The Impostor Queen (22 page)

My brows rise as I start to chuckle. “Oskar's legs are very long—she must have been fast.”

Maarika blinks several times and looks away. “Oh, yes. Very fast. She was a tiny fierce thing. Freya is a bit like her.”

I place another stone on the rim of the pit, waiting.

“It was the Soturi,” Maarika finally whispers. “They came up from the Motherlake one night. They stole everything of value and burned the place to the ground. One day my brother had the perfect life, a family, a beautiful daughter, and the next, all of them were gone. Ashes and cinders. It makes you wonder why we ever believe in tomorrow, why we assume we have the next minute, and the next, and the next.”

“But you do,” I say, gesturing at the fire, the rocks, the shelter. “And you believe Oskar does as well.”

She gives me a flickering smile. “Oh, yes. I have hope.” She touches a warming stone. “And I will protect it to my last breath, with whatever strength I have, however small it may be.” Her eyes meet mine, and I read the message there. Oskar is her hope. Her family is her life.

She is trusting me—and warning me. Does she know that Oskar is a wielder—and does she suspect I know as well? I want so badly to ask her why he's hiding, why he suffers like he does, but I have too many secrets to keep myself.

“If I had a family of my own,” I say slowly, “I would protect them, as you do.”

Her gaze is unwavering. “But right now, we are your family.”

“Then this is the family I will work to protect. Even if all I can do is heat stones by the fire.”

Maarika squeezes my arm and then disappears back into her private area, and I stare at the place where she was, hoping I passed the test she just set before me.

The next afternoon I go down the trail into the dark rear caverns with Freya, where the underground stream sends icy water rushing through a wide trough before disappearing under the rock again. We peel off our stockings to wash. “Does Oskar seem all right to you?” I ask, haunted by my memories of his tortured sleep the night before.

Freya shrugs. “He's always grumpy in the winter, but it's definitely worse this year.”

“It's more than grumpiness,” I say, wincing as the soles of my feet touch the water. I only wash with my left hand, because my right is fearfully sensitive to cold now, something I discovered the hard way the first time I dipped it into the stream. It took hours for it to stop hurting, and the whole time, I thought of Oskar, how pained he looks when he comes in from the icy marshlands. “Do you think he might be sick?”

I'm so eager for her reply that I forget to be careful.

“Hey,” she says when she spots the blood-flame mark on my calf. “What's that?”

I quickly yank my gown over it. “Just a scar,” I say, my voice loud and creaky. “Once when I was little, I got too curious around the fire and burned myself with a poker.”

Freya cringes. “That must have hurt terribly,” she says quietly. “Burns are the worst.”

I thank the stars that she believes me. “Yes. I'll never do something that stupid again.”

After we wash, me shivering from the frigid water and Freya oddly seeming to enjoy it, we return to the shelter and retrieve two baskets, then head out to gather twigs for kindling. I wrap my right hand in three layers of wool to try to protect it from the chill wind and sorely wish I owned a pair of gloves. As we exit the cave, we meet Aira and her father—Ismael, who has a bushy black beard, a scar that slices through one of his eyebrows, and, I recall, the ability to coax fire from damp leaves. Aira's carrying a saw, and Ismael's hauling a string of fish. Both are wearing light cloaks despite the bitter cold.

Veikko is with them, wrapped in a thick cloak of fur and wearing heavy gloves on his hands. “—got in through the front gate this time,” he's telling them. “There's a shortage of vegetables in the city, so when I offered the constable a bag of potatoes, he let me right in!”

Ismael scowls. “Worse and worse,” he says. “Soon the city dwellers will be coming out here and raiding
us
!”

Veikko looks down at the string of fish. “Most citizens have no idea how to fend for themselves. They're used to things being easy. Spoiled by the warmth and plenty. Now that it's gone, they're like orphaned baby birds.” He raises his eyebrows. “They'd better hope a hungry weasel doesn't find the nest before their mother returns.”

“If that weasel has longboats and broadswords,” Aria scoffs, “it might not matter.”

Freya and I meet them in the middle of the wide-open area in front of the cavern, surrounded by the high, steep stone walls of the hills that hide this cave entrance from view. Aira smiles at me. I believe she's noticed how Oskar doesn't treat me differently than he treats others, and she no longer considers me a threat to her romantic hopes. I smile back, despite the now-familiar ache in my chest every time I think of him. “If there are food shortages, is the temple sharing some of their surplus with the citizens?” I ask them. “They have food aplenty from their own gardens, and all the magic they need to keep things growing.”

“The temple's not sharing a thing.” Veikko frowns. “It's shut up tight now. Only the elders dare show their faces in town.”

“Because the people are afraid of them.” I remember how they made way as Aleksi and Leevi passed. I used to think it was awe and respect, but now I wonder if I was wrong, as I was about so many things.

“Aye,” says Ismael, scratching at his beard. “No one dares approach them. But as people get hungrier, their desperation will outweigh their fear.”

“It's already happening,” says Veikko. “There was a riot in the market over food prices yesterday, made worse by a rumor that the priests have been hoarding copper in the temple that could be used for trade. A few people were shouting that they should raid the temple.”

I shake my head. “The elders are worried about a copper shortage.”

“But why would the priests care so much?” asks Aira. “Seems like the city council should be more worried.”

“Because copper is—” Suddenly I realize I've stepped out onto some of the thinnest ice imaginable. Aira, Ismael, and Veikko are giving me equally curious looks. “I . . . was in a bakery fetching buns for my mistress's breakfast and overheard one of the temple scullery maids saying that copper is the source of the Kupari magic.”

“Heard Raimo say as much once,” says Ismael, nearly making me sag in relief as the others turn their attention to him. But then he adds, “But how do you know the elders are worried about a shortage, Elli?”

My face burns with my fear of having revealed too much. “M-my master in town . . . he had recently done business with one of the elders and . . . he had dined in the temple. Apparently it came up. I overheard him telling my mistress that night.”

“You overhear a great many interesting things,” Aira says, her rosy lips curled with suspicion.

“It makes sense, though,” says Veikko. “Those miners were desperate to gain access to our caves. And they'll be back.”

Ismael looks slightly sick. “And they might bring priests, seeing as they have a stake in the copper too.” He glances over my shoulder, into the main cave, where dozens of families are going about the business of daily life. “I suppose we might be thankful for a bit of the upheaval in the town. I hope it keeps all of them busy for some time to come.”

“It may not be enough,” says Veikko. “I overheard two of the constables near the gate, telling quite a story.” He leans forward, clutching his fur cloak around him as an icy breeze gusts around us. “One claimed that a priest had sent him a message—asking him to be on the lookout for the Valtia.”

A brutal chill runs hard down my back, but Aira lets out a peal of laughter. “What? As if she'd be roaming the streets?”

Veikko shrugs. “They said she'd gone mad with grief and run away. They think she might have escaped into the outlands.”

I think I'm going to vomit all over the stones at my feet. “That's insane,” I say loudly. “How could she even do that?” I clear my throat to chase away the quaver in my voice. “She'd be recognized immediately.”

Ismael nods. “Maybe. Hard to see how she could hide herself, especially if she wasn't in her right mind. A bit scary to think about, if you ask me.”

“Exactly,” says Veikko.

Aira rolls her eyes. “You can't hide that much magic.”

Oskar's face flashes in my mind. “I agree,” I say quickly. “Especially if she's unbalanced. It sounds like that constable was playing a trick on his friend.”

Freya laughs. “The stories coming out of that city are crazier every week. Come on, Elli. We need to get going or we won't be back before dark.”

I can't get away fast enough. I pull my cloak tight around me as we hike up the trail, as if it could protect me from my own fears. We walk all the way up the steep trail to the marshlands before turning west and journeying to a small copse of trees on a hill that overlooks the Motherlake. The whole time, I'm trying to convince myself that I was right, that the constable was playing a cruel joke. Surely the elders assume I'm dead. Surely they've let me go. Surely they've realized I'm not the real Valtia? But then I remember what Raimo said:
They never figured it out!
I swallow back dread as I gather dry twigs.

The sunlight is fading, and the frigid air bites at my cheeks. It might not have snowed yet, but winter has sunk its teeth deep. I've never felt cold like I have in the past few weeks. In the temple, it was always pleasantly warm or cool. But now I understand how lucky we all were—my fingers feel so stiff that I'm sure my blood is turning to ice, and the stumps of my pinkie and ring finger tingle sharply and painfully.

“So, what's your theory?” Freya asks after we pile our baskets full and begin the trek to the caverns.

“My theory?”

“About the old Valtia. Do you think she's dead?”

The pang of grief knifes through me. “Yes,” I murmur. “I think she's dead.”

“I'm not sure. If she is, then wouldn't the new Valtia have shown herself to the people? Do you think she really went mad?”

There's that urge to vomit again. “Why do people out here care about that so much?” I blurt out. “Is it just the warmth? That's all the Valtia does for the outlands, right?”

Freya is silent, and when I look over at her, she's scowling. “We're Kupari too,” she says, her voice shaking. “Just because we're out here doesn't mean we're not.”

I blanch at having offended her, remembering Sofia's disagreement with the elders about entering the outlands to be seen by her subjects beyond the city walls. “Of course you're Kupari! I didn't mean to suggest—”

“But everyone in the city thinks we're criminals, right? That's what the miners called us that day they came to tell us to leave. Thieves. They painted us all with one brush.” Her lips pull tight. “I'm glad Sig set them on fire!”

I stare at her with wide eyes. “And how did Sig set them on fire?”

She bites her lip, then grins with her secret knowledge. “He wields it.”

“There are lots of wielders in the caverns.” I thought I'd met all of them in the past few weeks—and none of them seem that powerful. “Which one is he?”

She shakes her head. “Sig hasn't been around since the fight with the miners. A bunch of the other wielders were angry after it happened—they thought it would draw the attention of the Valtia and her elders. So Sig and a bunch of his friends who are wielders left the caverns and haven't been back since. But believe me, no one wields fire like he does. He is
made
of fire.”

The rumors Mim heard from Irina the scullery maid were right after all. There
was
a strong fire wielder among the cave dwellers. “If he has such an affinity for fire magic, why is he in the outlands instead of in the temple?”

“Why would he want to be in the temple?”

“To live a life of privilege and serve the Valtia and the Kupari people? Such a strong wielder would surely have been chosen as an apprentice, guaranteed to become a priest one day. Why would he want to live in a cave in the outlands instead?” This is something I've been dying to ask for weeks.

Freya's little face squinches up. “Because he didn't want to be gelded and shaved, to begin with?”

“G-gelded?” My stomach turns as I remember one of my lessons with Kauko, about how male horses often have this procedure to make them easier to control.

Freya leans forward, her braids swinging, and speaks in a low conspiratorial voice. “It's when they cut off a boy's—”

I wave my hand in the air. “It's all right. I understand.” I think of the apprentices and younger priests, few of them as tall as a normal man, many of them with high, reedy voices. I think of all the little boys I've seen over the years, led into the temple after having been taken away from their families. And of Niklas, the boy who had been hit by a cart before Aleksi brought him in. Aleksi had said he was eager to get to the temple—but what if he'd been trying to get
away
? All the things I've seen over the years come back to me, painted with a much more sinister tint. For reasons I don't fully understand, I think of Oskar and his freezing eyelashes. How was he not found by the priests?