Lady Smoke

by Laura Sebastian

  Erik laughs. “That is a long story,” he says, but he tells him anyway.

  * * *

  —

  When I make my move to leave them alone to catch up, Erik follows me to the door.

  “My mother wants a word with you,” he tells me.

  “Hoa’s here?” I ask, surprised. “Why didn’t you say so before?”

  He shrugs, though he looks uncomfortable. “I thought King Etristo might want to meet her, the Kaiser’s escaped concubine. I didn’t want to subject her to that kind of attention any sooner than necessary.”

  I think about the way King Etristo and his family treated me at dinner my first night here.

  “Some people enjoy reveling in the misery of others,” I agree.

  “Most people, I’ve found. It seems to be a human trait.” He hesitates for a moment. “We’ve removed the stitches, so she can speak again,” he says. “But it’s been so long since she has that it can be difficult to understand her at times. And she’s still a little—” He breaks off, shaking his head.

  “Ten years under the Kaiser’s thumb was a nightmare I can’t fully describe to anyone,” I say. “I can’t imagine how she managed twenty.”

  * * *

  —

  Hoa is waiting in my room when I open the door. She’s perched delicately on the edge of a chair by the empty mosaic fireplace that I imagine is purely ornamental, her back ramrod straight and her hands folded primly in her lap. Like Erik, she’s dressed in a long brocade robe, but hers is a pale peach, tied around her waist with a red silk sash. The wide sleeves swallow her thin arms so that only her bone-pale hands are visible. Her black hair is threaded with silver, though she wears it loose around her shoulders now instead of in the tight bun I’ve always seen it in. The stitches across her mouth are gone, but the holes remain, three on the top and three on the bottom. I doubt they’ll ever close completely.

  She must hear me come in but she doesn’t look up, her eyes fixed on the empty fireplace as if she expects a fire to spark to life at any moment.

  “Hoa,” I say carefully. Though I know she’s actually here before me, she feels ephemeral and I half expect her to disappear if I spook her.

  She doesn’t. Instead, she turns to look at me. Though she’s not yet forty, she looks so much older, as if a dozen lives have been sucked out of her. The Kaiserin had the same look about her before she died. I suppose the Kaiser has a way of doing that to women, draining them.

  It’s Hoa’s smile that breaks me, because I’ve never seen it. I don’t think she was capable of it when her mouth was stitched shut, and even if she had been, there wasn’t much for her to smile about. It’s a shame, because her smile is bright enough to clear the sky during a storm.

  “My Phiren,” she murmurs, getting to her feet.

  The word is strange, but I barely hear it. My body is frozen, even when she crosses to me and puts her hands on either side of my face. She kisses one of my cheeks, then the other.

  It occurs to me that I never expected to see her again. In my mind, she is a ghost, already dead and buried. Only she isn’t—she’s here, flesh and bone, and I don’t know what to say to her.

  “I hate this language,” she tells me in Kalovaxian. “It tastes like funeral dirt in my mouth, but it is the only one we share, isn’t it?”

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” I say. “You should have gone far away, somewhere the Kaiser won’t find you.”

  She raises her thread-thin eyebrows. “If it is safe enough for you, it is safe enough for me.”

  “And if it isn’t safe for me?” I ask. “The Kaiser has offered an enticing reward for my death or return to him. King Etristo has promised me safety, but I’m not foolish enough to believe that such a promise is a guarantee. You can go somewhere else, somewhere the Kaiser will never look.”

  Hoa is quiet for a moment. “Fear gives monsters power,” she says finally. “I am not afraid of him; he does not get that power over me. Not anymore, my Phiren.”

  I frown. It’s the second time she’s used this word that I do not know. Erik said that she was difficult to understand at times. Maybe I’m not hearing her correctly.

  “Phiren,” I repeat, trying to make sense of it.

  She laughs, a full throaty sound that is somehow prettier for its roughness.

  “It is what I’ve always called you in my mind,” she explains. “I forget that you never heard me. I had so many conversations with you over those years, but you never heard any of them.”

  She leads me back to the seating area and sits down on the sofa, pulling me down next to her.

  “In Goraki, there is a legend of a bird made of fire,” she says. “It never dies, the Phiren. First, it is made of embers, glowing bright and new before they burst into flames. The Phiren burns brightly for many years, but no fire burns forever—it is smothered into a bird of smoke, wispy and dark. It stays like that for a stretch of time—sometimes centuries even—but the day always comes when an ember within it sparks and its life begins anew.”

  “Is it a real bird?” I ask.

  She laughs. “That I cannot say,” she admits. “It’s a story we tell children to keep them occupied. ‘Look for the Phiren while the adults talk about adult things—if you spy it you get a wish!’ Or a way to explain away bad weather or a poor showing of crops. We would say that the Phiren had molted into smoke but it would turn to flame again soon and Goraki’s luck would turn with it. Sometimes people would claim they’d seen it, but I think most don’t believe it to be more than a myth.”

  She pauses, regarding me thoughtfully. “Still, you reminded me of the legend. With your bright eyes and crown of ashes and Fire Queen mother. Lady Thora, everyone called you, but I thought of you as Lady Smoke. I knew it would only be a matter of time before your ember sparked again, until you once more burned bright enough to escape him.”

  The lump in my throat swells and tears sting at my eyes.

  “Sometimes I felt like I hated you,” I admit. “I wanted you to do something, to help me, to save me. I don’t think I realized just how much of a prisoner you were as well. Until Erik told me, I didn’t realize the Kaiser had…” I trail off, unable to say it. She understands what I mean, though.

  “That I’d shared his bed,” she says before shaking her head. “No, that isn’t right. That sounds like I had a choice in it, though I suppose you understand what I mean better than most.”

  “He didn’t touch me,” I tell her. “Not like that.”

  She lets out a slow breath. “I will always be grateful for that,” she says. “I dreaded the day that would happen. I like to think I would have stopped it somehow, that I would have found a way to get you out before then, but I’m not sure that’s true. There was no way out for us, not until you cut the path yourself.”

  She rests a hand on top of mine and squeezes. Her fingers are all bone, like the Kaiserin’s were, but Hoa’s are warm to the touch. She is alive and I am alive, and sometimes the Kaiserin is right and that is enough.

  “I’m proud of you, my Phiren. You may be just brave—and just foolish—enough to triumph.”

  THE WORD PICNIC MEANS SOMETHING different in Sta’Crivero than it did in Astrea. In Astrea, a picnic meant a blanket outside in the shade of a tree; it meant a basket of finger foods and a pitcher of fruit juice; it meant an easy day lying languid in the sun.

  In Sta’Crivero, however, it is as elaborate as everything else. That it is outdoors is the only difference between it and a regular banquet. There’s a heavy gilt table with plush chairs set up on top of a sand dune just outside the capital’s walls. A large cloth awning shields the diners from the unforgiving sun, and two servants stand near us waving large cloth fans to keep the air a tolerable temperature. The plates and utensils are gold and laden with jewels. The food is a full five-course meal complete with an entire turkey—w
hich seems excessive considering there are only four of us and three of us are women with waists corseted so tightly in Sta’Criveran dresses that we can scarcely breathe, let alone eat.

  Chancellor Marzen arranged for this private outing with me, though I wonder how much he paid King Etristo for my company. If it weren’t for Dragonsbane and Salla Coltania’s presence as chaperones, I would feel like a courtesan whose company can be bought by the hour.

  “You look very sharp in that color, Queen Theodosia,” the Chancellor says to me, refreshing my glass of lemon water, even though I’d only taken a few sips.

  I glance down at the dress Marial selected for me today, pale blue chiffon. Pale blue has never been my color. Cress used to say that I was made of fire and she was made of ice the way we dressed—I in warm colors, she in cool ones.

  “Thank you” is all I can think to say.

  Dragonsbane elbows me, harder than seems strictly necessary, and nods meaningfully toward the Chancellor, who is waiting expectantly.

  “Oh,” I say, realization dawning. “You look very dashing as well, Chancellor Marzen.”

  But, of course, it’s too late and too halfhearted to sound genuine. I don’t think it matters, though; the Chancellor is charmed enough by his own company. He hardly needs me here at all.

  He clears his throat, glancing at my aunt and his sister before turning his attention back to me and lowering his voice. “I look forward to getting to know you better,” he says in a way that slides over my skin like grease.

  “And you as well,” I echo, keeping my voice level. “Isn’t that the point of these outings, Chancellor? To get to know one another better?”

  “Of course,” Coltania cuts in with a blinding smile, all white teeth and red lips. She idly runs her manicured fingers over the rim of the gold plate in front of her. “You know, Marzen and I didn’t have things like these when we were growing up.”

  “Coltania,” the Chancellor says, his voice heavy with warning.

  She only laughs, giving her brother a teasing nudge. “Oh, come now, the fact that you are so relatable is what led our people to elect you,” she says to him before turning back to me. “We grew up on a farm, if it can truly be called that. There were animals, I suppose, though most of them were too old or ill to be of much use.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, because it seems like the only thing to say.

  She shrugs her sharp shoulders. “It was the only life we knew,” she says. “It was normal. My mother died giving birth to a third bastard, which turned out to be the best thing to happen to us.”

  “Coltania,” the Chancellor says again, his voice sharpening.

  She ignores him. “That isn’t the way he tells it in his heartfelt speeches, but it’s true nonetheless,” she says. “After she died, Marzen and I—we must have been nine and ten at the time—left our shack behind and went to the city to try our luck there. Marzen always had more charm than he knew what to do with. He managed to talk himself into apprenticeships above more qualified boys. First it was a blacksmith, wasn’t it?” she asks. “You used to come home covered in sweat and coal.”

  The Chancellor nods, though his eyes have grown distant. “Then a silversmith,” he adds.

  “You weren’t very good at either,” she says with a laugh. “But you made friends. He’s always been very good at making friends,” she says to Dragonsbane and me. “Not me. People tend to dislike me.”

  “You put them off,” Marzen says, not unkindly. “You say what you mean and it makes people uncomfortable.”

  Coltania considers this before shrugging her shoulders. “Well,” she says, “I don’t like most other people because they don’t say what they mean. But that isn’t the point.”

  “What is the point?” Dragonsbane asks, sounding bored.

  Coltania smiles again, but this time there is something hard and feral to it. She doesn’t so much as glance at Dragonsbane—all her attention is focused on me. “The other rulers here have had everything handed to them,” she says. “Their crowns are their birthright, they haven’t been earned. None of them have suffered like we have and so no one can understand you like we do.”

  I don’t flinch away from the intensity of her stare, though I very much want to. There’s a hunger in her eyes, as though she’d swallow me whole if it meant she never had to know hunger again. It should frighten me, but it doesn’t. I recognize that look—I’m sure I’ve worn it myself too many times to count.

  “We’re like sisters, don’t you think?” she asks.

  Considering that we haven’t spoken for more than five minutes total, the word sisters seems a bit much, but I respect the tactic. She can’t know that the word chafes against my skin, that it reminds me of the last girl who called me her sister.

  I force myself not to think about Cress, not here and not now. I can’t miss her, I can’t feel guilty. Wherever she is, she certainly doesn’t miss me.

  “What does your title mean, Salla Coltania?” I ask her to change the subject. “I’ve heard others use it but I’m afraid I don’t know its origin.”

  Coltania smiles. “It’s simply a term of address, like Lady or Miss,” she explains.

  “A bit more than that,” Dragonsbane laughs. “It’s an Orianic honorific. It means she’s an expert in her field.”

  “Oh,” I say, surprised. “I didn’t realize, Salla Coltania.”

  She shakes her head, cheeks reddening. “It’s a silly formality.”

  “What field are you an expert in?” I ask.

  “Science,” Chancellor Marzen says. “She’s studied with the best minds around the world to learn all about biology and chemistry and things I can’t begin to pronounce.” His self-deprecating smile is as charming and practiced as everything else about him.

  “I admit, I don’t know much about science,” I say, leaning forward.

  “It’s all quite boring,” Chancellor Marzen laughs. “She’s driven off all her suitors with talk of chemical compounds. It’s a talent, really.”

  “One I employ intentionally,” she replies, but her smile is warmer this time. “As women, we must have our weapons in this world, whether they’re our minds or our fists or our wiles or our tears.”

  My own smile feels more real as I lift my wineglass. “I couldn’t agree more,” I say.

  * * *

  —

  “I don’t like him,” I tell Søren later that afternoon, while we walk together through the palace’s roof garden, which Søren says is renowned across the world. I can see why—there are more flowers here than I can name, in a prism of colors that I didn’t know could exist in nature. Gold-paved trails wind through a veritable maze of foliage while fingers of sunlight filter down through the branches of trees overhead. A complex web of piping stretches over the garden like a canopy, letting down a constant stream of light mist to negate Sta’Crivero’s dry air. There’s no one else in sight.

  “The Chancellor?” Søren asks, his brow creasing. “He doesn’t seem too terrible. He’s certainly ambitious, but that isn’t a negative trait.”

  “Not in and of itself,” I admit, stopping to examine a cluster of white flowers shaped like stars. Pretty as they are, they smell of nothing. I straighten up and take Søren’s arm again. “Something about him and his sister troubles me. They’re a team—he’s smooth and well-spoken, but she’s the attack dog when his charm isn’t enough. I don’t think one knows how to function without the other.”

  “Do you think there’s something untoward between them?”

  It takes me a moment to realize what he’s insinuating. I wrinkle my nose. “Gods no, I didn’t mean that. Just that they’re like two halves of one person, each distilled.”

  He’s quiet for a moment. “There were rumors surrounding the election he won, though I’m sure they were twisted and convoluted by the time they made their way t
o me,” he says carefully.

  “What sort of rumors?”

  Søren shrugs. “Bribes. Threats. Hired assassins, in some of the more outlandish tales. They say she carved his way to the chancellorship and the path is lined with blood and greed. I doubt the veracity of most of the claims—they have many enemies in Oriana. Many wealthy, old families still bristle at the thought of a young upstart taking their highest seat. Rumors usually have only a grain of truth to them, if that.”

  “I think we know that better than most, given what people are saying about us,” I point out with a laugh.

  For an instant, Søren looks like he wants to say something, but he only shakes his head, as if he’s clearing the thought away. “Do you have any favorites yet?” he asks instead. I let out a groan and he quickly rephrases it. “Are there any who aren’t as awful as you expected?”

  I consider it. “I know Erik, I trust him more than the others, and he would accept an alliance without marriage, but that alliance would get us nothing. Goraki is too weak after the Kalovaxian invasion. They can’t protect themselves, let alone declare war on another country.”

  Though I know it’s the truth, my heart sinks when Søren doesn’t contradict me.

  “Of the suitors with enough power to help me take Astrea back, I prefer the Archduke,” I tell him, though saying the words aloud makes me want to vomit. “Haptania has a large enough army to be of assistance, and he treats me with more respect than any of the others. I think we could be friends, in the long run.”

  I can’t bring myself to even think about what it would mean to join our countries, to give him and his country some slice of control over mine.

  Søren considers it for a moment, his brow creased deeply in concentration. This is what he looks like on a battlefield, I think, surveying the terrain and coming up with strategies. When he turns his head to look at me with that same intensity, my stomach flutters. For a moment, it feels like we’re back in Astrea, before we betrayed each other and salted the earth between us.