She shoved the other girl hard, swept her leg behind her ankle.
“Stop it!” snarled the girl as she toppled.
But Nina could not stop. She wanted to get hit. She wanted to hit back. She grabbed the girl by her collar.
Nina grunted as sudden pain seized her chest. It felt like a fist around her heart. The girl had her hands up, something between terror and exultation in her copper eyes. Nina felt her body grow heavy; her vision blurred. She knew this feeling from her training as a Corporalnik. The other girl was slowing Nina’s heartbeat.
“Grisha,” Nina gasped.
“I didn’t … I don’t.”
Nina pushed her own power against the other girl’s, felt her living, vibrant force waver. With the last bit of her strength, Nina flicked her fingers and a bone shard flew from its sheath at her thigh. It struck the girl in the side, not hard—it bounced into the snow. But it was enough to break her concentration.
Nina stumbled backward, trying to regain her breath, fingers pressed to her sternum. She hadn’t had Heartrender power used against her for years. She’d forgotten just how frightening it could be.
“You’re Grisha,” she said.
The girl leapt to her feet, knife drawn. “I’m not.”
Interesting, thought Nina. She has power but she can’t control it. She trusts the blade more.
Nina held up her palms to make peace. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Now the girl showed no sign of hesitation. Her body was loose, relaxed, as if she felt more herself with steel in her hand. “You sure seemed like you wanted to hurt me a second ago.”
“Well, I did, but I’ve come to my senses.”
“I was trying to save your life! Why do you care about a wolf anyway? You’re worse than the drüskelle.”
Now, that was something Nina had never expected to hear. “That wolf saved me from an attack. I don’t know why. But I didn’t want you to hurt him.” This girl was Grisha, and Nina had almost killed her. “I … overreacted.”
The tall girl shoved her knife back in its sheath. “Overreacting is throwing a tantrum when someone eats the last sweet roll.” She pointed an accusatory finger at Nina. “You were out for blood.”
“To be fair, I’ve considered killing over the last sweet roll.”
“Where’s your coat?”
“I think I took it off,” Nina said, searching for an explanation for why she would tear off her coat that didn’t involve disclosing her bone armor. “I guess I was going snow-mad.”
“Is that a thing?”
Nina found the coat, already almost buried in wet white flakes. “Absolutely. At least in my village.”
The other girl rubbed her muscled thigh. “And what did you hit me with?”
“A dart.”
“You threw a dart at me?” she said incredulously. “That’s ridiculous.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” A dart made of human bone, but some details were best avoided, and it was time to go on the offensive. Nina shrugged into her damp coat. “You put the guards to sleep at the convent. That’s how you sneak out.”
All the girl’s confidence dissolved, fear dousing her fire like a rogue wave. “I didn’t hurt anyone.”
“But you could have. That’s actually very delicate work. You could land someone in a coma.”
The girl stilled as the wind howled around them. “How would you know?”
But Nina hadn’t spoken without thinking. Grisha power was as good as a death sentence or worse in this country.
“My sister was Grisha,” Nina lied.
“What … what happened to her?”
“That’s not a story for the middle of a storm.”
The girl clenched her fists. Saints, she was tall—but built like a dancer, a long coil of wiry muscle.
“You can’t tell anyone what I am,” she said. “They’ll kill me.”
“I’m not going to hurt you, and I’m not going to help anyone hurt you.” The girl’s face was wary. The wind rose, keening. “But none of that will matter if we both die out here.”
The tall girl looked at Nina as if she really had gone snow-mad. “Don’t be silly.”
“You’re saying you can find your way through this?”
“No,” she said, patting her horse’s flank. “But Helmut can. There’s a hunting lodge not far from here.” Again, she hesitated, and Nina could guess at the thoughts in her head.
“You’re thinking of leaving me to the mercy of the snow,” said Nina. The girl’s eyes slid away guiltily. So she had a merciless streak. Somehow it made Nina like her more. “I might not survive. But I might. And then you can be sure I’ll tell the first person I meet about the Grisha Heartrender living in secret among the Women of the Well.”
“I’m not Grisha.”
“You do a remarkable imitation.”
The girl ran a gloved hand through her horse’s mane. “Can you ride?”
“If I have to.”
“It’s that or go to sleep in the snow.”
“I can ride.”
The girl vaulted into the saddle in a single smooth movement. She offered Nina a hand, and Nina let herself be pulled onto the horse’s back.
“You don’t like to skip meals, do you?” said the girl with a grunt.
“Not if I can help it.”
Nina settled her hands around the girl’s waist, and soon they were moving through the growing drifts.
“You can be whipped for using those commands, you know,” said the girl. “Djel commenden. That’s considered blasphemy if a drüskelle isn’t speaking.”
“I’ll say extra prayers tonight.”
“You never told me how you know those commands.”
More lies then. “A boy from our town served in the ranks.”
“What’s his name?”
Nina thought back to the fight at the Ice Court. “Lars. I believe he passed recently.” And no one wants him back. He’d closed a whip over her and put her on her knees before Kaz Brekker had come calling.
The white world stretched on, frozen and featureless. Now that she wasn’t walking, Nina felt the cold more deeply, the weight of it settling over her. Just as she began to wonder if the girl knew where she was going, Nina saw a dark shape through the snow, and the horse halted. The girl slid down.
Nina followed, her legs gone numb and aching, and they led Helmut to a sheltered space beside the lodge.
“Looks like we aren’t the only ones who had this idea,” she said. There were lights in the windows of the little lodge, and she could hear loud voices from within.
The other girl twisted the reins in her hands, removing her glove to stroke the horse’s nose. “I didn’t realize so many people knew about this place. There are probably men inside who came to wait out the storm. We won’t be safe here.”
Nina considered. “Do you have your skirts in your saddlebag?”
The girl pulled at a knotted belt around her waist, and the folds of her coat dropped into a skirt that fell into place over her trousers. Nina had to admit she was impressed. “What other tricks do you have up your sleeve? Or skirts, as the case may be?”
A smile flickered over her lips. “A few.”
The door to the shelter flew open, a man with a gun silhouetted against the light. “Who’s out there?”
“Follow my lead,” Nina murmured, then cried, “Oh thank goodness. We were afraid no one would be here. Hurry, Inger!”
“Inger?” muttered the girl.
Nina stomped up to the door, ignoring the gun pointed at her, hoping the man holding it wasn’t drunk or riled enough to shoot at an unarmed girl—or a girl who looked unarmed.
Nina climbed the steps and smiled sweetly at the big man as the other girl trailed her. “Thank Djel we’ve found shelter for the night.” She glanced over his shoulder into the lodge. The room was crowded with men, ten at least, all gathered around a fire. Nina felt tension spike through her. This was a moment when she would have been glad to see drüskelle, who didn’t drink and who were kept to a strict code regarding women. There was nothing to do but brazen it out. “And among gentlemen to protect us!”
“Who are you?” the man said suspiciously.
Nina pushed past him as if she owned the place. “Aren’t we lucky, Inger? Let’s get in front of that fire. And close the door …” She laid a hand on the man’s chest. “I’m sorry, what was your name?”
He blinked. “Anders.”
“Be a darling and shut the door, Anders.”
They shuffled inside, and she met the stares of the men with a smile. “I knew Djel would guide our way, Inger. Surely your father will have a healthy reward in store for all of these fine fellows.”
For a moment, the girl looked confused, and Nina thought they might be lost. But then her face cleared. “Yes! Yes, indeed! My father is most generous when it comes to my safety.”
“And with you betrothed to the wealthiest man in Overüt.” Nina winked at the men gathered by the fire. “Well, I suppose Djel has granted you gentlemen a bit of luck this night too. Now, which of you will stand guard for us?”
“Stand guard?” said a man with tufty orange brows by the fire.
“Through the night.”
“Dumpling, I think you’re in a muddle—”
“Lady Inger’s father is most generous, but he cannot be expected to bestow ten thousand krydda on every one of you, so you must choose who is to be the beneficiary.”
“Ten thousand krydda?”
“That was the price last time, was it not? When we were stranded in that amusing spot down south. Although, I suppose now that you are betrothed to the wealthiest man in Overüt, it may be twice the price.”
“Who is this bridegroom you speak of?” the bearded man asked.