Elpis isn’t loyal to the Kaiser, I’m sure of it. But that doesn’t mean she’ll be loyal to me. I’m not her queen, after all; I’m a spoiled, sheltered girl who is friends with the one who keeps her chained.
I have to take a moment to translate my words to Astrean in my mind before I say them. “Does he look like them?” I ask her quietly, dropping my voice to a whisper. I keep a tight hold on my smile so that it will fool my Shadows into thinking I’m babbling about something silly and inconsequential. Hopefully, after years of watching me do nothing of interest, they won’t expect anything more now.
I am poking at a bruise. Elpis flinches at my words, but I don’t back down. I need her anger; I need her to know it isn’t hers alone to bear, that I am on her side.
Her eyes narrow and she opens her mouth to answer before clamping it shut again. “Yes,” she says shortly in Kalovaxian before switching to Astrean and lowering her voice so that even I can barely hear her. “What is it you want from me, my lady?” she asks me, her voice tight.
The streets are deserted, though there are sunken eyes watching from broken windows. Children too young to work, the ill, the elderly. Hoa must live somewhere around here when she’s not with me. The thought strikes me as strange—it isn’t something I’d ever wondered about.
“What do you want?” I ask Elpis.
Her eyes dart around, searching for the Shadows, too, the ears that are always listening, the eyes that are always watching. They’re not here, though, I assure myself. Not close enough, anyway. But I don’t fully believe it. I’ve been wrong too many times before.
“Is this a trick, my lady?” she asks, switching back to Kalovaxian.
She doesn’t trust me. And why should she? She’s watched me for years with Cress. She would be a fool to trust me, and she’s lived too rough a life to be a fool.
If anything, the fact that she doesn’t trust me makes me trust her.
“No, it’s not a trick.” I look around again and see it—a telltale glimmer in the air, but a good twenty feet away, lurking in the shadow of a crumbling building. They won’t hear me, but I force a high, false laugh, keeping my smile frozen and speaking in Astrean for extra measure.
Elpis is bewildered. “Smile,” I tell her, and she instantly obeys, though there’s a touch of fear in her eyes. “They tried to break me, Elpis, and they nearly succeeded. I let my fear cow me, I let them cow me. But I’m done. I’m going to make them pay. For everything they’ve done to us, to our country. To our fathers and our mothers. Will you help me?”
I hold my breath. Elpis has grown up in this world, she has never known anything else. She could turn against me for her freedom and enough food to keep her family satiated, and I couldn’t even blame her for it. It’s a difficult world for Astreans to survive in, and I haven’t seen the worst of it. I am no more her ruler than the Kaiser is, and what does she care, really, so long as she’s safe and warm and fed?
But when her eyes meet mine, they are burning with venom. Her gaze is lethal, but not to me. Her anger only feeds mine, until we are matched, hate for hate.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” she whispers, stumbling over the Astrean words. I’m surprised she even knows them.
Your Majesty. The Kalovaxians don’t use that term, so the only person I’ve heard referred to that way was my mother. I know Elpis means well, but hearing it now makes my heart ache.
I’m not anyone’s majesty, I want to tell her.
“Are there people you trust implicitly?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, without hesitation.
“That’s the wrong answer. You trust no one until they have earned it. I’ve made that mistake before and suffered for it. But the Kaiser won’t find punishing you worth his time. He’ll kill you, do you understand?”
She bites her lip before remembering that we’re being watched. “Yes, I get the joke,” she says with a laugh that sounds surprisingly natural. She doesn’t bother to lower her voice or speak in Astrean. Good girl, giving them something, even if it’s nothing.
“The only person I want you to trust is a boy. He was serving the banquet yesterday. A little older than me, with black hair cut close? Taller than most men, with bright green eyes. And a scar here,” I add, tracing a finger from my temple to the corner of my mouth, but making it look like I’m scratching an itch.
Elpis nods slowly. “I believe I know him,” she says.
“You think, or you know?” I press.
“I…I know,” she says, sounding more certain. “There aren’t many young men working in the palace, but one started two days ago. He had paperwork releasing him from the mines?”
Forged, I’m sure, and not likely to last long before that’s discovered.
“That’s the one,” I say in Kalovaxian.
She gives me a small smile. “You could have just said the handsome one. He’s had all the girls swooning over him.”
I stifle a laugh. “Can you get a message to him?”
“Yes, it shouldn’t be difficult. Lady Crescentia doesn’t notice much, particularly when she has a new book to occupy her mind. Her father keeps closer tabs on us, but he left to survey the mines yesterday afternoon.”
More useful information, though hardly the good kind. I can only imagine what the Theyn’s visit to the mines will entail, but I’m sure it will come with a body count.
“Good,” I say. “Introduce yourself to him. Tell him I sent you.” I know he won’t believe her—it’s exactly what the Kaiser’s spy would say to catch us. “We were children together in the palace, before the siege. Our nanny’s name was Sofia, but we called her Birdie because she had the prettiest voice. If he questions your story, tell him I said that.”
“And what would you like me to tell him?” she asks me.
“Tell him…tell him I have some news and I need a way to meet with him in person.”
DAYS PASS FILLED WITH FEAR that any moment now my Shadows will tell the Kaiser I spoke with Elpis. It won’t matter that they didn’t hear what was said, I’ll pay for it all the same. It was worth it—I know it was worth it—but that doesn’t make it any easier to wait for the ax to fall. I sleep little, and when I do manage to dream, all I see is Ampelio dying over and over again. Sometimes Blaise takes his place. Sometimes Elpis. Sometimes it’s Crescentia lying at my feet, begging for her life while I hold a blade to her throat.
No matter who it is, the dream always ends the same and I always wake screaming. My Shadows don’t react. They’re used to it by now.
It’s been four days since seeing the ships. Five days since I met with Blaise. All I have been able to do is wait for him to make contact like he said he would. It’s almost easy to slip into life as Thora again, attending luncheons and dances and spending afternoons with Cress in her father’s library. But I force myself to remember who I am.
I keep my mind busy and think about the Vecturia Islands. What could be happening there that requires a fleet of warships and the Prinz himself as a commandant? It could be that the Prinz was telling the truth and Erik was only confused—that Dragonsbane is troubling the trade route. But the more I think about it, the less sense that makes. They wouldn’t need that many ships with that much ammunition if they were squaring off against just Dragonsbane’s small fleet. Dragonsbane might be a thorn in the Kaiser’s side, but removing it would require a knife, not a cannonball.
Yet Vecturia isn’t Astrea, I remind myself. Their problems aren’t mine, and I have my own people to think about.
And it might turn out to be nothing. Prinz Søren and Erik were secretive, yes, but it’s possible it’s to hide something else. I’ve heard tales of Prinz Søren’s skills in battle, but they’ve always been secondhand and they could be greatly exaggerated in order to make the Prinz appear godlike.
If I could just speak to Blaise again, I could tell him what I know and see w
hat he thought about it. He might even have another piece of the puzzle to help make sense of it. But there has been no word from him since our meeting in the cellar. He said he had an idea about how we could speak more, but I’m starting to lose hope. There have even been some darker moments when I wonder if I made him up.
There’s a knock at the door—stiff and formal, not Cress’s light, melodic tap. Hoa is heating up a pair of hair tongs in the fireplace, so I go to answer it. My feet are made of stone. The only people who knock like that are guards, and I don’t have to guess at what they want. My welts from the mine riot haven’t fully healed yet. The idea of a whip reopening them sends shudders through me that won’t be quelled.
I shouldn’t have spoken to Elpis. I shouldn’t have met with Blaise.
I take one last shaky breath before opening the door. A stern guard stands on the other side dressed in a crimson jacket, and my heart all but ceases to beat. He isn’t one of the Kaiser’s men, though. Great as their numbers are, I would know their faces anywhere by now. They’re burned into my memory so deeply they even haunt my nightmares. This man isn’t one of them but I don’t know if that’s better or worse.
He produces a square envelope from the pocket of his jacket and passes it to me, his expression frozen in a thin, straight line.
“From His Royal Highness, Prinz Søren,” he says, as if the royal crest emblazoned on the front weren’t enough of a clue. “He asked that I wait here for a reply.”
Numb with relief and shock, I tear the envelope open with the corner of my pinky nail and skim the Prinz’s hastily scrawled words.
Thora—
I’m sorry for abandoning you the other day, but I hope you enjoyed the tour. Allow me to make it up to you with lunch before I leave?
—Søren
I read the words twice, looking for hidden meanings, but only see exactly what is written. It’s the sort of letter Cress receives from boys who are trying to court her. Could it be that Blaise was right about the way the Prinz looked at me? The letter lacks the usual poetry and flattery of a love missive, but that’s not surprising, considering Søren’s demeanor. I doubt he would know a poem if one was written on the sails of his precious ships. But I cannot ignore the last line—the invitation to spend time alone together.
I know this opportunity to gather more information is one I can’t pass up, yet I still feel guilty. I imagine Cress pacing her own rooms over the last few days, anxiously awaiting a letter like this from the Prinz. The few times I’ve seen her since the harbor, she’s been giddy and bright-eyed, going over every moment of their time together in such fine detail I could swear I was there myself. But what I didn’t tell her is that while Søren was courteous with her and did all the chivalrous things—held doors open, handed her into the carriage, escorted her back to her rooms and said goodbye politely at the door—it sounded like he was doing his duty and no more.
Not like this. Having lunch with me is certainly not a duty, and his father will be furious when he finds out. Søren must have known that when he wrote the letter, but he did so anyway.
For a long moment, I can only stare at the paper in my hands, thinking over what I should say back, what I should wear, what I should talk to him about, all the while aware of the guard’s eyes on me. It’s only after a moment that I realize the best path to take, the one that will most assuredly keep the reins in my hand. Blaise did say that Søren would want me all the more because he can’t have me.
I look up at the guard and give him my sweetest smile, though it doesn’t seem to do much good. His face remains frozen.
“I have no reply,” I tell him. “Good day.”
With a bob of a curtsy, I close the door firmly before he can protest.
* * *
—
The autumn air is thick and heavy on my skin as I walk through what was once my mother’s garden. My memory of her is still hazy, but I feel her presence stronger here than anywhere else. I remember color and a smell so heady it would wrap around me like a blanket—the scent of flowers and grass and dirt. It clung to my mother even when she spent all day in the throne room or walking through the city.
She was never happier than she was here, with dirt staining her skirts and life in her hands.
“The smallest seeds can grow the greatest trees, with enough care and time,” she would tell me, placing her hands over mine to guide them as we planted seeds and patted damp earth over them.
Ampelio used to say that if she weren’t a queen, she would have made a formidable Earth Guardian, but Astrean laws said she couldn’t be both. Of course, favor from the gods wasn’t hereditary. Though she gave me a small patch of the garden to work alongside her, I couldn’t even get weeds to grow there.
Nothing grows anywhere in the garden anymore. Without my mother’s diligent care, it grew wild, and if there is one thing the Kaiser cannot stand, it is wildness. He set fire to it all when I was seven. I saw the flames and smelled the smoke from my bedroom window, and I couldn’t stop crying, no matter how Hoa tried to quiet me. It felt like I was losing my mother all over again.
Nine years later, and the air here still tastes of ashes to me, though the charred remains have long been cleared, the dirt paved over with square gray stones. My mother wouldn’t recognize it now, with its hard floor and the few trees that break through the cracks to provide skeletal fingers of shade. There isn’t any color—even the trees have better sense than to sprout leaves.
The garden was always a busy place, before. I remember playing with Blaise and the other palace children when the weather was nice. There would be dozens of courtiers milling through the trees and bushes in chitons dyed a myriad of vivid colors. Artists with their paints or instruments or notebooks sitting alone as they worked. Couples sneaking off together for not-so-secret rendezvous.
Now it’s deserted. The Kalovaxians prefer the sun pavilions set up on public balconies to better take advantage of the light and the sea breeze. I’ve been a few times with Crescentia, and though the Kalovaxians play and work and gossip and flirt there as well, it never feels the same. Burnt and broken as this place is, it is the only part of the palace that still feels like home.
Comfort isn’t what drives me here today, though. I’ve been struggling to find places to meet with Blaise—once he gets in touch—but I can’t get to the cellar again without raising the suspicions of my Shadows. There are precious few places in the palace where I actually feel alone. Even here—the garden is overlooked by thirty palace windows, and every now and then I catch a glimpse of my Shadows on their watch from inside, the black hoods of their cloaks up so I can’t see their faces.
The garden is exposed, but that might not be a bad thing for a possible meeting place. There would be people who would see us together, but if he’s working to prune the trees or scrub the stones it won’t seem strange, and Kalovaxians have a bad habit of ignoring slaves. There is nowhere we could be overheard from, and that is what truly matters.
It’s a flawed plan, of course. We wouldn’t be able to say more than a few words to one another without raising suspicions. Flawed as it is, though, it’s the best option I’ve found so far.
“Lady Thora.”
The male voice makes me jump. Unlike Crescentia, I’m not accompanied by maids to keep my reputation pristine. My Shadows watch from a distance, of course, but their job is less to keep me safe than to keep me watched.
Still, I know that voice, and since his letter this morning, I’ve been waiting for him to find me.
Prinz Søren crosses the stone garden toward me, flanked by two guards whose orders are surely much different than my guards’. Though they are Søren’s and not the Kaiser’s—not the ones who have dragged me through the halls to answer for crimes I didn’t commit, not the ones who have taken turns with the whip—their eyes are just as hard, and I have to suppress a shudder.
<
br /> They are not here for me, not today.
I drop to a curtsy. “Your Highness,” I say when I rise. “What brings you out here?”
He gives me a reproachful look. “Your Highness. I thought we talked about this.”
“You did call me Lady first,” I point out.
Søren grimaces, but his eyes are smiling. It seems to be as close as he gets to any actual signs of mirth. “Old habits, I suppose. Let’s start again. Hello, Thora,” he says, bowing his head slightly.
The name bristles against my skin, though it’s more familiar to me than my real one.
“Hello, Søren. What brings you out here?” I repeat, tilting my head to one side.
He glances around the stone garden with disinterest. Through his eyes, I imagine, this place is nothing but a ruin.
“I was looking for you, actually,” he says, holding an arm out to me. I have no choice but to take it.
“Me?” I say. Though I’ve been waiting for him to seek me out, I can’t help but remember that the last time Søren came looking for me had been to bring me to Ampelio’s execution. Could it be Blaise’s now? Or Elpis’s?
I must not hide my worry well, because he rests his free hand on my arm with a squeeze. I think he means to be reassuring, but it ends up feeling awkward and unsure. I suppose neither of us is used to compassion. Still, I appreciate the attempt.
“Nothing like that,” he says, and my pounding heart immediately slows. “You look…” He clears his throat. “That dress is very pretty.”
“Oh, thank you,” I say, glancing away as if I’m flustered. As if I hadn’t again intended it to show just an inch more skin than is common. This time, the top is conservative enough, with saffron yellow silk draping over both shoulders in wide swaths and a neckline high enough to cover my clavicle. I asked Hoa to pin the bodice tighter around my torso than I usually wear it so that it highlights the curve of my waist. She secured it with a ruby pin at my left hip as I instructed—higher than usual, so that the slit starts higher as well. Now each step I take reveals a glimpse of half of my leg. I practiced walking in it for almost an hour this morning in front of a mirror, trying to find the right balance between tantalizing and vulgar. If the way he’s looking at me is any indication, I’ve succeeded.
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