“You’re leaving soon, aren’t you?” I ask, deciding to test him. “To secure the trade route from Dragonsbane?”
“In four days, yes,” he says. And there it is—his eyes dart from me, giving away the lie.
So my gut was right—they aren’t going to secure the trade route. I can’t do anything with that information until I know for sure where they are going, but I still feel a rush of pride at being correct.
“I’m a bit nervous about it, to be honest,” he admits.
“I don’t see why you should be,” I tell him. “From what I’ve heard, you’re excellent in battle, and Dragonsbane only has a small fleet. I’m sure you’ll do well.”
He shrugs, but he averts his eyes again. “It’s the first mission I’ve been put in charge of, without the Theyn’s guidance. There are a lot of expectations resting on it, and I’m not…”
He trails off and clears his throat, looking flustered at his admission of weakness. Before I can think of a way to respond, he changes the subject.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t continue your tour of the ship myself.”
“Oh, don’t be,” I say lightly. “It was very kind of you to look after Crescentia, and Erik was a wonderful replacement. It’s a beautiful ship. Does it have a name yet?”
“It does, actually. Or rather, she does. The crew…” His eyes dart away. “After you left, they—we—decided to name it for Lady Crescentia.”
I couldn’t care less about what he chooses to name his boat, but he’s watching me for my reaction, and who am I to disappoint him? Let him believe I’m concerned with something so silly. I tighten my smile so that it looks vaguely forced. “That’s a fine name. She was, after all, the first lady to step on board, wasn’t she?”
“You both were,” he says. “But…” He trails off again, unable to finish.
“But I’m not a lady,” I fill in. “Not really. That’s what they said, isn’t it?”
He shakes his head but doesn’t deny it. “They thought it would be bad luck. I disagreed, Thora, and so did Erik, for that matter. But…”
“I understand,” I say, making it sound like I don’t.
The trick with Søren, I’ve realized, is to let him believe he’s seeing through me, past the act I put on for everyone else. But he can’t, not really. There always has to be at least one more layer so that he’ll keep looking.
I lower my voice for effect. “I heard what they said about me,” I continue, pretending to lay out my cards. “They think I’m your paramour. Only they used a fouler word that I won’t repeat.”
He believes the lie easily. His arm goes stiff beneath my fingers and his brow furrows. “Who said that?” he asks, angry and a touch afraid. I’d imagine the last thing he wants is that rumor getting back to his father.
“Does it matter?” I reply. “Of course they think that. Your guards likely think it, too.” I glance their way, though they keep their eyes politely averted. “The one who delivered your letter certainly did,” I add, knowing that the guard from earlier isn’t present. “Even I would believe it if I didn’t know better. Why else would you be seeking me out like this? Inviting me to lunch?”
I wait on edge for his response. He doesn’t answer for a few seconds and I worry that I’ve pulled the rod before he could fully swallow the bait. He turns toward his guards and waves his hand. Without a word, they turn and go back inside, though I’m sure they’re still watching.
“That isn’t going to help things,” I tell him, crossing my arms over my chest. “I don’t have a chaperone, and—”
His ears redden and he turns back to me. “You did get my letter, then,” he interrupts. “But you didn’t reply.”
I bite my lip. “I didn’t think it would be appropriate to accept your invitation, but I wasn’t sure I was allowed to refuse. No answer seemed the best answer.”
“Of course you could refuse, if you wanted to,” he says, looking surprised. “Did you want to?”
I let out a forlorn sigh and glance away. “It doesn’t matter what I want,” I tell him. Not answering will drive him all the more mad. “You should have asked Crescentia. She likes you, and she’s a more appropriate companion.”
I expect him to deny it, but he doesn’t. “I enjoy spending time with you, Thora,” he says instead. “And it was only a lunch.”
It’s easy to act like a damsel in need of rescuing. All it takes are wide eyes, tentative smiles, and a wolf at my heels. “I don’t think your father would approve,” I say.
He frowns and drops his gaze. “I wasn’t planning on telling him,” he admits.
I can’t help but laugh. “Someone would have,” I say. “You’ve been gone for a long time, Søren, but ask anyone—your father sees everything that happens in this palace. Especially where I’m concerned.”
Søren’s frown deepens. “You’ve been with us for ten years,” he says. “You’re more Kalovaxian than not at this point.”
I think he means the words as a comfort, but they strike me like daggers.
“You might be right,” I say instead of arguing. It’s time to play the card Cress left me, the one that will make me more a damsel in distress to him than ever. “He’s planning to marry me to a Kalovaxian man soon.”
“Where did you hear that?” he asks, alarmed. I suppress a smile and try to look troubled, biting my lip and wringing my hands.
“Crescentia overheard her father and yours talking about it. I suppose it makes sense. I’m of age, and as you said, I’ve been a Kalovaxian now longer than I was an Astrean.”
“Marry you to who?”
I shrug but let my expression cloud over. “She mentioned that Lord Dalgaard offered the most to own the last Princess of Astrea,” I say, letting just a touch of acid into my voice.
It’s treason to even use that title to describe myself, but Søren seems to like flashes of honesty. It’s a gamble, yes, but all of this is a gamble. One wrong move will leave me buried.
Søren swallows and drops his gaze. He’s likely been in more battles than I can name, but the threat of Lord Dalgaard leaves him speechless. He glances past my shoulder to where his guards are waiting, just out of earshot.
I reach out to touch his arm lightly and lower my voice.
“I’ve done everything your father’s asked of me, Søren, given him everything he’s asked of me without complaint, trying to show that I can be a loyal citizen here. But please, please, don’t let him do this,” I plead. “You know about Lord Dalgaard and his poor wives. I have no dowry, no family, no standing. No one would care what happens to me. I’m sure that’s part of the appeal for him.”
His expression hardens into granite. “I can’t go against my father, Thora.”
I drop my hand and shake my head. I take a breath as if to steady myself and stand up a little straighter. When I look at Søren again, I let another layer of my mask fall into place, this one cold as ice.
“I’m sorry, Your Highness,” I say stiffly. “I overstepped and I shouldn’t have. I just thought you were…I wanted…” I shake my head and let my eyes linger on his, full of disappointment, before tearing them away and blinking hard, like I might cry at any second. “I should go.”
I turn to leave, but just as I hope, he reaches out to take hold of my arm. From there, it’s only a small twitch of a muscle, an infinitesimal drop of my shoulder that causes the already loose sleeve of my dress to fall, giving him a glimpse of the scars covering my back. He knew they were there; he was present when some of the older ones were given. Still, I hear his sharp intake of breath at the sight. I pull my arm from his grasp and hastily yank the sleeve back up to cover them, keeping my eyes lowered as if the scars shame me.
“I’m sorry,” he says as I hurry away from him.
I’m not sure what exactly he’s apologizing for, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t hav
e to look at him to know that I have him where I need him: ready to leap to my rescue, even if it digs a chasm between him and his father in the process. All I have to do now is wait for the results and hope they don’t cost me too dearly.
HOA ISN’T IN MY ROOM when I return, but I’m hardly alone. The doors of my Shadows’ rooms scrape open and closed, followed by sounds of them settling in: sheathed swords unclasping, helmets clattering to the floor. I ignore them, as I always do, and stand by the window, looking out at the empty garden so that they can’t see my face.
How long will I have to wait for Søren’s next move? If it comes at all.
I think of the look in his eyes when I turned away. This is only just starting. He’ll go to his father with some pressing reason to end my engagement before it starts. He won’t come out and say it’s to protect me—Søren’s too clever for that—but there are other ways, other reasons for a betrothal to fall through. Crescentia’s had three marriage proposals too good to outright reject, but the betrothals never quite become official due to Cress’s meddling.
I can only hope that the Kaiser doesn’t suspect I had anything to do with Søren’s sudden interest in my betrothal. At best, it’ll mean another whipping. At worst, he’ll marry me to Lord Dalgaard immediately. And then how long would it take before my mind truly broke? There would be no coming back from that. I would die Thora.
“When you turned down his lunch invitation, I thought you truly were mad,” a voice says. Terror turns my blood to ice. I spin, but the room is empty.
“But he seems more interested than ever,” the voice goes on. “Well done.”
Blaise. His voice is muffled, but it’s unmistakably him. He’s the mad one, coming here knowing full well that my Shadows watch my every move.
“Here, Theo,” he says. There’s laughter there that reminds me of when we were children together, before laughter became such a rarity.
I follow the sound, walking to the eastern wall, to where one of my Shadows sits on the other side, watching. A Shadow.
“I seem to have underestimated you as well,” I say. I peer through the hole in the wall to find Blaise’s green eye staring back. “Though I’m sure you remember I have three Shadows?”
“Say hello to Artemisia and Heron,” he says, sounding pleased with himself. “Art, Heron—Queen Theodosia Eirene Houzzara. It’s a bit of a mouthful. Would you have them beheaded if we shortened it to Theo for the time being?”
Hearing that word again—queen—is still strange, especially hearing it in Astrean. It’s my mother’s title, or it was. Every time I hear it, I can’t help wanting to look around for my mother, sure it’s her they’re referring to.
“So long as you don’t call me Thora,” I say, straightening up and glancing at the other walls, now occupied by other Astreans. “Artemisia, Heron, pleasure to meet you.”
“The pleasure is ours,” a low, soft voice says from behind the northern wall. Heron, I assume.
“You don’t look batty,” the third voice says from behind the southern wall, gritty and lilting. Artemisia.
“Art,” Heron warns.
“I didn’t say she was batty,” Blaise interjects quickly. “I said…sensitive.”
“You said unbalanced.”
I open my mouth to snap out a retort but quickly shut it again. I’m not sure which of those terms bothers me more, but I can’t deny the truth in any of them. Blaise saw me fall apart in the cellar. He must wonder how strong I really am.
“What happened to my real Shadows?” I ask instead of responding.
Blaise clears his throat, but it’s Heron who answers.
“They’ve been…relieved of their duties,” he says carefully.
Artemisia snickers. “Among other things.”
I wait for their deaths to hit me, to feel something, whether it’s relief or happiness or some unexplainable grief, but I feel nothing. I never saw their faces or spoke to them. I won’t mourn them, but I don’t hate them enough to celebrate their deaths either.
“And if they’re found?” I ask.
“They won’t be,” Artemisia says. “We tied rocks to their corpses and dropped them in the ocean. They must be a hundred feet deep, at least. Give it a few days and there won’t be anything left but bones.”
She says it so distantly, as if she weren’t speaking of people at all. Then again, I’ve heard Kalovaxians refer to Astreans as things instead of people; I can’t exactly fault her for holding the same view of them.
“Any progress, Theo?” Blaise asks. “We saw that lovely meeting with the Prinz, but we couldn’t hear a damn thing. What are you planning?”
“You did tell me that he’s interested in me because he can’t have me, didn’t you?” I say. “So I’m becoming more interesting. And sowing tension between him and the Kaiser, which I imagine can only be good for us.”
“Why?” Artemisia asks.
I shrug, but my smile is feral. “The Kalovaxians have every advantage. There are more of them; they’re better armed and better trained; they have the advantage of already holding the land. Blaise was right when he told me we don’t stand a chance against them on an even field. But if we could turn Søren against his father, the court will take sides, and they’ll be distracted enough fighting each other that we might have a better chance. We’ll still need to amass more numbers and more weapons, of course. It’s not much of a plan,” I admit. “But it seemed like a good place to start.”
“If it works,” Blaise says warily. His skepticism prickles at the back of my neck.
“It’ll work,” I say, though my own doubts pool in the pit of my stomach. “Søren is easy to twist; all I need to do is convince him that I’m in need of saving, and that his father and his people are the ones I need saving from. If I can turn Søren against them, at least half the court will eagerly follow in hopes of putting Søren on the throne without waiting for the Kaiser to die.” No one has a reply to that, so I continue. “You saw his face in the garden. Do you think it worked?”
“Yes,” Artemisia admits. “He had battle in his eyes, that one. The falling sleeve was a nice touch. I suppose that was intentional?”
I shrug. “He wants a damsel and I’m giving him one. How long have you been watching me, anyway?” I ask.
“Only today,” Blaise says. “Your friend found us a couple of days ago. Elpis. We were already trying to find a way to replace your Shadows, but she’d seen their movements up close and knew how they operated, how often they reported to the Kaiser, when it would be easiest to overtake them. Their monthly report to the Kaiser is tomorrow night, so we knew we had to do it before then or they’d tell him about your conversation with her. They sleep in shifts; it was simple to replace them one by one.”
Replace them. He says it as naturally as Artemisia did, as if killing came easily. Maybe for him it does, maybe it wasn’t even his first kill. In fact, it likely wasn’t if he escaped the mines and has been running with Ampelio as long as he has. The realization sits strangely. I can’t help but think of him the way he was as a child, quiet and inquisitive. He wouldn’t even kill bugs back then.
I push the thought aside and focus on the here and now. “Sooner or later, someone will miss them,” I point out, irritated at their shortsightedness. “And what exactly are you planning to do when you meet with the Kaiser tomorrow? I’ve never seen their faces, but he certainly has.”
“It’s actually not as much of a risk as it seems,” Heron says. His voice is quiet, but there’s such a solid quality to it that I don’t have to struggle to hear him. It’s the kind of voice that reverberates through your whole body. “Your guards’ only duty is watching you. The Kaiser is very particular about it, doesn’t want any mistakes. They don’t have families or attend any social events that you don’t. No one will miss them.”
“And this meeting with the Kaiser?” I press.
“Ah, that,” Blaise says, but he doesn’t sound wary. He sounds triumphant. “Artemisia and Heron were working in the mines as well before Ampelio snuck us out. Why do you think he would have freed us out of everyone there?”
“You’re Guardians,” I say as I realize it.
“Not technically,” Artemisia says. “There was no formal training, though Ampelio tried to make up for that.”
“Still, the gods saw fit to bless us with their gifts. Unlike most of the others forced to work down there,” Heron says.
I don’t have to see his face to know the words cost him. I’ve seen many awful things since the siege, but from what I hear, it’s nothing compared to the nightmare of the mines. I’ve heard that a dozen people go mine-mad each week. They’re immediately put to death in front of their friends and families, who must watch and not say a word or risk sharing their fate.
“Magic is well and good, but it doesn’t make an even battlefield between the three of you and the Kaiser’s guards when he learns who you are,” I point out.
“That’s just it, though. The Kaiser won’t learn anything. Only one Shadow meets with him at a time, so the other two can stay with you. And Artemisia has the Water Gift,” he says.
The pieces fall into place.
“Which includes crafting illusions,” I finish.
“I got a good look at the guards when we overtook them, good enough to impersonate them. It won’t hold for long without a gem to channel through,” she admits. “Fifteen minutes? Twenty, maybe. But from what we’ve heard about the Kaiser’s briefings, it should be more than enough time.”
Good enough. Should be. They aren’t exactly heartening statements of confidence.
Ash Princess Page 10
