“You want something,” he says quietly, trying to sit up straighter. Heron didn’t do a thorough job of healing him, and he still winces in pain. Bruised ribs, maybe.
“I didn’t realize it was like this,” I tell him. “I had no idea.”
Søren looks at me incredulously before his gaze softens. “It’s war,” he says. “This is how it goes. Your friend is right. We both know I’ve done worse things.”
I can’t deny that. I think of him using berserkers in the Vecturian battle. I think of how, when he lost that battle, he ordered the Vecturians’ food sources destroyed as they retreated. How many of them are dying now, starving as winter takes hold of the area and their crops stop growing? Maybe this is a kind of justice, the only sort people like Elpis’s mother have at their fingertips.
In my mind, it almost makes sense, but I’ve been in his place. I remember the Kaiser having me beaten whenever other Astreans caused him trouble. Only last week I paid for the Kalovaxian deaths in the Vecturian battle. It feels like the same thing, even though I know it’s not.
“What is it you want?” Søren asks. “You didn’t come here to pity me.”
I don’t pity you, I want to tell him. I have been where you are, and I know that no one deserves this, not even you with your blood-soaked hands. But I can’t say any of that, not with Heron here listening. I press my lips into a thin line and straighten up, putting a little distance between us.
“What do you know about berserkers?” I ask him. “What happens between the mines and the battlefield?”
Søren’s bloodshot eyes glance between Heron and me. “The guards at the mines sequester those with symptoms of madness. Sometimes they would be too far gone to use in battle or their bodies would be too weak. Those were executed on the spot. Sometimes, one would turn up with signs of a gift instead of the madness. They would be kept somewhere separate.”
“For experiments,” I say.
Søren nods, looking away and swallowing. “I didn’t like to think about it,” he says, but the words come out weakly.
“Leonidas didn’t have a gift,” Heron says quietly. “And when the guards finally discovered him, he was delirious—he couldn’t even stand on his own anymore. We managed to keep it hidden for so long.”
Søren doesn’t say anything, he only shakes his head.
“You killed him, then,” Heron says, wiping the back of his hand over his cheeks to catch tears that I hadn’t realized had fallen.
“I didn’t,” Søren says. “But the guards would have, yes.”
It happens so quickly I don’t have time to decide to react. One moment, Heron is frozen in shock; the next he’s lunging toward Søren and then I’m standing between them, shielding Søren even though I’m not entirely sure he deserves protection.
I put my hands on Heron’s shoulders, and though I know he could bowl past me easily, he doesn’t. His gaze is murderous and hateful, feelings I didn’t think him capable of.
“Theo, move,” he says through clenched teeth.
“No,” I tell him, enunciating the word carefully so that I sound stronger than I feel. “It isn’t going to help anyone.”
“You don’t know that and I’d like to find out for sure,” he says.
“You’re right,” Søren says before swallowing. “It doesn’t matter if I didn’t do it myself; I stood by while it happened—not just to him but to thousands of others. I’m going to end it.”
Heron sneers at him. “You can’t end anything, Prinkiti. You’re in chains, on a ship full of people who hate you.”
Søren doesn’t have a response to that, so he says nothing. After a moment, Heron’s fists slowly unclench.
“After you people came and destroyed everything, I wanted nothing to do with the rest of the world. I just wanted my home back,” he says, each word a dagger. “Leonidas was different. He still wanted to travel, after the siege. He told me that there had to be more of us out there than you. He thought the world was mostly made up of good people. I wonder if he’d say the same thing now.”
He breaks off with a laugh empty of any kind of mirth.
“He probably would,” he admits, shaking his head. “He might even have forgiven you. He was a better person than me.”
Søren doesn’t say anything, but Heron doesn’t expect him to. Heron turns away and starts for the door. “You can come with me, Theo, or you can stay, but if you stay you’re going to have a lot of explaining to do when you’re found.”
Søren’s eyes dart toward me and away again, settling on the stones in front of him. He looks so lost that for a moment I waver.
I know better than most what a person who has given up looks like. Scanning the room, I see a few ways he could end his own life—slamming his head against the stone floor, wrapping his chains around his neck, cutting his wrists on the nail sticking out of the wooden wall. I’m sure Søren could find half a dozen more if he put his mind to it. Letting him do it might even be a kind of mercy.
But the world isn’t done with him yet, and neither am I.
“I’ll come back,” I tell him. “I promise.”
He nods, though his eyes are far away and his jaw is set.
“YOU DID WHAT?” BLAISE ASKS, barely remembering to keep his voice quiet.
With him, Heron, and Artemisia here, my cabin feels smaller than ever. There isn’t even room to move around. Artemisia and I sit side by side on my bed while Heron slouches against the wall next to the door and Blaise sits on top of my dresser. I can tell that he’d like to get up, to pace the room to clear his mind, but he can’t stand without stepping on Heron’s feet and there’s nowhere to pace.
“I didn’t know what was being done to him, though I’m assuming all of you did,” I say, keeping my voice calm and level as I glance between Artemisia and Blaise. Heron won’t look at me—he hasn’t since we left Søren in the brig—and I don’t particularly want to look at him either. Blaise glances down, guilt written all over his face, but Artemisia holds my gaze, unabashed.
“We knew that if you found out, you would do something stupid. And alas, here you are, wanting to do something stupid,” she intones.
Outside of Dragonsbane’s presence, she’s prickly as ever, and as much as her words bristle, I’m glad to have her back.
“Who are we if we let him stay there?” I ask them. “How are we any different from the Kalovaxians if we act just like them? I’ve been in his position, only treated better. At least I was given a room. I wasn’t kept in chains. I was given clean clothes and good food.”
“You did nothing to deserve that,” Blaise says. “You didn’t lead any battalions, you didn’t end any lives. You were a child.”
He has a point, and it’s one I can’t argue with.
“Søren can be a stronger asset if he’s on our side,” I say instead.
“If he’s on our side,” Artemisia echoes.
“He thought he was, before I betrayed him,” I point out. “He was ready to stand against his father and go to war.”
“He was ready for Astrea to join forces with Kalovaxians,” Artemisia corrects. “That won’t happen.”
“And I don’t want it to,” I say.
“You do, though,” Heron says, speaking for the first time. His voice is still raw at the edges, but most of the anger has dissipated. All that’s left is grief, which is even harder to bear. “You want us to join with him.”
“He wants to be different,” I say. “You saw that yourself, Heron.”
Heron doesn’t reply, but his jaw sets into a hard line.
“We have all the power here,” I continue. “He can help us and we don’t even have to offer him anything in return, no truce or mercy. He just wants his soul. He just wants to prove to himself that he isn’t his father. And we can use that to our advantage.”
“Theo…,” Bla
ise starts with a sigh.
“It isn’t an ideal situation,” I interrupt. “But right now, we’re heading to a foreign country where my hand in marriage is being sold to the highest bidder. Nothing about this is ideal.”
None of them answers, and a thrill of power rushes through me. We’re on the same side, I remind myself, though I’ve spent so long on my own side that it’s an easy thing to forget sometimes.
“My mother won’t let him go,” Artemisia says. “She’ll fight you every step of the way, and she’ll have a lot of support behind her. I’m not saying you’re wrong—I’m not saying you’re right either, mind you—but you can’t afford to turn her into an enemy.”
“Dragonsbane isn’t the best ally, I know,” Blaise adds. “But right now she’s the strongest one we have. We have to pick our battles.”
I remember thinking the same thing about the Kaiser, that I had to pick what I would fight him on and what I wouldn’t, and how I learned quickly that I didn’t stand a chance of winning any battles, so I didn’t even try to fight. I’m not under his thumb, I’m not powerless anymore, but I feel that way now. Thinking of Søren in that dungeon, beaten and alone, makes me feel sick. I did that to him, I put him there, and now I can’t get him out.
“All right,” I say. The words taste bitter. “But as long as he’s down there, I want him as safe as he can be. Heron—” I break off. I have no right to ask it of him, not after what he’s lost, but I’m asking it anyway, even if I don’t say the words.
Heron swallows and holds my gaze. “I’ll heal him every other day,” he says. “And only the worst of it. Any more than that and it’ll be suspicious.”
* * *
—
After Blaise and Heron file out of the room to get back to their respective duties, Artemisia lingers next to me on my bed, picking at a puckered thread in the quilt and watching me with wariness heavy in her dark eyes. She seems afraid of me, which is strange since it’s often the other way around.
“You didn’t bring me into the meeting with my mother,” she says after a moment, each consonant sharp enough to cut.
“I thought it would be cruel, asking you to take my side over hers like that,” I say, but it’s a half-truth that she sees through immediately.
Her eyes narrow and she gets to her feet abruptly. “I don’t need pity, least of all from you.” Her voice is low and dangerous.
The words hurt. “I don’t pity you,” I say, though I’m not sure whether or not that’s true. But Artemisia doesn’t want nice words, softened and easy to hear. She wants hard, uncomfortable truth, and I understand that.
“You’re useless in your mother’s presence.” I meet her gaze as I say it. “I need people who can tell her she’s wrong, who will fight her and not cower.”
For a moment, she stares at me in shock. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says finally.
“You think I didn’t want you in that room?” I ask. “Of course I did. I needed it. Blaise and Heron have their strengths, but Heron is a broken-hearted dreamer and Blaise has trouble seeing the bigger picture—his focus is always me, not Astrea as a whole. I needed someone to say what needed to be said, and neither of them can do that. But neither can you when your mother is around. You become a mumbly, doe-eyed shadow and I had no use for that.”
She stands stock-still, expression hard and inscrutable. I expect her to argue, I expect her to fight back. I want her to. But instead, she lets out a breath and the fierceness in her deflates like a sail without wind.
“What happened in the meeting?” she asks.
I tell her about her mother’s plans to have me marry a foreign ruler, about how she’s already sailing us to Sta’Crivero. I tell her about the event the King there is hosting. I tell her I haven’t agreed to anything.
“That was smart of you.”
“Queens don’t marry,” I tell her.
Artemisia snorts. “Oh, that’s the only choice we have if we’re going to secure a large enough army,” she tells me. “But I know my mother and I’m sure she’s getting something else out of this arrangement. By not agreeing to betrothal yet, you have something my mother wants and so you have some measure of control.”
It isn’t what I want to hear, but it rarely is with Artemisia. It’s exactly why I need her, like this, by my side.
“Not enough power to free Søren, though,” I say.
“Not by half,” she says before pausing. “But it may be a start.”
I consider that for a moment. Then I tell her, “Whatever it is between you and your mother, get it under control.”
Artemisia hesitates, then nods. She looks away, biting her bottom lip. “She underestimates you and that’s something you can use to your advantage, but don’t be foolish enough to make the same mistake. Don’t underestimate what she’s capable of.”
CRESS STANDS ON THE OTHER side of rusted cell bars, gripping them with her tiny, bone-white fingers. She only comes up to my waist now, though some part of me knows that she has always been just a bit taller, just a bit older, just a bit wiser. She isn’t anymore—she’s a round-faced child with yellow hair in two plaits that hang down past her shoulders. Her eyes are wide and full of concern.
“Are you all right?” she asks, speaking the Kalovaxian words slowly and clearly so that I can understand them. The way she says the words echoes somewhere deep in my mind, just out of reach. There is a distant, familiar ache in the pit of my stomach, but it’s drowned out by relief at the sight of her.
She could be Evavia, goddess of safety, I think, but that, too, doesn’t feel like my own thought. Not really. But it doesn’t matter. All I know is that I need help, that I have been drowning and here she is, a desperate, gasping breath of air.
Cress reaches through the bars, her small fingers wrapping around my wrist. I struggle not to sob with relief.
Her smile widens, revealing teeth that have been sharpened to points. Surprised, I pull back, stepping just out of her reach.
A spot of gray at her throat grows and spreads until her entire neck is charred black skin. I try to take another step away, but my back hits cold, damp stone.
Cress takes hold of the bars again, but this time they melt beneath her touch. She walks toward me with her tiny hands outstretched, palms a vivid red with flames licking at her fingertips. I drop to a crouch and press farther back into the wall, desperate to get away from her, but there is nowhere to go. She must realize this as well, because she stops right in front of me, leaning in close to my ear.
“Our hearts are sisters, Thora,” she whispers, hovering her burning hand just above my chest. “Shall we see if they match?”
* * *
—
My own screams wake me up and I turn, burying my face in my pillow to muffle them. I’m aware of the empty space next to me, the fact that the pillow is still warm. Blaise must have left only moments ago. I take a few breaths to calm myself, closing my eyes before immediately opening them again when I see Cress’s grotesque smile behind my eyelids. The sheets tangled around my legs are drenched in sweat, and it takes me a moment to extract myself from them. The braid I put my hair into last night has come unraveled; bits of hair are now plastered to my forehead and cheeks.
Shakily, I get to my feet and cross to the basin in the corner, pouring a bit of water into it from the pitcher beside it and splashing my face and neck. It feels like ice, but it does little to soothe the ghost of the fire I still feel crawling over my skin.
After drying my face with a threadbare towel, I turn back to my bed and barely manage to stifle a scream. There, stark against the white sheets, are two black handprints the size of mine.
Just shadows of my dream, clinging to me, I tell myself. I try to blink them away, but there is no erasing them, no matter how I try.
It’s a figment of my imagination, it has to be
, but when I reach out to touch one of them, the charred cotton flakes beneath my fingers and falls apart, turning to ash.
I stumble back, my mind a whirl of panic and denials that don’t make sense. And what does make sense? That I did that? That I scorched my sheets? I turn my hands over to look at the palms, only to find them bright red, though they don’t hurt. There is only a faint, hot tingle dancing over the skin. It feels like magic, the way I felt at court when I got too close to a Fire Stone.
I swallow the panic working through me. My thoughts are too jumbled to make sense of. I press my hands against my nightgown, as if that can solve anything.
What is happening to me? I thought I’d imagined the heat that came over me in Dragonsbane’s office, but I can’t pretend I’m imagining this, not when there is proof right before my eyes.
I’ve always felt an affinity with Houzzah, the fire god; I’ve always felt drawn to Fire Gems. I thought it was because I am descended from him, but that can’t be true. I share his blood as much as Artemisia and Dragonsbane do, but neither of them seems to feel drawn to Houzzah. Dragonsbane doesn’t believe in any of the gods, and Artemisia was blessed by Suta, the water goddess. It can’t just be my blood. This is something else, something dangerous.
I think of Cress as I last saw her in the dungeon, surviving a dose of poison that would have killed a man twice her size but looking like death had left its fingerprints on her nonetheless. How had she survived? And not just that—her touch hot enough to scald. That, too, should have been impossible, but I saw her with my own eyes and felt those bars with my own hands. Hot as my own touch was just moments ago.
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