Rule of Wolves (King of Scars #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,49

likely to talk.

And Nina intended to do just that.

When she had first heard the voices of the dead, she had shrunk from them, tried to ignore them. She’d been too deep in her grief, too desperate to keep hold of her tie to Matthias. Death had still been the enemy, the monster that could strike without warning and take all you held dear. She hadn’t wanted to make peace with it. She couldn’t. Until she’d laid Matthias to rest. Even now her heart rebelled at the thought that there was no loophole, no secret spell to return him to her, to give her back the love she’d lost. No, she hadn’t made peace with death, but they’d come to an understanding.

Speak. Nina reached out with her power, feeling the cold river of mortality that ran through everyone and everything, letting it carry her to the sacred burial ground that lay in the shadow of the Elderclock only a few hundred yards away. Who will speak the name of Agathe Grimjer, queen of Fjerda?

The voice that answered was loud and clear, a strong soul, recently gone. It had a great deal to say.

“Six miscarriages,” Nina said.

“What?” The word fell like a stone in the old throne room.

“You miscarried six times before you gave birth to Rasmus. Not three.”

“Who told you that?” The queen’s voice was harsh, her cool demeanor shaken.

Linor Rundholm, the queen’s best friend and lady-in-waiting, dead and buried on the White Island.

“You had given up on praying,” said Nina, letting her eyes close, swaying as if she was in a trance. “So you had a Grisha Healer brought from the dungeons to see you through your pregnancy.”

“That is a lie.”

But it wasn’t. Linor had whispered it all. The queen had resorted to what was considered witchcraft.

“You think your boy is cursed.” She opened her eyes and stared directly at the queen. “But he is not.”

Queen Agathe’s slender fingers gripped the arms of her throne like white claws. “If what you were saying were true, then I would have committed heresy. My son would have been born with the demon’s mark upon him, forsaken by Djel. There would be no hope for him, no matter how many prayers I said.”

Nina almost felt sorry for this woman, a helpless mother wanting only to give birth to a healthy child. But once Rasmus had been born and weaned, she’d sent the Grisha Healer who had helped her to her death. She couldn’t risk anyone learning of what she’d done. Only Linor knew, her dear friend, a friend so beloved the queen had refused to let her travel with her husband to the front. I need you with me, Agathe had said, and a queen’s need was as good as a command. Linor’s husband had died on the field of battle and Linor had remained year after year on the White Island, her grief turning bitter as she tended to a selfish queen and her sickly son.

“When I was a little girl,” said Nina, “I fell into a river. It was the dead of winter. I should have frozen. I should have drowned. But when my parents found me lying on the banks nearly two miles from where I’d fallen in, I was warm and safe, my cheeks pink and my heartbeat even. I was blessed by Djel. I was touched by his far-seeing. Ever since then, I have known things I have no right to know. And I know this: Your son is not cursed.”

“Then why does he suffer?” Her voice was pleading, all dignity lost to desperation.

A good question. But Nina was ready. As a Grisha, she’d learned to use the dead as her informants and her weapons. As a spy, she’d learned to do the same with the living. Sometimes all they needed was the right nudge. She spoke the words she knew the queen would want to hear, not because of what the dead had whispered, but because of the need she’d felt when Matthias died, the terrible longing to believe there was a reason for her pain.

“There is a purpose to all of it,” she said, a promise, a prediction. “And to your suffering as well. Djel spoke through the waters today. Your son will heal and grow strong and he will find greatness.”

The queen drew in a long, trembling breath. Nina knew she was struggling to keep tears at bay. “Leave me,” she said, her voice quaking.

Nina curtsied and backed from the room. Before the doors closed,