Nina remembered Opjer’s hands gripping her sleeves as he’d begged her to free him. She’d thought it was desperation, but maybe it had just been a performance. Could Magnus Opjer, the most valued and recognizable prisoner in Fjerda, really have escaped the Ice Court?
Wily old bastard. Foxfather indeed. He’d pilfered one of her bone darts and used it to pick the lock of his cage. If she’d needed any further proof that Opjer was King Nikolai’s father, this was it.
So where was he now? Nina didn’t know, and she had no way of finding out. She would call on her contacts in the Hringsa, relay the information to Ravka. For now, she was stuck. There was speculation in the report that he might head back to his home north of Djerholm to reunite with his daughter or even to Elling, where some of his shipping vessels were docked. He is a man without means, said the report. He cannot book passage on a ship. He cannot hope to cross the border into Ravka. It is only a matter of time before the target is reacquired.
Nina wondered. Magnus Opjer wasn’t a noble. He was a self-made man, a shipping magnate with a lifetime’s worth of connections and an established network of sailing craft. And he was Nikolai Lantsov’s father. He might be lacking cash, but if he’d managed to get clear of the Ice Court, he definitely wasn’t short on ingenuity.
A sound from the courtyard below drew Nina from her thoughts. The gate was opening. Could the drüskelle have returned so soon?
She slipped the escape report back among the papers on the desk and hurried out of the office, making sure the lock slid into place. Brum would find his office just as he’d left it.
Nina started down the stairs but heard the sound of voices below. Damn it.
She raced back the way she’d come, dodging down the hall on silent feet, gently trying each door, praying one would be unlocked.
At last a handle turned. She slid inside and shut the door behind her with a click that seemed to echo in her ears.
“What are you doing here?”
She whirled. Joran stood before her in his black uniform, his face furious, his eyes slitted in suspicion. Someone else must be guarding the prince tonight.
Nina’s thoughts skittered wildly through her head, a panicked rush, birds startled from the quiet.
Are you really doing this? She had time to wonder before her mouth blurted, “Commander Brum told me to meet him here.”
She was Mila now, lip trembling, hands wringing.
Joran’s fingers hovered over his whip. “The commander would never violate these rooms with the presence of a woman.”
Nina grasped the bone darts in her sleeve. She didn’t want to kill Joran, but she would if she had to. The trick would be making it look like an accident. His body was healthy, untouched by any death or decay for her power to exploit.
“I’m not proud,” she said, letting tears fill her eyes. “I know what I have agreed to.”
Joran scowled. He never showed emotion around Prince Rasmus, and the anger transformed his face, making him look like the brutal witchhunter he was.
“He said he would be back early,” she continued. “But the others came instead.”
“I don’t know what game you’re playing at, but the commander will hear of it.”
“He showed me the secret path across the ice moat,” Nina said, feeling the darts slide between her fingers.
Joran stopped short at that. No one knew the secrets of the ice moat except the drüskelle. “That cannot be.”
She would have to be precise. Two darts through the inner corners of his eyes, driven directly into the brain. She could extract them before she left and hopefully keep any blood or mess to a minimum. It would look like he’d been taken by some kind of fit.
Nina stepped to the left, maneuvering so that the light shone directly on Joran’s face to aid her aim—then paused.
“Those are relics.” Bones spread out on an altar cloth, laid atop a trunk for clothes. A woodblock carved with the rough shape of a sun propped against the wall.
Joran tried to move his body to block her view, but it was too late.
“That’s an altar,” Nina said. “To the Saints. That’s why you’re not with the prince tonight. You came here to pray.”
Joran didn’t deny it. He stood as if rooted to the spot, motionless in the way of an animal sensing danger. He didn’t know the half of it. She could kill him now. Quickly. Easily.
“Whose bones are those?” She kept her voice gentle, easy, as if she were asking about what he’d had for dinner last night and not heresy committed within the walls of the Ice Court.