Inkar straightened. Our hands found each other.
As we crossed, we looked down at the waters of the moat, blue and still. I wondered if Meire was down there patrolling. The idea of it comforted me. I leaned in to Inkar on the pretext of steadying her. “If things go wrong, come back to the moat,” I whispered. “The citizens Below will help you.”
Inkar touched her axes. “No one and nothing will make me run from a fight.”
Sound buzzed, low and rumbling, from the other side of the camp. As a soldier led us through the clusters of white tents, the rumbling increased to a dull roar. This was the kind of party we didn’t have in the banquet halls.
A bonfire burned high and angry, blinding and smoky from an excess of wet wood, overlaying the smell of horses and unwashed men. Sigis sat in front of it, in a chair far too grand to be something he hauled around on campaigns. He didn’t wear mourning colors, but rather the uniform of his army: red and black, with a gold sash that showed off his numerous military achievements.
He wore a smile, too, which I dearly wanted to wipe off his face. His men stared at us frankly, amused, sneering at Inkar. Their eyes scraped over me until I felt naked and raw. I pretended my spine was electrum, my skin gold. Grand dukes didn’t turn tail and run.
Sigis slid off his throne and walked over to us. “What can I do for you, Your Grace?”
I swallowed. “I want to talk to you,” I said, and my voice was only a little higher than normal.
Sigis spread his arms. “Talk, then.”
“Alone,” I said.
His army shifted and murmured, and Sigis’s smile turned clever and arrogant and suggestive. I held my tongue. Saying not like that would only embarrass me further.
“I can refuse Her Grace nothing, of course,” he called, and the men around him cheered. Someone whistled.
“I think this was a bad idea,” Inkar whispered.
“We’ll be fine.” He can’t kill me now. He can’t kill me now.
“This way, my dear,” he said. The party silenced as we walked through it, then rumbled to life again behind us. “What do you think of our wake for your father?”
“I appreciate your kindness,” I lied.
He brought us to a tent like all the others, with the exception of a guard out front. “After you.”
I nodded to Viljo, who stepped back unhappily. Then I ducked inside with Inkar at my heels.
The interior was smaller than the suite we’d offered Sigis at the palace, but no less grand. Fur lined the inside of the tent. A brass brazier had been placed in a pit on the floor, and a wooden desk and chair sat to one side; a bed, to the other.
“Didn’t you want to speak alone?” he said in Drysian, eyeing Inkar. She pushed back her hood, and he smirked. “Have you demoted your so-called wife? The uniform suits her. Maybe the next time we meet, her battle skills will be as good as she says they are.”
“I—” Inkar looked at me and fell silent.
“Inkar stays,” I said.
Sigis shrugged, then kicked his boots off and sat in front of the brazier. “Very well. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? You might have invited me to the palace, for Your Grace’s comfort.”
I got to the point. “Minister Yannush is dead.”
Unease flickered over Sigis’s face. A few days ago, I would have missed it. Now it gave me the answer I needed most. “I’m sorry to hear it,” Sigis said. “You’ll have to remind me who Yannush was, though.”
“I don’t think I do,” I replied. “He offered you the chance to be grand duke, didn’t he?”
Another moment of silence. “A number of people think I’d make a better duke than you.”
“But Yannush was in touch with you before. He told you Father would be ill. He stood to gain from an alliance with you.”
Sigis shrugged. “Most people do, Ekata.” He rose, picked up a scroll and a clay carafe from his desk, shook the carafe experimentally, then took them over to the fire, sticking the carafe in the coals. “It’s what comes from being the most powerful man on the continent. But there’s a big step between courting my favor and committing treason.”
“There’s a lot I can’t do as grand duke, but I can extrapolate from evidence. Yannush spied for you. What did you offer him?” My traitorous voice shook. Inkar slipped her hand through mine.
Sigis laughed at that. “What did I offer him? He came to me. Kylma struggles with high taxes and low imports. No one’s been able to get the things they need, and your father was too obsessed with controlling his magic and fighting his son. Not to mention that annexation would be good for you. Tariffs would be all but demolished, trade would be simpler, and you’d have access to a wider range of nations. Face it, Ekata. Kylma is too small, and the world is too big.”
He drew a long, curved knife from his belt. Inkar stiffened, but he unrolled the scroll on his lap. It was a map of the North. He’d painted his conquests in red, radiating from Drysiak outward. He began to trace the tip of his knife over the new boundaries of his kingdom. “You think your frozen wasteland is the height of civilization, when in truth your army is fifty years behind mine in equipment and a hundred in tactics. Your people can barely subsist on the fish and meat they catch. If it weren’t for your magical friends Below, you’d be nothing at all. Your father was holding this place hostage. It could be a part of something better, but he was never willing.”
“So Yannush just wrote to you, offering an entire duchy.”
Sigis looked up, smiling blandly. “More or less.”
“And he didn’t want anything in return.”
“Of course he did.” Sigis picked up the clay carafe from the fire and poured amber wine into a wooden cup. “He wanted to be prime minister.”
I remembered Reko’s words. The man will do anything to maintain control. Clearly anything meant the murder of other ministers, but did it also mean treason? “And you didn’t see a problem with marching here and taking Kylma.”
Sigis took a sip. “Not really. It’s what I do.” He saluted me with his cup. “And I’d be better at it than your father, or your brother. Or, with all due respect, you.” Inkar narrowed her eyes at him. He leaned back and yawned. “Is that all you need to know? That Yannush begged me to save Kylma from your autocrat madman of a father? Or is there something else?”
“Did you know I’d survive the curse?” I hadn’t meant to ask, but my curiosity had gotten the better of me.
“Honestly, Ekata, it makes little difference,” Sigis replied, as if he could sidestep the question and I wouldn’t notice.
“So kill me now.” Inkar glared at me, wide-eyed. Why was I saying these things? “Win the coronation trials.”
Sigis only laughed. “Believe it or not, I’m not in the habit of killing royalty. If I do it, it’s only a matter of time before the commoners think that anyone can do it. And that’s hardly a good message to send.” He raised the knife, and Inkar leaned in front of my heart. “Make no mistake—if I must kill you, I will. But I have such fond memories of you, little Ekata. Besides, why kill you when there are other ways to achieve my goal?”