“You don’t have a gem?” I ask. “Do any of you?”
The silence that follows is answer enough.
“Ampelio did,” Blaise manages finally. “But he was taken with it. Not that it would have done any of us any good. As I said, Artemisia has the Water Gift, Heron has the Air—”
“And you have the Earth?” I finish for him.
“Yes,” he says after a slight hesitation. “But the meetings with the Kaiser are short. Artemisia can hold an illusion that long without a gem, I’ve seen her do it.”
For a moment, I don’t know what to say. None of it is terribly inspiring, and so many things can go wrong with their plan. I don’t have to ask to know that Ampelio would not have agreed to them replacing my Shadows or he would have done it himself years ago. If he were here now, he would want to wait, to make sure everything was perfect before he struck. But Ampelio waited for ten years and it was never the perfect moment. He waited and bided his time until they killed him.
I shake my head. “There must be a better way for us to keep in touch while I’m here.”
“Like inviting a thirteen-year-old to be our messenger?” Blaise retorts.
He sounded like that when we were children, too. Like the year that separated us made him infinitely wiser than I could ever hope to be. I’m not even sure that bringing Elpis into this was the right thing to do, but I know it was the only thing I could do. “I trust Elpis,” I say, lifting my chin a fraction of an inch and strengthening my voice. “I’ll admit that I’ve made mistakes before. I’ve trusted the wrong people and I’ve paid dearly for that. The Kaiser enjoys setting traps for me to fall into. I barely trusted you when you appeared out of nowhere, but I did.”
“It was a good choice,” Artemisia puts in. “She’s a smart girl, and observant. We couldn’t have overtaken your Shadows without her.”
“We could have,” Blaise insists, sounding like an irritated older brother. “And we wouldn’t have had to risk the life of a child.”
“You weren’t moving fast enough.” The words spill out before I can think about them, but arguing with Blaise has always had this effect on me. He was always so calm and condescending and it never failed to reduce me to the petulant child he treated me as.
Which is why I decide I am not going to tell them about the threat of Lord Dalgaard hanging over my head now. Fear of becoming his next bride made me act rashly, and next to everything they have endured, I have no right to complain.
I clear my throat. “I gave her a choice. Elpis wanted to help.”
“She’s a child. She didn’t know what she was agreeing to,” Blaise insists, his voice becoming a growl.
“Come now, Blaise,” Artemisia soothes. “Thirteen is hardly a child, not anymore.”
Blaise’s breathing stretches longer for a few beats. “She’s your responsibility, Theo. If something happens to her, that’s on you,” he says.
I nod, though my temper threatens to overwhelm me. Even if I’m paralyzed by doubt, I can’t show it. I won’t apologize.
He’s quiet, but through the wall separating us, I can feel his anger simmering in the air.
“You can’t talk to our queen like that, Blaise,” Heron says. I can’t know for sure without seeing his face, but he sounds a bit frightened.
Our queen. The title sounds strange, and I have to remind myself that he’s talking about me, that I am their queen. I try not to think about Ampelio calling me the same thing before I plunged the sword into his back. I exhale, letting my anger go as well. “He can talk to me however he sees fit,” I say quietly. “All of you can—and should.”
Heron shifts behind his wall; then he gives a grunt of acknowledgment.
“The girl said you had news?” Blaise asks, no longer sounding upset.
“Oh,” I say. In all the excitement, I forgot why I needed to talk to him in the first place. “Where exactly are the Vecturia Islands?” I ask.
“I’ve heard that name before…,” Blaise says.
“Vecturia is a cluster of islands northeast of here,” Artemisia says, sounding bored. “Why?”
“I think the Prinz is taking at least two thousand troops to the islands in a few days, armed to the teeth with cannons,” I say. “I don’t imagine it’s a social visit.”
“You think or you know?” Artemisia asks.
I hesitate, weighing the evidence in my mind—the types of ships, the heavy artillery, the fact that Dragonsbane can’t have gotten all the way to the trade route if he was just outside the capital only last week. I think of Søren looking away in the garden when he told me again that he was going to the trade route, how obvious it felt that he was lying. It’s all circumstantial, nothing I can prove outright, but I can feel it in my bones.
“I know,” I say, hoping I sound more confident than I feel.
“Did they have berserkers?” Blaise asks.
I shake my head, then stop. “Well, I can’t really say—I still don’t have a clue as to what they are.”
“Even with just their cannons and warriors, he’ll destroy Vecturia,” Artemisia says, more alert now. “There are five islands, but each can’t have more than a few hundred people. A fraction of that will be trained soldiers, and they’re all spread out. If they aren’t ready for an attack, the Kalovaxians will pick them off one island at a time without a drop of sweat for their efforts.”
“There must be something we can do to help them,” I say.
Blaise shakes his head. “The Vecturians didn’t lift a finger to help during the siege. If they had…well, we likely still would have lost, but we would have had a chance.”
“Exactly,” Heron says. “Is it heartless to say I care more about the dirt under my fingernails than them?” he asks. “This is no more than they deserve. If we’d stood together, we might not be in this mess. I certainly won’t cry over them now.”
As harsh as his words seem, I can’t help but agree with them.
“Still,” I reason, “we might need the Vecturians’ help when we start gathering allies to take on the Kalovaxians. Let’s not make the same mistake they did. Besides, when we do manage to take Astrea back, we won’t keep it long if the Kalovaxians have taken over our neighboring country as well. They’ll just regroup there and come back.”
Blaise gives a labored sigh and I’m almost positive he’s rolling his eyes. “Vecturia made it clear that they aren’t our ally, and we need to save what little power we have for ourselves.”
Part of me knows he’s right. He gave me the numbers. One thousand of us against the tens of thousands of Kalovaxians in Astrea.
“If we help Vecturia, we could forge a new alliance. You said it yourself, our numbers don’t stand a chance against theirs, but if we add another few hundred from Vecturia…”
“It still won’t be near enough,” Heron says. Even though I know he’s trying to be kind, I can hear the impatience coming through in his voice. “And that’s an if. It’s far more likely we’d be sending warriors we need to die in a fight that isn’t ours. Vecturia will still fall, and we won’t be far behind.”
What would my mother do? I wonder. But even as I ask myself the question, I know the answer. “It isn’t fair. There are people on those islands and we’re dooming them to carnage and slavery. If anyone should understand the stakes here, we should.”
Artemisia scoffs. “Blaise was right. You’ve been locked in your cushioned cage too long, and it’s turned your mind soft,” she says. “We’ve seen more carnage than you ever will, felt more loss. We’ve starved and bled and lingered at the door of death so often we lost count. We know exactly what we’re dooming Vecturia to, but they aren’t Astrea, and therefore they aren’t our concern.”
“It’s what my mother would have done,” I say.
Again Artemisia scoffs, and if I could reach through the hole in the wall, I woul
d slap her. But before she can say anything about my mother, Blaise cuts in.
“May the gods bless Queen Eirene forever in the After, but until the end, she was the queen of a peaceful country. Her reign was largely untested and easy; she never had to know war until the Kalovaxians came and slit her throat. She had the luxury of being a sympathetic queen. You don’t.”
There is no barb in his voice. It is a calmly stated fact, and as much as I would like to argue it, I can’t right now. From her place in the After, I hope my mother understands. One day, I will be a magnanimous ruler. I will be everything the Kaiser isn’t; I will be as gracious as my mother was. But first, I need to make sure my country survives.
“All right,” I say after a moment. “We do nothing.”
“Good choice,” Artemisia says.
Though I don’t know what she looks like, I’m sure she’s quite smug behind that wall. I’m grateful to have them here, truly I am, but I can’t help but feel I’m carrying far more weight than I was this morning, and that even more people are now waiting for me to fail. They’re my allies—the only ones I have—but that doesn’t mean we’ll always be on the same side.
“You need to be prepared,” I tell them. “Cushioned as my cage might seem, my life here isn’t all flirtations and pretty dresses and parties. If something happens to me…you’re going to let it happen. I don’t care what it is or what sense of duty makes you want to try to defend me. Your attempt will fail, and then you’ll be compromised as well—and that won’t do anyone any good.”
“Theo—” Blaise starts heavily.
“He won’t kill me. I’m too valuable to him for that. Whatever he does to me, I will recover from it. The same can’t be said for you. Swear it.”
There’s a stubborn silence for a long moment and I worry that they’ll protest. I realize I’m asking them to go against Ampelio’s dying wishes. He wanted me safe, but my country needs me to stand.
“I swear it,” Artemisia says, echoed by Heron a breath later.
“Blaise?” I prompt.
He gives a grunt that I interpret as acceptance, but it isn’t a promise.
* * *
—
Hoa returns a few minutes later with a basket of laundry in her arms, and my Shadows go silent. They aren’t quite as practiced at it as my old Shadows were. I can hear them fidgeting more, breathing louder. If Hoa senses anything off, though, she gives no sign, and I wonder if I only notice because I know the truth. I didn’t know anything was different about my Shadows this morning, after all.
Part of me wants to confess everything to Hoa, but as much as I want to believe I can trust her, I can’t. And after everything Hoa has suffered at the hands of the Kaiser, asking her to stand up against him would be its own kind of cruelty.
I eat a quick dinner alone while Hoa folds the laundry, but the silence feels unbearably loud. I should be used to it. Most meals pass like this and I’ve more or less stopped noticing, but tonight is different. Everything is different. Blaise is so close, Artemisia and Heron too, and they’re watching me as a queen. I’m painfully aware of how lacking I must seem.
After Hoa clears away my plate and turns to my armoire to pick out a nightgown, panic seizes me. She’s going to change me into it. Which means my Shadows are going to see everything.
I’ve never had the luxury of being modest. For the last ten years, the old Shadows watched me change twice a day, and I never gave it a second thought. It was all I’d ever known. And my dress had been ripped to bare my back to hundreds—sometimes thousands—of people. It was a part of the punishment, a way of humiliating and dehumanizing me further. After all, how can anyone look at a bleeding girl in a ripped dress and see her as a leader? But Blaise and Heron and Art seeing me naked is different.
Hoa riffles through my armoire and I take the opportunity to shoot my most commanding look in each Shadow’s direction and twirl a finger in the air, motioning for them to turn around. Not that I have any way of knowing they’re obeying, but I trust them. I have no choice.
Still, I keep my back to them as best I can and face the curtained window instead as Hoa unclasps the shoulders of my chiton and lets it fall to the ground. Her warm fingers reach up to touch one of the healing wounds, causing me to flinch. She makes a muffled, disapproving noise in the back of her throat and leaves my side, returning seconds later with a pot of ointment that stinks of rot and dirt, given to her by Ion to help the healing along. After she applies it gingerly, she slips my nightgown over my head. The thin cotton sticks to the ointment, making it itch, but I know better by now than to scratch.
“Thank you,” I say.
Her hand brushes my shoulder briefly before falling away. Without a sound, she slips from the room, leaving me alone.
But for the first time in a decade, I’m surrounded by allies. I’m not alone, I tell myself. And hopefully, I never will be again.
IT’S BARELY NOON WHEN THE sharp, official knock sounds at the door and sends my heart pounding. My immediate thought is that the Kaiser is summoning me. If all went as I hoped, Søren found a way to question his father’s decision without the Kaiser tracing it back to me—if he so much as suspects I had anything to do with it, he’ll punish me for it and marry me off to Lord Dalgaard anyway.
My mouth is dry no matter how often I swallow, and I can’t keep from shaking as Hoa goes to the door. I hide my hands in the folds of my dress and struggle to keep my scrambled, panicked thoughts from showing on my face.
I’m acutely aware of Blaise and the others behind the walls. I can’t let them see me afraid. I need to show them that I can be strong and sure.
I cross to stand near Blaise’s post, dropping my voice to a whisper while Hoa is distracted listening to the guard.
“Remember what we talked about. The humiliation at the banquet was a mild inconvenience compared to what will happen now. The Kaiser’s punishments are brutal but not lethal, so you will let it happen and stay silent. Do you understand?” I don’t let myself mention Lord Dalgaard, as if not speaking about it will erase the threat.
He doesn’t reply, but I can almost feel an argument brewing.
“I’m too valuable to kill,” I assure him, softening my voice. “That’s protection enough.”
He grunts in response and I have no choice but to take that as assent.
Hoa flits back into the room, light on her feet, her expression inscrutable. She immediately starts tugging at my dress and smoothing out the wrinkles that have come from sitting around all morning.
“Is it the Kaiser?” I ask, letting real fear seep into my voice.
Her eyes dart to mine briefly before dropping. She shakes her head. Relief spreads through me, loosening the python around my stomach. I have to force myself not to burst into inexplicable laughter.
“The Prinz, then?” I guess as she combs my hair back and fastens it in place with a pearl-encrusted pin.
Another shake of her head.
I frown, wondering who else could throw her into such a frenzy. Briefly I consider the Theyn, which sends another shudder through me before I remember he’s inspecting the mines. Still, it must be someone important, but no one apart from Crescentia—and now, apparently, Søren—pays me personal attention.
Hoa drags her eyes over me one last time, from the top of my head to my sandaled feet, before giving me a firm nod of approval and a none-too-gentle shove toward the door, where two guards wait.
* * *
—
I know better than to ask the guards where we’re going. Most Kalovaxians—even those without titles—treat me as if I’m an animal instead of a girl. Though that isn’t quite fair. I’ve seen plenty of Kalovaxians speak to their dogs and horses with some measure of kindness.
My Astrean gods are hazy in my mind, especially the dozens of minor gods and goddesses, but I’m fairly sure there is n
o god of spies among them. Delza, Suta’s daughter and the goddess of deception, is likely the closest, though I’m not sure even she will be able to protect me from the whip.
The sound of my Shadows’ footfalls are so common that I’ve almost stopped hearing them altogether, but now I’m all too aware of them. Despite his promise, I doubt that if it comes to a whipping or some other punishment, Blaise will be able to stay silent.
The guards lead me down the halls and I have to force my feet to keep moving forward. When I realize where we are going, my chest tightens until I can hardly breathe. I haven’t been in the royal wing of the palace since before the siege, since it was my own home.
The guards’ boots click against the granite floor and all I can think about is my mother chasing me down this hall, trying to wrangle me into a bath. The stained-glass windows are cracked and dirty now, but I remember how the afternoon light used to filter through them and make the gray stone walls look like the inside of a jewelry box. Paintings used to line the halls, landscapes and portraits of my ancestors done in rich oil paints with gilded frames, but now they’re all gone. I wonder what happened to them. Were they sold or simply destroyed? Imagining those paintings in a heap with a torch put to them breaks my heart.
This can’t be the same hall I grew up in, where I lived with my mother. That hall lives in my memory, perfectly intact, but now that I see what’s become of it I wonder if I will ever be able to remember it the same way again.
Still, as different as it is from the place I remember, it’s haunted with the ghost of my mother, and her presence weighs down on my shoulders like the funeral shroud she was never given. I hear her laugh in the silence, the way it used to echo through the halls so it was the last thing I heard each night before I fell asleep.
We pass the door to the library, to the private royal dining room, to my former bedroom, and then the guards pull me to a halt in front of what was once the door to my mother’s sitting room. I don’t know what it is now, but I’m sure it can only be the Kaiser waiting for me on the other side with a whip in his hand.
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