Ash Princess Page 4

  But now, sitting in front of the vanity mirror while Hoa braids my hair, it’s not shame I feel. Now, fresh hate trickles through my veins like water from thawing ice. I’ve been pushing it down for so long that it feels good to finally let it overtake me. It’s an aimless aura of hate, though. It needs a focus. It needs a channel. It needs a plan.

  But I am isolated here—there is no one to turn to for help. All I know of what goes on outside the palace comes from overhearing Kalovaxian courtiers, and it’s usually been filtered through so many people by then that I’m not sure how much truth is in it. There are Astreans in the capital, but all of them are slaves and most of them are younger than I am and kept malnourished and weak. And though I hate myself for thinking it, I’m not sure I can trust them.

  The Theyn. Even though the very thought of him makes me want to vomit again, I can’t deny that if there’s anyone who is likely to have accurate information about Astrean rebellions, it’s him. There’s the possibility Cress has overheard him saying something relevant, but the world outside the palace holds little interest for her, so it doesn’t seem likely she’d remember anything important. No, I’ll have to speak with the Theyn himself tonight, though being around him always makes me feel like I’m six years old again, watching him slit my mother’s throat.

  I am sure he doesn’t like me any more than I like him, but if I corner him with Cress at my side, if I widen my eyes and let my voice tremble as I act like I’m frightened that Ampelio was working with someone, that whoever it is will try to come and take me away, he’ll have to tell me something. Admittedly, he’ll tell me there’s no one left no matter what the truth is, but for all his skills in battle, the Theyn is a horrible liar.

  Cress herself pointed out the tells to me once, how his skin turns a flustered red under the long yellow beard that takes up most of his face. How he makes too much eye contact, how his nostrils flare.

  Either way, I’ll have a better idea of what’s going on with the rebellion.

  Hoa fastens another braid back with a plain pin. Her eyes meet mine in the mirror, and for an instant I could swear she reads my thoughts as clearly as words on a page. Her eyes narrow, but after a moment she looks away, braiding the last section of my hair and securing it in place.

  There’s a knock at the door, and without waiting, a servant enters with a gold box. The final part of my ensemble.

  Inside is a crown modeled after the one my mother wore: a circlet of flames that cuts across the forehead and reaches up a few inches, licking at the air.

  Hoa places it on my head with a featherlight touch. It’s a routine we’ve been through too many times to count, so often that it’s become banal, but this time is different. This time, I let myself remember how my mother would sometimes let me wear her crown, how it was so big it would fall down around my neck. But while my mother’s crown was wrought from black gold and set with rubies, the one the Kaiser sends me is molded from ashes, and as soon as it is in place, it begins to crumble, streaking my hair, skin, and dress.

  My mother was known as the Fire Queen, regal and strong. But I am the Ash Princess, a living joke.

  * * *

  —

  The stares lie heavy on my skin as soon as I step into the banquet hall, followed by whispers and titters that warm my cheeks. Flakes of ash come down with each step I take, each infinitesimal move of my head, fluttering against my cheeks and shoulders and chest. I pretend not to notice, keeping my head high and letting my eyes glide over the courtiers until they catch on one stare in particular. The Prinz’s eyes are so much like his father’s that my chest constricts until I can hardly breathe. I look away, wanting to sink through the floor and disappear entirely as I remember how I vomited on him earlier. His stare has a purpose to it, though, which is not to gawk or gloat, but to draw my eyes back to his. I won’t give in.

  I have my own purpose. While he watches me, I watch the shadows, where the slaves wait with their sunken eyes until they’re needed. They are mostly children and adolescents, though there are a few older women as well. No one who could prove a threat, physically. They are all frail bones jutting out beneath sallow skin, with missing teeth and thinning clumps of hair.

  Don’t look, the old voice urges, but I ignore it now. I need to look. I need to see. “There you are,” Crescentia says, tearing my attention away from the shadows. She appears at my side and loops her arm through mine, even as ashes flake down to cover her as well. Her cheerfulness cuts through the tension in the room, and everyone else’s attention dissipates. They remember, as I do, what happened the first time the Kaiser sent me the ash crown, how Crescentia—then only seven—brushed her thumbs along my cheekbones and smeared the ashes into thick lines.

  There, she’d said so softly that no one else heard her. Now you’re truly ready for battle. The small act of defiance earned me ten lashes, and I’m sure the Theyn punished Cress as well. Now, she ignores the crumbling crown as stubbornly as I do.

  “I heard all about the trial,” she says softly, her forehead puckering. “Are you all right?”

  Trial seems like an odd word for it. There were no arguments made, no jury, no judge. It was a murder, and I executed it myself.

  Logically, I know I didn’t have a choice. But that doesn’t ease my guilt.

  “It’s done,” I tell her, waving a hand dismissively. As if it’s so easy to rid myself of the memory of the blade biting into Ampelio’s skin. “I do hope Hoa will be able to get the blood out, though. It was such a pretty dress, didn’t you think?”

  “Oh yes. I’m so terribly jealous, Thora. Yellow looks awful on me, but you pull it off so beautifully,” she says, squeezing my arm as she leads me toward the far end of the banquet table, away from the royal family and Prinz Søren’s probing gaze.

  The Theyn, I notice with a sinking stomach, isn’t here. He must have already left again. Off to another battle, another invasion, another slaughter.

  “Ash Princess.” The Kaiser’s voice sends ice down my spine, but I suppress a shudder as I turn toward it, pleasant smile at the ready. His pale blue eyes are hard over his goblet of wine, raised in a mock toast to me. His bloated face is already a drunken red. “You’re the guest of honor. Your place is here.” He gestures to an empty seat next to Prinz Søren.

  The squeeze Crescentia gives my hand is comforting as I leave her side to approach the Kaiser.

  I curtsy at his feet, and when he extends a hand toward me, I kiss the ring on his smallest finger—the ring my mother used to wear, and her mother before her.

  I start to rise, but his hand brushes my cheek, holding me in place. I struggle not to recoil. Some battles aren’t worth fighting. Some battles I can only ever lose. So I lean into his touch like the loyal subject I have been groomed to be, and I let him mark me with an ash handprint.

  His hand falls away and he smirks, satisfied, before gesturing for me to sit. As I rise, I notice the Fire Gem pendant hanging from the gold chain around his neck. I would know that gem anywhere. It was Ampelio’s. The one he would let me play with, even though my mother scolded him for it whenever she saw him.

  “Spiritgems aren’t playthings,” she would say.

  But that might have been her only order he ever disobeyed. I loved holding it in my tiny hands, but it frightened me too—the warmth and power flooded through me like my blood was turning to fire in my veins. It sang to me like we belonged to one another.

  Seeing it now, around Corbinian’s thick neck, fills me with a different kind of fire, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from lunging toward him and using that chain to choke the life from him. But I know Ampelio didn’t die for me so I could do something so foolish.

  I force my eyes away from it and take my seat next to the Prinz.

  Where before his eyes were stuck on me like mud, now he acts like I’m not here at all. He never lets his eyes leave the plate of food
in front of him. He can’t have told his father about the incident earlier, or I would have already paid for it. But why not? The Kaiser trades favor for information, and even though Prinz Søren is his only son and heir, he must be struggling for favor more than anyone. The Kalovaxian monarchy is rooted more in strength than blood, and half the time when an old monarch dies, he refuses to name his son as successor and the other families at court take the opportunity to make a grab for power. The history books say that it’s always bloody and that the process can drag on for years.

  But the Prinz isn’t weak. Even before he returned, the court was abuzz with his heroics in battle, how strong and valiant he was, what a great kaiser he would make one day. The Kaiser hasn’t fought in battle in decades now—unusual for kaisers, who often remain warriors until their deaths. Prinz Søren’s strength is only highlighting the Kaiser’s weakness, and that is something I’m sure the Kaiser will make him pay for now that he’s back at court.

  I don’t know why the Prinz wouldn’t take what favor he could.

  A slave boy appears next to me, piling my plate with fish grilled with spices in the Astrean tradition. Most Kalovaxians have a difficult time stomaching Astrean food, but on nights like this they insist on trying. It’s more of a symbol than anything else, after all. The food, the music, the clothes are all Astrean, but Astreans themselves—ourselves—are no longer allowed to exist.

  This music picks up and my mind goes back to my mother. It’s the kind of music she used to dance to, her skirts flaring out around her legs as she twirled, spinning me with her until we were both dizzy and giddy. It’s the kind of music she and Ampelio used to sway to, their arms wrapped tightly around each other. These people don’t deserve to hear it; they don’t deserve any of this. I keep my hands in my lap to hide my clenching fists.

  The slave boy bumps against my shoulder as he places another fillet on my plate, and I think nothing of it. I don’t let myself look at him this close to the Kaiser, who has had Astreans beheaded in front of me for an innocent glance. I have enough blood on my hands for one day.

  I stare at my plate instead, watching as ashes flake down, counting them. It’s the only way I’ll make it through dinner without screaming.

  The slave bumps my shoulder again, this time for no reason at all. The Kaiser, mercifully, is deep in conversation with some visiting lord whose name I don’t know, but the Kaiserin’s milky, distant eyes flicker to me and narrow briefly before darting away.

  Everyone says she’s going mad, but I’ve seen a clarity in her eyes at times that is paralyzing, as if she’s waking up in a world she suddenly doesn’t understand. Tonight that clarity is not there. The main course hasn’t even been served yet and she’s already deep in her cups.

  No one else notices the Kaiserin. As usual, their eyes glaze over her like she’s a ghost, pale and silent and eerie. I’m not entirely sure she isn’t.

  My plate is piled with more fish than I can possibly eat, but the boy doesn’t move away. He must have a death wish.

  “Is there anything else you need, my lady?” he asks in my ear. “Wine, perhaps?”

  Something in his voice prickles a memory, though I can’t place it. I steal a glance, hoping not to be noticed, and when my eyes meet the slave’s, I freeze.

  His face is gaunt, and he has black hair cropped close to his scalp. His chin is covered in stubble and there’s a hardness in his jaw, like he’s either angry or hungry. A puckered white scar slices across deep olive skin. But I see the shadow of an apple-cheeked boy sitting next to me in the palace playroom before the siege, always competing for our teacher’s favor as she taught us how to write. I remember Astrean words that flowed like water from our quills, his name and my name side by side. I see races I always lost because my legs weren’t as long as his. I see solemn green eyes inspecting my scraped knee and I hear his gentle voice telling me it’ll be fine, to stop crying.

  “Blaise.”

  I don’t realize I’ve said it out loud until Prinz Søren turns to me.

  “Pardon?” he says.

  “I…I said please. Wine would be lovely. Please.”

  Prinz Søren turns to face front again but I’m frozen in place, looking at Blaise over my shoulder. I can’t stare at him this long; it’ll raise suspicion. I know that, but I can’t make myself turn away, because he’s here, like some spirit I summoned. How can he be here?

  Blaise holds my gaze for a second that is heavy with words we can’t speak, questions we can’t ask. He gives a curt nod before turning away, but his eyes are loaded with a promise. I face forward in my seat again, but questions thunder through my mind. What is he doing here? If he had been working in the castle, I would have noticed it before now, wouldn’t I? Appearing today of all days can’t be a coincidence.

  “Lady Thora.” Prinz Søren’s low voice draws me out of my thoughts, and I angle toward him and pretend everything is normal. His bright eyes land on mine, shift to the handprint his father left on my cheek, and dart away. He looks to the Kaiser, who is paying too much attention to the slave girl pouring him more wine to notice anything else. She’s younger than I am—fourteen, maybe. It makes my skin crawl, but it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.

  Still, Prinz Søren’s voice is quiet, barely audible over the music and conversation. “About what happened—”

  “I’m so sorry, Your Highness,” I interrupt, turning my attention back to Søren, suddenly embarrassed. “You must understand that I was in shock. As you were astute enough to realize, it was the first time I had…” I trail off. I can’t say the words. Saying them out loud will make them irreparably true. “Thank you for not telling anyone.”

  “Of course,” he says, looking surprised. He clears his throat. “As bumbled as my attempt might have been, I was only seeking to…” It’s his turn to break off. “I wanted to ease your mind.”

  The kindness in his words takes me aback, especially when he’s looking at me with the Kaiser’s cold blue eyes. It’s difficult to meet them, but I try. “My mind is easy, Your Highness,” I assure him, forcing a smile to my face.

  “Søren,” he says. “Call me Søren.”

  “Søren,” I repeat. Even when gossiping about him with Crescentia, I don’t know that I’ve ever said his name out loud. He’s always been “the Prinz.” I’m struck by how Kalovaxian a name it really is, with its hard edges and long “o.” It sounds like a sword slicing through the air and finding its target. It’s strange, the power names have over us. How can there be such a difference between Thora and Theodosia when both are me? How can just saying Søren’s name aloud make it so much harder to lump him in with the Kaiser and the Theyn and all the other Kalovaxian warriors?

  “Then you must call me Thora,” I say, because it’s the only response I can give, even if the name tastes bitter in my mouth.

  “Thora,” he repeats, lowering his voice. “What I meant earlier was that I remember my first kill, and I think it will always haunt me.”

  “Even if they were only Astrean rabble?” I ask, struggling to keep the bite out of my voice.

  I must not have succeeded, because he goes quiet for a moment. “Uri, Gavriel, Kyri, Nik, Marios, Dominic, Hathos, Silas, and Vaso,” he says, counting them off on his fingers. It takes me a moment to realize he’s listing the names of the men he killed seven years ago. “The one my father killed was called Ilias. It’s not something I’m proud of; I’m sorry if I led you to believe otherwise.”

  The words are stiff and clipped at the edges, but there’s no mistaking the feeling beneath them, straining to break free. There is something laid bare in his eyes that I’ve never seen before. Not from any other Kalovaxian, not even Cress.

  Before I can puzzle out how to respond, Blaise appears at my shoulder again, pouring blood-red wine into my goblet. It takes all my self-control not to look at him.

  On the other side o
f the table, a slave girl drops a tray, sending fish skidding across the stone floor. Everyone turns to stare as she hastens to clean up, even the Prinz. Søren.

  “Midnight tonight,” Blaise whispers in my ear. “Kitchen cellar.”

  I turn, but he’s already disappeared into the crowd.

  The slave girl who dropped the tray is grabbed by two guards and dragged from the room. She will be whipped for her clumsiness at best, killed at worst.

  Before she’s gone, her eyes lock onto mine and a small, tight smile flickers across her mouth. She isn’t clumsy at all. It was a distraction, and one that might cost her her life. I can’t imagine how I’ll be able to meet Blaise tonight, but I will have to try.

  MY MOTHER ALWAYS TOLD ME that if we prayed to the gods, they would protect us from harm. Houzzah, god of fire, would keep us warm. Suta, goddess of water, would surround our island and protect us. Ozam, god of air, would keep us healthy. Glaidi, goddess of earth, would keep us fed. There were a dozen other minor gods and goddesses of everything from beauty to animals, though I’ve forgotten most of their names by now.

  But I also remember how when the Kalovaxians came, we both prayed and prayed and prayed and it didn’t matter. I didn’t believe they would kill her, because the gods would never allow it. She would be queen until old age took her—it was her due. Even when the blood spilled from her neck and her hand grew slack around mine, I still didn’t believe it. I thought my mother was immortal even after the light left her eyes.

  Afterward, I wept. Then I raged, not just against the Kalovaxians but against my gods as well, because they had let my mother die when they should have protected her. The Kalovaxians forced me to replace them with their gods—similar in domains, but more vengeful, less forgiving—but it didn’t matter one way or another. That part of me, the part that believed, had broken.