I MUST FALL ASLEEP AFTER BLAISE leaves, because the next sound I hear is the jingling of a ring of keys. I bolt upright and squint, half expecting to see a guard there, ready to lead me to my execution, but instead, it’s Søren. He’s in the same clothes he wore earlier, but now they’re bloodied and torn. A ring holding four large iron keys hangs from his hand. I scramble to my feet, all tiredness leaving me immediately as adrenaline courses through my body.
I should be surprised to see him standing there, but I’m not. I knew he would come for me; I told Blaise as much. Now here he is.
“There isn’t much time.” His breathing is ragged. “Someone will find the guards soon, and you’ll be the first prisoner they check on.”
“You’re rescuing me,” I say slowly.
Even in the simplest plan I spun Blaise, it doesn’t happen like this. In my plan, he comes here angry, hurt, demanding answers I’m not sure how to give.
“Trying to,” he says, swinging the door open.
“I tried to kill you,” I remind him.
“But you didn’t.”
“What I said to the Kaiser—”
“Yes, I would really like to hear more about that, but I’m not sure now is the best time,” he says, glancing over his shoulder. “I promised to take you away from here, and I intend to follow through on that. First we have to live that long, though.”
I can’t begin to make sense of his open face and blind trust, but I know he’s right. We don’t have time for any of this right now. I thought that when he came, I would have to convince him to leave with me, but I’m not about to question this turn of luck.
“What’s your plan?” I ask instead.
He slides one of the keys into the lock, and there’s a heavy creaking as he turns it. “My father won’t stop looking for us, no matter where we go,” he says, pushing the door open. “Sooner or later, we’ll have to take a stand.”
The conviction in his voice takes me by surprise. “You’re willing to do that?” I ask him as I step out of the cell.
“I’ve never wanted to be kaiser, Thora,” he admits.
The name chafes, but I ignore it.
He begins to lead me down the hallway. “But I don’t think I have a choice,” he continues. “Not after Vecturia. What you said in your letter, what you accused him of…,” he starts, but he can’t finish. For all the terrible things he thought his father capable of, he never imagined that.
“I saw it myself,” I tell him.
He clears his throat, focusing on the present instead of the past as he takes a hard turn, pulling me with him. “As I said, we’ll have to make a stand. You have allies, and there are Kalovaxians who would follow me. We might have a chance if we do it together.”
“Together,” I echo.
He glances sideways at me. “I never thought I could go against my father until I saw you do it. You want a rebellion, I’ll help you strike the match.”
I hope my smile looks more real than it feels, but the idea of aligning with any Kalovaxians—even if they stand against the Kaiser—is a horrifying one.
We continue down the maze of hallways in silence, our pace hurried. The dungeon is cold and the air is wet, but I barely feel it with the energy coursing through me. I can’t see a hair’s breadth in front of my face, and Søren’s hand clasping mine, warm and callused, is more comforting than it has any right to be. It’s the hand that gave the order to kill hundreds of my people, I remind myself.
A groan comes from one of the cells we pass, and I try to ignore it. The man is Astrean, more than likely, and if I were a more selfless person I would stop and save him. But that was the groan of a dying man, and I know there is nothing I can do for him. My hands are already so drenched in blood anyway—Ampelio’s, the Theyn’s, Elpis’s.
My feet trip over something large and I nearly fall on top of it, but Søren holds me up.
“What…,” I start, but I trail off when I realize exactly what it is.
Someone will find the guards soon, Søren had said. I’d assumed he’d locked them in a cell, maybe knocked them unconscious. I didn’t think he would have killed his own people, but I’m beginning to wonder if I know him at all.
I swallow down bile and step over one body, then the other. I’ve seen so much death it shouldn’t affect me so deeply anymore, but it does. I push the thought of them out of my mind and quicken my pace to keep up with Søren’s long, fast strides.
“What is your escape plan?” I ask quietly. “It doesn’t involve walking through the palace, does it?”
“Well, it doesn’t involve walking,” he mutters under his breath. “I suppose you have a better one?”
“I have several.”
Voices shout from the right, coming toward us, so the next chance I have I go left, pulling a reluctant Søren after me.
“This will bring us deeper into the dungeons,” he says.
“Which means they won’t look for us here, at least not at first,” I say.
I let go of his hand so that I can feel the wall as we walk, trying to get an idea of where we are. It’s been so long since I explored here with Blaise that I could be mistaken, but I don’t think I am.
I miss the feel of Søren’s hand in mine when it’s gone, but I know he’s still here. I can even hear him breathe in the silence, but as dark as it is, I feel utterly alone. As if he can hear my thoughts, he brings his hand to rest on the small of my back.
I want to shrug him off, but not as badly as I want to keep him near.
“What are you looking for?” he asks.
“A way out,” I tell him, continuing to search. “There’s a hole somewhere, about the size of my pinky, I think. If you press it with a stick, a door opens. It was meant as an escape path if there was ever a riot down here and a guard needed to go for help. This was centuries ago, when Astrean queens still kept prisoners here. I found it when I was exploring as a child, but I doubt the Kaiser knows about it.”
“Where does it go?” he asks.
“It comes to a fork. One way goes to the throne room, the other goes all the way to a cove on the western shore—I would imagine it isn’t far from your ship. It could also be used to get people out if the palace was under siege.”
Ampelio begged my mother to use it when the Kalovaxians attacked, to take me and run until forces could be gathered, but she refused. Queens didn’t run, she insisted. It didn’t matter, in the end. Only moments later, when they were arguing over who would bring me through the tunnel, the Kalovaxians took the harbor.
“Who’s there?” a voice rasps in Astrean from a nearby cell.
“It’s a girl,” another voice says from farther down.
Unlike the man before, they don’t sound like they’re dying. They sound thirsty and I’m sure they’re starving, but they’re still very much alive.
“That’s not just any girl,” a third chimes in, this one female. “That’s the princess.”
“The princess is locked in her golden cage,” one of the men sneers before spitting.
The words bristle, though I can’t blame them for it. It was true enough, once. “The queen is leaving this godsforsaken city, and you should be doing the same,” I say in Astrean, taking the ring of keys from Søren’s hand.
“They’re criminals,” Søren hisses behind me, though I’m sure they can still hear him.
“So are we,” I remind him, holding up the ring of keys. “Which keys are they?”
He hesitates for a second before pointing to one. “It’s the same for all the cell doors. The others go to the outer doors that separate the cells from the rest of the castle.”
I nod, taking the key and sliding it into the first cell’s lock.
“You’re running?” the man in the first cell asks in Astrean as I push the door open and move on to the next one. All the cells smell like urine and feces and vomit, the odor strong enough to make me dizzy.
“Recuperating,” I snap, ignoring my nausea as I push the second door open and move on. “You’re welcome to stay here if you’d rather.”
“Do your allies include the prinkiti?” he asks, spitting the word at Søren. I haven’t heard the term before, but it’s easy to piece together what it means. Roughly translated: little yellow prince. Søren might not know much Astrean, but he can guess it’s an insult and he scowls beside me.
“Today they do,” I reply, glad that Søren can’t understand me. I open the last door and all three step out of their cells tentatively, as if they think I might be here to trap them. With Søren at my side, I can’t blame them for their wariness.
The first man laughs, but it turns into a wheeze. “You really are Ampelio’s daughter,” he says.
The fact that I was the one who killed Ampelio must not have made it all the way down here. If he knew that, he wouldn’t be laughing. Still, the comparison makes pride bloom in my chest.
The man gives a shallow bow. “Guardian Santino, at your service, Your Highness. Guardian Hylla and Guardian Olaric, as well.”
The other two Guardians echo his sentiments, but I’m too surprised to really hear them. Guardians, alive. I thought Ampelio had been the last, but the Kaiser was keeping three prisoner right below my feet. While their names don’t sound familiar, I hardly knew all of them.
“Pleasure,” I say, inclining my head. Despite everything, I can’t help but smile. “I’m surprised the Kaiser didn’t kill you. Foolish of him to leave Guardians alive.”
Hylla gives a snort. “Ah, but why kill us when he can harvest us?” she says, showing me one of her arms, covered in deep cuts, old and new. There are gashes as well, where it looks like her flesh was carved out. “Blood drawn six, seven times a day for his experiments. Skin scraped away. Fingers cut off for the bones.” She shows me a hand that has only her thumb, pointer, and ring finger remaining.
Just as quickly as it came, my smile slides away. Nausea rises in my stomach again, though this time it has nothing to do with the smell. Søren knew about this, I remind myself, and in his silence he approved of it. I want to step away from him, but I can’t. I bury my fractured heart deep in my chest. “You’ll join us?” I ask.
“We need to hurry,” Søren says, and I can hear the irritation in his voice.
“We’ll only slow you down,” the other man—Olaric—says, leaning most of his weight against the cell door to keep upright. “But we can keep them busy.”
“You can barely stand,” I point out.
“If your rebel prinkiti could spare a few of his gems, we could certainly hold our own,” Hylla says with a sniff. “Earth for me, Fire for the others.”
Next to me, Søren tenses, knowing he’s being mocked, and I put a hand on his arm to calm him.
“They were sworn to protect my mother,” I tell him in Kalovaxian. “And therefore me. They want to give up their lives to buy us time, but they need gems to put up any kind of fight. One Earth, two Fire. Do you have any?” I ask, though I know he does. I can feel them even now, prickling the air between us. I’ve been around them so often, I barely notice them anymore, but I can always feel them.
He sighs before fiddling around for a moment. The Earth Gem he pries from the hilt of his sword, using the strength it provides him. The Fire Gems are torn from the lining of his cloak. Even in the dim light, they wink like distant stars. He passes them out, but I know he’s not happy about it.
“You trust them?” he whispers to me.
I don’t trust anybody. I certainly don’t trust you.
“Yes,” I say.
“We’ll keep the men busy,” Hylla tells me.
Next to her, Olaric grows a ball of fire in the palm of his hand, just large enough to illuminate the five of us. It’s difficult to tell through the dirt and dried blood covering most of their faces, but they’re younger than their voices led me to believe, a decade younger than Ampelio, at least. They might have been a little older than me before the siege, freshly trained and excited for the life laid out in front of them. I can’t imagine they saw it leading here. When Olaric’s eyes fall on me, the corners soften and he almost smiles. He must have been handsome once, and the kind of man who knew it.
“You look like your mother. Sound like her, too,” he says in Astrean. “When I see her in the After, I’ll give her your regards.”
I want to tell him not to be foolish, that we’ll meet again, but I know better than that. The next time I see them will be in the After, and I hope I won’t join them there for a long time yet. They go into this battle knowing they won’t come out the other side alive.
More people dying for me. And why? What have I done to deserve it?
“Thank you,” I say, and ignoring the stench, I step forward and kiss each of them on the cheek in turn. “May the gods guide you.”
“Long live the Queen of Astrea,” they recite back before Olaric snuffs out his fire again and their footsteps fall away.
I stay rooted to the spot until I can’t hear them anymore. Finally, Søren puts a hand on my waist and guides me forward. For a long moment, he doesn’t speak, but after we turn another corner, he clears his throat.
“I don’t know any of my father’s men who would willingly die for him,” he says. “Your people love you.”
“They don’t even know me,” I say. They wouldn’t lift a finger for me if they knew the things I’ve done. “But they loved my mother more than enough to make up for it.”
He doesn’t know what to say to that, and I’m glad, because I’m not sure what I want to hear. The Guardians’ words keep repeating in my mind, burning through me with enough hope to keep me putting one foot in front of the next into an uncertain future. You really are Ampelio’s daughter. You look like your mother. Sound like her, too. Long live the Queen of Astrea.