favorite pupil.”
“You knew him?” Nina whispered.
“Only in passing. Only as one of my father’s soldiers.”
“He…” Nina’s whole body shook. She felt as if the room was crowded with ghosts, the person she’d been, the boy she’d loved, the girl she loved now—brave and kind and full of strength. This girl she didn’t deserve. “Joran murdered him. He said it himself. He shot an unarmed man and left him…” Her voice caught. She was choking on the words. “He left him to die. But Matthias found the strength to make his way to me.” For one last kiss. There had been so few. Nina’s hands closed into fists, that overwhelming tide rising inside her. “This may be my only chance.”
“At what?”
“To settle the score,” Nina bit out. “To see justice done.”
“Joran is not yet seventeen,” Hanne said quietly. “He would have been fifteen when Matthias died.”
“Matthias didn’t die. He didn’t pass away peacefully in his bed. He didn’t step in front of a horse cart. He was murdered in cold blood.”
“And did he tell you who killed him?”
Nina turned away. “He refused to.”
Save some mercy for my people. Matthias could have told her it had been a young drüskelle who had murdered him; maybe he’d even known Joran’s name. Instead he’d pleaded for his country and his brothers. He hadn’t wanted her to seek revenge. But what about what she wanted? What about the sorrow she would never be free of?
Hanne laid a hand on Nina’s shoulder, gently turning her. “Joran was a boy raised on hate. The way Matthias was. And Rasmus. And me.”
“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