Ash Princess

by Laura Sebastian

  She shrugs. “I was a child. My father was away most of the time, and he scared me a bit. My mother was the one I loved best, but I didn’t have a choice. Don’t misunderstand me, Thora,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m glad my father kept me with him. I know you think he’s awful, and I can’t blame you for that, but he’s my father. Still, sometimes I miss her.”

  Her voice breaks again and I reach out to take her hand. “You’re a good friend, Cress,” I tell her, because it’s what she needs to hear. In a simpler world, her friendship would be enough. But in this one, it isn’t.

  She smiles and gives my hand a squeeze before releasing it.

  “You should get some rest,” she says, standing up. “I’ll see you at the banquet tonight.”

  She pauses, eyes lingering on me warily for a moment.

  “You didn’t…you didn’t have true feelings for him, did you? Søren, I mean.” She says it like she doesn’t really want to know the answer.

  “No,” I tell her, and the lie slides easily off my tongue. It isn’t even a lie anymore, I realize.

  She smiles, relieved. “I’ll see you tonight,” she repeats, turning to go.

  “Cress?” I say when she’s at the door.

  She looks back to me, pale eyebrows raised, smile tentative. A confession bubbles to my lips. I don’t know that I can let her walk to her death.

  I see a scale in my mind, Cress on one side, the twenty thousand of my people still living on the other. It shouldn’t be a difficult decision to make; it should be simple. It shouldn’t feel like it’s tearing my heart out.

  I swallow. “I’ll see you tonight,” I say, knowing that my last words to her are just another lie.

  ANOTHER BANQUET MEANS ANOTHER ASH crown, though I swear to myself this will be the last time I wear one. The guard who delivers it along with the gown I’m to wear looks perplexed to see me instead of Hoa, but I tell him she stepped out for a moment to deliver my dirty clothes to the laundresses and he accepts that easily enough, pressing the boxes into my arms and leaving without another word.

  I set the smaller box on my vanity, then lay the larger one on my bed and open it. The gown always goes on first in Hoa’s routine so that the crown is saved for the last possible second.

  This one is a deep blood-red, and I can already tell it won’t cover much more than what’s necessary. This is the last time I’ll be his trophy, I promise myself.

  Heron and Artemisia haven’t returned yet, so it’s only Blaise here. I tell him to turn around before slipping out of the dress I’m wearing and stepping into the gown. Tiny buttons run down what little back there is, and it takes me a moment to manage them myself. Unlike other gowns the Kaiser has sent, this one doesn’t just leave my back bare but exposes more cleavage than most courtesans show and has a slit cut up to my hip. I’m practically naked. The idea of anyone seeing me like this turns my stomach, but I reluctantly call for Blaise to turn back around.

  For a long moment, he doesn’t say anything.

  “I’m sorry, Theo,” he manages finally, his voice quiet.

  “I know,” I tell him before squaring my shoulders and walking toward the box on my vanity.

  The lid lifts with ease, and inside, the crown is a perfect circlet of ash resting on a red silk pillow. It could almost be pretty under different circumstances, but seeing it fills me only with hatred.

  “Blaise?” I say, glancing up to his wall. “I’ve never put it on myself. Hoa always does it and I don’t want to give the Kaiser any reason to suspect anything is different tonight.”

  For a moment, Blaise doesn’t say anything. “All right,” he manages finally.

  I hear him shifting behind the wall before his door opens out into the hallway. Seconds later, he’s slipping through my door as quietly as he can. His eyes are heavy with worry and I almost regret asking for his help. I’m already worried enough myself; seeing it reflected on his face just reinforces how many ways this can go wrong.

  I try to smile at him, but it’s harder than it should be.

  “Are you going to be all right tonight?” he asks as he looks into the box. “With the Kaiser?”

  I’ve been struggling not to think of exactly that. I can still feel him touching my hip at the maskentanz, still feel his breath in my ear, his hand on my cheek when he promised me we would talk again soon. I try to suppress the shudder that runs through me, but I know Blaise sees it.

  “I’ve survived ten years,” I tell him, knowing better than to lie to him. “I can survive one more night.”

  Even as I say it, though, I wonder just how true that is. The Kaiserin is dead, so the Kaiser will grow bolder. If Blaise hadn’t broken his chair on the pavilion and our conversation had continued, I don’t know where it would have ended. I don’t want to know what would have happened next.

  “I’ll be there the whole time,” Blaise says. He means it as a comfort and I smile at him and pretend to be comforted, but we both know there will be nothing he can do.

  “I can survive one more night,” I tell him again. “But promise me something?”

  He delicately lifts the crown from the box, eyes focused on it instead of me. “Anything,” he says.

  “When the Kaiser is dead, whenever that may be, I want to burn his body. I want to put the torch to him myself and I want to stay and watch until there is nothing left of him but ash. Will you promise me that?”

  His eyes flicker to me and I realize that I’m shaking. I take a deep breath to calm myself.

  “I swear it to Houzzah himself. And to you,” he says quietly.

  Neither of us so much as breathes while he gently sets the crown on top of my head, a few flakes falling on my nose and cheeks as he does. His eyes stay locked on mine as he reaches a hand up toward my cheek before hesitating and letting it fall away. Worry still creases his forehead.

  “You will survive.” He says it like he’s trying to convince himself of the fact. He hesitates a second longer, as if he wants to say something else, before giving a brief nod and leaving the room just as quietly as he came in.

  I take one last look at my reflection in the mirror. Ashes already flake down over my cheeks and nose, marking me. The red stain I used on my lips looks like fresh blood. Underneath, I see bits and pieces of my mother staring back at me, but twisted with hate and fury my mother never needed to know. I’m not sorry for it.

  I am angry.

  I am hungry.

  And I promise myself that one day I will watch them all burn.

  * * *

  —

  By the time I arrive at the banquet, it has already started; sitting at the long table are dozens of courtiers in rich, jewel-colored silks and velvets. The lot of them drip with Spiritgems of all shapes, sizes, and types, which glitter in the light of the chandelier overhead. Seeing them now, so many, sickens me. How many of my people have given their lives and sanity so that these people can have a little more beauty, an ounce more strength?

  Crescentia isn’t here, I realize as I scan the room, which means Elpis’s trick with the treska seeds worked. At least that’s one thing that’s gone right so far, one less problem I have to worry about. But that relief is short-lived, because once my eyes find Søren’s, everything in me tightens up again and I can hardly breathe.

  He doesn’t look like the boy who left three weeks ago. He is hollowed out, with stark dark circles under his eyes. His long blond hair is gone, shaved off so unevenly that I wonder if he did it himself. It’s the traditional Kalovaxian expression of grief, and despite everything, I feel a pang of pity for him. I quickly drown it in more hatred, though. He might be mourning his mother, but he’s still a murderer. How many of my people has he personally killed? I doubt even he could tell me the answer to that, let alone remember all their names.

  I am rage and hurt and hatred, but I force that aside and
give him a small, tentative smile, as if I’m glad to see him, before forcing my eyes away in case anyone else is watching.

  “Ash Princess,” the Kaiser bellows from his place at the head of the table, eyes suddenly heavy on me, oozing over the many inches of skin left exposed in the gaudy crimson dress.

  He means to humiliate me, to put me on display like a stolen jewel, but for the first time I don’t mind it. I can see the fury etched into the lines of Søren’s face as he takes me in. The Kaiser is unwittingly doing my job for me—it won’t be at all difficult to push Søren over the edge tonight. The real challenge will be keeping my anger toward both of them in check.

  “Your Highness,” I say, approaching the Kaiser and curtsying at his feet. His face is already a drunken shade of vermilion. As he always does, he tilts my chin up and places the palm of his hand against my cheek in order to leave his handprint in the ash that’s already sprinkled down over my face. I keep my gaze lowered, but out of the corner of my eye I see Søren go rigid, eyes locked onto his father in cold rage.

  “You’ll sit at my side tonight,” the Kaiser says when I rise, gesturing to the chair to his left. The one that used to belong to the Kaiserin. He takes a long swig from his jeweled goblet before setting it back on the table. There are drops of red wine in his beard; they look like specks of blood.

  “I would be honored, Your Highness,” I say.

  Though it’s nothing I wasn’t expecting, dread still pools in the pit of my stomach as I take the seat, only inches away from the Kaiser and directly across from Søren. Though I know it’s good that they’re both staring at me, that it means the plan is working, it still takes every inch of effort not to shrink away.

  “You look quite pretty tonight, Ash Princess,” the Kaiser says, leering at me before turning his attention to his son and grinning. “Doesn’t she look pretty, Søren?” he asks.

  He’s taunting him, I realize. The attention Søren’s been paying me hasn’t gone unnoticed by the Kaiser after all, but instead of angering him, it only seems to make him gleeful.

  To his credit, Søren manages a nonchalant shrug, though he studiously avoids looking at me. He mutters something under his breath while staring down at the plate in front of him.

  The Kaiser lifts his goblet for another long gulp before slamming it back down, making Søren and me jump, and startling all the courtiers at the table into silence. They try to pretend they aren’t listening in, but of course they are.

  “I don’t think I heard that, Søren,” the Kaiser says. “I asked you a question and I expect a proper answer.”

  Søren flinches from the Kaiser’s voice and his eyes finally rise to meet mine, full of pain and apology.

  “I said she looks beautiful, Father,” he says, but each word is sharp as a knife.

  The Kaiser frowns at his son’s tone, like he’s been presented with a puzzle he’s never seen before. His mouth twists and he takes another gulp from his goblet. His eyes are unfocused as they turn back to me.

  “I don’t believe you thanked me, Ash Princess,” he says. “Don’t you like the dress I sent you?”

  I want to stare the Kaiser down and spit at him. But I am not Queen Theodosia right now, I am Lady Thora, and so instead, I bite my bottom lip and fidget uncomfortably, tugging at the low neckline.

  “Of course I do, Your Highness,” I say, my voice shaking around each word. “I’m so grateful for it. It’s lovely.”

  He smiles like a wolf closing in on its prey, and my heart hammers quicker in my chest, my palms sweat. People farther down the table resume their conversations, but across from me, Søren’s gripping his dinner knife so tightly that his knuckles have turned white. The Kaiser’s hand comes down to rest on my bare knee, exposed by the slit in the dress.

  “Good girl,” he says, low enough for only me to hear.

  It takes everything I have not to recoil from him, but I manage, staring at the table in front of me instead.

  I will burn your body to ash, I say in my mind. I imagine it, the torch in my hand, his body lying on top of a heap of hay. I will lower the torch and he will burn and I will smile and maybe then I will finally feel safe again.

  “That’s enough.”

  Søren’s voice is so quiet I barely hear him above the music and the hum of conversation. The Kaiser hears him clearly, though, posture going stiff and his grip on my leg tightening painfully until I wince. For an impossibly long moment, he stares at Søren silently, eyes cold and hard. But Søren, to his credit, matches his stare until the other courtiers at the banquet table give up the pretense of not eavesdropping. The room is so quiet I can hear my heart thundering in my chest.

  “What was that, Søren?” the Kaiser says, and though his tone is polite there is an undercurrent of broken glass and snake venom. I’m sure his words are heard in every corner of the room.

  The lump in Søren’s throat bobs, but he doesn’t shrink away like I half expect him to. His eyes flicker to me for an instant before glancing out at the other courtiers watching. I can see the gears in his mind turning as he takes them in, sees the situation from their perspective. Søren doesn’t understand how court works, but he knows battle and he knows that’s what he’s stepped into. He knows that his options now are to surrender or declare war. He knows to declare war over me would be to sign my execution warrant. He knows to surrender would do the same, more or less.

  I can see him look at the situation from every point of view in the matter of a few seconds before he makes a decision, getting to his feet and bracing his hands on the table in front of him, looking beleaguered and exhausted.

  “I said that’s enough, Father,” he says, loud enough now for the entire room to hear him. “This is not a night to celebrate a victory, not with so many of my men fallen in Vecturia.”

  If the Kaiser could execute someone with his gaze alone, Søren would be dead in seconds, but he says nothing.

  “Instead,” Søren says, tearing his eyes away from his father and staring out at the other courtiers, “tonight is a night of mourning and solemnity for those we lost in a battle we should never have entered. It was a vain mission; we had no reason to attack Vecturia, and hundreds of Kalovaxian men lost their lives for it.”

  Silence follows Søren’s proclamation, stretching out for what feels like an eternity before a bald man seated at the other end of the banquet table gets to his feet. I recognize him from my last punishment; he’s one of the courtiers who lost a son in Vecturia.

  “Hear, hear,” he calls, raising his wine goblet.

  One by one, more men and women join him, raising their goblets toward Søren with shouts of agreement and solemn calls for remembering Vecturia. Before long, the vast majority of the hall has stood for him, and even those who remain seated look bewildered and uncertain.

  The Kaiser’s grip on my knee goes slack as he looks around the hall, glare nearly lethal. When he realizes he’s outnumbered, he slowly rises from his chair, picking up his own goblet.

  “Well said, my son,” he says, and though he flashes a smile at Søren, the edges of it are razor sharp. “I propose a moment of silence for those who fell in Vecturia. Those men died for honor and they will receive an honored welcome from their ancestors.”

  Once the dam inside Søren has broken, though, there is no walling it up again.

  “Those men didn’t die for honor. They died for greed,” he says through gritted teeth, and I know he’s thinking not only of his men, but of his mother. He’s not foolish enough to accuse the Kaiser of murder in front of his entire court, though.

  The Kaiser’s mouth thins into a line. “Well, perhaps next time I will seek your opinion, Søren, before I make a decision for my people.”

  “Perhaps you should,” Søren replies. “But as I said, this is not a night for celebration. We’ll take your moment of silence and then I propose we end the night
early to honor the dead.”

  The Kaiser is as tense as a bow stretched taut enough to break. “I believe that would be for the best,” he allows.

  Suddenly I wonder if I won’t have to frame the Kaiser for murdering Søren, if he’ll just do it himself. But the Kaiser is a man slow to action and I don’t have the time to wait.

  We bow our heads for the moment of silence. After a few seconds, I look up to find Søren watching me. Everyone around us has their eyes closed, so I mouth, “Midnight tonight.” His gaze is heavy on mine as he nods once before bowing his head again.

  I WALK BACK TO MY ROOMS alone after the banquet, though I’m sure everyone I pass assumes my Shadows are nearby. That’s the good thing about having guards prized for their skill at going unnoticed—no one misses them when they aren’t around.

  The pounding of my heart thunders through my body, but I’m not sure if it’s caused by excitement or panic or dread or some combination of the three. Despite the chill in the air, my skin feels clammy, and my sweat mixes with the ash flakes from my crown, causing it to streak down my face. With shaking hands, I wipe it off, my palms coming away black.

  It’s almost over, I tell myself. Almost. But no matter how far I get from this place and the Kaiser, I know I will never forget tonight, the leer in his eyes and his hand on my knee. I wonder if I’ll ever sleep peacefully again.

  I reach the door to my room and push it open, almost letting out a scream of surprise. Blaise and Heron sit on the edge of my bed, waiting in anxious silence.

  Heron shoots to his feet at the sight of me, peppering me with questions that I only half hear, but Blaise just looks at me, his eyes boring into mine. He doesn’t have to ask questions; I think he sees my every thought written plainly on my face.

  I don’t know what to say to them, so I say nothing, crossing to my vanity and looking at my reflection in the mirror—a wild-eyed girl in a garish dress with black streaks covering most of her face.