“You don’t understand.” The same words Joran had spoken hours before. He believed he was beyond salvation. Maybe Nina believed the same thing of herself.
But Hanne only shook her head. “None of us understand until it’s too late. If you do this, you’ll be found out. You’ll be executed.”
“Maybe.”
Hanne’s jaw set. “Is it so easy then? To leave this place? To abandon me?”
Nina looked up into Hanne’s eyes. Was that what she was doing? How could she abandon something that had never been named, never spoken, that could never be?
“Prince Rasmus wants to marry you,” Nina said.
“I know.”
“You do?”
“I’m not a fool. It’s because of my father, not me.”
“That’s not true,” Nina said. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
Hanne’s laugh was brittle, cold and sudden, hail on a windowpane. “Oh, I know it. Like something to be conquered. A Brum to be bent to his will. I understand where his cruelty comes from. He’s spent too long envying others and hating himself. I know that disease.”
“But there’s nothing cruel in you.”
“You might be surprised. But maybe I could heal his heart too, over time.”
Nina pressed her lips together. “You would be queen.”
“I could help to guide him, change his thinking. We might shape Fjerda anew.”
“And could you be happy with him?” She had to force the question from her mouth.
“No. Not with him. Not with any man.” Hanne bowed her head. “Maybe I can’t be happy at all.”
“When we started Heartwood—”
“I know. I thought I could will myself to want this life, to want marriage, to be … like everyone else. I thought if I played the part long enough and well enough—”
“The performance would become reality.”
Hanne’s calm had drained away. She sat down on the bed, and when she looked up at Nina, her expression was lost, frightened. “I don’t know what to do. We baited our hook and caught a prince. If he asks for my hand, I cannot deny him. But Nina … Nina, I can’t say yes.”
Nina knew she had to go to find Joran now, before the prince left Djerholm, before she lost this chance. But she couldn’t leave Hanne.
“I did this,” she said. “With my lies and my scheming.” She sat down hard on the covers beside Hanne. Her vengeance could wait. It was one thing to sacrifice her own life, but she wouldn’t leave Hanne captive to a future she’d never wanted. She wouldn’t abandon her to fend for herself in this place. “The queen was right. You’re good and I’m … I led you to this. I’ve never been good for you.”
Hanne held her gaze. “Sweets aren’t good for me. I’ve been told riding will make me mannish and the wind will chafe my skin and age me. I know all the things that aren’t good for me. And I want them just the same.”
Nina’s throat was dry. “Do you?” she asked quietly. “Want them?”
Hanne’s copper eyes glowed like topaz. Slowly she nodded. “Since the moment we met. Since you charged into that clearing like a girl I had dreamed into being.”
It had been too much tonight—learning what Joran had done, watching Hanne with the prince, knowing she’d set them on this path. Maybe this is my fate, she thought, to find love and lose it. But Nina made herself say the words. She wouldn’t rob Hanne of the chance to stay with her parents, to live among her people, not if it was what she truly wanted. “If you can love him, I’ll find a way to let you go.”
Hanne leaned forward and brushed a damp strand of hair from Nina’s cheek. Nina felt the strong curve of Hanne’s fingers against the nape of her neck, Hanne’s breath on her lips.
“Never let me go,” Hanne whispered.
“Never,” Nina said, and closed the distance between them, feeling the soft press of Hanne’s mouth, the thin silk of her dress, this moment like light on water, brief and startling, blinding in its beauty.
31
NIKOLAI
NIKOLAI WATCHED UNTIL ZOYA had clipped herself to the harness and been lifted into the Cormorant. He knew she would be fine. Of all of them, she was the least fragile, the least vulnerable. He wasn’t being logical, but she’d seemed shaken by their encounter with the Suli and her confession that shouldn’t have had to be a confession. When war came, he wouldn’t be able to protect her any more than he’d protected David. So, for a brief moment, he watched over her, logic be damned.