By the Krigere.
I clench my muscles and push that away yet again. I am a warrior, and I am a Krigere. I am part of a strong people. I am part of a tribe. I fought and killed to become one of them, to have a home again.
You know what those Krigere call you? Witch.
Perhaps I am not part of a tribe after all. In saving Thyra, I doomed myself. And how did Thyra reward my service?
She pretended to love me and lured me close—she was the bait, and my heart was the snare.
And then she tried to kill me.
Halina comes back for me sometime later and tells me I’ve been summoned to the council room. My mouth is too dry to allow me to ask questions, and I’m not sure she could—or would—give me a straight answer if I did. But the way she watches me, her dark eyes glittering bright, her mouth curved but tight . . . it’s like she’s waiting for something.
I feel like a bundle of sticks stuffed inside a bag of skin as she helps me to sit up and unwraps my bandages. A lump rises in my throat as I see the swirls of scarring along my arms, red and silver and shiny and fragile. I have never given much thought to my appearance, save the number of kill marks on my arm, but suddenly I want to hide. I look like a monster.
Halina must see the shadow of shame cross my face, because she says, “Only your arms, little red. And it’s not as bad as it looks—been moving them every day, not letting them get stiff—you still have full use of them! Rest of you is pretty all right too. Except for that spot on your leg.”
I glance down at the red mark on my right calf, in the shape of a burst of flame, and let out a choked laugh. “That’s not a scar. It’s a birthmark.”
Halina leans back so that the light of the torch reaches my bare leg. “Is it now?” she asks quietly.
“I need boots,” I blurt out, eager to cover the mark, even though I’m dreading what comes after.
Halina fetches me my boots, along with a new, overlarge tunic. It hangs from my scrawny frame and makes me look like a child, and Halina is obviously trying not to laugh as she steps back and lets me tie the collar with stiff, sore fingers. The long sleeves hang to my fingertips, but I don’t mind that. For once, I want my arms covered.
I want a weapon, too, but it seems foolish to ask for one. As soon as I’m dressed, Halina yanks the door to the chamber open and leans out. “Got her ready,” she says in a flat voice, so different from the warm, round tone of a few moments ago. She turns back to me with eyes so full that I can’t sift through what’s within. Curiosity? Regret? Fear? Hope? All at once?
“Step into the hallway,” says a familiar voice.
“Sander?”
“Step into the hallway now, Ansa,” he says from the corridor.
My stomach is a ball of ice as I obey him. Apart from Sander, three other warriors are waiting for me, including Carina, the one with the long, dark braid. All of them have unsheathed daggers, and they surround me as I leave the relative safety of the stone chamber. Halina has shrunk back into the room, but watches from behind the door with her keen gaze as Sander presses his knife against my neck.
“If you try to burn us or freeze us, we’ll kill you.”
I grit my teeth, trying to hold in the stinging tears that are filling my eyes. “I wouldn’t.”
Carina lets out a disdainful laugh. “We all saw what you did, witch. Don’t pretend.”
I look up at Sander, remembering what Jaspar said about how Sander is supposedly grateful to me, how he respects me. But now all I see in his eyes is a flint-hard wariness. “I won’t hurt any of you,” I say.
I’m not even sure if I could, given how weak I feel, but I’m scared to even think of the ice or the fire, for fear they would rise unbidden. They no longer feel like something foreign inside me. Instead, all of me is shaky and unstable, like a storm ready to burst to life on a muggy summer day. We are one now, the magic and me. I have become my own enemy.
“Forgive us if we don’t take your word for it,” Carina says. She’s on my left, holding her dagger angled toward my belly, where a quick strike would send my guts spilling to the stone floor. The other two warriors are on my other side, knives poised.