“Why—are you going to push me off the parapet?”
“Only if you leap on my back and bite my ear off.” He winks and heads into the hallway. I follow, my shoulders drawn up when I hear the laughter of warriors coming from a chamber down the corridor. But Jaspar ducks into the staircase that spirals up, and we walk until we reach a door directly over our heads. “Wait until you see,” he says, pushing the door open.
What I see is sky, and it calls to me like a lover. I smile as he boosts me into the cold winter air and scoot to the side as he pulls himself up to join me. It’s a relatively large space, enough for a ring of twenty archers to kneel comfortably. I crawl over to the low wall and gasp as I see the Torden, vast and white-gray under scattered, wispy winter clouds. The cold nips my nose and fingers but is pushed back immediately by the fire inside me. I shake my head in confusion as Jaspar joins me.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Sometimes this curse protects me, and sometimes it causes me agony. I can’t tell what it wants or how to please it.” I bite my lip. “Or how to rule it.” I know that’s what Nisse wants.
Jaspar looks down at my hand, where scarring swirls across my knuckles. “I am sorry you have suffered so much. Do you ever regret surviving the storm that day?”
I stare at the waves, only ripples compared to the churn of water in my memory. “That is a complicated question.”
He traces a fingertip along a swirl of silver across the back of my hand. “I hope someday it will be simple. And that the answer will be no.”
“Me too,” I whisper.
“There is no one fiercer or stronger to bear this burden, though,” he continues. “I have no doubt about that.”
I laugh. “I do.”
“I know. But only because you’ve been pushed there.”
“What do you mean?”
“What if you had a chieftain who loved what you are, instead of fearing or despising it?”
I groan. “Are you here to convince me to join Nisse?” I am so tired of being the animal hide in this game of tug of war.
“I don’t want to convince you of anything. You’ll make the decision on your own. I’m just asking you the same kinds of questions I’ve been asking since the moment I saw you again, standing so strong at my cousin’s side—without knowing what she’d done, or who she really was.”
“She didn’t—” I clamp my lips shut. I was about to tell him she hadn’t denied the accusation when I asked her, but that would reveal that I’ve spoken to her. “I don’t know why she didn’t just tell me the truth in the first place.”
“I do. She knew you would have struggled with the truth, because you are an arrow, Ansa. You fly straight. You find your target. You do not twist and bend.”
“I certainly feel like I’ve been tied in knots now.”
“Who could blame you? It should be simpler. For you especially. Whether you can’t wield your magic because of the blow to the head she gave you—or the shame she’s piled upon you for simply being who you are—”
“I lied to her, Jaspar. I killed that slave, a woman who hadn’t threatened me. It was an accident, but I did it to keep her silent. I’m not innocent. I killed Aksel, too.”
“Out of necessity, I have no doubt.” Jaspar looks down at me, looking entirely undisturbed. “Thyra has never accepted you just as you were. Even before you were cursed.” He lets loose a grunt of laughter. “She doesn’t accept anything. Always sowing doubt. But when she had to swallow that bitter brew herself, as she did on our journey from the north, she bristled with the taste. And yet, still, she seems intent on destroying us.”
My brow furrows. “That’s not . . . I don’t think that’s what she wants. It wouldn’t make any sense. She could have ordered us to fight to the death when you came to the camp—she had every reason to fear coming here. But instead, for the sake of the andeners and her warriors, she came quietly. And when she had the chance to beg for her life in the fight circle, she only asked for the safety and health of her warriors.”
“I’m sorry, Ansa. It’s hard for me to see past the damage she’s done. And when I look at you, I can see her marks on you. I see you struggling to hide who you are, and to hold everything inside to meet her approval. . . .” His hand covers his chest, his fingers fisting over his tunic. “It enrages me. Why do you love someone who doesn’t love who you are?”
Tears sting my eyes and I turn away from him. “Stop,” I say hoarsely. “No more.”
“My father and I—we see who you are. We value that.”
I close my eyes. “Thank you.”
His hand covers mine, careful and warm. “I hope it helps. Doubting yourself and what you can do—and whether you should wield the power you have—that cannot be healthy for you. And I wonder if that is why it’s hurting you.”