I don’t know how any of that is possible, but I can’t bring myself to believe that my god would see fit to save a Kalovaxian—to bless her with his gift—as thousands of his own people went mad in the mines.
I have to force myself to breathe.
I still feel Cress’s hand on my chest just over my heart, feel the fire of her touch as she turned me to ash. I can’t be sure, but I could swear my own hands begin to grow warmer again.
Without thinking about it, I pull the sheets off the bed, bundling them in my arms so that the scorch marks don’t show. I try to still my shaking hands as I walk into the hall. It doesn’t take long before I find a skeleton crew member scrubbing the floors—a boy only slightly older than I am.
“Y-Your Majesty,” he stutters.
“Good evening,” I tell him, managing an embarrassed smile as a plan falls into place. “I’m afraid there was an…incident with my monthly bleeding.”
For an instant, he stares at me bewildered before his face turns scarlet and he looks away. “Oh, er…”
“Can you please ask someone to bring me new sheets? There’s no hurry, but by tomorrow evening would be wonderful.”
“Oh…of course,” he says warily. “Should I…er…take those?” he asks, nodding toward the sheets I’m carrying. He looks terrified of them, as if they’re some kind of dangerous animal instead of ruined linens.
“No need, I can take them to the washer,” I tell him, and he visibly sags with relief.
He nods and mercifully doesn’t ask any more questions. But I don’t go to the washer. Instead, I take the ruined sheets to the empty kitchen and feed them into the furnace, watching as the flames take hold and burn through them until there is nothing left but ash. Watching the proof disappear, I can almost let myself believe that I imagined all of it, but I know I didn’t. I can still feel my palms tingling and warm. I’m not imagining it; I’m not mad. I don’t know what I am. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know anything.
The idea of going back to my empty room and being alone with my thoughts is unbearable. Childish as it makes me feel, I want someone to hold me and tell me everything is going to be all right, even if I can’t imagine talking about any of it out loud. Blaise is my first thought, but he must have left for his work shift and I don’t want to bother him. Artemisia is not someone familiar with sympathy, and I don’t want to go to Heron either, after everything that has passed between us.
There is another option, though I don’t need Artemisia to tell me it’s a foolish one. But already my mind is churning out lies and excuses for my presence in the dungeon, and foolish as it may be, that is where my feet lead me.
IT’S DIFFICULT TO NAVIGATE THE ship’s passageways on my own, but after a few wrong turns, I find myself in the familiar narrow hallway, walking toward a door flanked by the same two guards from last night. Though they didn’t hesitate to let Heron past, when they see me, their eyes narrow and I know it won’t be so easy.
“Your Majesty,” they both mutter.
“I’m here to see the prisoner,” I say, trying to make my voice sound cold and detached, though I don’t think I quite manage it.
“The prisoner isn’t allowed visitors,” one guard says with such certainty that I almost believe him even though I’ve seen the truth with my own eyes.
I swallow and stand up a little straighter. “I’m not any visitor,” I say. “As your queen, I’m telling you to let me past.”
The guards exchange a look.
“For your own safety, Your Majesty, you mustn’t—” the other guard begins.
But as soon as he says mustn’t instead of can’t, I know he’s lost his ground.
“He’s chained to the wall,” I say before hastily adding, “I assume.”
“Yes, but he’s a dangerous man,” the guard insists.
“And luckily, I have the two of you right outside in case I need you. That is your job, isn’t it?”
Again, the guards exchange a look before hesitantly stepping aside and opening the door for me. I slip past them into the brig, immediately hit by a cloud of stale air and the tang of fresh blood. Like yesterday, Søren is slumped against the far wall, chains around his ankles and wrists. The healing Heron did yesterday has already been undone, with fresh cuts and bruises covering much of his skin. Unlike yesterday, though, he looks up when I approach. Though his mouth is too bloody to say for sure, I think he attempts a smile.
“You came back,” he says, the words more breath than voice.
“I told you I would,” I say, trying to inject some pep, though the sentiment comes out flat. I almost ask how he is, but it’s such a ridiculous question that I can’t bring myself to voice it. Instead, I glance around the room, my eyes landing on the bloodied plank of wood, the chains biting into his skin, a tray of food next to him. It must be his dinner ration, a few pieces of hardtack and dried meat. It hasn’t been touched.
“You haven’t eaten?” I ask, looking back to him.
He shakes his head slowly, eyes still guarded and wary. His right eye is bruised and swollen and there’s a cut along his cheekbone.
I take a step closer to him, close enough that if he were to lunge for me, he might be able to just grab at the hem of my nightgown. I’m not afraid of him, but I hesitate to get any closer. “When was the last time you ate?” I ask.
He thinks about it for a moment. “That gods-forsaken banquet when I returned from Vecturia,” he says, his voice raw. “I couldn’t stomach much, with everything.”
Everything. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the revealing dress the Kaiser made me wear that night, the way he treated me like I was his to display however he liked. His hands on me, searing like a brand. Søren had looked ill, though I’d imagine it was a good deal easier to witness than it was to withstand.
“You’re supposed to be getting rations like everyone else,” I say. “Dragonsbane promised me you would be fed.”
He glances away. “Rations have been delivered thrice a day without fail. They force water down my throat but they haven’t yet forced me to eat.”
He still won’t look at me, so I let myself look at him. In just a few days, his skin has stretched tightly over his bones, making him look more specter than person. Unbidden, I wonder what his mother would think if she could see him now, but I push that thought away before the Kaiserin can shame me from beyond the grave.
“Why aren’t you eating?” I ask him.
He pulls his knees up, curling in on himself. I take a step closer.
“Many years ago, my father had the Theyn train me how to be a hostage,” he says. Talking seems to pain him, but he continues. “My father said we had a lot of enemies and that we had to be prepared. The first thing the Theyn taught me was not to eat their food.”
I can’t help but snort. “You think we poisoned it?”
He shakes his head. “It’s about control. As long as I refuse to eat, you are on my terms. You don’t want me dead or you would have killed me already, which means you need me. But the second I accept your food, I become dependent on you and lose that control. It’s a mind game, little better than a staring contest.” He pauses for a second. “Back then I made it three days without food. It’s easier this time—mostly I’m in too much pain to remember to be hungry.”
He doesn’t say it like he’s looking for pity or an apology, just stating a simple fact. I close the distance between us and pick up the tray, setting it down in front of him.
“I need you to eat, Søren,” I say, but he doesn’t move. “I’m not your enemy.”
At that, he laughs, but the sound is weak.
“Friends, enemies, I don’t think it matters anymore. The chains are just as heavy, no matter who holds the key,” he says.
“I know a thing about chains, even if my own were usually metaphorical,” I tell him.
He has the grace to look shamed by that, his eyes finally finding mine. “Is it everything you thought it would be? Freedom?”
It should be a simple question, but it lodges in my gut, a dagger slipping between my ribs. I used to dream about the day I would finally leave the palace, how I would stand under an open sky without enemies on all sides, how I would breathe without that weight on my chest.
“I’ll let you know when I get it,” I tell him.
Something sparks in his eyes. “The woman who had me brought down here. I’ve seen her a couple of times. The others respect her. The captain, I would assume—the notorious Dragonsbane?”
I hesitate before nodding. “My aunt,” I admit. “My mother’s twin.”
The shock plays over his face, clear as words on a page.
“You’re working with her?” he asks.
“That was the plan, but…it’s more complicated than I thought,” I tell him. “I want to get you out of here, but she won’t let you go easily. When you do get out, though, I’m going to need you strong. I need you to eat.” I nudge the tray toward him again.
His eyes linger on mine for a moment before he unfolds his legs and looks down at the tray. “Start at the beginning,” he says, picking up a piece of hardtack and trying to break it in two. It takes more of an effort than it should, but he gets it eventually. “And tell the truth this time.”
I expect there to be a barb in that, but it isn’t there. Once more, he says it like a simple fact.
So I tell him everything. I tell him about killing Ampelio, who I always thought would be the one to rescue me. I tell him how I decided to save myself. I tell him about Blaise showing up and how much worse things were in Astrea than I realized, how many thousands of people the Kaiser had killed. I tell him how I realized that saving myself wasn’t enough.
Though the words stick in my throat, I force myself to tell him about the plan Blaise and I hatched, how I was supposed to seduce him for information and turn him against the Kaiser. I force myself to admit that I was the one who decided to kill him in order to turn the Kalovaxians against one another and start a civil war.
I expect him to balk at that, to look at me like he doesn’t know me at all, but his mind is already plotting. I can see it in the faraway look in his eyes, the way his mouth is pursed and twisted to one side.
“If you had done it, it might have worked,” he admits.
“I know.”
Neither of us talks about the moment in the tunnels beneath the palace, when I held my dagger to his back and he was so ridden with guilt about the lives he had taken in Vecturia that he told me to do it. Neither of us talks about why I didn’t.
“What happened to Erik?” he asks.
Erik. I haven’t thought about him since the last time I saw him.
“I told him to get Hoa and get out of the palace. I imagine he must have or the Kaiser would have brought her out with Elpis. I hope they’re somewhere nice, wherever it is,” I say.
He nods slowly, eyebrows drawn tightly together. “He’s my brother,” he says slowly, and I wonder if it’s the first time he’s ever said it out loud.
“Half,” I say.
“And what a half it is,” he agrees, voice dripping with derision. “Tell me about Dragonsbane.”
I tell him how she tries to undermine me every chance she gets, how she paints me as a well-meaning but incompetent child who cannot possibly rule, and how she acts like my loving aunt who only wants what’s best for me and Astrea.
“What do you think she does want?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I think she wants to help Astrea—it’s her country, after all—but she also wants to profit from it. Blaise said she charged Astrean families for safe passage to other countries. Helping them, but profiting. And she’s trying to marry me off to someone royal. She said they would have the troops needed to take Astrea back, but I’m sure there’s something else in it for her for managing me.”
At that, Søren gives a wry smile. “She doesn’t know, though, how difficult you are to manage.”
“I think she’s starting to get an idea.”
He eats the last bit of dried meat and his stomach grumbles, already demanding more.
“So we start there,” he says. “If we left for Sta’Crivero four days ago, we should be there in three days. We can use that time to strategize. I know a little bit about the other rulers and I have a decent idea of who will send their heirs to woo you.”
“I have no desire to be wooed,” I say before hesitating. “But hypothetically, would there be any decent choices in the lot?”
He considers it for a moment. “It would depend on what you’re looking for.”
“Ideally? A way to get my country back without giving full sovereignty over to a stranger with the highest bid,” I tell him.
He shakes his head. “No one will go up against my father if they have nothing to personally gain from it.”
“I was worried you might say that,” I say, taking the tray from him. I glance at the small porthole above his head, where dawn light filters through. “I’m going to go get breakfast, but I’ll come back right after. I’ll bring you some more food as well, and you can tell me more about the potential suitors.”
For an instant I think he might protest, but instead he nods.
I start to stand up, but before I can, he reaches out and grabs my wrist. His bloody fingers encircle it completely and hold firm in a way that makes my breath catch, despite the atmosphere of the brig and the chains and the blood. I’d forgotten the effect his touch has on me. I want to pull away but I also don’t.
“Yana Crebesti, Theodosia,” he says.
The words catch in my throat. I trust you. After everything I’ve done to him—everything we’ve done to each other—trust shouldn’t exist between us. But here he is, putting his faith in me.
I look down at his hand around my wrist and then back at him. “Theo,” I tell him. “You can call me Theo.”
“Theo,” he repeats before letting go of my wrist.
I leave the brig quickly, hearing his voice echo in my mind even as I bid farewell to the guards and try to wipe the blood from my wrist before they can see.
I hear him say my name over and over and over again, and I wish Artemisia were here to tell me to snap out of it. I always thought that my feelings for Søren were not really mine but Thora’s, the broken, twisted girl that the Kaiser had created out of the ruins of me. I thought that they were kept separate enough that they didn’t overlap. I thought that when I left the palace, I left her as well.
But here I am, hundreds of miles away, and my feelings for Søren are as complicated and knotted as they were the night I left.
I DON’T GO STRAIGHT BACK to Søren. I know he’s still hungry and needs some more company from someone who doesn’t want to beat him, but the thought of being alone with him again paralyzes me. It isn’t that I don’t trust myself around him. It’s that the way he looks at me highlights my vulnerabilities and brings back little pieces of who I was in the palace. Being around him makes me forget that I’m a queen and that there are tens of thousands of other people depending on me. It takes all I have not to order the guards to give me their keys and break him out of there regardless of the consequences.
Changing course, I walk toward the aft of the boat, tray balanced in my arms as I look for a shock of blue hair.
Artemisia is easy to find in the chaos, her hair bright amid the various shades of brown and black hair that most Astreans have. She’s standing in the middle of an open space on the aft deck of the ship with a sword in each hand. They’re smaller than the swords the Kalovaxians favor, though they aren’t quite small enough to be called daggers. They’re about the length from her elbow to her outstretched middle finger, with filigreed gold hilts that gleam in the sunlight.
I don’t recognize her opponent, but he looks a couple of years older than she is and is much taller, with broad shoulders and a face with angles sharper than broken glass. His dark eyes are intent on Artemisia as they circle one another, his mouth set in a firm line. For her part, Artemisia dances instead of walks, each move graceful as a cat’s. She even smiles at the boy, if it can truly be called a smile.
All at once they lunge at each other, metal clanging against metal as their swords clash.
It’s immediately clear that they are unevenly matched, though not in the way they first appear to be. Though the boy is twice Artemisia’s size and strong, his movements are slow and clumsy, and Artemisia is quick enough that he misses more often than not, wasting energy he needs to keep up with her.
She is showing off, throwing in a twirl here, an unnecessary but dramatic arc to her swing there. It’s more performance than fight for her, until it’s not. She sees the moment his breathing becomes too labored, his steps dragging, and in that moment she doubles her own efforts. Her strikes rain down one after another, though he blocks them all. She seems to want him to and uses his distraction to back him up farther and farther until he stumbles over an uneven plank in the deck and falls backward. Before he can register what is happening, Artemisia is on top of him, her swords crossed over his neck and her grin triumphant.
I’m not the only one watching. Dozens of others have stopped their work to gape at the spectacle, and now they cheer for her.
“I’d say I missed sparring with you,” the boy says, more amused than annoyed at his loss. “But I’d be half lying. I’ll be sore tomorrow, you know.”
Artemisia clicks her tongue. “You let yourself slip while I’ve been gone,” she volleys back, sheathing her swords at her hips and extending a hand to help him up.
He’s prideful enough to ignore it, pushing himself back up to his feet with a groan. He retrieves his swords and sheaths them. “I didn’t expect you to come back this good,” he says. “When did you have time to practice in the mines?”
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