WHEN I GET BACK TO my room, I’m relieved that Hoa isn’t there. It’s all I can do to keep the storm of fear and doubt buried deep in me. Screams and tears and fire scratch at my throat, but I swallow them all down, down, down. I cannot appear weak, not with my Shadows watching me. But someone is always watching me, aren’t they? Always expecting something of me, always waiting for me to slip.
With calm, measured steps, I cross to the water basin sitting on my vanity and dip my hands into it. The hands he touched. I scrub them until they are red and raw, but it doesn’t do any good. I still feel the Kaiser’s touch. I still feel the threat of him wrapped around my neck like a noose.
There is a pumice stone next to the basin, so I use that, digging it into every part of my hands, the palms, the backs, my fingers, even the spaces in between. It doesn’t matter, it’s never enough. Even when my knuckles bleed and turn the water pink. Even when my skin turns numb.
Good girl. You’ve grown awfully pretty, for a heathen. Perhaps you could show me just how grateful you are.
A strangled cry breaks the silence and I look around for the source before realizing that it’s coming from me, that I’m the one crying, and now that it’s finally started, I can’t make it stop. My legs give out and I fall to the floor, bringing the basin down with me and drenching the skirt of my dress with bloodied water.
I don’t care. I don’t even care when the door opens, even if it’s Hoa, ready to run to the Kaiser. Let her. It’s too much. I can’t do this. I am not enough.
Footsteps come toward me and I look up to see Artemisia in her black cloak, indigo hair spilling over her shoulders and something that might be pity in her hard eyes.
“Stand up,” she says, her voice soft.
I should listen to her, I shouldn’t let her see me like this. She thinks I’m useless already, and I don’t want to prove her right. Still, I can’t move. I can’t do anything but cry.
With a sigh, she drops to her knees in front of me and reaches for my bloodied hands, but I pull them back and cradle them against my stomach.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she snaps. “Let me see how bad it is.”
Hesitantly I hold them out to her, flinching when she none too gently turns them over.
“Heron?” she says over her shoulder to where a tall boy with overgrown black hair and thick eyebrows lingers in the doorway, looking like he might be sick. “A little help?”
Her words send a bolt of energy through him, and he shakes himself out of his stupor, coming to sit on my other side. He towers over me by at least a head, and though he looks stricken, I can see signs of the mysterious boy who’s been behind my wall for the last couple of months, the voice of reason. It’s there in the softness of his hazel eyes, in the lopsided quirk of his mouth.
He takes one of my hands from her, inspecting the damage himself. His hand dwarfs mine, but it’s comforting. “It’s not too bad,” he says after a moment. “I can fix it.”
My throat is so raw from crying, but I still can’t stop. “Where’s Blaise? Is he all right?” I manage to ask between sobs.
“He’s fine. We thought it best he take a walk and calm down after that outburst,” Artemisia says.
The chair. The Kaiser falling. It was Blaise’s power, and not an intentional use of it, apparently. I nod and try to take deep breaths, but they come out ragged.
“I can’t…I can’t do this anymore.” I don’t mean to say the words, but the dam inside me has broken, and there is no controlling what comes out with the tears.
“Then don’t.” Artemisia’s voice is all hard edges.
“Art,” Heron warns, but she ignores him.
“Give up. Go as mad as their Kaiserin. What’s stopping you?”
Her words burn through me, but at least they’ve dried up my tears.
“There are twenty thousand people counting on me,” I whisper, more to myself than them. “If I give up…”
“Most of them won’t know the difference,” she says. The words are cruel, but the fight has gone out of her voice. She sounds as tired as I feel. “You might be the queen, but you’re just one girl. The revolution won’t stop because you do. It didn’t stop when Ampelio died, and he’d done far more than you have. If you died, or I died, or Heron, or Blaise…We’re all just pieces. We do what we can, but at the end of the day, we’re all expendable. Even you.”
“Then why do it at all?” I ask her. The words come out bitter, but I don’t mean them that way. I really do want to know.
She doesn’t say anything for a long moment. It’s only when I’ve given up hope of getting an answer that she speaks, her voice low and steady and so unlike the brash, loud Artemisia I’ve gotten to know.
“Because that’s how water works. The river flows, pushing against a stone, even as it knows it won’t move it. It doesn’t have to. Enough currents go by, over enough time, and even the strongest stone gives in. It might take a lifetime or more, but water doesn’t give up.”
“Nothing will stop him. I can’t win against him,” I say.
“No,” she says. “You likely can’t.”
“Art,” Heron warns again. The hand he’s holding has turned to pins and needles, like it’s fallen asleep. It doesn’t feel the way it does when Ion heals me after the Kaiser’s punishments. His touch always leaves my skin feeling tacky and slick and grimy, but Heron’s touch is comforting, warming, as his power travels over my skin.
“I won’t lie to her,” Artemisia scoffs.
Her words are harsh, but there’s something refreshing about her honesty. I think I prefer it to Heron’s kind fibs.
“We won’t let anything happen to you,” Heron says. “As soon as the Prinz is back, we’ll get you out.”
“After I kill him, you mean. And the Theyn, and Cress.”
If Blaise were here, he would probably tell me that my safety was the priority. He would begin making plans for all of us to leave immediately, and I don’t know that I would have the courage to turn him down. But he isn’t here.
Heron and Artemisia exchange a look that I can’t read.
“Yes,” Artemisia says.
Heron releases my hand and the skin of my palm is smooth and clear, as if I never fell apart. He takes the other and begins again.
“In the mines,” Artemisia says, drawing my attention back to her. She isn’t looking at me, instead staring at the patterned tile floor, tracing the lines with her little finger. “I learned quickly how to use the only leverage I had with one of the guards. It…was its own kind of torture, but he gave me extra rations in return, and the easiest shifts. He looked the other way when my little brother didn’t pull his weight. I told myself…I told myself he cared for me, that I cared for him even. It’s easier to lie to yourself, isn’t it?”
No, I want to say. It’s not the same thing. But I can’t help thinking that maybe it is. Maybe lying to yourself is the only way to survive.
When she speaks again, the softness is gone. “But when my brother went mine-mad and that same guard smashed his head against a boulder five feet from me, I saw the truth of it.” Her breath shakes. “For months after, I would fall asleep next to my brother’s murderer and pray that death take me as well.” She laughs, but it’s an ugly sound. “I never prayed before, never saw any use for it. I didn’t believe any of it, even as I thought the words; I just needed to talk to someone, even if it was only in my mind. I still don’t believe in your gods, but I do know that I grew stronger and stronger, until I had the strength to slit the guard’s throat while he slept.”
Her dark eyes flash up to meet mine and there is a kind of understanding there I never expected from her. I realize suddenly that I don’t know her at all, or Heron, or even Blaise anymore. They all must have stories like this, stories I haven’t heard, about horrors I can never really understand.
“We are not defined by the things we do in order to survive. We do not apologize for them,” she says quietly, eyes never leaving mine. “Maybe they have broken you, but you are a sharper weapon because of it. And it is time to strike.”
When Artemisia and Heron leave, I can’t sit still. It isn’t the same panicked energy from earlier—there is a calm to my thoughts, a distance. I see the situation as if it were happening to someone else. My mind is busy, and so my hands yearn for something to do as well.
I go to my hiding place in the mattress and dig around until I find the nightgown I ruined when I first met with Blaise what feels like a lifetime ago. The once-white material is gray with dirt and grime.
It tears easily into strips, though they’re sloppy and frayed at the edges, not like they would be if I were allowed a pair of scissors. But it will do.
Artemisia and Heron say nothing as they watch me roll each strip into a shoddy rosette, bound with pieces of straw from inside the mattress. After a few moments, Blaise settles back into his room without a word, but I barely hear him. I’m barely aware of any of them. All that exists are my fingers, the rosettes, and my mind turning over every possible outcome.
Though I know what I have to do, I can’t help but wonder if my mother would make the same choice in my position. The truth is, though, I don’t know what my mother would do. She is half memory, half imagination to me.
I tie the last of the four rosettes and gather them in my hands.
“Happy Belsiméra,” I say into the silence.
Heron shifts behind his wall. “It isn’t—” he starts, but breaks off.
“Is it?” Blaise asks.
I shrug. “Elpis says it is, and I trust her to know.”
I thread a rosette through each wall in turn, squishing them a bit to fit through the holes. “I know it isn’t much,” I say when I have only one left—for Elpis the next time I see her. “But I want you all to know that even when we disagree on things, you are my friends—no, my family. I trust you, though I know I don’t always know how to show it. And I hope you all know that I would give my own life for yours without hesitation. I will never be able to properly express how grateful I am not only that you came here to help me, but that you’ve stayed when I haven’t made it easy. Thank you.”
For a long moment, none of them speak, and I worry I’ve gone too far, said too much. They’ll think me a sentimental fool who has no business being anyone’s queen.
Finally Heron clears his throat.
“You’re family,” he says, which is somehow so much better than him saying I’m his queen. “Family doesn’t walk away.”
“Besides,” Art adds, “I find it amusing when you try to argue. That’s when I like you best.”
My laugh takes me by surprise, but hers comes a second later. She is my friend, I realize. Not the same way Cress was, not the kind I enjoy light conversations with, not the kind I dance with or try on dresses with. I might not always like her, but she is here when I need her in a way Cress couldn’t be. The thought of it causes a lump to rise in my throat, but I try to ignore it. Belsiméra is a happy occasion.
“When we were children,” Blaise says, a smile in his voice, “you used to always try to give me a flower, do you remember?”
“No,” I admit, sitting down on my bed and looking at the flower in my hand. It’s not as pretty as the one Elpis gave me, but I hope she’ll like it. “It was so long ago, it’s a bit fuzzy. I remember making them with my mother, though, much prettier than these.”
“They were,” he agrees. “And in the two years before the siege, you would always try to give me the prettiest one you had and I would always run from you.”
“I don’t remember that,” I say, looking at his wall. “Why?”
“Because your flowers always came with strings attached,” he says. “You kissed everyone you gave one to.”
“I did not,” I say with a laugh.
“You did,” he insists. “Every Belsiméra, you would prance through the castle with your basket of flowers, passing them out to everyone you saw and demanding a kiss in return. Everyone thought you were the funniest thing, but they all obliged. No one could ever say no to you. Not because of her title,” he adds quickly, to the others. “Everyone loved her.”
“I grew up in this tiny village on the eastern coast,” Heron says. “Even we heard about you there, how everyone who met you cherished you.”
The words warm me and bring out a hazy memory, though I’m not sure how much of it is real. I remember the wicker basket hanging on my arm. I remember maids and cooks and Guardians crouching in front of me or lifting me up to kiss my cheek or my forehead and saying Thank you, Princess. I’ll treasure it always. Happy Belsiméra.
“Blaise clearly didn’t,” I say, teasing.
He hesitates for a minute. “I did,” he says. “But you were still a girl chasing me around and demanding a kiss. It wasn’t anything personal. At that age, I was refusing to kiss even my mother.”
“We never really celebrated on the ship,” Artemisia admits. “My mother is Astrean, but the crew comes from everywhere. If we celebrated every holiday, we never would have gotten anything done. This is my first.”
“Do you not know the story, then?” I ask her.
“I don’t think so. My mother taught me the names of the gods, but she isn’t one for stories,” she admits.
I stumble over the beginning, but by the time I reach the part where Suta makes the flowers for Glaidi, my mother’s voice has taken over and the story spills out without me thinking about it. I’m more audience than I am speaker, and when I tell her about Belsimia growing from the love and friendship between the two gods, tears are leaking from my own eyes.
“In the version I heard,” Heron says quietly, “it wasn’t Glaidi’s tear that caused Belsimia to grow from the flower, it was when she kissed Suta.”
“My parents used to argue about whether Belsimia grew from the flower or was transformed from the flower itself,” Blaise says.
“I can’t imagine your parents arguing about anything,” I tell him. “They were always so happy.”
Blaise is quiet for so long I worry I’ve upset him. “My father used to say they argued because they cared too much. He said I would understand when I was older.”
The words feel more like a confession than a memory, and even with the others present, I know it’s meant for me. Warmth rises to my cheeks and I turn my face away so he can’t see.
He clears his throat.
“While I was out…calming down after the accident with the Kaiser, I did some thinking,” he says. “About the Theyn’s daughter…” He hesitates. “It isn’t necessary. You were right.” It pains him to say the words, I can tell, but it doesn’t bring me any joy to hear them now that Cress showed me who she really is.
“Blaise,” Artemisia snaps.
“Art,” Heron adds, a soft warning in his voice.
“If either of you can think of a reason to kill the girl that has nothing to do with Theo’s feelings for her, I’m happy to hear it. But we all know the Theyn can be killed alone.” Blaise sounds so much like his father that my heart lurches in my chest.
Artemisia must have a retort; even Heron must have something to say to that, some argument for killing Cress. I wait for it. I yearn for it, for some other reason besides my own foolishness in trusting her in the first place. But they both stay quiet. I close my eyes tight before forcing myself to tell them the truth.
“She thinks I was seducing the Prinz to get information,” I confess. “She hasn’t figured anything out past that, but she knows I’m working against the Kaiser, she knows about Søren and me, and she knows I stole her gems because I was working with others. She isn’t going to tell the Kaiser, so long as she thinks I’m just a pawn and that I’m repentant. I told her I was. But I don’t know how long she’ll think that. She wants to be a prinzessin, and if she still thinks I’m standing in the way of that—” I break off, a heaving sob tearing through me.
Saying it out loud hurts. Not just emotionally—it’s a physical pain in my chest, dagger-sharp. Because no matter what I want to tell myself about loyalty or friendship or duty, the truth is startlingly simple: I put Cress before my people and she put her ambition before me. I made a mistake and it isn’t one I’ll repeat.
I wait for their condemnation, for them to call me a fool, but the words never come. Not even from Artemisia. Instead, they stay quiet until I speak again.
“There’s your reason,” I tell Blaise, hard resolve coming into my voice. “I’ll do what I need to do, but not yet. The Kaiser will find a way to blame me, even if there’s no proof of it. The Encatrio will make it clear it’s an Astrean attack—which we want—but if I’m still here, he’ll blame it on me. The Theyn is his closest friend; he might even kill me for his and Crescentia’s deaths, no matter what it costs him. We should wait for Søren to get back, for him to speak out publicly against his father. Then we’ll end it all, strike out at the Theyn and Cress and Søren at once. They’ll never see it coming.”
I take a deep breath, surprised at how sure I suddenly feel about all of this. There is no room in me anymore for uncertainty or guilt. I sound older than I am, harder than I am. I don’t sound like my mother—not quite—but I think I might sound like a queen.
“And then we’ll leave. I know we can’t free the slaves in the palace on our way out, there are too many and it would slow us down too much, but we can’t leave without Elpis and her family. I think we owe her that after everything she’s done. Will that be a problem?” I ask.
“No,” Blaise says after a moment. “No problem at all.”