Not Hanne. Not her Hanne. It was happening all over again. She was kneeling in the streets of a foreign city. She had Matthias’ blood on her hands. Was this what her love did? Did it murder everything it touched? Nina wanted to scream and so she did, unable to stop the anguish that tore through her.
Hanne wouldn’t jump, would she? They’d had hope for the future, hope for escape. But Nina thought of Hanne sitting on the edge of her bed, how lost she’d looked, how scared. If he asks for my hand, I cannot deny him. But Nina … Nina, I can’t say yes. Two nights ago. An eternity away. A moment when Nina had still believed in possibility.
Maybe I can’t be happy at all, Hanne had said.
Nina saw Joran watching, his face ashen, stricken by what looked like grief.
She lurched to her feet and seized him by the fabric of his vile drüskelle jacket. “What happened?” Her voice was shrill, sharp as broken glass. “What happened to her? What did you do to her?”
“I didn’t see,” he protested, then yanked her close, wrapping his arms around her. “You must be still. You must calm yourself.” But in her ear he whispered, “I don’t know what happened. There was an argument. The prince struck her, only a slap, but then he was taken with some kind of fit. Hanne told me to get help, and when I returned—”
Nina shoved away from him. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Hanne. Hanne. Hanne. Her name a blessing, an incantation, a curse. The prince had hurt her. Maybe it had just been a game to him, like the one he’d played with Joran, testing his control, a chance to see how far he could push his rivalry with Brum. He was taken with some kind of fit. Hanne had lashed out. She probably hadn’t meant to. She’d been frightened and she’d used her power on the prince.
And then what? What had happened between them when Joran had left them alone?
“He did this!” she spat. “Prince Rasmus. Where is he? Hanne didn’t just fall and there’s no way she would jump. Where is he?”
Jarl Brum was suddenly beside her.
“Be silent,” he growled. He clapped his big hand over her mouth. His eyes were chips of ice.
Nina thrashed in his arms, tried to bite his fingers.
Brum only squeezed tighter, startled by her strength. “You will not say such things.”
Nina couldn’t breathe. She looked into Brum’s hateful eyes, his pupils like pinpricks, and she knew then what a coward he was. He’d lost control of his drüskelle on the battlefield. The invasion had collapsed. He was desperately hanging on to his position and couldn’t afford any hint of treason. Even with his daughter dead at his feet.
Nina stopped moving. Slowly, cautiously, Brum released her.
“You know he did this,” she said plainly. “You know what he is.” And Nina had known too, but she’d let Hanne face him alone. Had Hanne admitted she was Grisha? Had she rejected his proposal? Stung his pride? Or had he simply wanted to hurt Brum and show that he was the one who truly held the power?
Ylva let loose a broken moan. “I never should have let her go with him. I never should have let her enter Heartwood.”
Nina knelt and threw her arms around Hanne’s mother. She could feel sobs shaking both of their bodies.
“I will kill him,” Nina said. “I swear it.”
“That won’t bring her back.”
Nina didn’t care. She’d lost too much. She had spared Joran. She had begged Zoya to spare Fjerda’s soldiers. Mercy, mercy, always mercy. But what good was mercy when the world took the best people from it? Matthias gone. Hanne gone.
Save some mercy for my people.
Maybe the Fjerdans deserved forgiveness, but their leaders—Brum, this monster prince—did not. She and Hanne had dared to dream of a new world, but they’d put their trust in the wrong people.
A clarion horn rang out over the deck. The prince was coming.
“Mila, you must control yourself,” Ylva pleaded. “There may be an explanation.”
“He killed her, Ylva. I know it and so do you.”
A hand gripped the back of Nina’s neck hard.
“You will be silent or I will silence you,” Brum snarled.
Nina stood, breaking Brum’s hold. The wild hysteria that had gripped her was gone, and only fury remained. She met his gaze and Jarl Brum—commander of the drüskelle, architect of torture, Fjerda’s scythe—took a step back.
She knew she was at risk of blowing her cover. She knew that Mila—sweet, meek, doting Mila—would never dare look Brum in the eye, would never show him this clean, unclouded glimpse of her rage.