“Nothing will happen to you!” the prince said. “I forbade it.” He leaned closer and dropped his voice. “I threw quite the fit. There are benefits to being able to turn blue.”
“But … but why, Your Highness?” Hanne asked.
It was a reasonable question but a perilous one. Did he know Hanne was Grisha? Was he playing with them?
The prince leaned back on his cushions, his air of mischief vanishing. “I’ve been sick my whole life. Since I was a child. I can’t remember a time I wasn’t an object of scorn or worry. I’m often not sure which is worse. Other people shy away from my weakness. You … you drew closer.”
“Sickness is sickness,” said Hanne. “It’s not something to fear.”
“You had my blood on your hands. On your skirts. Did they tell you to change?” Hanne nodded. “You weren’t afraid?”
“That’s mugwort in your cup, isn’t it?”
The prince glanced down at the cup, which now sat cooling on the table beside him. “It is.”
“I was educated at a convent in G?fvalle, but I was most interested in herb lore, in healing.”
“The Springmaidens taught you? That doesn’t seem like a subject the Wellmother would encourage.”
“Well,” Hanne said carefully, “I may have taken it upon myself to learn.”
The prince laughed and then began to cough. Nina saw Hanne’s fingertips flex slightly. She shook her head. No, this is not a good idea.
But Hanne couldn’t see suffering and not respond.
The prince’s cough ceased and he took a long, shuddering breath.
“The convent at G?fvalle,” he continued, as if nothing had happened. “I thought that was where they sent difficult girls to beat the spirit out of them and make them ready to be good wives.”
“It is.”
“But your spirit is still intact?” said the prince, studying Hanne closely.
“I hope so.”
“And you have no husband.”
“I don’t.”
“Is that why you came back to the Ice Court? Put on that fanciful gown?”
“Yes.”
“And instead you got a lapful of wheezing prince.”
Nina nearly choked on her tea.
“It’s all right to laugh,” said the prince. “I won’t have you beheaded.” He cocked his head to one side. “Your hair is shorn. That’s a sign of devotion to Djel, is it not?”
“It is.”
“And you both prayed over me.” His eyes fastened on Nina. “You took my hand. People have been executed for daring to touch the hand of a prince.”
“It was not I,” said Nina piously. “It was the spirit of Djel that moved through me.”
“So, you are true believers?”
“Are you not?” asked Nina.
“It’s hard to believe in a god that would deny me breath.”
Hanne and Nina stayed silent. That was blasphemy, pure and simple, and not something either of them were free to remark upon. Who reigned in this room? Djel or the prince?
At last, Rasmus said, “Healing and herbs are not the province of most noblewomen.”
Hanne shrugged. “I am not like most noblewomen.”
The prince took in Hanne’s set shoulders, the stubborn line of her jaw. “I see that. If devotion to Djel will make me as sturdy as the two of you, perhaps I’ll take up prayer after all.” He smoothed the blankets over his waist. “You will come to see me again soon. I find your presence … comforting.”
Because Hanne is healing you as we speak.
“Go,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Joran will see you back to your rooms. Give my regards to your father.”
There was no mistaking the sour edge to his voice. So Brum’s disdain had not gone unnoticed.
Hanne and Nina rose, curtsied, backed out of the room.
“You were healing him,” Nina whispered in accusation.
“The spirit of Djel moved you?” Hanne said beneath her breath. “You’re shameless.”
Joran led them out the doors, but before they could go more than a few paces down the hall, they were stopped by two royal guards.
“Mila Jandersdat,” one said. “You will come with us.”
“But why?” exclaimed Hanne.
Nina knew they would get no answer. It was not for commoners to question the royal guard.
She grabbed Hanne in a quick hug. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
As they led her down the corridor, she glanced over her shoulder and saw Hanne watching, fear in her eyes. I’ll come back to you, she promised. She could only hope that was true.
* * *
The corridor changed as Nina followed the guards, and she realized she was in a part of the palace she’d never seen before. The stone here seemed older, its color closer to ivory than white, and when she looked up, she saw that the walls had been carved into ridges so that it felt like they were passing through the rib cage of some great beast, a tunnel of bones.
This place had been built to intimidate, but the ancient architects of the Ice Court had chosen the wrong motif. Death is my gift, Nina thought, and I do not fear the lost. She always made sure to have two thin spikes of bone tucked into her sleeves to use as darts if she needed to. Her buttons were bone too. And then, of course, there were the dead. Kings and queens and favored retainers had been buried on the White Island since before the Ice Court had been built around it, and Nina could hear their whispers. An army awaiting her command.
The guards stopped in front of two tall, narrow doors that reached almost all the way to the ceiling. They were emblazoned with the Grimjer wolf rampant, a globe beneath its paw and a crown hovering above its pointed ears. The doors opened and Nina found herself in a long room lined by columns carved to look like birch trees. The whole place glowed blue as if it really had been hewn from ice, and Nina felt like she was entering a frozen forest.
The old audience room, she realized as they walked toward a high-backed throne of alabaster so elaborately carved it looked like sheets of lace. Queen Agathe sat upon it in the same white gown she’d worn at the processional earlier. Her back was straight, her sleek hair the color of pearl, and she wore a circlet of opals on her head.
Nina knew better than to speak first. She curtsied deeply and kept her eyes on the floor, waiting, her mind reeling. Why had she been brought here? What could the Grimjer queen want from her?
A moment later, she heard the doors close with an echoing thud and realized that she had been left alone with Queen Agathe.
“You prayed over my son today.”
Nina nodded, keeping her eyes averted. “I did, Your Majesty.”
“I know Hanne Brum, of course. But I did not know the girl who knelt beside my son and dared to take his hand, who spoke the words of Djel to ease his suffering. So I asked my advisers who you are.” Queen Agathe paused. “And it seems no one knows.”
“Because I am no one, Your Majesty.”
“Mila Jandersdat. Widow of a dead merchant who traded fish and frozen goods.” She said the words as if she thought disdain could cure them of their meaning. “A young woman of humble beginnings who has wormed her way into the house of Jarl Brum.”