ERIK IS WAITING IN FRONT of my door when I return, one hand on the pommel of the sword sheathed at his hip. He doesn’t look like he’s even taken the time to change since he left his ship—he’s still dressed in rough-spun breeches and a white shirt in need of a good cleaning. Coal is smeared along his cheekbones to direct the sun away from his eyes. I’m a few feet away from him when the smell of sweat and fish hits me so hard it makes me dizzy.
He breaks into a lopsided smile when he sees me, and he pushes off the wall he was leaning against, meeting me halfway down the hall.
“I’m so glad you’re safe, Erik,” I tell him, surprised to find that it’s true. Maybe it’s because he isn’t fully Kalovaxian, and I have a difficult time thinking of him as one of them.
“It takes more than a few pirates to kill me,” he says, shaking his head.
I hesitate. “How is he?”
Erik’s face clouds, and he doesn’t have to ask who I’m referring to. “Søren’s…as you would expect him to be. Whatever you said in your letter seemed to comfort him, though. He read it at least a dozen times before he burned it. Of course, the Kaiser blames him for the failure of the siege. This was his first major command and it should have been an easy one. But I was there, Thora. There was nothing he could have done. We were ambushed.”
An ambush to stop an ambush. These are not people who deserve my pity.
“I know,” I tell him instead. “It must have been awful. I’m glad you both are safe, though.”
He nods, but his eyes dart around and he lowers his voice to a murmur. “I was hoping we could speak privately. Well…” He breaks off, glancing behind me where I’m sure my Shadows are waiting. “As privately as we can.”
I lower my own voice to match his, even though my heart is thundering. “Is everything all right?”
He pauses, blue eyes flickering around the empty hall. “When we first met, you asked me about berserkers….” He trails off, but raises his dark eyebrows pointedly.
My hand slips on his arm at the sound of the word, but I’m careful to keep my expression nonchalant. Lady Thora doesn’t really care about anything as boring as berserkers, whatever they might be. She only asked him out of mild curiosity. I can’t let him see how desperately I want to know.
“I know the perfect place,” I say.
The garden is empty, as it usually is, and as soon as we’ve taken a lap around the perimeter to ensure no one is listening, Erik drops my arm and turns to me. All pretense of friendliness dissolves immediately. His eyes go cold in a way that reminds me of the Kaiser so much it’s jarring. I unconsciously take a step back.
“Did you tell anyone about Vecturia?” He asks the question quietly, but like he already knows the answer.
The accusation stops my heart and panic seizes me, but I struggle not to show it, to keep my expression surprised and perplexed, but not afraid.
I meet his gaze. “Of course not.” I manage to laugh at the ridiculousness of the question, even as my heart hammers loudly in my chest.
“It was a quiet mission; trade-route pirates were our official story. I was the only one besides Søren who knew otherwise before we left, and I didn’t tell anyone except you. But Dragonsbane knew, the Vecturians knew.”
I glance up at the windows, counting one, two, three Shadows watching. If the accusations go any further, they can make sure Erik ends up at the bottom of the sea with my former Shadows. No one is around to see, he made sure of it himself. Still, I would rather it not come to that.
“I have no idea, Erik,” I say, keeping my voice level. “I’d all but forgotten you even mentioned Vecturia until now. Besides, I’m watched always, even now—do you think I had any opportunity to waltz out of the palace, find Dragonsbane, and tell him what you had planned? I don’t even know what you had planned. The Kaiser already made me answer for your failure. Are you going to make me answer for it again now?”
For a beat, he looks uncertain, his eyes flitting away before landing on me again.
“Nothing else makes sense, Thora,” he says, but his voice wavers.
“And this does?” I ask him. “That I’m a spy, giving information to pirates? How does that benefit me at all?”
He lifts a shoulder in a defiant shrug, but it’s halfhearted. “Dragonsbane is known to work with Astrean rebels. It’s a way of striking back, a way of weakening our troops, even a way of getting rid of Søren—”
“I would never,” I say, letting my voice rise to a shout before I hasten to lower it, stepping closer to Erik. “I…” I trail off, making a show of biting my lip and looking troubled. “I love Søren.”
It’s not the truth, but it isn’t as much of a lie as it should be. I give a mournful sigh and sit down on the stone bench at the garden’s center, letting my shoulders slump forward.
“I’ve been raised here among Kalovaxians,” I continue, making my voice fray like I’m on the verge of tears. “After everything I’ve done, everything I’ve endured, I can’t believe you would still question my loyalty.”
I hear him huff out a breath before sitting down next to me. “I’m sorry,” he says after a minute, and it takes all I have to hide the relief coursing through me.
He clears his throat. “When you said the Kaiser made you answer for our failure…” He trails off.
I sigh and turn my back to him, tugging down my collar just low enough that he can see the tops of some of the fresh scars. Even with Ion speeding up the healing process, they’re raw. They look a few days old instead of a few hours, but are still red and raised and painful. He lets out a curse under his breath, and when I turn back I see he’s gone a few shades paler, so that he almost looks like a full-blooded Kalovaxian.
He’ll tell Søren about this, I realize, and I can use that to my advantage. I can fuel Søren’s anger at his father even more.
“It’s not the first time, and I doubt it will be the last,” I say, pulling the collar of my dress back up so that the wounds are covered once more.
“When Søren finds out—”
“He’ll do what, Erik?” I ask, choking out a bitter laugh. He’ll repeat this to Søren, so I need to make it count. “He won’t stand up to his father. He won’t take me away from here. He’ll marry Crescentia, just like the Kaiser wants him to, and keep me as, what? His mistress? Or his stepmother, if the Kaiser gets his way. And we both know he always does.”
The idea is so ridiculous that I can’t help but laugh, as much as it sickens me. I glance at Erik, expecting surprise, but he shows none.
“You’ve heard the rumors,” I say. “He hasn’t been very subtle. Does Søren know?”
He shakes his head. “Søren prefers to ignore rumors, even ones he knows are true,” he says. “In our many years of friendship, he’s never once asked me if I’m really his father’s bastard.”
The revelation shocks me, but at the same time, it makes sense. I assumed Erik was someone important’s half-Gorakian bastard, though I’d thought it was a baron or a count. I never even considered the Kaiser, which was foolish. Now that he’s said it, I see the similarities in their features—the jawline, the nose. He and Søren even have the same eyes, the Kaiser’s eyes.
He must see my surprise, because he laughs. “Come now, Thora. Here I thought you were brighter than you pretended. I thought you’d have figured it out by now, especially since you see more of my mother than I do.”
“Your…,” I start, but trail off. There are very few people I see regularly, and since Crescentia can’t be his mother, that only leaves one other woman. Hoa. He’s talking about Hoa.
Erik gives me a level look and for a second I could swear he knows all my secrets. But that’s impossible. “My mother plotted against the Kaiser from his bed after the Conquering of Goraki. He was kind enough to spare her life, even though she’s a traitor.”
He says the words too easily, the way I do when I’m reciting one of the lies the Kaiser has burned into my mind. I want to challenge him on it, but I can’t without losing part of my mask as well, and I cannot risk that. His eyes scan my face, watching for a reaction I’m careful not to give. After a moment, he sighs and pushes himself off the bench.
“It’s a person,” he tells me.
“Pardon?” I ask, bewildered.
“A berserker,” he says. “It’s an Astrean, to be exact. I’m assuming you know what happens when most people spend too long in the mines.”
“They go mad and are put to death,” I say.
He avoids my gaze, staring at the stone floor instead. “Yes to the first, no to the second. The madness, I’m sure you know, is caused by the concentration of too much magic from the mines. It’s what gives the gems their power. Over time, it makes its way into the blood of people who work there. Some people can handle it, most can’t. You know the symptoms,” he says.
I frown. “No. People still went mine-mad before, occasionally, but the details weren’t the kind of thing anyone talked about in front of a child, and after the Conquering…well, no one discusses anything like that with me.”
Erik lists them off on his fingers. “Feverish skin, erratic bursts of magic, emotional instability, insomnia. The short of it is, they become dangerous,” he says.
A thought rises in my mind, but I push it down before it takes shape. No.
He continues. “Human powder kegs. Send them to the front lines with a gem to nudge them over the edge and it’s only a matter of minutes before their power is unleashed, uncontrollable and strong enough to take out everything within a twenty-foot radius. In fire, water, earth, or air. It doesn’t matter much, the result is the same: ruination.”
“You’re lying,” I say, though I don’t think he is. Try as I might, I can’t imagine it. Corbinian is evil, I have never doubted that, but this? This is beyond anything I thought even he was capable of. “How do you know?”
The look he gives me is one I’m not used to, almost tender. It puts me on edge. It is the kind of look you give a person before you shatter them.
“Because I saw it. In Vecturia. Søren used ships full of a few hundred of them, but even that wasn’t enough. Søren put off using them until the last minute. It was too late—the battle was already lost.”
All my breath leaves me. No. The Kaiser may be capable of this, but not Søren. Not the boy who ate chocolate cake with me and asked me the Astrean word for it. Not the boy who promised to take me away from this godsforsaken place. Not the boy who kissed me like maybe we could save each other.
But of course he did. Because that is who he is: a Kalovaxian warrior to his last breath. He is not the chivalrous prinz and I am not lovesick Lady Thora, no matter how we try to pretend otherwise.
“He refused at first,” Erik says after a moment, as if that makes it any better. “The Kaiser insisted.”
I swallow the rage burning through me. I can’t let it show. Not yet. “I’m sure Søren did what was required of him,” I say as calmly as I can, though I know I don’t sound convincing. Tears blur my vision, but I will not let them fall.
“Thora,” Erik says after a moment. “Are you all right?”
How can I possibly be all right? I want to scream and hit something and maybe vomit at the thought of hundreds of my people being used like that, dying like that.
With a concentrated effort, I get to my feet and smooth out my skirt. When I look up at Erik again, I keep my expression neutral.
“Is your mother loyal to the Kaiser, Erik?” I ask him.
He watches me warily, like I’ve become a tiger who could pounce at any moment.
“As loyal as you are,” he says finally. “She doesn’t want trouble. She’s had enough of that in her life.”
It isn’t an answer, really. I can interpret those words any number of ways, and after my misstep with Cress, I should be more careful. I should trust no one. Yet I can’t help but remember Hoa tucking me into bed when I was a child, how she held me when the Kaiser had this garden burned. I don’t know what the Kaiser will do when he finds out I’ve escaped—when he finds out I’ve killed his friend and his son—but I know I can’t leave her here to face the brunt of it.
“Take her and get out of the city tonight,” I tell him.
I expect a protest, or at least a question, but Erik only searches my expression for a few seconds and nods tersely.
“Thank you,” he says with a slight bow. “May our paths meet again, Theodosia.”
It isn’t until he’s left me alone in the garden that I realize he called me by my true name.