Lady Smoke Read online

  “It’ll do,” I tell her, diverting Dragonsbane’s attention before she reduces her daughter to a pile of dust.

  Dragonsbane frowns at me, then looks back to Artemisia. “And I’d assigned you to manage the tides until noon. You have another hour, if you think you can manage it.”

  The challenge in her voice is clear and Art clenches her jaw. “Of course, Captain,” she says, lifting her hands toward the sea once more.

  Without another word, Dragonsbane turns and motions for me to follow her. I catch Artemisia’s eye and try to give her a reassuring smile, but I don’t think it registers. For the first time since I met her, she looks lost.

  AS SOON AS WE STEP into Dragonsbane’s cabin, I wish I’d asked Art to come with me. It’s a selfish wish—she was clearly anxious to get out of her mother’s presence—but I wish it all the same. The two men waiting there are thoroughly devoted to Dragonsbane, and it feels like I’ve walked into a trap. It isn’t the way I felt around the Kaiser and the Theyn—like a lamb in the lion’s den, as the Kaiserin said—but it isn’t so far off. I will have no allies in this room.

  I am the queen, I remind myself, squaring my shoulders. I am my own ally, and that will be enough.

  The men clamber to their feet when they see me, though the show of deference might, in fact, be for Dragonsbane.

  Eriel, a little older than Dragonsbane, with a full russet beard and no hair at all on top of his head, leads Dragonsbane’s fleet—the Smoke, the Fog, the Dust, the Mist, and half a dozen smaller ships whose names I can’t keep straight. Last night, he told me he lost his left arm in battle a few years back. It’s since been replaced with a stub of polished black wood with carved fingers frozen in a fist. The loss would have meant retirement for most soldiers, but Eriel’s strategic prowess makes him invaluable even though he can no longer fight. Dragonsbane’s small army has held its own against Kalovaxian battalions three times their size, and it’s largely due to his careful planning with the captains of the other ships.

  Next to him is Anders, an Elcourtian lordling who ran away from his easy life two decades ago, when he was a teenager in search of adventure. And he certainly found it. He told me yesterday that he barely survived his first few years on his own, as he had no real skills to speak of and little understanding of money. It was not the never-ending resource he’d once believed it to be; it was something to be fought for—to be stolen, if the need arose. So he thieved his way from country to country and later trained others to do the thieving for him. When he grew bored with that, he decided he wanted to be a pirate and bartered his way onto Dragonsbane’s ship.

  “You may be seated,” Dragonsbane says before I have a chance to speak.

  Maybe Artemisia was right to correct her mother for calling me Theo. Maybe Dragonsbane is undermining me on purpose. She won’t have a difficult time of it with these two. Though they’ve all been perfectly civil toward me since I came on board, there is no doubt in my mind that I don’t live up to whatever idea they had of Astrea’s rebel queen.

  But I’ve been underestimated by far more intimidating people, and for the first time it doesn’t behoove me to shrink in on myself and avoid notice. Instead, I draw myself up to my full height, even though Dragonsbane in her block-heeled boots dwarfs me.

  “Thank you for meeting with me,” I say, nodding at both men in turn before letting my attention fall on Dragonsbane, daring her to correct my assertion. I sweeten my smile. “And thank you, Aunt, for arranging this. It’s time we discussed what comes next. If one of you would be so kind as to find Blaise and Heron, as well?”

  Dragonsbane’s nostrils flare so slightly that I would miss it altogether if I weren’t looking for a reaction. Her jaw tenses before she forces her mouth into an echo of my smile.

  “I don’t think that’s necessary, Theo,” she says. “I’ve assembled our best strategic and diplomatic minds.” She motions to the men. “Blaise and Heron have done much for our cause, but they are boys with little experience in these matters.”

  Her dark eyes are unrelenting against mine and it takes all I have not to flinch away. They are my mother’s eyes, after all, and looking into them makes me feel like a child again. But I am not a child and I can’t afford to feel like one for even a moment. There is too much at stake. So I hold her gaze and I don’t let myself waver.

  “They are my council,” I tell her, keeping my voice soft but level. “I trust them.”

  Dragonsbane tilts her head to one side. “You don’t trust us, Your Majesty?” she asks, eyes widening. “We have your best interests at heart.”

  The men murmur their agreement a beat behind her.

  “I’m sure you do,” I say, flashing them a reassuring smile. “But we’ve known one another such a short time, I’m afraid you can’t know my best interests yet. You will soon, I’m sure, but you’ll agree that we have no time to waste.”

  “We don’t,” Dragonsbane says. “Which is why it hardly makes sense to be tracking down other people when the group I’ve already assembled is more than capable—”

  I interrupt, sharpening my words to daggers. “If you’d gone to fetch Blaise and Heron when I first asked you to instead of arguing for argument’s sake, they would already be on their way. Now, would you like to waste more time while the Kalovaxians put together a battalion to wipe us out for good?”

  For a painfully long moment, she says nothing, but I can feel the resentment rolling off her in waves. I hold her gaze, her fury stoking my own. I’m dimly aware of a dull burn itching at my fingertips, but I don’t dare break eye contact to look at them. Something about it feels distantly familiar, the way my skin felt after I woke up from my nightmare about Cress. I cross my arms, pressing my fingertips into the sleeves of my tunic, hoping that if I ignore them they will stop burning.

  After what feels like an eternity, Dragonsbane turns toward Anders, though every muscle in her body seems to protest it.

  “Go get the boys,” she says, voice tight. “And hurry back.”

  Anders’s blue eyes dart between us uncertainly before he inclines in a slight bow toward Dragonsbane, then to me. He hurries out the door without another word, leaving us in an uncomfortable silence.

  Triumph sings through me and I forget about my burning fingers.

  “You’re very unlike your mother,” Dragonsbane says after a moment.

  And just like that, the feeling of triumph slips away. The words land like a hard punch to my gut, but they aren’t as painful as the realization that she’s right. Antagonizing those who go against me, twisting their words against them, stubbornly clinging to my way of things—those are not tactics my mother ever used as queen. She charmed and mediated and compromised and gave where she could because she had so much to give.

  Another realization washes over me, sending a shudder through my whole body that I try to suppress.

  I did not handle that like my mother; I handled it like the Kaiser.

  * * *

  —

  A tense few minutes pass before Anders returns, Blaise and Heron in tow. They both look confused as they enter the increasingly cramped space.

  “Finally,” Dragonsbane snaps as they come to stand next to me, flanking me on each side without a word.

  They must have pieced together what happened, at least somewhat. They must realize that this meeting was called without them, that Dragonsbane tried to shut them out. Or maybe Blaise is glaring daggers at her for an entirely separate reason. Heron, for his part, doesn’t glare at anyone. His gaze is heavy and solemn but distant. It’s been that way since we came aboard, and I worry Elpis’s death is weighing even heavier on his conscience than it is on mine. After all, it was his job to fetch her after she poisoned the Theyn, to bring her to safety here on the Smoke.

  I smile broadly at Dragonsbane. “Now that we’re all here, let’s continue. We’re heading toward the Angla
mar ruins in order to launch an attack on the Fire Mine and liberate the slaves there.”

  Eriel clears his throat, looking at me with a touch of wariness. “I would recommend against that course of action, Your Majesty,” he says, his voice gruff with an accent I can’t place, making the words sound both melodic and dangerous. “Simply put, coming at the Kalovaxians straight on with as few warriors as we have would be a fool’s errand. They would destroy us with ease, no matter what strategies we employ. We’re simply outmatched for such a task.”

  “This is what we agreed on before I accepted your assistance,” I say, glancing from Eriel to Dragonsbane. Again, I feel my temper rising.

  “The key,” Anders interjects, “is to get more forces.” The posh edges of his words haven’t quite been erased by years of thievery and piracy.

  Blaise gives a derisive snort. “More forces? Why didn’t we think of that? Why didn’t Ampelio, for that matter? It certainly would have saved us a lot of trouble. Oh, wait, we did. No other country will stand up to the Kalovaxians.”

  “Not out of the goodness of their hearts they won’t. The rest of the world is too afraid of the Kaiser to help, so we will have to make it worth their while,” Dragonsbane says, her eyes level on me. “And I would imagine the only thing they want from us is something Ampelio wouldn’t have entertained trading for an instant.”

  My mouth goes dry. “And what would that be?”

  “You,” she says plainly. “More to the point, your hand in marriage.”

  “Queens don’t marry,” Heron says, looking flabbergasted at the very notion. I’m grateful for him, since I can’t seem to form any words myself.

  “Let’s not pretend this is a normal circumstance, dear,” Dragonsbane says. Heron towers over her by a foot and half at least, but she still makes it sound like she’s talking to a child. “Theo can put her pride aside for the good of her country, I think.”

  “It isn’t my pride,” I say, fighting to keep my voice calm and hide the panic rising in my chest. “Those men don’t care about me, they just want their own piece of Astrea, and our magic.”

  Dragonsbane shrugs as if this is a trivial matter. “If we let the Kalovaxians keep it much longer, there won’t be any magic left. It’s a sacrifice, but a necessary one.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, considering you aren’t the one sacrificing anything,” I bite out.

  “We don’t know that it’s necessary,” Blaise says before Dragonsbane can reply. “There are other options—”

  “Such as?” she asks, arching her eyebrows.

  “We haven’t even leveraged the Prinz yet. If we trade him for one of the mines—”

  “Unfortunately, intelligence tells us that he’s not exactly the hostage we hoped he would be,” Eriel puts in. “The Kaiser doesn’t want him back. He sees him as a threat and an enemy. We did the Kaiser a favor by taking the Prinz off his hands. He’s already spreading rumors that the Prinz went with you voluntarily, Your Majesty.”

  Not far from the truth, I think.

  “So we don’t use him as a hostage,” I say, though my voice sounds desperate even to my own ears. “The plan was always to use him as a wedge between his father and the Kalovaxian people. Killing him and framing one of the Kaiser’s guards was meant to cause chaos in the court, but I don’t see why we can’t spin the story of him running away into a similar outcome.”

  “The Kaiser will make sure the rest of the court sees him as a traitor,” Blaise says, though he isn’t contradicting me; he’s following my train of thought, giving me an opportunity to solve the problem.

  “But the court saw the way Søren stood against his father at the banquet,” I say. “They’d be fools to take the Kaiser at his word. If there was a way to add some whispers to the cacophony, we could change the story. Make them think Søren didn’t abandon them, that the Kaiser banished him, maybe. The court heard me accuse the Kaiser of murdering the Kaiserin; they must be whispering about that now as well. It won’t be difficult to turn them against him if we have the right voices to whisper in the right ears.”

  Blaise nods slowly before turning back toward Dragonsbane. “Do we?” he asks.

  “I have a handful of spies,” she admits cautiously. “But they pass information to me, they don’t interfere at court. It’s the only reason I’ve managed to keep them undiscovered and alive this long.”

  I can’t help but think of Elpis, who was safe until I asked her to interfere. I see her charred body being dragged out of the throne room, unrecognizable. I hear her screams of pain in her last moments. I swallow, hating myself even as I say the words I need to.

  “The time for staying safe has passed. If we don’t take the chances we can, all we’ll do is survive by the skin of our teeth. I want more than that for Astrea, and you should as well.”

  Dragonsbane’s jaw clenches.

  “Fine,” she says. “I’ll start spreading your whispers, as you call them, but it still leaves us unevenly matched for a battle at the Fire Mine. Eriel tells me it will take four days to reach Sta’Crivero.”

  Eriel, who has been listening intently to the conversation while rolling back and forth on the balls of his feet like an impatient child, looks surprised to hear his name, though he quickly nods.

  “In Sta’Crivero, we will meet with King Etristo,” Dragonsbane continues.

  It takes a second for me to understand where this is heading. “I’m not marrying this King Etristo,” I say, hardening each word, as if the issue were simply a matter of her hearing me.

  She only laughs. “Oh, my darling, no. Etristo is far too old to make a good match for you, not to mention the fact that he already has a wife. No, he’s been kind enough to host an…event of sorts. The heads of countries from all over the world will come to meet you and offer their troops in exchange for your hand.”

  “I am not some jewel to be auctioned off to the highest bidder,” I say, unable to keep my voice from rising. My body begins to feel too warm, the same way it did when I woke up from my nightmare. Sweat beads on my forehead but I wipe it away. I don’t know why Dragonsbane keeps her cabin so hot. I don’t know why I seem to be the only one to notice it. “I am a queen and I will make my own decisions.”

  Dragonsbane purses her lips, eyeing me for a moment in thoughtful silence.

  “Of course, the decision is yours,” she says finally, with a strained smile and calculating gaze. “But I urge you to consider it seriously. In the meantime, we will continue on to Sta’Crivero. At the very least, we can take refuge in the chaos of their port while we formulate another plan.”

  I agree to consider it, though even that much makes me nauseous.

  WHEN I EMERGE BACK ONTO the deck after my meeting with Dragonsbane, the fresh air hits me and my skin begins to cool. I wipe more of the sweat from my brow and upper lip, glancing at Heron and Blaise on either side of me. They both look perfectly fine, not at all affected by the temperature in Dragonsbane’s cabin. Maybe I’m getting ill—it wouldn’t be surprising, after everything. Or maybe it was only my imagination, a reaction to the stress and anger.

  “There has to be a better plan than marriage,” Blaise says, jerking me out of my thoughts.

  I swallow. “There has to be,” I agree without looking at him, or at Heron on my left. Instead, I stare out at the busy ship, full of people rushing to and fro, keeping the Smoke moving at full power toward a future that has once more been taken out of my hands. Dragonsbane might have given me the illusion of a choice, but I’m not foolish enough to believe it will be as easy as that.

  “I can’t believe she tried to corner you alone for that meeting,” Heron says.

  I snort. “I can. Gods, I’m tired of games,” I tell them, shaking my head. “I played the Kaiser’s games for ten years and I didn’t escape just to be forced to play hers.”

  I turn to face the
m.

  “I told Dragonsbane that the two of you are my council. I didn’t think it best to have Art there today, given the effect her mother seems to have on her, but I include her in that as well. You’re the people I trust here.”

  Blaise nods, but Heron looks uncertain, his eyes lingering on me a moment too long. Whatever he wants to say won’t leave his mouth.

  “Blaise, I know you need to get back to work, but will you accompany me for lunch, Heron?”

  Blaise inclines his head toward me before walking back to the bow of the ship, where he had been swabbing decks.

  Heron nods, but he seems reluctant, so I loop my arm through his and steer him toward the dining hall.

  “Is everything all right?” I ask.

  “Of course,” he says in a way that makes me more certain than ever that it’s not.

  It’s late for lunch and the dining hall is mostly empty. The handful of people gathered watch me as I take my ration of hardtack and dried meat. I’m used to people watching me—the Kalovaxians stared as well—but now there is no malice behind it. Only expectation, which somehow feels worse. A knot hardens in my stomach as I wait for Heron to fill his plate.

  We have no trouble finding an empty table in the corner, away from listening ears. I give him a moment to eat in silence, staring at his food to avoid looking at me. The Heron I know would never ignore me; he would find it disrespectful. There’s nothing disrespectful about it now, I realize. He’s afraid of me. Could he think I blame him for Elpis’s death?

  I clear my throat. Maybe telling him my secret will make him feel better about his own. “I had a chance to kill Søren,” I say. He pauses, a strip of dried meat halfway to his open mouth. “I had the knife to his back before he knew what was happening. There was no way out for him. I knew it, he knew it. He even told me to do it. Urged me to do it. I think he wanted me to kill him. I think he thought it would somehow make us even. But I couldn’t.”