Nina watched Hanne and Prince Rasmus drift into the sea of bodies as the musicians struck up a swaying rhythm. She loved to dance and she was good at it. Or she had been. She hadn’t been free to dance for a long time—or sing, or behave as she wished. Be glad for Hanne. Be glad for both of them. She bit her lip. She was trying, damn it. Around Hanne, Rasmus’ bitterness lost its edge; Nina could see the glimmer of the man he might become if they could drain him of Fjerda’s poison, of the demands it placed on its rulers and its men. And Hanne? It was easy to see what she’d sacrificed to become a girl who might garner the interest of a prince, but what had she gained? She’d spent her whole life being excluded. She didn’t look like the delicate beauties of the court. She and Rasmus stood eye to eye, evenly matched in height and stature. But Hanne didn’t have to look like everyone else. Now she walked among the Fjerdans, shining, unique, triumphant, an object of envy instead of scorn. Wolf-blooded.
“I need to thank you,” Joran said, drawing Nina from her thoughts. “You could have revealed me to Brum. I’m grateful you didn’t.”
Nina knew she had to tread carefully. “Your faith isn’t something to be ashamed of.”
“How can you say that?”
With Joran, Nina could let the Mila mask slip a bit more. He didn’t require the performance of servile bumbling that Brum or Rasmus did. “There’s altogether too much shame in Fjerda. I don’t see why you shouldn’t take comfort from your Saints.”
“Commander Brum says the Saints are false gods sent to turn us from Djel.”
“Surely not all the Saints,” Nina said, though she knew that was exactly what Brum meant. “Not S?nj Egmond, who built the Ice Court, or S?nje Ulla of the Waves.”
“Brum doesn’t believe they were Saints, only men and women blessed by Djel. He says if we open our doors to heathen religion, Djel will forsake us and Fjerda will be doomed.”
Nina nodded slowly, as if considering. “I have heard there are cults of false Saints, like the Starless One. I’ve heard stories of the blight that some say is a sign of his return. Do you think his followers could gain a foothold here?”
“It’s hard to believe, but … Brum says people are desperate for hope and will be taken in by any cheap spectacle.”
Nina certainly hoped so. “And what of the miracles here? In Ravka? The men who were saved from drowning in Hjar? The bridge of bones in Ivets?”
“Theatrical fodder for feeble minds. That’s what—”
“What Brum says, I know. Do you believe everything Commander Brum says?”
“That’s what I was trained to do.”
“But do you?”
Joran looked out at the dancers whirling on the floor. “You’re angry because of … because of his behavior toward you.”
“I am,” Nina said, maybe the truest words she’d ever spoken in the Ice Court. “But you’ve begun to wonder too. What if Brum is wrong?”
“About what?”
Nina kept her voice even, conversational. “The Grisha. Djel. The way war should be waged. All of it.”
Joran’s face went ashen. “Then there is no hope for me.”
“Not even among the Saints?”
“No,” he said, his voice flat. “The Saints don’t want a soul like mine.”
Nina rose and went to him. There had to be a way to reach this boy. With the right prodding, he might even give up the secrets of Fjerda’s new weapon. “All soldiers kill. And no soldier can say each death is righteous.”
Joran turned, and Nina drew in a breath at the bleakness in his eyes. He looked like a man who had stopped searching for answers. He was alone on the ice and his heart was howling.
“You don’t understand,” he said.
“You might be surprised.” She had done her fair share of killing.
“I murdered an unarmed man.”
And Nina had let a horde of undead women tear the Wellmother to pieces. “Maybe so, but—”
Joran seized her arm. “He was my brother. He was a traitor. I shot him and left him to die in a foreign city. I—”
My brother. A traitor.
“Be silent,” she gasped. Whatever Joran was going to say, she didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to know.
But Joran wouldn’t stop. “He told me … He said there was so much in the world that I didn’t have to be afraid of, if I would only open my eyes. And I did.” His voice broke. “And I am afraid of everything.”