Ash Princess by Laura Sebastian (25)

WHEN IT’S OVER, THE KAISER and the courtiers file out, leaving me crumpled on the bloody floor. My Shadows wait in the back of the room, unsure what to do, but Ion makes his way toward me the way he always does, his Air magic making his steps light and soundless.

I can’t help but flinch when he crouches down next to me and his cold, dry hand comes to rest on my back where most of the blows hit, sending a wave of pain so strong it makes me dizzy. I clench my fists, digging my nails into my palms to stay alert, and chew hard on my lip to keep from screaming. The pain only lasts a second before his power begins to seep through me, sealing the wounds. The skin of my back feels like ice.

When Ion removes his hand, the wounds still hurt, but it isn’t enough to incapacitate me. With a shuddering breath, I struggle to my feet, wincing as I do. It’ll be another few days and a few doses of the salve Ion gives Hoa before the pain goes away completely.

The pain is less when I’m hunched over, but I force my shoulders back and stand up tall. Ion still doesn’t look at me, but the hate simmering in my stomach refuses to be ignored. It’s only my Shadows who can see us, so I do what I’ve wanted to for ten years.

I touch his shoulder so that he has to look at me, dark eyes empty and numb.

“Your ancestors are watching you from the After with shame,” I bite out in Astrean, relishing his shocked expression. “When your days are over, they will not let you in.”

I turn away from him before he can respond. I doubt he’ll tell the Kaiser—he’ll assume my Shadows will.

I hasten to close the back of my nightgown as I walk, wincing when the cotton brushes against the tender wounds and sticks to the blood that paints my back. The nightgown was white when I put it on, but now most of it has been stained red.

My Shadows fall in behind me as I leave the throne room. They don’t touch me and I don’t want them to. I’ll break if they do, crumble to pieces like my ersatz crown. I am a princess made of ashes, after all. I can’t help but fall apart.

Walking back to my room takes almost three times as long as it should, because each step makes my whole body ache and every few seconds I stumble. Once, Heron catches me by my elbow before remembering the role he’s playing. I have to stop myself from leaning on him.

Hoa is waiting in my room with a bowl of hot water, rags, and bandages ready. She won’t look at me, but she always has trouble after my punishments—sometimes I could swear they hurt her even more than they hurt me, though I’m not sure how that’s possible.

The silence is almost a comfort as she washes the new wounds and dresses them with the ointment Ion gave her. It’s nearly as painful as the whip itself, but when it’s over the pain has dulled to a constant thrum. With guarded tenderness, she washes the blood from the rest of my skin and my hair before dressing me in a fresh nightgown. She knows by now that I won’t be wearing anything else today. Or tomorrow, more than likely. I wince as the fabric brushes my back, and her hand lingers for a brief second on my shoulder. She turns to go.

“Thank you.” The words come out a choked whisper, but she hears them and turns to look at me for a moment before nodding and slipping out the door.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard my Shadows this silent. There is always something—breathing, whispers, movement—but now there is nothing.

“I’m fine,” I say when I can’t stand it anymore. It’s a lie, we all know it, but if I say it enough times maybe it’ll turn true.

They don’t reply, though I hear one of them shift in their seat. I hear another one—Heron, I think—let out a loud exhale. There is nothing for them to say. Nothing will take away my pain; nothing will change what happened. Silence is easiest for all of us.

I slip into bed, careful to stay on my side, curled up in a ball like an infant. I bury my face in one of my pillows and let myself cry as quietly as I can, but I know they can still hear me.

Artemisia’s voice comes first, softer than I’ve ever heard it. It wraps around me like a silk shawl, light and cool.

Her voice breaks as she sings the old Astrean lullaby, and I know she’s crying, too. The thought of Artemisia crying is ludicrous. She’s always so strong, so sure of everything. Is she thinking of her mother singing the song to her, as I am? I can almost feel my mother’s fingers stroke through my hair, almost smell the garden scents that clung to her.

Heron’s deep baritone joins in like a gentle hand on my shoulder, calm and reassuring.

The words wrench a sob from me that I can’t control. My Shadows don’t mean anything by it, I know. They don’t—can’t—know that they were some of the last words Ampelio whispered to me before I killed him. Did he ever sing the lullaby to me before? Did he hold me in his arms once and rock me to sleep? I want to believe he did.

Blaise adds his voice next, and it’s so terrible that I almost laugh, despite everything. It warbles at the edges and is horribly off-pitch, but he sings anyway because he knows I need to hear it.

Theodosia Eirene Houzzara. The name sings through my body, softening me. I repeat it over and over, clutching it the way a child holds on to her favorite blanket.

My tears stop, though my shaking doesn’t. It won’t anytime soon.

“Søren can’t be far behind the letter. A day or two at most,” I say after a moment. My voice sounds stronger than I feel. “As soon as he’s back, the plan is in motion. After what I told him about his mother in that letter, he won’t want to wait before confronting his father. Even if he doesn’t do so publicly, the whole palace will know about it within the hour. You’ll need to pick a guard to frame for the murder, one of the Kaiser’s closest. Heron, you’ll tear a piece of his shirt, take his blade, his hair tie, any clue that could lead back to him and the Kaiser.”

“I think I liked the look of the one who led the men dragging you out of bed today,” Heron says, and though his voice is quiet and gentle, there’s a hard edge beneath it.

“I heartily agree with that choice,” I tell him before turning to Artemisia’s wall. “Artemisia, go down to the cypress grove and see if your mother has returned from Vecturia yet.”

Silence follows my words for a few breaths, leading me to expect a retort or a scoff.

“Yes, My Queen,” she says instead.

It’s the first time she’s called me that without a hint of sarcasm.

I take a steadying breath. “Then, as soon as Søren moves against his father, I’ll kill him.” My voice doesn’t waver when I say the words, though they still twist my stomach. With the pain from the Kaiser’s punishment fresh, my feelings for Søren feel less important. I can do it, I tell myself, and I almost believe it.

“How?” Blaise asks quietly. The word isn’t laced with doubt like it might have been even yesterday; it’s a genuine inquiry.

I bite my lip and burrow farther under the covers, as if I can escape the thought of Søren’s open smile on the boat, the way he held me, making me feel safe for the first time in a decade, the way he looked at me as if he understood me.

“He trusts me,” I say finally, hating the words as I speak them. “He’ll never see it coming.”

Slowly, one by one, their breathing turns long and even, but try as I might, I can’t join them in dreamland. I’m sure that nothing pleasant awaits me there, no better world, certainly. Only nightmares, plagued by the Kaiser’s hands, the Theyn’s whip, Ampelio’s blood, my mother’s lifeless eyes.

My door opens quietly and I turn to see Blaise slip inside and draw his hood back. I should tell him to leave, because if he’s discovered here, now, everything will be ruined. He must know it as well, but neither of us says a word as he shrugs off his cloak and slides into the bed next to me. He opens his arms and I hesitate only a second before curling into him, resting my head on his chest and holding on to him like he’s the only thing anchoring me to this world. His arms come around me as best they can, careful to avoid touching my back.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

His sigh ruffles my hair, but he doesn’t reply. I tilt my head up to look at his face. In the fading moonlight, his dark green eyes are spectral and his scar stands out sharply, pale white against dusky fawn skin. I brush my thumb over it, feeling him flinch before his eyes flutter closed and he leans into my touch.

“What happened?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “You don’t want to hear that story. Not now, after…” He trails off, unable to say it.

“Please.”

Blaise shifts slightly, his eyes moving past me to stare at the space over my shoulder. “In the mines, there are quotas,” he says after a moment. “You need to bring in a set weight of gems a day, otherwise they withhold your dinner rations. Which only makes you weaker and means that the next day you’re even more likely to miss quota. Not a very fair system, but it keeps everyone on edge, makes us determined not to come up short even once. If you miss it three days in a row, they put you in a cell deep in the mines, so far below ground you forget what fresh air tastes like.” His voice begins to waver, but he clears his throat and continues. “Most people who go into the cell don’t come out sane. Being that deep…it does something to people. It’s like spending years in the mines, but in the space of a day or two. Usually the people who are sent there are taken straight to their execution afterward.”

“But you weren’t,” I say quietly.

He shakes his head. “I was ten or so, and there was a man who slept on the cot next to mine. Yarin. He was about my father’s age before he…Anyway, he wasn’t well. The dust from the mines gave him a terrible cough and made him weak. He missed a lot of quotas, but never three in a row. He was careful about that, and our group always shared rations with him when he lost his. It wasn’t easy—the rations were meager already—but…what else could we do? We all knew that if he was sent to the cell, he would never come back to us.

“The guards knew it, too. They weren’t right, those men. They enjoyed watching us fail, they enjoyed beating us for it. And, maybe more than anything, they enjoyed taking people away for executions. And Yarin was an easy target. More than once, I saw them knock a handful of gems off the scale when they weighed his so that he came up short. The Kalovaxians are monsters, you’ve seen it as surely as I have.”

I think of the Kaiser and can’t disagree, even as thoughts of Søren and even Cress protest.

Blaise continues. “Yarin was on his third day, and I knew there was no possible way he would make his quota. His cough was worse than it usually was, and he had to stop every few minutes to catch his breath. When the day started to draw to an end, he didn’t even have half of what he needed.” He stops to swallow, the lump in his throat bobbing. “But I did. The guards didn’t stay down there with us—they didn’t want to risk mine-madness—so they only entered for a few moments at the beginning of the day and the end. Before they came to fetch us after sundown, I switched my pail with Yarin’s. Yarin tried to stop me, of course, but it was done.

“When the time came to measure, Yarin passed, even when the guards took a handful out. And I didn’t come close to making it. But the guards had been overseeing us for as long as I could remember. They knew that since my first day in the mines, I never missed quota. They knew what I’d done, even if they couldn’t prove it. I thought I would die that day, but they had worse in mind. They killed Yarin with just a swipe of a dagger across his throat, right in front of the whole group, and then they took me down to the cell.

“I found out later that they left me there for a week, but I didn’t know that at the time. Down there, alone in the dark, a day feels like a year and a minute at the same time. When they finally came for me, I was huddled in the corner, my fingers shredded. I’d tried to claw my way through the stone, I think, but I don’t remember any of it. And I had this.” He gestures to the scar. “A mark, like Art’s hair.”

I trace my fingers over his cheek. Despite the chill in the air, the scar itself is hot to the touch, and it pulses through me like a second heartbeat. It draws me closer and drowns my thoughts in a pleasant hum, like when I hold a Spiritgem. The power of it frightens me, and though I don’t want to let go, I start to pull my hand away. Blaise’s hand covers mine, holding my hand over his skin, his scar. His eyes are so intent on mine that I can’t look away.

“You feel it, don’t you?” he asks.

“It’s strong,” I say, trying to hide my unease. I don’t remember Ampelio’s scar having that kind of power, nor did the markings on any other Guardian I’d heard of. I try to force confidence into my voice. “Glaidi blessed you. She knew how strong you were, even then. Your father would be proud.”

The muscle in his jaw tightens as he swallows. “It doesn’t feel like a blessing, Theo.” His voice is more of a breath than anything. “I can’t control the power. You saw what I did to the Kaiser’s chair, what happened in the throne room today. Ampelio helped as much as he could, but it wasn’t enough. I scared him, I think. I scare myself. It’s my fault they caught him. If I hadn’t lost control…”

“The earthquake at the mines,” I realize. “The one that sparked the riot.”

He nods, eyes dropping. “The one that killed a hundred people,” he adds. “And led to Ampelio being caught.”

I’ve never heard of someone wielding that much power without a gem, uncontrollable as it might have been. I hadn’t even thought it was possible, but I have no reason not to believe Blaise. The anguish written plainly on his face twists at my heart; it’s a feeling I know too well. I open my mouth to tell him it wasn’t his fault, that it was an accident, that Ampelio wouldn’t have blamed him. But as true as all those things might be, they won’t do any good. I know because even though I’m sure executing Ampelio was the only thing I could have done—even though he asked me to do it—I still feel guilty. Blaise’s guilt is just as bad, and there is nothing I can possibly say that will take even a small part away.

So I don’t say anything at all. Instead, I wrap my arms around him and just hold him while we both cry. His heart presses against mine, in tune, and when our tears slow, his lips press against my hair, my forehead, my tearstained cheeks. He begins to pull back, but I root him in place, drawing his lips to mine.

It’s a different kiss entirely from the uncertain one we shared three weeks ago, the one we haven’t spoken of since. The one I thought he rejected me after, though now I wonder if I misread that. It’s different, too, from the way Søren and I kissed. Our kisses were filled with hope and giddiness, with the exploration of something new and beautiful.

This is a kiss of acceptance, for him as well as me. It’s forgiveness for things we’ve done that are unforgivable. I love him, but the realization doesn’t feel like plunging into ice water the way it does when I try to pull apart my feelings for Søren. Because falling in love with Blaise was always going to happen, even if we lived in a simpler world where the siege never happened. Even if we were both unscarred. We were always going to end up here.

I can see it before me as clearly as if I’m looking through a window: our parents still alive and happy and teasing us for every tiny show of affection, Blaise and I walking through my mother’s garden hand in hand, kissing him goodbye when he leaves for his Guardian trials, kissing him hello again when he finally returns. I want that life so badly that my chest aches, and there is nothing I wouldn’t give to have it.

He holds me until I fall asleep, but when I wake up to the sun streaming through my window, I’m reminded that we don’t live in that simpler world. Because he’s gone, the others are watching me, and my back is screaming.