Calla

By the third day, Briar had stopped asking to leave Taigoska and go after Maez. According to Briar, Maez was dealing with her grief at the bottom of every available wine bottle in Sankai-ed. Sadie and Navin hadn’t reappeared, and Maez didn’t know how to get Galen den’ Mora on the move again. The oxen apparently weren’t budging. Briar had tried to encourage Maez to buy a horse and ride back to Taigos, but Maez wasn’t responding well to her efforts. Leaving meant giving up hope that Sadie was still alive.

I felt devastated for my sister. Even as I mourned, at least I could do it with Grae by my side. My sister seemed desperate to comfort her mate, but now, with everything we knew about Briar’s engagement to Evres, I wasn’t letting my twin out of my sight. If Sadie’s family was hunting for her, they’d be all too keen to snap up Briar, too.

I stared at my sister’s reflection as she stood in front of the full-length mirror. I lounged on her bed, eating a bowl of candied almonds just like I had the day of her failed wedding to my now mate. Grae, Hector, and Mina played a Taigosi board game in the corner of Briar’s suite—a game none of them seemed to fully understand the rules of.

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready?”

Briar asked the trio, as Hector knocked over a carved stone wolf from Mina’s square.

Hector frowned down at his fighting leathers. “We are.”

Briar smoothed down her sapphire satin dress that brought out the color of her eyes, her expression tight. “Grae, you at the very least can’t be dressing like a soldier. You’re the king consort of Olmdere.”

“I’ll put a crown on,”

he said as he moved his stone sword piece around the board.

Briar pinched the bridge of her nose. “At least put on a golden jacket or something!”

“I was joking, Briar,”

Grae said with a wink. “I’ll go get dressed now.” He passed a miniature glass orb to Mina and Hector, then threw his hands up in the air in a gesture I assumed meant he’d lost the game. Before leaving, Grae rounded the side of the bed, his hands bracketing on either side of me as he planted a long lavishing kiss on my lips. I knew that kiss. It was the “trying to goad me into bed” sort of kiss . . . not that I ever needed much convincing.

I started to rise off the bed when Briar commanded, “, stay.”

Grae and I both frowned but I didn’t move. “Grae, I trust you can go get changed on your own.”

Grae gave my body a slow once-over that promised we would pick up where we left off soon and then he exited the room. I sighed and slumped back down on the pillow. Normally, I would’ve pushed back at Briar, but she needed this right now. Letting her take the lead with the Ingrid situation was the only thing keeping her from fleeing off to Valta to comfort Maez.

“You look gorgeous, Briar,”

I said, but that just made her look even more sad. “I promise to hold a ball in Olmdere as soon as Maez returns so she can see how beautiful her mate is.” That seemed to perk her up a little.

“Don’t get almond crumbs on your outfit,”

she scolded, but her eyes said, “thank you.”

“What’s your plan to charm Ingrid to our side now?”

“We need to stop thinking Ingrid will help us out of the goodness of her own heart,”

Briar said with a disappointed sigh. “She’s too calculated for that. We need to beat her at her own game.”

“And how are we going to do that?”

“Klaus,” she said.

“Klaus?”

“I dance with him. I put some ideas in Ingrid’s head,”

she said as if it was as easy as snapping her fingers. She held up two different teardrop earrings—one diamond, one sapphire—and scrutinized each one in her reflection.

“What kind of ideas are you planning on putting in Ingrid’s head?”

“The kinds that involve Klaus and me.”

An almond flew out of my mouth and across the room. “Excuse me?”

“Meanwhile,”

she continued as if we were discussing our favorite flavor of tea and not manipulating the Ice Wolf Queen, “you sidle up to Ingrid and make her think Klaus and I are hitting it off just as well as I’m going to make it look like we are. It will take barely a nudge, judging by her outburst in the greenhouse the other day. We’ll put this idea in her head, one where I would make an excellent queen and that Klaus is very kingly himself.”

“Are you trying to get me beheaded?”

I glared openmouthed at her. “We need for her to help us, not slaughter us. You want me to make her think my twin is going to usurp her?”

“You will do it if you want her help,”

Briar insisted. “I’ve been watching the two of them since our arrival. I’ve seen how the pack responds to each of them, too. Ingrid needs Klaus’s support. The Wolves instinctively flock toward him. Even Ingrid herself looks to him for his opinion, probably more than she should if you ask me. The night of our run, Klaus and Ingrid were both at the front of the pack, and I swear it felt like the others were following him.”

“Patriarchal bullshit,”

I growled.

Mina tapped the table twice in a “here, here!”

agreement. Hector rubbed his eyes in frustration as she moved a wolf across the board, clearly being beaten at another round of the game.

“If Ingrid thinks that such a relationship is even remotely a possibility, she will give you some soldiers and send us all on our merry ways at her earliest convenience,”

Briar said. “She’ll need to get rid of us without rebuffing us now that I’ve delighted her court and ensnared her cousin’s heart.”

“Second cousin.”

Briar shrugged. “No ensnaring will actually take place, of course,”

she said. “It just needs to appear that way to Ingrid for one perfect moment that rattles her enough to give in.”

“I don’t know, Briar,”

I muttered. “You have a way of melting every one of these Ice Wolves when they see you flouncing around.”

She rolled her eyes. “If Valta and Damrienn are already questioning the validity of Ingrid’s reign, she needs Klaus’s support more than ever. If her pack starts to agree that they need a king more than a queen, it’s all over for her. She’ll want us out of her court and away from her pack, even if it means sacrificing a dozen of her best Wolves to help us rescue Ora.”

I let out a low whistle. “For all your daintiness, Briar, Vellia has taught you well: you are actually an evil mastermind. I hope you know that.”

She bowed to me in the mirror. “Thank you.”