Page 30 of Rule of Wolves

“No, you are not,” said Nina. It was true that most of the girls seemed to be a few years younger, and they were all shorter.

“I look like a giant.”

“You look like the warrior queen Jamelja come down from the ice. And all these little girls with their simpers and blond curls look like undercooked puddings.”

Ylva laughed. “That’s unkind, Mila.”

“You’re right,” said Nina, then added beneath her breath, “But it’s also accurate.”

“Hanne?” A pretty girl in pale pink wearing enormous diamonds approached them. “I don’t know if you remember me. I was at the convent two years ago.”

“Bryna! Of course I remember, but I thought … What are you doing here?”

“Trying to catch a husband. I’ve been traveling with my family since I left the convent, so I’m a bit late to all of this.”

Ylva smiled. “Then you can be late together. We’ll leave you now, but we’ll be waiting for you after the processional.”

Nina gave Hanne a wink, and then she and Ylva went to join Brum, where he stood with a general and an older drüskelle named Redvin, who had trained with Brum in their youth. He was a spiteful, humorless stick of a man, and his constant demeanor of bitter resignation entertained Nina to no end. She delighted in being as ridiculous as possible around him.

“Isn’t it all glorious, Redvin?” she exclaimed breathlessly.

“If you say so.”

“Don’t they all look just splendid?”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

He looked like he wanted to hurl himself over a cliff rather than spend another minute with her. A girl had to take her pleasures where she could.

Brum handed Nina a glass of sickly sweet punch. If he was troubled by the Fjerdan defeats at Nezkii and Ulensk, he hid it well. It would have been nice to string up the fox on our first hunt, he had said when he returned from the front. But now we know what the Ravkan forces can do. They won’t be ready for us next time.

Nina had smiled and nodded and thought to herself, We’ll see.

“Is it hard to watch another woman swathed in silks and made the center of attention?” he asked, his voice low and uncomfortably intimate.

“Not when it’s Hanne.” That had come out with an edge on it, and she felt Brum stiffen beside her. Nina bit her tongue. Some days meekness was harder than others. “She is a good soul and deserves every indulgence. These luxuries are not meant for such as me.”

Brum relaxed. “You deal unfairly with yourself. You would look most fetching in ivory silk.”

Nina wished she could blush on command. She had to settle for a maidenly giggle and staring down at the toes of her shoes. “The fashions of the court are far more suited to Hanne’s figure.”

Nina expected Brum to wave away her talk of fashion, but instead the glint in his eye was calculating. “You are not wrong. Hanne has flourished under your tutelage. I never believed she could make much of a match, but you’ve changed all of that.”

Nina’s gut twisted. Maybe she was jealous. The idea of Hanne being paired off with some nobleman or military commander tied her stomach in knots. But what if Hanne could be happy here, happy with her family, with a husband to love her? What if she could finally find the acceptance she’d sought for so long? Besides, it wasn’t as if she and Nina were going to have a future together, since Nina had every intention of murdering her father.

“You look so fierce,” Brum said with a laugh. “Where do your thoughts carry you?”

To your prolonged humiliation and early death. “I hope she finds someone worthy of her. I only want the best for Hanne.”

“As do we both. And we shall have some new dresses cut for you as well.”

“Oh no, that isn’t necessary!”

“It is what I wish. Would you deny me?”

I would push you into the sea and do a jig as you drowned. But Nina turned her eyes up to him, wide and thrilled, a young woman flustered and overwhelmed by a great man’s attention. “Never,” she said on a breath.

Brum’s eyes strayed slowly over her face, her neck, and lower. “Fashion may favor a trimmer figure, but men do not care for fashion.”