“You would have been dead your first day in the city if you’d been able to read my note,” he says. “I left it at your door, but I forgot that you wolf-girls are as dumb as dead fish, and can’t even spell your own names.”
I make a sound that’s almost a laugh: it was my own illiteracy that saved me, or at least prolonged my life. He must have invited me somewhere, perhaps pretending to be the king, and waited in the dark with a knife to cut my throat. And if he’d come to my room any other evening while I slept, he would have found it empty, too, since I have spent the past five nights at Zsigmond’s house.
“It won’t do you any good,” I say. The room, his face, all of it is blinkering with pale stars. “Even if I’m dead, the king will never name you. Not when there’s still a true-born son . . .”
I trail off, stuttering in agony. Nándor pushes off the wall and crouches down before me, his blue eyes so clear and cold I can almost see the ice in them still.
“Perhaps,” he says. “Perhaps not. Either way, you will not be alive to see it. Nor will you be alive to see Yehuli Street looted and empty, or your village turned to ash.”
I have no doubt that he means it, that he will turn his cold fire on Yehuli Street and Keszi the moment he gets the chance. I try to remember how many Woodsmen I saw in the crowd and calculate the number that the king still has on his side, but my mind feels like a frayed rope, only a few threads away from snapping.
“The king’s real heir lives,” I say, though my tongue tastes like copper and my eyes are starting to film. “And while he does, you have no chance of ever sitting the throne, unless you aim to rule by pagan right.”
I hope to see even a trace of disconcert on Nándor’s face, but he only smiles, such a beautiful, pure white smile that for just a moment I believe Szabín—that a chicken would bat its lashes at him while he butchered it.
“I know you have kept a close eye on my brother, as he has on you,” Nándor says. “I haven’t much wondered about why, since he came back to Király Szek with a bruise on his throat in the shape of your mouth.”
He knows. Of course he knows. Fear runs bleakly up my spine.
“What do you think my brother will do, when he sees your body?” Very calmly, Nándor begins untying the makeshift bandage I have knotted over my own shoulder. “What concessions do you think he will grant me?”
“Maybe he’ll thank you for it.” My voice is hoarse, nearly inaudible. “Then he’ll never have to confess to his sin. You’ll have taken care of his shameful problem for him.”
“I don’t think so, wolf-girl,” Nándor says. “I think that my brother will weep.”
And then he digs his fingers into my wound, pressing deep through flesh and sinew, nearly down to the bone. A hot, breathtaking pain bursts across my eyes, blinding me. I scream, but the sound of it is muffled by the blood in my mouth.
Gáspár was right. Nándor will torture me to death or madness, whichever comes first, just to make him falter. Even after I’m dead, I will damn Gáspár. Maybe my corpse will be the very thing that gets him killed.
Nándor withdraws his fingers. His hand is gloved in scarlet down to the wrist, but beyond that his skin is white and unblemished, as pure as the year’s first snow. He draws his hand up over my shoulder, along my collarbone, and closes a fist over my left breast.
“You missed,” he says, and at first I don’t realize that he’s speaking to Riika, not me. “I told you to aim for her heart. But I think she will die anyway—there’s certainly enough blood on my shirt.”
The front of his dolman is flecked with red. Against the wall, Riika has started weeping, her eyes squeezed shut.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. I don’t know if she’s talking to Nándor at all.
The four fingers of my right hand curl over the stone floor. Above his collar, the pale column of Nándor’s throat is inches from my face, taut with muscle.
“Or maybe you’ll die first,” I say, drawing my lips back to show my teeth.
I raise my hand and rip open his dolman, tearing through the silk as if I have claws. I tear right down to his bare chest, just as pale and bright as the rest of him, blue veins straining under his skin like water under ice. ?rd?g’s threads go stiff around my wrist. Black marks feather across his skin in the shape of my fingers, my touch burning him right down to the bone. It’s a wound deep enough to kill.