonight. My mental Eirhan voice could stuff it.
“Are you sure we should not tell Aino where we are going?” Inkar said Aino’s name delicately.
“Completely sure. She’ll forbid us from going outside and probably mobilize the entire guard to stop us. This way, how will she ever know?”
“She will open your chamber doors to check on you. She will find that both of us are missing. She will panic and mobilize the guard, as you say. She will be furious when she discovers that your life was never in danger.”
“And I’ll tell her that I’m the grand duke and that I can do what I want.” I was proud of myself for saying that with a straight face. Grand duke or no, Aino would treat me like her disobedient daughter. “It’s always easier to ask forgiveness than permission.”
“You say that knowing it is not you Aino will hate,” Inkar reasoned. “She will think the whole thing was my idea.”
“It was your idea.” I grabbed her mittened hand in mine, and though there were layers between us, the pressure of her hand as she squeezed sent a bolt up through my arm and into my belly. “It’s too late to back out now. You’re not even slightly cold yet.”
The night was blessedly still when we stepped outside. No wind to chill us, no snow to settle on us. The stars were a riot across the sky, and the moon a thin, sideways smile. Inkar gasped, coughed, and gasped again.
“Bracing, isn’t it?” I said smugly.
“I have little hairs on the inside of my nose,” Inkar began.
“I didn’t really need to know that.”
“They are all frozen.” Inkar pulled up her scarf to cover the lower half of her face.
“We can turn around, if you like,” I offered.
Her eyes were alight. “No chance. Let us walk.”
So we did. We walked to the palace gate, and Saljo opened the side door for us.
The streets Above were quiet. Most people were inside, asleep. We passed the inn quarter, where light and noise spilled out onto the street, but soon the lane became silent again, lit only by streetlamps. Our shoes chipped away at the black surface of the lake. Under the thick ice, we saw the outlines of fish darting unperturbed beneath our shadows. Inkar knelt and pressed her mitten to the ice. “This is amazing.”
“More than amazing.” I knelt, too, but I was searching for bigger shapes, the citizens who swam and fought denizens of the lake and had their own lives and problems and conspiracies.
“Where I come from, the sea is green, and we cannot see to the bottom,” Inkar said. “We do not walk on the water. We sail, and we pray that the water does not see fit to take us.”
She sounded in awe. She sounded—“Are you afraid of it?”
“You are not?” she retorted.
“Never,” I said, and it was true.
I had seen Inkar flushed from a fight and laughing at a joke; I’d seen her angry and happy and curious. Now she just looked—beautiful. Her face was alight with wonder, so palpable I could almost feel it.
She was looking at me. “Are you all right?”
I had no idea what I was. “You wanted to see the city. Let’s go.”
I took her to the stock exchange, the dowager’s mansion, the grand hunting lodge. I showed her spires and columns and domes carved from ice, and though I could not see her mouth, her wide eyes told me all I needed to know. I took her past the merchant palaces and to the market. The tall houses, with birch frames and rubble fillings, were dark at this hour, but I pointed them out to her one by one.
“That is a bank?” she said doubtfully of one building.
“What do banks look like where you come from?” I asked.
“We do not pay with notes. We pay with silver and gold.” Inkar touched her arm, where her silver coils sat under four layers of sleeves. “We keep our money with us and clip off pieces of our armbands when we wish to buy. No banks necessary.”
“What do you do with all the clippings?” I said.
“We melt them down and make new things. We melt down the coins we bring home, too.”
“And use the notes as fuel?”
A line appeared between her brows. “Of course not.” But her eyelids crinkled, and I knew she was smiling. “My father will bring a dowry of these bands. If you prefer, he
will trade them for notes. They make for nice decoration.”
“Um.” I kept my eyes on the road, watching the fish dart like my thoughts. Trying to pick the right one carefully. “Why would your father come with your dowry if you never intended to win the brideshow?”
“I wrote to him as soon as you presented me to the court. He has not had time to organize a full dowry, but he will make you many pretty promises.” Her eyes dimmed a little, as though she’d told a bitter joke.
“But…” I cast about for the right words. What did Eirhan want me to say, and what did I want to say? “It’s only a trial marriage.”
Inkar cocked her head. “Until eight days have passed.”
“Unless one of us breaks it.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Inkar’s grip on my arm tightened, and her voice took on a stilted quality. “You intend to break it.”
“No,” I said, feeling a burst of shame. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore. “But you didn’t come here thinking you would stay forever.”
“No.” She looked down the road of high-stacked houses, pressed together as if for warmth. “I wanted to see something new.” Her boot scraped against the road.
“Your father’s using you. He used you to get better terms on the treaty, and now that we’re married, he’ll use you to get more.”
Inkar shrugged. “So?”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“I am the twenty-fifth daughter. It is part of my life. People use me.” An emotion I couldn’t quite place gleamed in her eyes. “You are using me, and I do not mind.”
“No, I’m not,” I said automatically.
“Of course you are. Everyone says that if you were not married to me, you would already be married to him.” She squeezed my arm. “I do not blame you. Sigis likes power too much. He would not be content to stay grand consort, as I am.” She raised a brow at me, as if to say I could do worse. “My father despises him.”
“Any expanding warlord would,” I muttered.
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing.” We walked along the fishery stalls, where blood and scales froze to the walls and beams of the tents. “Forgiving your father, I understand. I guess. You didn’t choose to be his daughter. But why would you choose to stay married to me?”
Inkar was silent for a long time, gazing at the snowflake stars. Finally, she said, “I have spent my life trying to show others that I can make something of myself. Living to others’ standards. But when I came here, I resolved to live only for myself. And you chose that.”
“And you’d rather be here than with the Emerald Order?” Not to mention be largely ignored by her father, something I’d tried and failed to accomplish every day before I became grand duke.
Inkar adjusted her scarf. “The order was a challenge. I have conquered it. Some people still say it is not enough, that I am too fragile or that my father helped me.” The sly smile was back. “But even my father said this marriage was impossible.”
I leaned in, pressing my nose to her cheek. Heat rippled over my skin and pooled in my belly. “Lyosha would never have known what to do with you.”
Inkar laughed. “Your brother would never have selected me. I knew as much when I agreed to come. He dislikes… horse riders.”
My wife had the gift of understatement. Lyosha’s entire platform for ruling had been closed off and nationalistic. Originally, he hadn’t wanted a foreign consort at all. It was only through Mother’s great coaxing that he’d agreed to the brideshow. “If you knew he’d be so dismissive, why come? And why…” I searched for the right words. I actually liked Inkar. I cared what she thought about me. “Why were you so pleased to marry me?”
Her hood turned toward me. “The first time I saw you, you looked as bored by your family as I was. Then, when you came into the bridal wing, you were so helpless…” She exhaled softly in laughter.
“Helpless?” I nearly choked on my outrage.
“Helpless. Panicked. You were like a doe.”
“I was not.” I laughed incredulously. The sound bounced off the silent buildings to either side.
“You were. And I think it is why you chose me. Because I am the hunter. Good for pursuing does.” She squeezed my hand again. “And fighting off pale bears.”
I was surrounded by hunters. Sigis hunted my title. Reko hunted my power. Someone hunted my life. But Inkar protected me. She wasn’t my hunter; she was my herd.
“Do you know why I picked you?” I said. “I picked you because you laughed at me.” And perhaps I shouldn’t have told her, but it made her laugh again, and I found I didn’t mind that.
After thirty minutes, every step Inkar took wobbled, and I dragged her back to my rooms. Her cheeks were an angry red and she leaned over to stoke the fire with a groan. “I will never be warm again.”
“Of course you will,” I said. The best way to get warm would have been to press together in my bed to share body heat. But I wasn’t about to suggest that. Instead, I pulled off my clothes, shuddering as I was reduced once more to my nightgown and bare legs, and slid under the covers.
Inkar sat next to me. “I hope you are sufficiently tired.”
“I’m sufficiently cold,” I admitted, burrowing down.
“In fifteen minutes, I will go find Aino and tell her it is her turn to watch. Perhaps she will not yell at me.”
We fell silent, enjoying the warmth, the crackling of the fire, the pale blue of my bedroom walls and ceiling. My bones ached, but the weight of my blankets reassured me. My eyes grew heavier, but I needed to say one thing before sleep took over. “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” I murmured. “Aino’s special to me.” Special didn’t really begin to define my relationship with Aino, but I was too tired to think of what did.
“I forgive you,” Inkar said. “You did almost die. It makes a woman a little…”
“Irritable?” I suggested.
“I suppose. Vengeful, as well.” Her hand snaked under the covers and found mine. “It will not happen again.”
Our fingers knotted, a complicated tangle of threads. I thought about pulling on those fingers until her face was right above mine, then pulling again until the gap between us closed completely. I thought about her offer to keep me warm.
I’d never have the courage to take her up on it.
“I begged him to let me come here,” Inkar said, almost too quietly for me to hear.
“Hmm?” I pulled my loose thoughts together.
“I was the one who came up with the plan. I wanted to see this place, and my older siblings did not want to come. I convinced my father that my life was worth it.”
“That’s…” I struggled to find the right word.
“Clever?” Inkar cocked her head. “Romantic?”
“Sad.” That her father had thought her disposable in the face of political gain, when she was so much more. Then again, what did my father think of me?
“I do not regret it,” she said, and our fingers tightened. Two daughters who had nothing else, holding on to each other.
We were still holding hands when Aino woke me.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Her breathing was still labored in the night,” Inkar said as Aino shook me by the shoulder.
“She’s fine, thank you,” Aino said, and I could have sworn I saw another layer of ice frost over the windows.
“I simply thought you should know.” Inkar stretched and ran a hand through her dark hair, momentarily obscuring her face. Behind her, the winter roses half bloomed against the wall.
Aino muttered under her breath as she put my robe around my shoulders. I waved to Inkar as I was shuffled out.
“And whom is Your Grace planning to arrest today?” Eirhan said as I shut the door to my bedroom behind me.
“Whomever I need to,” I said.
“Let’s start with the council meeting, shall we? It will be easier to arrest the entire room than loot offices and bedrooms one by one.”
“You’re hilarious.” I p
icked up a piece of salmon and stuck it on a slice of seaweed bread. “I thought you wanted me to arrest Reko.”
“And Annika?”
I couldn’t admit that ransacking their rooms might have been a mistake. “They have ties to Sigis. I know they’re plotting something with him. But I have to figure out what.”
“You can begin with the fact that they signed two land agreements with him as soon as he arrived.”
“What?” I gaped at him. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“It’s in the documents you, ahem, rescued from their room.” Eirhan brandished an example.
I snatched it from him. “I was getting to that,” I said, blushing. I’d already read the contract through, but I hadn’t made any sense of it.
“I might recommend getting to it before your entire council revolts, and not after,” Eirhan said.
If I brought the council a confession, maybe I could justify the hasty actions and the bad look I’d brought upon myself. “I’ll tell them everything once I’ve talked to Annika and Reko.”
“Now you want to talk,” Eirhan muttered. But he didn’t challenge me further; he nodded and said, “I’ll be meeting Rafyet to discuss his new proposal for fishing agreements. Anyway, do remember to let your guard protect you.”
My guard. Of course, they would be Eirhan’s eyes and ears. Could I bribe them to stay out of the room? “What else would they do?” I asked darkly, and as Inkar came out for breakfast, I retreated to get dressed.
Annika rose as I entered but did not bow. Their round face was paler than usual in the morning light.
I wore my mother’s jewelry like armor. I needed to maintain control. I needed to keep Annika fearful and defensive. I motioned for them to sit in a low chair while I towered over them. “So,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “You make agreements with my enemy. You support a parliament to reduce my family’s power. And now I discover you’ve traveled Below.”
Annika folded their hands. They’d traded their opulent coat for a suit that drew tight across their shoulders and hips, and they kept their legs pressed together. They looked small—deliberately so, I guessed. But they met my eye and held their chin up. “I can assure you that’s not true.”
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