“Oh, Mila, you’ve worked wonders!” Ylva said when she saw Hanne’s gilded cheeks. “She looks like a princess.”
Hanne smiled, but Nina saw the way her fists clenched. What have we gotten ourselves into? Heartwood might give them everything they wanted—access to Vadik Demidov, a chance to locate Queen Tatiana’s love letters. But what had seemed like a straight path felt more like a maze. Nina picked up the amber curl Hanne had dropped onto the dressing table and slipped it into her pocket. Whatever happens, I’ll find a way out, she vowed. For both of us.
* * *
Maidenswalk took place in the grand ballroom in the royal palace, just a short walk from their rooms on the White Island. Nina had been here before in a different disguise, dressed as a member of the notorious Menagerie. That had been during Hringk?lla, a raucous party full of indulgence. This afternoon was a more staid affair. Noble families packed the alcoves. A long, pale gray carpet stretched the length of the room, pausing at a giant fountain in the shape of two dancing wolves, and then rolling on to the dais where the royal family sat. Gathered there, the Grimjers looked like a beautiful collection of dolls—all blond, blue-eyed, and sylphlike. They liked to claim Hedjut blood, and the evidence could be seen in the tawny warmth of the king’s complexion and the younger son’s thick curls. The little boy was tugging on his mother’s elegant hand as she laughed at his antics. He was sturdy and rosy-cheeked. The same could not be said for the crown prince. Prince Rasmus, lanky and sallow, looked almost green against the alabaster throne he sat beside his father.
Through a tall, peaked window, Nina could just see the gleam of the moat that surrounded the White Island, covered in a thin skin of frost. The moat itself was ringed by a circle of buildings—the embassy sector, the prison sector, and the drüskelle sector—all of them protected by the Ice Court’s supposedly impenetrable wall. It was said the capital had been built to symbolize the rings of Djel’s sacred ash, but Nina preferred to think of it the way Kaz had: the rings of a target.
The young women participating in Heartwood gathered with their parents in the back of the ballroom.
“They’re all staring at me,” said Hanne. “I’m too old for this.”
“No, you are not,” said Nina. It was true that most of the girls seemed to be a few years younger, and they were all shorter.
“I look like a giant.”
“You look like the warrior queen Jamelja come down from the ice. And all these little girls with their simpers and blond curls look like undercooked puddings.”
Ylva laughed. “That’s unkind, Mila.”
“You’re right,” said Nina, then added beneath her breath, “But it’s also accurate.”
“Hanne?” A pretty girl in pale pink wearing enormous diamonds approached them. “I don’t know if you remember me. I was at the convent two years ago.”
“Bryna! Of course I remember, but I thought … What are you doing here?”
“Trying to catch a husband. I’ve been traveling with my family since I left the convent, so I’m a bit late to all of this.”
Ylva smiled. “Then you can be late together. We’ll leave you now, but we’ll be waiting for you after the processional.”
Nina gave Hanne a wink, and then she and Ylva went to join Brum, where he stood with a general and an older drüskelle named Redvin, who had trained with Brum in their youth. He was a spiteful, humorless stick of a man, and his constant demeanor of bitter resignation entertained Nina to no end. She delighted in being as ridiculous as possible around him.
“Isn’t it all glorious, Redvin?” she exclaimed breathlessly.
“If you say so.”
“Don’t they all look just splendid?”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
He looked like he wanted to hurl himself over a cliff rather than spend another minute with her. A girl had to take her pleasures where she could.
Brum handed Nina a glass of sickly sweet punch. If he was troubled by the Fjerdan defeats at Nezkii and Ulensk, he hid it well. It would have been nice to string up the fox on our first hunt, he had said when he returned from the front. But now we know what the Ravkan forces can do. They won’t be ready for us next time.
Nina had smiled and nodded and thought to herself, We’ll see.
“Is it hard to watch another woman swathed in silks and made the center of attention?” he asked, his voice low and uncomfortably intimate.
“Not when it’s Hanne.” That had come out with an edge on it, and she felt Brum stiffen beside her. Nina bit her tongue. Some days meekness was harder than others. “She is a good soul and deserves every indulgence. These luxuries are not meant for such as me.”