“You’re up!” Hanne said, rushing to Nina’s bedside. “Djel’s grace, I thought you might slip away from me forever.”
“I’m up,” Nina croaked.
Hanne poured her some water. “Nina, the queen’s servants are here. They’ve brought a litter. She says she heard you were taken ill and wishes for you to see her personal doctor.”
Nina highly doubted that was what the queen wanted.
“Do you have anything to eat?” she asked.
“I can get you some broth or some dry toast. Did you hear me? The queen—”
“I heard you. A cup of broth, please.”
“You should wash too.”
“Rude.”
“Honest.”
Nina didn’t have time for a bath, so she rinsed as best she could with cold water from the basin and dabbed her body with perfume. She didn’t mind the chill. She needed anything that would wake her.
She ran a brush through her hair, but there was nothing she could do about the sallow color of her skin or the circles beneath her eyes.
“Hanne, can you help me?” Nina asked when she returned with the broth. “I need you to tailor me. Can you make me look…”
“Less like a corpse?”
“Better. Saintly.”
Hanne moved her over to the window for better light. Her hands traced Nina’s face in soft strokes.
“You don’t have to hold your breath,” Hanne said.
Nina bit her lip.
“Stop that!” said Hanne, grabbing her chin. “You’ll ruin my work.”
“Sorry.”
Hanne’s cheeks flushed and she released Nina’s chin. She focused on her hair instead.
“Has your father said anything about the missing letters?” Nina asked.
“I haven’t heard him mention them to anyone, and they haven’t instituted new security protocols as far as I know.”
Then Brum couldn’t have realized they were missing yet, but he would as soon as that safe was opened.
“There!” Hanne said a moment later. “Done.”
“So fast?”
Hanne handed her a mirror. “See for yourself.”
Nina looked into the glass. Her skin shone like polished marble, a faint rose-petal flush on her cheeks. Her hair gleamed silvery blond. She looked like she’d been dipped in moonlight. “You really have been practicing.”
Hanne looked almost guilty. “Quite a bit. On myself. Why does the queen want to see you?”
“Her son’s health is failing.”
“Because of me.”
“Because I begged you to help me, to help both of our countries.”
“How is the prince’s suffering supposed to help Ravka or Fjerda?”
“I need you to trust me,” said Nina. “And Rasmus could use a little suffering after what he did to Joran in the hunters’ tent.”
“He doesn’t like to feel weak,” said Hanne.
“No one does. But he can’t just be kind when he’s feeling strong.”
A knock came at the door.
“Hanne.” Ylva’s voice was quiet but urgent. “Mila must come. Now.”
They draped Nina in Hanne’s dressing gown and placed a shawl around her face and hair so Ylva and Brum wouldn’t see the effects of Hanne’s tailoring.
Leaning heavily on Hanne, Nina let herself be steered down the hall and onto the litter the queen’s servants carried.
“She’s heavy,” complained one of the guards.
“She’s more trouble than she’s worth,” Brum grumbled.
“Papa!” cried Hanne.
“Jarl, that’s enough,” said Ylva. “She’s clearly unwell.”
Nina lay back and stared at the ceiling as she was carried down the hallways of the White Island. She shut her eyes and reached out to the spirits in the graveyard, to Linor Rundholm, the queen’s former lady-in-waiting. Tell me what I need to know. Tell me what you want.
The answer was clear and harsh: An end to the Grimjer line.
Nina couldn’t promise that. Given the choice between Jarl Brum’s brutality and Prince Rasmus’ petty violence, she would have to choose the prince. Fjerda and fate had conspired to offer her truly rotten options.
All I can promise is revenge. Now speak to me.
The litter was brought to the same throne room where the queen had received Nina before.
“Do you need to see my doctor?” demanded the queen from her alabaster throne.
Nina sat up straight, her shawl slipping back, letting light from the windows fall on her freshly tailored face. “I need no doctor. And what good has he ever done your son?”
The queen drew in a sharp breath. “Put her down,” she commanded. “Leave us.”
A moment later, the servants had departed and they were alone, the queen on her throne and Nina standing before her.
“You were not ill?” asked the queen.
“I fell into a trance,” Nina lied smoothly. “Where is your son, Queen Agathe?”
“He cannot rise from his bed. He … he has been coughing blood for days. What is happening to him? I have prayed every day, twice a day, I—”
“Your warmongering has angered Djel.”
Queen Agathe’s brow pinched. “The attack on Os Alta?”
“It was a Grisha who saved your son and brought him Djel’s blessing.”
“The bombing was a great military victory for Fjerda!”
Of course it was. Nina could still see Brum’s triumphant face in the ballroom, hear the cheering of the crowd. But she couldn’t just tell the queen what she needed her to do. Agathe had to find her way there herself.
Nina lifted her head, knowing the light was gilding the contours of her face. “Do you know what stands between the Grand Palace and the Little Palace in Ravka’s capital?”
Agathe tugged at the buttons of her silver gown, as if the bodice was too tight. “The royal chapel.”
“The site of the First Altar. Where the first prayers to the first Saints were said.”
“A false religion.” But the reply was slow, tentative.
“This was where Fjerda rained fire.”
“That was Jarl Brum’s directive, not my son’s.”
“Do you not rule this country? Was it not done in the Grimjer name?”
Agathe licked her lips. “In … in Djerholm, they whisper that Grisha are the children of Djel.”
Finally. She’d made the leap. “Djel is a good father. He protects his children. Just as any loving parent would.”
The queen clutched the sides of her head, as if the very thought of Grisha carrying divine blessing might split her skull. “This is heresy.”
Nina spread her hands wide, helpless. “I cannot explain these things.”
“You are a liar and a heretic. You are unnatural with your trances and your predictions. You—”
Nina threw back her head, letting her eyes roll white in their sockets. “You bled and bled. You knew you were going to lose this child like all the others. You sent sweet Linor to the dungeons and had a Grisha Healer brought to you. Her name was Pavlina. You promised her freedom. But you never intended to set her free. She sat with you for hours, long into the night. She stayed with you, day after day, healing you, healing your princeling, even in the womb. She told you stories when you were restless. And when you wept, she sang you a lullaby.”