Was this another part of his game? He looked and sounded so genuine. No cruel smile, no frost to his gaze. He said it simply, matter-of-factly, and yet I still couldn’t believe him. This was the man who’d threatened to have his army attack to prove a point.
“You’re not what I expected,” he added quietly. In the dim light, he looked haunted, his muscles tight and eyes soft and full of exhaustion. For half a breath, I saw someone else entirely.
Then, as if suddenly remembering himself, his eyes glazed over, and his smirk returned, that other person vanishing like a phantom in the night. “But I suppose you’re not half of what you once were,” he mused.
I shook away the image I’d had of him, focusing instead on the sharp lines and lupine features of the warrior before me. How could I ever have seen anything else? “At least my soldiers treat me with more respect than a pile of feathers,Princeling,” I said.
He stiffened. “Do they? What about your people? I imagine they’d take issue with a princess who turned her back on them.”
I scowled, but his words settled deep. I stood, picking up my plate. “You can eat alone.”
* * *
I finished dinner in my room with Kiva, where I relayed my conversation with Ericen. We’d cracked open the windows, letting in fresh evening air sweetened by the scent of fruit trees, and I’d piled my pillows at the end of the bed and plopped down. She sat on the floor, her sword in her lap.
“I think you’re imagining things,” she said when I mentioned how difficult it had seemed for him to talk tonight. As if he hadn’t wanted to say those things.
“Maybe.” I rolled onto my stomach to face her, releasing a breath. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“It was inevitable. The world is reaching a breaking point.” She pulled her sword from its sheath, the black gold rippling like molten night. The tension that had seemed permanently ingrained in her face earlier that day had subsided. The dark circles under her eyes remained, but she looked better.
She met my gaze, her pale eyes soft. She knew what I was thinking; she always did. “In Korovi,” she said quietly, “my first kill would have been celebrated. In Miska warrior tradition, I would have a ceremony, and the sword that spilled my enemy’s blood would be named.”
I stayed perfectly still. Kiva rarely talked about Korovi. All I knew was her mother had been forced to leave while pregnant with her, shamed by scandal for breaking their most sacred laws. Which was probably why the captain had looked like she’d rather walk barefoot on glass than return to Korovi for aid.
Kiva ran a cloth along the length of black gold. “A Miska warrior of my age without a named sword would be a disgrace.” Her lips twitched into a small smile. “Of course, I’m already a disgrace, and in Korovi, I’d never have been a Miska warrior.”
The Mirkova line was an ancient one, a powerful one. Kiva’s grandmother practically ruled the snow kingdom, and as a noble, Captain Mirkova was forbidden to marry. Believed to be daughters of the goddess, Lokane, noble women in Korovi had children by chosen suitors outside of marriage, then devoted their lives to the goddess as priestesses or leaders in the government. The two roles were so intertwined, it was nearly impossible to tell where one began and the other ended.
As a noble, Kiva would never have been allowed to join the Miska, a unit of all-female warriors known for their unparalleled swordsmanship.
I sat up, asking carefully, “All this because your mother married?”
Kiva snorted. “All this because she married a Northman from beyond the Cut, and for barely a day.”
“Before they forced her to leave?”
“Before they killed him.”
I recoiled. “You’ve never told me this.”
“It’s not really mine to tell,” she said softly. “But I think I needed to.”
Sliding off the bed, I came to sit cross-legged before her. Her sword lay between us, a ripple of night against my bright carpet.
“We can name it?” I suggested. “Not for the reasons they would, but in spite of them. Maybe something from the old language. Don’t the Northmen still speak it?”
She nodded, the shadows in her eyes receding. “My mother tried to teach me. I don’t know much.” Her brow furrowed before a grin spread across her lips.
“I’ll name it Sinvarra.” The old-language word was like a growl in her throat. “It meansspite.”
Ten
Caliza had organized most of my packing. She’d even supervised the removal of clothes from my closet, ensuring no one so much as touched the armoire drawer hiding the egg. The morning of my departure, all I had to do was wrap the egg in as many blankets as I could find and settle it gently into a trunk.
The idea of taking it on such a long journey, deep into enemy territory, made my stomach turn. But Caliza had been right. I was our best bet.
I folded my flying leathers on top and added my black gold bow, then used a couple of pillows to prevent the egg from rolling around. Then I locked it and didn’t let the servants carry it out until they’d sworn to do so with the utmost care. I still ended up following them down to the courtyard to watch them load it.
