“Hanne, you should have dressed for the weather.”
“I told you Mila needed a new cloak, didn’t I?”
“I’m f-fine,” Nina said, offering a brave, trembling smile as she shivered.
“Silly girls,” said Brum, his gaze lingering on Nina in a way that made her stomach turn. “I’ll take you back myself.”
Hanne stiffened. “Won’t it be perceived as an insult to the prince’s hunt?”
“The prince isn’t riding. Why should I?”
So he wanted to insult the crown. Seeing the prince embarrassed by his mother had emboldened him.
Nina tried to gather her focus as she and Hanne followed Brum back to the ringwall. Was Rasmus a lost cause? She’d thought healing the prince was a good thing, that a strong Rasmus might find it easier to stand against Fjerda’s drive toward war. She wanted to believe that could still be the case. There had to be an alternative to Brum’s violence. But she couldn’t stop seeing the red marks on Joran’s cheek, the ferocity in his eyes. There had been rage there, shame, and something else. Nina didn’t know what.
Get your head on straight, Zenik, she told herself. She would have one opportunity to find the letters in Brum’s office, and she’d need her wits about her to make the most of this chance.
It was even colder in the shadow of the ringwall, and Nina didn’t have to pretend to shiver as they approached the drüskelle gate. She’d never stood at the base of the Ice Court walls before. She’d been brought in hooded as a prisoner once, and she’d left by an underground river—nearly drowning in the process. She looked up and saw gunmen guarding the huge portcullis gate. She could hear the wolves in their kennels, their howls rising. Maybe they were like those Shu soldiers engineered to sniff out Grisha. Maybe they knew she was coming.
You’ve been living beneath the roof of the country’s most notorious witchhunter for months, she reminded herself. But this felt different, as if she were willingly walking into a cell and she’d have only herself to blame when the door slammed shut behind her.
They passed beneath the colossal arch and into the courtyard lined with kennels.
“Tigen, tigen,” Brum crooned as he approached the cages on the right, where the largest of the white wolves leapt and snapped at the air. Wolves trained to fight alongside their masters, to help them hunt down Grisha. The animals took no notice of Brum’s soothing words, growling and snarling, pressing against the wire fences. “You can smell the hunt, eh, Devjer? Don’t be afraid, Mila,” he said with a laugh. “They can’t get you.”
She thought of Trassel, Matthias’ wolf, with his scarred eye and huge jaws. He’d saved her life and she’d helped him find his pack.
She took a step toward the fences, then another. One of the wolves began to whine and then the animals fell silent, going to their bellies, resting their heads on their paws.
“Strange,” said Brum, his brow furrowing. “I’ve never seen them do that before.”
“They must not be used to having women here,” said Hanne hurriedly, but her eyes were startled.
Do you know me? Nina wondered as the wolves whimpered softly. Do you know Trassel watched over me? Do you know I walk with death?
Brum knelt by the cages. “Even so—”
An alarm began to ring, a high, staccato sound that rattled the air.
A shout came from the guardhouse. “Commander Brum! Red protocol!”
“Where was it triggered?” demanded Brum.
“Prison sector.”
Sector breach. And right on time. The night she’d hatched her plans with Hanne, she’d tossed a handful of special salts into the fire, so that they would send a burst of red smoke into the sky above the Ice Court—a signal to the Hringsa lookout posted nearby. The network hadn’t been able to get a servant into Brum’s quarters, but Nina was able to pass information to one of the gardeners, who had served as a messenger and informant. She needed a distraction, a big one, at just after ten bells. They’d delivered, but she couldn’t be certain how much time she had.
Brum’s men lined up behind him, rifles in hand, clubs and whips at the ready. “Stay here,” he told Hanne. “The guards will remain posted on the ringwall.”
“What’s happening?” Nina cried.
“There’s some kind of disturbance. Most likely it’s nothing. I’ll be back in no time.”
Nina forced tears to fill her eyes. “You can’t just leave us here!”
“Calm yourself,” Brum snapped. Nina flinched and pressed her hand over her mouth, but she felt like laughing. Jarl Brum, the great protector. But he only liked his women weak and wailing when it was convenient for him. The prison sector had been breached before and Jarl Brum had been made a fool. He didn’t intend to let that happen again.
“You can’t leave us defenseless,” Hanne said. “Give me a gun.”
Brum hesitated. “Hanne—”
“You can abide by propriety or put a weapon in my hand and let me defend myself.”
“Do you even know how to use a revolver?”
With a sure hand, Hanne spun the barrel to make sure it was loaded. “You taught me well.”
“Years ago.”
“I didn’t forget.”
Brum’s expression was troubled, but all he said was, “Be careful.” He and his men vanished through the gate.
Two guards remained on the battlements, but they had their attention turned outward, rifles raised and pointed at whoever might seek to breach the ringwall.
“Go,” said Hanne. “But be quick.”
Nina hurried across the courtyard past the kennels and the wolves, who stared at her silently despite the commotion. She had never regretted her heavy skirts more. Maybe that’s why Fjerdans like to keep their women swimming in wool, she considered, slipping inside the building Hanne had marked on her map of the sector. So they can’t get away too fast.
She tried to keep Hanne’s map in her head as she sped down a long corridor. She glimpsed a huge dining room on the right, beneath a pyramid-shaped skylight. There were long mess hall tables and an immense tapestry hung on the back wall, woven in blue, red, and purple. Her footsteps faltered as her mind caught up to what she’d seen. That tapestry that covered nearly the entirety of the wall—it was made out of scraps of kefta. Blue for Etherealki, a smattering of purple for Materialki, and row after row of red for Corporalki, her order. The Order of the Living and the Dead. They were trophies taken from fallen Grisha. Nina felt sick. She wanted to set the damn thing on fire. Instead she pushed her anger aside and made her feet move. Vengeance would come, retribution for Brum and his minions. But not until she saw this mission through.
Up the stairs—the newel posts capped by snarling wolves—then down another gloomy hallway. She counted the doors: third on the left. This should be Jarl Brum’s office. She grasped the handle of the door and jammed in the key she’d taken from Brum’s key ring that morning.
Nina hurried inside. It was an elegant room, though windowless. The mantel was crowded with medals, awards, and souvenirs that made Nina’s heart hurt—spent bullet cartridges, what might have been a child’s jawbone, a dagger with a woman’s name engraved on the handle in Ravkan: Sofiya Baranova.