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“Don’t make me say her name,” he mutters, staring about the tent suspiciously.
I can’t help but chuckle.
“Do you think that just by saying Kat’s name, she will magically appear? She’s not a witch.”
“She might be,” he grumbles.
“You do know that there are no such things as witches? Gods, Brick. I never took you to be so superstitious. She’s just a woman. A flesh and blood woman with no magical powers to speak of.” I chuckle again.
“It’s no laughing matter, Levi. I swear I saw my own death in her eyes,” he insists, frantic.
“You saw what she wanted you to see. Kat isn’t a witch. She’s just a girl with too much power for her own good.”
“Can you quit with that shit? It’s the second time you’ve called her Kat. You’re not friends. Friends don’t let their father butcher their friend’s whole fucking family.”
My smile instantly drops from my face.
“I’m well aware.”
“Are you sure? Because it kind of looks like you need a reminder why we are doing this shit in the first place.”
“It wasn’t Katrina’s hand who raised the sword,” I reply factually. “And it wasn’t her who gave out the order.”
“Aye, but she didn’t stop it either,” Brick states harshly. “She didn’t warn you. She didn’t prevent it from happening. And she sure as shit wasn’t there to pick up the pieces afterward. As far as your people are concerned, her hands are covered in the same east-born blood as her father.”
My back molars almost break with how hard I grind them, but I don’t give him a response.
He’s right.
Katrina made no such effort to spare my family.
None.
A truth that I must keep close to my heart in the days ahead.
Even if all it does is harden it further.
When Brick realizes that his words have turned my mood charcoal black, he becomes subdued.
“I’m sorry. I’ve spoken out of turn and said too much,” he apologizes. “I’m just worried, that’s all. Worried that you’ll get played by a pretty face with a witch’s heart.”
“You forget, dear friend. My life is already cursed, as you just so eloquently pointed out. What could she ever do to me that her father hasn’t already?”
Brick lets out an exaggerated exhale, before placing a friendly hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t underestimate the power of a woman. They tend to know exactly which buttons to push to cripple us. To make us lose our way and leave us a ghost of our former selves. And one such as the Winter Queen must have been taught those types of tricks from the crib.”
My knee-jerk reaction is to defend Kat. Or at least the Kat that I had grown up with and explain to him that she wasn’t always like this. That when we were young, she wasn’t this terrifying thing that Brick sees now.
She was different.
Softer.
Kinder.
But then I remember Atlas’s letter as well as Brick’s counsel, and they are all I need for any words I may have conjured up in her defense to die a quick death at the tip of my tongue.
Queen Katrina of Bratsk needs no defense from me.
