HOA ISN’T IN MY ROOM when I return, but I’m hardly alone. The doors of my Shadows’ rooms scrape open and closed, followed by sounds of them settling in: sheathed swords unclasping, helmets clattering to the floor. I ignore them, as I always do, and stand by the window, looking out at the empty garden so that they can’t see my face.
How long will I have to wait for Søren’s next move? If it comes at all.
I think of the look in his eyes when I turned away. This is only just starting. He’ll go to his father with some pressing reason to end my engagement before it starts. He won’t come out and say it’s to protect me—Søren’s too clever for that—but there are other ways, other reasons for a betrothal to fall through. Crescentia’s had three marriage proposals too good to outright reject, but the betrothals never quite become official due to Cress’s meddling.
I can only hope that the Kaiser doesn’t suspect I had anything to do with Søren’s sudden interest in my betrothal. At best, it’ll mean another whipping. At worst, he’ll marry me to Lord Dalgaard immediately. And then how long would it take before my mind truly broke? There would be no coming back from that. I would die Thora.
“When you turned down his lunch invitation, I thought you truly were mad,” a voice says. Terror turns my blood to ice. I spin, but the room is empty.
“But he seems more interested than ever,” the voice goes on. “Well done.”
Blaise. His voice is muffled, but it’s unmistakably him. He’s the mad one, coming here knowing full well that my Shadows watch my every move.
“Here, Theo,” he says. There’s laughter there that reminds me of when we were children together, before laughter became such a rarity.
I follow the sound, walking to the eastern wall, to where one of my Shadows sits on the other side, watching. A Shadow.
“I seem to have underestimated you as well,” I say. I peer through the hole in the wall to find Blaise’s green eye staring back. “Though I’m sure you remember I have three Shadows?”
“Say hello to Artemisia and Heron,” he says, sounding pleased with himself. “Art, Heron—Queen Theodosia Eirene Houzzara. It’s a bit of a mouthful. Would you have them beheaded if we shortened it to Theo for the time being?”
Hearing that word again—queen—is still strange, especially hearing it in Astrean. It’s my mother’s title, or it was. Every time I hear it, I can’t help wanting to look around for my mother, sure it’s her they’re referring to.
“So long as you don’t call me Thora,” I say, straightening up and glancing at the other walls, now occupied by other Astreans. “Artemisia, Heron, pleasure to meet you.”
“The pleasure is ours,” a low, soft voice says from behind the northern wall. Heron, I assume.
“You don’t look batty,” the third voice says from behind the southern wall, gritty and lilting. Artemisia.
“Art,” Heron warns.
“I didn’t say she was batty,” Blaise interjects quickly. “I said…sensitive.”
“You said unbalanced.”
I open my mouth to snap out a retort but quickly shut it again. I’m not sure which of those terms bothers me more, but I can’t deny the truth in any of them. Blaise saw me fall apart in the cellar. He must wonder how strong I really am.
“What happened to my real Shadows?” I ask instead of responding.
Blaise clears his throat, but it’s Heron who answers.
“They’ve been…relieved of their duties,” he says carefully.
Artemisia snickers. “Among other things.”
I wait for their deaths to hit me, to feel something, whether it’s relief or happiness or some unexplainable grief, but I feel nothing. I never saw their faces or spoke to them. I won’t mourn them, but I don’t hate them enough to celebrate their deaths either.
“And if they’re found?” I ask.
“They won’t be,” Artemisia says. “We tied rocks to their corpses and dropped them in the ocean. They must be a hundred feet deep, at least. Give it a few days and there won’t be anything left but bones.”
She says it so distantly, as if she weren’t speaking of people at all. Then again, I’ve heard Kalovaxians refer to Astreans as things instead of people; I can’t exactly fault her for holding the same view of them.
“Any progress, Theo?” Blaise asks. “We saw that lovely meeting with the Prinz, but we couldn’t hear a damn thing. What are you planning?”
“You did tell me that he’s interested in me because he can’t have me, didn’t you?” I say. “So I’m becoming more interesting. And sowing tension between him and the Kaiser, which I imagine can only be good for us.”
“Why?” Artemisia asks.
I shrug, but my smile is feral. “The Kalovaxians have every advantage. There are more of them; they’re better armed and better trained; they have the advantage of already holding the land. Blaise was right when he told me we don’t stand a chance against them on an even field. But if we could turn Søren against his father, the court will take sides, and they’ll be distracted enough fighting each other that we might have a better chance. We’ll still need to amass more numbers and more weapons, of course. It’s not much of a plan,” I admit. “But it seemed like a good place to start.”
“If it works,” Blaise says warily. His skepticism prickles at the back of my neck.
“It’ll work,” I say, though my own doubts pool in the pit of my stomach. “Søren is easy to twist; all I need to do is convince him that I’m in need of saving, and that his father and his people are the ones I need saving from. If I can turn Søren against them, at least half the court will eagerly follow in hopes of putting Søren on the throne without waiting for the Kaiser to die.” No one has a reply to that, so I continue. “You saw his face in the garden. Do you think it worked?”
“Yes,” Artemisia admits. “He had battle in his eyes, that one. The falling sleeve was a nice touch. I suppose that was intentional?”
I shrug. “He wants a damsel and I’m giving him one. How long have you been watching me, anyway?” I ask.
“Only today,” Blaise says. “Your friend found us a couple of days ago. Elpis. We were already trying to find a way to replace your Shadows, but she’d seen their movements up close and knew how they operated, how often they reported to the Kaiser, when it would be easiest to overtake them. Their monthly report to the Kaiser is tomorrow night, so we knew we had to do it before then or they’d tell him about your conversation with her. They sleep in shifts; it was simple to replace them one by one.”
Replace them. He says it as naturally as Artemisia did, as if killing came easily. Maybe for him it does, maybe it wasn’t even his first kill. In fact, it likely wasn’t if he escaped the mines and has been running with Ampelio as long as he has. The realization sits strangely. I can’t help but think of him the way he was as a child, quiet and inquisitive. He wouldn’t even kill bugs back then.
I push the thought aside and focus on the here and now. “Sooner or later, someone will miss them,” I point out, irritated at their shortsightedness. “And what exactly are you planning to do when you meet with the Kaiser tomorrow? I’ve never seen their faces, but he certainly has.”
“It’s actually not as much of a risk as it seems,” Heron says. His voice is quiet, but there’s such a solid quality to it that I don’t have to struggle to hear him. It’s the kind of voice that reverberates through your whole body. “Your guards’ only duty is watching you. The Kaiser is very particular about it, doesn’t want any mistakes. They don’t have families or attend any social events that you don’t. No one will miss them.”
“And this meeting with the Kaiser?” I press.
“Ah, that,” Blaise says, but he doesn’t sound wary. He sounds triumphant. “Artemisia and Heron were working in the mines as well before Ampelio snuck us out. Why do you think he would have freed us out of everyone there?”
“You’re Guardians,” I say as I realize it.
“Not technically,” Artemisia says. “There was no formal training, though Ampelio tried to make up for that.”
“Still, the gods saw fit to bless us with their gifts. Unlike most of the others forced to work down there,” Heron says.
I don’t have to see his face to know the words cost him. I’ve seen many awful things since the siege, but from what I hear, it’s nothing compared to the nightmare of the mines. I’ve heard that a dozen people go mine-mad each week. They’re immediately put to death in front of their friends and families, who must watch and not say a word or risk sharing their fate.
“Magic is well and good, but it doesn’t make an even battlefield between the three of you and the Kaiser’s guards when he learns who you are,” I point out.
“That’s just it, though. The Kaiser won’t learn anything. Only one Shadow meets with him at a time, so the other two can stay with you. And Artemisia has the Water Gift,” he says.
The pieces fall into place.
“Which includes crafting illusions,” I finish.
“I got a good look at the guards when we overtook them, good enough to impersonate them. It won’t hold for long without a gem to channel through,” she admits. “Fifteen minutes? Twenty, maybe. But from what we’ve heard about the Kaiser’s briefings, it should be more than enough time.”
Good enough. Should be. They aren’t exactly heartening statements of confidence.
“You don’t have a gem?” I ask. “Do any of you?”
The silence that follows is answer enough.
“Ampelio did,” Blaise manages finally. “But he was taken with it. Not that it would have done any of us any good. As I said, Artemisia has the Water Gift, Heron has the Air—”
“And you have the Earth?” I finish for him.
“Yes,” he says after a slight hesitation. “But the meetings with the Kaiser are short. Artemisia can hold an illusion that long without a gem, I’ve seen her do it.”
For a moment, I don’t know what to say. None of it is terribly inspiring, and so many things can go wrong with their plan. I don’t have to ask to know that Ampelio would not have agreed to them replacing my Shadows or he would have done it himself years ago. If he were here now, he would want to wait, to make sure everything was perfect before he struck. But Ampelio waited for ten years and it was never the perfect moment. He waited and bided his time until they killed him.
I shake my head. “There must be a better way for us to keep in touch while I’m here.”
“Like inviting a thirteen-year-old to be our messenger?” Blaise retorts.
He sounded like that when we were children, too. Like the year that separated us made him infinitely wiser than I could ever hope to be. I’m not even sure that bringing Elpis into this was the right thing to do, but I know it was the only thing I could do. “I trust Elpis,” I say, lifting my chin a fraction of an inch and strengthening my voice. “I’ll admit that I’ve made mistakes before. I’ve trusted the wrong people and I’ve paid dearly for that. The Kaiser enjoys setting traps for me to fall into. I barely trusted you when you appeared out of nowhere, but I did.”
“It was a good choice,” Artemisia puts in. “She’s a smart girl, and observant. We couldn’t have overtaken your Shadows without her.”
“We could have,” Blaise insists, sounding like an irritated older brother. “And we wouldn’t have had to risk the life of a child.”
“You weren’t moving fast enough.” The words spill out before I can think about them, but arguing with Blaise has always had this effect on me. He was always so calm and condescending and it never failed to reduce me to the petulant child he treated me as.
Which is why I decide I am not going to tell them about the threat of Lord Dalgaard hanging over my head now. Fear of becoming his next bride made me act rashly, and next to everything they have endured, I have no right to complain.
I clear my throat. “I gave her a choice. Elpis wanted to help.”
“She’s a child. She didn’t know what she was agreeing to,” Blaise insists, his voice becoming a growl.
“Come now, Blaise,” Artemisia soothes. “Thirteen is hardly a child, not anymore.”
Blaise’s breathing stretches longer for a few beats. “She’s your responsibility, Theo. If something happens to her, that’s on you,” he says.
I nod, though my temper threatens to overwhelm me. Even if I’m paralyzed by doubt, I can’t show it. I won’t apologize.
He’s quiet, but through the wall separating us, I can feel his anger simmering in the air.
“You can’t talk to our queen like that, Blaise,” Heron says. I can’t know for sure without seeing his face, but he sounds a bit frightened.
Our queen. The title sounds strange, and I have to remind myself that he’s talking about me, that I am their queen. I try not to think about Ampelio calling me the same thing before I plunged the sword into his back. I exhale, letting my anger go as well. “He can talk to me however he sees fit,” I say quietly. “All of you can—and should.”
Heron shifts behind his wall; then he gives a grunt of acknowledgment.
“The girl said you had news?” Blaise asks, no longer sounding upset.
“Oh,” I say. In all the excitement, I forgot why I needed to talk to him in the first place. “Where exactly are the Vecturia Islands?” I ask.
“I’ve heard that name before…,” Blaise says.
“Vecturia is a cluster of islands northeast of here,” Artemisia says, sounding bored. “Why?”
“I think the Prinz is taking at least two thousand troops to the islands in a few days, armed to the teeth with cannons,” I say. “I don’t imagine it’s a social visit.”
“You think or you know?” Artemisia asks.
I hesitate, weighing the evidence in my mind—the types of ships, the heavy artillery, the fact that Dragonsbane can’t have gotten all the way to the trade route if he was just outside the capital only last week. I think of Søren looking away in the garden when he told me again that he was going to the trade route, how obvious it felt that he was lying. It’s all circumstantial, nothing I can prove outright, but I can feel it in my bones.
“I know,” I say, hoping I sound more confident than I feel.
“Did they have berserkers?” Blaise asks.
I shake my head, then stop. “Well, I can’t really say—I still don’t have a clue as to what they are.”
“Even with just their cannons and warriors, he’ll destroy Vecturia,” Artemisia says, more alert now. “There are five islands, but each can’t have more than a few hundred people. A fraction of that will be trained soldiers, and they’re all spread out. If they aren’t ready for an attack, the Kalovaxians will pick them off one island at a time without a drop of sweat for their efforts.”
“There must be something we can do to help them,” I say.
Blaise shakes his head. “The Vecturians didn’t lift a finger to help during the siege. If they had…well, we likely still would have lost, but we would have had a chance.”
“Exactly,” Heron says. “Is it heartless to say I care more about the dirt under my fingernails than them?” he asks. “This is no more than they deserve. If we’d stood together, we might not be in this mess. I certainly won’t cry over them now.”
As harsh as his words seem, I can’t help but agree with them.
“Still,” I reason, “we might need the Vecturians’ help when we start gathering allies to take on the Kalovaxians. Let’s not make the same mistake they did. Besides, when we do manage to take Astrea back, we won’t keep it long if the Kalovaxians have taken over our neighboring country as well. They’ll just regroup there and come back.”
Blaise gives a labored sigh and I’m almost positive he’s rolling his eyes. “Vecturia made it clear that they aren’t our ally, and we need to save what little power we have for ourselves.”
Part of me knows he’s right. He gave me the numbers. One thousand of us against the tens of thousands of Kalovaxians in Astrea.
“If we help Vecturia, we could forge a new alliance. You said it yourself, our numbers don’t stand a chance against theirs, but if we add another few hundred from Vecturia…”
“It still won’t be near enough,” Heron says. Even though I know he’s trying to be kind, I can hear the impatience coming through in his voice. “And that’s an if. It’s far more likely we’d be sending warriors we need to die in a fight that isn’t ours. Vecturia will still fall, and we won’t be far behind.”
What would my mother do? I wonder. But even as I ask myself the question, I know the answer. “It isn’t fair. There are people on those islands and we’re dooming them to carnage and slavery. If anyone should understand the stakes here, we should.”
Artemisia scoffs. “Blaise was right. You’ve been locked in your cushioned cage too long, and it’s turned your mind soft,” she says. “We’ve seen more carnage than you ever will, felt more loss. We’ve starved and bled and lingered at the door of death so often we lost count. We know exactly what we’re dooming Vecturia to, but they aren’t Astrea, and therefore they aren’t our concern.”
“It’s what my mother would have done,” I say.
Again Artemisia scoffs, and if I could reach through the hole in the wall, I would slap her. But before she can say anything about my mother, Blaise cuts in.
“May the gods bless Queen Eirene forever in the After, but until the end, she was the queen of a peaceful country. Her reign was largely untested and easy; she never had to know war until the Kalovaxians came and slit her throat. She had the luxury of being a sympathetic queen. You don’t.”
There is no barb in his voice. It is a calmly stated fact, and as much as I would like to argue it, I can’t right now. From her place in the After, I hope my mother understands. One day, I will be a magnanimous ruler. I will be everything the Kaiser isn’t; I will be as gracious as my mother was. But first, I need to make sure my country survives.
“All right,” I say after a moment. “We do nothing.”
“Good choice,” Artemisia says.
Though I don’t know what she looks like, I’m sure she’s quite smug behind that wall. I’m grateful to have them here, truly I am, but I can’t help but feel I’m carrying far more weight than I was this morning, and that even more people are now waiting for me to fail. They’re my allies—the only ones I have—but that doesn’t mean we’ll always be on the same side.
“You need to be prepared,” I tell them. “Cushioned as my cage might seem, my life here isn’t all flirtations and pretty dresses and parties. If something happens to me…you’re going to let it happen. I don’t care what it is or what sense of duty makes you want to try to defend me. Your attempt will fail, and then you’ll be compromised as well—and that won’t do anyone any good.”
“Theo—” Blaise starts heavily.
“He won’t kill me. I’m too valuable to him for that. Whatever he does to me, I will recover from it. The same can’t be said for you. Swear it.”
There’s a stubborn silence for a long moment and I worry that they’ll protest. I realize I’m asking them to go against Ampelio’s dying wishes. He wanted me safe, but my country needs me to stand.
“I swear it,” Artemisia says, echoed by Heron a breath later.
“Blaise?” I prompt.
He gives a grunt that I interpret as acceptance, but it isn’t a promise.
Hoa returns a few minutes later with a basket of laundry in her arms, and my Shadows go silent. They aren’t quite as practiced at it as my old Shadows were. I can hear them fidgeting more, breathing louder. If Hoa senses anything off, though, she gives no sign, and I wonder if I only notice because I know the truth. I didn’t know anything was different about my Shadows this morning, after all.
Part of me wants to confess everything to Hoa, but as much as I want to believe I can trust her, I can’t. And after everything Hoa has suffered at the hands of the Kaiser, asking her to stand up against him would be its own kind of cruelty.
I eat a quick dinner alone while Hoa folds the laundry, but the silence feels unbearably loud. I should be used to it. Most meals pass like this and I’ve more or less stopped noticing, but tonight is different. Everything is different. Blaise is so close, Artemisia and Heron too, and they’re watching me as a queen. I’m painfully aware of how lacking I must seem.
After Hoa clears away my plate and turns to my armoire to pick out a nightgown, panic seizes me. She’s going to change me into it. Which means my Shadows are going to see everything.
I’ve never had the luxury of being modest. For the last ten years, the old Shadows watched me change twice a day, and I never gave it a second thought. It was all I’d ever known. And my dress had been ripped to bare my back to hundreds—sometimes thousands—of people. It was a part of the punishment, a way of humiliating and dehumanizing me further. After all, how can anyone look at a bleeding girl in a ripped dress and see her as a leader? But Blaise and Heron and Art seeing me naked is different.
Hoa riffles through my armoire and I take the opportunity to shoot my most commanding look in each Shadow’s direction and twirl a finger in the air, motioning for them to turn around. Not that I have any way of knowing they’re obeying, but I trust them. I have no choice.
Still, I keep my back to them as best I can and face the curtained window instead as Hoa unclasps the shoulders of my chiton and lets it fall to the ground. Her warm fingers reach up to touch one of the healing wounds, causing me to flinch. She makes a muffled, disapproving noise in the back of her throat and leaves my side, returning seconds later with a pot of ointment that stinks of rot and dirt, given to her by Ion to help the healing along. After she applies it gingerly, she slips my nightgown over my head. The thin cotton sticks to the ointment, making it itch, but I know better by now than to scratch.
“Thank you,” I say.
Her hand brushes my shoulder briefly before falling away. Without a sound, she slips from the room, leaving me alone.
But for the first time in a decade, I’m surrounded by allies. I’m not alone, I tell myself. And hopefully, I never will be again.