“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.”
I clench my fists. I’m the one who allowed Jaspar to live. “The riders and the Vasterutian resistance have flooded the streets. He’ll be lucky to reach them.”
“Jaspar will find a way.” His eyes shine with the simple faith and pride of a father in his son.
“Jaspar has destroyed you,” Thyra says. “He pitted us against each other, playing us both for fools. But now we can—”
“At what point will you stop scheming?” Nisse pricks Thyra’s throat, making her bleed. “My son is loyal, and he will not fail me. You, on the other hand, have more than earned your execution. I wait only until Jaspar sends the signal that he’s on his way back for me.”
A signal that could come at any minute if Jaspar is half as determined as I know him to be. I only injured his arm, not his legs, and given the time that has passed, if he was able to escape the courtyard, that signal could come at any moment. The foreign fighters will take the tower because there were no Krigere to stop them, but with all of them here, it won’t be hard to place it under siege as long as Jaspar’s warriors can intimidate the Vasterutian people into staying back.
My mind spins with all the possible outcomes, but then Nisse takes another step back from me, and I am caught by a painful flash of memory—Jaspar throwing Sander over the edge of the parapet. “Don’t take another step.”
Nisse smiles. “Why, Ansa? Are you going to stop me?” He presses the blade tighter to Thyra’s throat.
I draw Sander’s dagger, and when I lift it, the cuff of Astia shines in the bright sunlight directly over our head. Nisse squints at it. “What is that?”
“Balance,” I say. “A gift from elder Kauko.”
Nisse’s face twists with rage. “That priest betrayed me?”
“Weren’t you going to betray him?”
“All he wanted was you, and we delivered you to him!”
I smile with the realization—no matter what I chose, Nisse would have betrayed me. He is no innocent victim—he only fathered a snake because he is one himself. I couldn’t be wielded as a weapon because I couldn’t control the magic, and so he gave me up. “Because I was worth something to Kauko. Or, my blood was.”
Nisse looks me over, appearing to notice my wounds for the first time. “And it seems you’re shedding quite a lot of it. I’m surprised you’re still standing.”
I aim the dagger at him, focusing on the beating pulse in his neck. “Let her go, or you’re the one who will be on the ground.”
He laughs. “You seem to forget that I’ve watched you for weeks. If you aim your magic at me, you’ll kill Thyra as well. You’re a storm, Ansa. You’ll take everyone down with you.”
A drop of fear slips icy down my back as my chieftain’s blue eyes meet mine. Suddenly I’m in the fight circle on a new spring day, and I’m bleeding and hurting and defeated as Sander walks away from me, and hers is the one voice I hear shouting for me to get up. Like I could that day, I can read the simple faith written across the planes of her cheekbones, etched into the curve of her mouth.
A distant horn blows once, and then again, pulling Nisse’s lips into a lethal grin. “And now we’re out of time,” he says, pressing a hard kiss against Thyra’s bleeding temple.
He draws back his blade, preparing to cut her throat.
“I love you, Thyra,” I whisper, and then I let the magic loose, fueled by devotion and determination and all the adoration that’s in me, powered by hope in the future and acceptance, finally, of who I have become. The ice winds along the blade of Sander’s dagger, but this time, instead of focusing on its progress, I focus on my target. It’s the size of my fingertip.
Nisse’s jugular.
As his weapon descends, I thrust my blade forward, even though I know the iron will never touch his flesh.