The guards push me through the door into a dimly lit room, and I immediately drop to a curtsy without looking up, heart thundering against my rib cage. Any hint of disrespect will cost me. Footsteps approach—lighter and slower than I’d been expecting. Red silk skirts and golden slippers fill my vision while the cloying scent of roses tickles my nose, and I realize it isn’t the Kaiser who’s summoned me, it’s the Kaiserin.
While she is a moderately more appealing option than the Kaiser, I’m not sure I’m grateful for it. At least with the Kaiser I know where I stand. I understand the rules of his games, even if he usually cheats. But I can’t begin to guess what the Kaiserin wants from me, and I fear that looking at her will feel like looking at my future if I fail to gain my freedom. How long will it be before my own eyes grow so empty and distant?
Hers have always been that way, I think, even when she first arrived in the palace after the siege, then in her mid-twenties with smooth skin, loose yellow hair, and a seven-year-old Søren clutching her hand. She flinched when the Kaiser kissed her cheek in greeting, eyes darting around the room in a way I’d already grown too familiar with. She was searching for help she would never find.
“Leave us,” she says now. Her voice is no louder than a whisper, but the guards comply, shutting the door behind them with a thunk that echoes in the mostly empty sitting room. “I trust your back isn’t broken enough to hinder your standing?” she asks.
I hasten to my feet, smoothing out my skirts as I do. The room is large but sparsely decorated. There are five enormous windows that line one of the walls, but they’re each draped with thick red velvet curtains that keep out any trace of sunlight. Candles are lit instead: a taper stands four feet tall by the door and a dozen thumb-sized ones crowd the low table in the center. The heavy brass chandelier overhead is lit as well, but the room still feels dark and gloomy. There’s a hodgepodge of seating thrown around the table, including red velvet tufted chairs, sofas, and a chaise, all with gilt frames. Despite being filled with so much fire, the room is chilly.
It’s a different place entirely than it was when it was my mother’s sitting room. I remember it bright and soft, with sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows and a thick patterned rug that covered most of the floor. Cozy chairs and sofas surrounded a sunstone fire pit where she would sit at the end of the day with her closest friends and advisors. The memories are hazy, but I remember her laughing with Ampelio, a goblet of red wine in her hand, while I played with my toys on the rug. I remember him whispering something in her ear and her resting her head on his shoulder. I don’t know if the memory is real, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. I can hardly ask them about it.
I blink the thought away and force myself to focus on Kaiserin Anke. It’s been years since I’ve been this close to her in anything but an official capacity, when her skin has been slathered with an apothecary’s worth of creams and tints. Time hasn’t been kind to her, leaving her face looking like a half-melted candle and her hair thin and patchy. The red silk dress is finely crafted, but it sags on her gaunt frame and makes her skin look even more sallow. She’s still young—not more than thirty-five—but she looks much older, despite the Water Gems coiled around her neck.
“Your Highness summoned me?”
Her small, milky eyes rake over me from the top of my head to my toes, and her mouth purses. “I thought it best we speak privately before you go and do something foolish,” she says. The roughness in her voice takes me by surprise. The rare times I’ve heard her speak in public, she’s always sounded more like a child than a woman.
I glance around the room. There is no one waiting behind her, no one crouched behind the patch of armchairs or the sofa. There is no one behind me either; the guards and my Shadows remain on the other side of the thick door. At the volume she’s speaking, no one else can hear her. Still, my stomach churns. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Your Highness.”
Her eyes linger on me a moment longer before her mouth curls into a tight smile and she clasps her hands in front of her. Each finger is ringed with a Spiritgem—every gem except for Earth. The Kaiser is sure to forbid his wife any strength, though she could certainly use it. “You’re an accomplished liar, I’ll admit that. But he’s always better, isn’t he?”
I fight the urge to swallow or look away. I hold her gaze. “Who is?” I ask.
Her smile is wan. “Very well, little lamb. We’ll play your game.”
The nickname prickles the back of my neck like an annoying insect I can’t ignore. She used to call me by it when she first came to the palace after the siege. That was before I understood the magnitude of everything that had happened. That was before the Kaiser’s punishments started. That was when I’d mistaken her cowardice for kindness.
“I don’t know what you mean, Your Highness,” I tell her, keeping my voice level.
She turns and walks away from me, gliding toward the chaise with the grace of a ghost before sinking down into it. “Has anyone ever told you how I became a kaiserin, little lamb?” she asks.
“No,” I lie. I’ve heard a dozen versions of the story, each different. Even those who were there, who saw it happen with their own eyes, each has their own version of the tale, painting it as everything from a triumph to a tragedy.
She leans back in the chaise and lifts her chin a fraction of an inch. Her eyes are far away, even when she looks directly at me. “You might as well sit,” she says.
Tentatively I cross the room and sit down in the chair closest to her. I try to mimic her prim body language, crossing my legs at the ankles and resting my hands in my lap. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s the way she always sits, even now, when there is no one to see her but me.
“I was born Printsessa of Rajinka, a small country on the Eastern Sea. A tenth child and a fourth daughter, of little importance outside the promise of a strong marriage. Luckily, one of our greatest allies had a son close to me in age. Our betrothal was sealed before my second birthday.”
“The Kaiser?” I asked.
Her mouth twitches into something that might be a smile. “Not at the time, no. Prinz Corbinian was how I knew him. Everyone called him Corby, much to his great displeasure. I didn’t meet him until I was twelve, but from that moment I was hopelessly smitten.” She laughs softly and shakes her head. “It’s difficult to picture now, I suppose, but he was a gangly boy with an easy smile. He made me laugh. We wrote one another such sentimental letters, you would hardly believe it.”
I know that this story turns, eventually, to the Kaiser only speaking to her in cruelty and the Kaiserin going mad with fear and hate. Thinking of him as a boy penning soppy love letters is impossible, like trying to imagine a dog dancing a waltz.
“My wedding day was beautiful. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and I don’t think I’d ever been happier—it was what I’d dreamt of for three years, it was everything I’d been raised for. You and I were raised in very different worlds, in that respect,” she says, keeping her gaze on me until I glance away. She clears her throat and continues. “We were wed in the chapel at my family’s palace, where I had first sworn myself to my god as a child. We only had one in Rajinka, you know. It was much less confusing.”
She pauses to take a breath, or maybe to steady herself. I know, more or less, what comes next. In no version is it ever a pleasant story—not for the Kaiserin, at least.
“We said our vows under the watch of his gods and mine, and the whole time, he couldn’t take his eyes off me. It felt like…it felt like we were the only two people in the chapel…like we were the only two people in the world. And when it was official, he raised his hand and gave a signal I didn’t understand.”
Though I know what happens, I still wait to hear her say it, barely breathing.
“His father’s men turned their blades on their kaiser, their kaiserin, all of his siblings, to be safe. Even the
little ones, barely out of their short clothes. A few of the noblemen as well—anyone whose loyalty Corbinian couldn’t secure. And when that was done and the floors of the chapel were slick with Kalovaxian blood, they turned on my family and friends. Bringing weapons into a place of worship is a sin, so my people couldn’t even defend themselves. It was a slaughter.”
Her voice begins to shake, and I can’t help wondering if this is the first time she’s told this story. Who else would have listened? The Kaiserin keeps no confidantes, has no friends, no one at all who is wholly hers. And like me, there are parts of her she has to hide at all costs from the Kaiser.
“My parents, my sisters, my brothers, the girls I’d had lessons with, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins. All of them were dead before I even had time to scream. And when it was done, do you know what my love said to me?”
“No.” My voice comes out hoarse.
“ ‘I’ve given you two countries to rule, my love. Now what will you give me?’ ”
The words send a shiver down my spine. “Why are you telling me this?” I ask.
She closes her eyes and takes a moment to calm herself. Her shaking slows, and when she opens her eyes again, the cloudiness is gone, replaced by a fire I didn’t think her capable of. “Because I know the spark of rebellion when I see it. There was a time when I knew that spark very well. But I need you to understand that you are playing a dangerous game with a dangerous man. And there are consequences when you lose—and you will lose. I know that as well.”
I glance around the room, expecting to see holes in the walls, expecting to hear guards burst into the room ready to arrest us both for speaking against the Kaiser. She sees this and smiles.
“No, little lamb, I rid myself of my own Shadows years ago. All it took was a decade of docility and submission for Corbinian to call them off—or, I suppose, to give them to you. With enough time, you’ll lose them as well. Once Corbinian stops seeing you as a threat, or you have someone he can use against you the way he uses Søren against me.”
“I’m still not quite sure what you want from me,” I tell her, but I know I don’t sound convincing.
She lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “My son came to me last night. He had some…concerns about Corbinian’s plans to marry you off and hoped that I could change his mind. He was smart, to come to me instead of going straight to his father. Of course, you were smarter still to seek out his help in the first place.”
I force my expression into one of innocence, though I’m starting to think it’s useless with her. “The Prinz and I have become friends, Your Highness. I was…troubled, understandably, when I heard the Kaiser intended to marry me off to Lord Dalgaard, and I turned to Søren. As a friend.”
For a long moment, she’s quiet. “I have taken the liberty of arranging an alternative marriage for Lord Dalgaard,” she says finally. “One he found perfectly amenable.”
“I am very grateful, Your Highness,” I breathe. It might be the first true thing I’ve said to her.
Her thin eyebrows arch. “Aren’t you curious to know whose well-being was traded for your own?”
I try to look chastened, but I can’t quite manage it. The truth, damned as it might make me, is that I don’t care at all which spoiled and vicious Kalovaxian girl the Kaiserin had to trade for me. I’d watch them all die without batting an eyelash.
Even Crescentia? a small voice asks in the back of my mind, but I ignore it. Cress is too valuable to marry off to someone like Lord Dalgaard. It would never happen.
“I would imagine, Your Highness, that the wisest choice would have been Lady Dagmær,” I say. “Such a match would please everyone. Dagmær’s father likely put up a fuss about Lord Dalgaard’s history, but since it was you asking—and I assume adding a little extra to Lord Dalgaard’s bid—he gave in easily enough.”
She purses her lips. “You have a sharp mind, little lamb, and all the sharper still for keeping it hidden. But make no mistake: there will be another match made for you, likely a crueler one.”
“I don’t see who could be crueler than Lord Dalgaard.” I say it, holding her gaze with mine.
“Don’t you?” she asks, tilting her head to one side. “My husband would hardly be the first kaiser to rid himself of his wife to take a younger bride. I have nothing left to give him, after all,” she says casually. “But you’re young. You could give him more children and strengthen his hold on the country. And I’ve seen him look at you. I’d imagine the whole court has—my chivalrous fool of a son included. Corbinian isn’t exactly subtle, is he?”
I try to speak but words fail me. The python is back, wrapping itself around my stomach and chest so tightly I’m sure it will kill me. I want to deny her words, but I can’t.
She gets to her feet and I know that I should rise as well and curtsy, but I’m frozen in place. “Some advice, little lamb? Next time you close a window, make sure it doesn’t open a trapdoor beneath your feet.”
She’s halfway to the door when I find my voice. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admit, barely louder than a whisper.
The Kaiserin hears me, though. She turns and regards me with that disconcerting, unfocused stare of hers. “You’re a lamb in the lion’s den, child. You’re surviving. Isn’t that enough?”
I’M SHAKING AS I WALK down the hall, though I try to hide it. I smile pleasantly at the barrage of courtiers who just so happen to be taking leisurely strolls near the royal wing, but I don’t really see them—just a blur of bland, pale Kalovaxian features bleeding together until they’re one face. The Kaiserin’s voice echoes in my head: “You are playing a dangerous game with a dangerous man.” It’s no more than I already knew, but hearing it from someone else—the Kaiserin, of all people—sets everything in a new light.
I’d thought that the worst things that could be done to me had already come to pass—the public whippings, executing Ampelio, watching my mother die. I’d never imagined something worse was possible. But being forced to marry the Kaiser would be just that. I would burrow so deep inside myself that I’m not sure I would ever break free.
I would die first.
It doesn’t matter, I tell myself; it won’t come to that. In a month I’ll be gone from this place and I’ll never have to look at the Kaiser again. Still, fear and disgust course through me at the prospect of the Kaiser sharing my bed.
My Shadows’ footsteps fall into place a good distance behind me, and I resist the urge to look back at them. I feel their eyes on me, but I can’t let them know how afraid I am. I can’t let them know about this new threat either. Blaise would insist that we leave the city immediately. He would stow me somewhere safe while Astrea turned to dust.
When I slip back into my room, Hoa is smoothing the coverlet into place over my bed, but she stops and looks up at me in alarm. I try to shift my expression into something neutral, but can’t manage. Not today.
“Leave,” I tell her.
Her eyes dart to the walls—a silent reminder or an old habit, I’m not sure—and for a second she looks like she wants to do something, but she only nods and disappears out the door.
I go to stand at my window, less for the view of the gray garden and more because it’s the only way to hide my face from my Shadows. Still, the weight of their stares is unbearable. I can practically hear Artemisia’s throaty scoff again and Heron’s beleaguered lecturing voice. I imagine Blaise rolling his eyes and deciding to take me out of here tonight because it turns out I can’t do this after all and I don’t know why I thought I could. I’m only the broken little Ash Princess who can’t save herself, let alone her country.
I try to calm down, but the Kaiserin’s words repeat over and over in my head. I remember the way the Kaiser has been looking at me in recent months. I never let myself think about it, as if that would make it untrue, but I know she’s right. I know how this story will play out.
Tears sting my eyes, and I hastily wipe them away before the others can see.
Heron called me a queen yesterday, and queens don’t falter; they don’t get frightened; they don’t cry.
The door opens quietly and I stiffen, hastily wiping my wet eyes on the back of my sleeve. When I glance over my shoulder, fake smile at the ready, Blaise is closing the door behind him, pulling his hood back.
“Blaise—”
He waves my words away dismissively. “There was no one in the hall, I made sure of it.” His eyes skim over my face and I know I didn’t hide my tears as well as I’d hoped. His hands fidget in front of him and he drops his gaze. When he looks at me again, there’s a softness in his eyes that makes him look like a different person altogether. “What happened, Theo? You’re paler than a Kalovaxian.”
He’s trying to make me laugh, but the sound that comes out of my mouth is halfway between a laugh and a sob. I glance down at my feet, focusing on stopping their shaking. It takes a few seconds and a couple of deep breaths before they still and I trust myself to speak.
“I need a weapon,” I tell him, keeping my voice calm.
He looks taken aback. “Why?”
I can’t tell him. As much as the words claw at my throat, I can’t share this burden. I might not know Blaise as well as I used to, but I know exactly what he will do if I tell him about the Kaiserin’s warning. And if we run, we won’t have another chance to strike out at the Kaiser from this close.
“I just need one,” I say.
Blaise shakes his head. “It’s too risky,” he says. “If anyone were to find it on you—”
“They won’t,” I say.
“Your maid sees you in nothing but your skin every morning and night,” he points out. “Where exactly do you propose to keep it hidden?”
“I don’t know,” I admit in a whisper. Nausea rolls through me again and I sit down on the edge of my bed. The mattress gives as he sits down next to me, his leg not quite touching mine.
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