“There are an awful lot of cannons,” I say as we walk past another cluster of them.
“The Vecturians are barbarians,” Erik says with a dismissive shrug, though that word chafes. It’s the same word the Kalovaxians use to describe Astreans, though the Kalovaxians are the ones who thrive on war and bloodshed. “We aren’t anticipating too much trouble, but we need to be prepared,” he continues.
I decide to press my luck.
“That sounds dangerous,” I say, biting my lip. “I can’t imagine what would make that journey necessary.”
He opens his mouth to answer, but after a second of hesitation, he closes it again. “Kaiser’s orders,” he says with a tight smile. “I’m sure he has his reasons.”
“He always does,” I reply, hoping my smile looks more natural than it feels.
THE YOUNGER OF CRESCENTIA’S SLAVES is waiting for me on the dock when we disembark. I tell Erik that I’ll pray for his safety before leaving him.
As I approach the girl, her eyes dart around in an effort to avoid mine. “The Prinz escorted Lady Crescentia back to the palace,” she says, “but they promised to send the carriage for us soon.” She’s skinny to the point of malnutrition, yet her cheeks still have a childish roundness. Her large, dark eyes are sunken deep in her face, making her look far older than I’m sure she is.
She doesn’t curtsy, but then, Astrean slaves never curtsy to me anymore. It can too easily be construed as paying deference to a sovereign, and more than a handful have lost their lives for it. The Kaiser has done everything in his great power to isolate me from my people. Even when there are Astrean slaves around, we can never speak, and most of them won’t even look at me. I never used to understand it. I thought he was simply cruel in putting up so many walls around me. But if I hadn’t been so lonely, if I hadn’t felt so separate, maybe I wouldn’t have been so desperate to break myself into what he wanted me to be.
No one can say that the Kaiser isn’t smart. But now I’m determined to be smarter.
The Kaiser would never have approved leaving me alone with an Astrean, even with my Shadows nearby. But maybe this is one of the inches of freedom that executing Ampelio has bought me. I won’t waste it.
“I would prefer to walk, if you don’t mind,” I tell her. “What do they call you?”
She hesitates, doe eyes darting around briefly. She knows my Shadows are here, too. “Elpis,” she says, so quietly that I barely hear her.
“Do you mind walking, Elpis?” I ask her.
She chews her bottom lip for a few seconds until I’m worried she’ll draw blood. “We’ll have to walk through the slave quarter, my lady,” she warns. “It will be empty this time of day, mostly, but…”
“I don’t mind if you don’t.”
“I…I don’t mind,” she says, her voice strengthening. “We don’t have a guard, though.”
“We have my Shadows,” I say, though they’re more to keep me leashed than to keep me safe, and I doubt they’d step in unless it looked like I might be killed or disfigured. They certainly wouldn’t lift a finger to help Elpis. She must know this, too, because she looks at me warily.
“Of…of course, my lady.”
I can’t blame her for her discomfort. She was younger than I was when the siege happened. Astrea is little more than a ghost story to her. I’m not sure if that makes her a more or less dangerous person to trust. There is so much more than a whipped back at stake this time. I need to be sure of Elpis.
I’m tempted to look around for my Shadows as we walk, but I know by now that I won’t see them and it’ll only make me appear suspicious. Maybe I’ll catch sight of a scrap of black fabric darting through a nearby alley, or hear a handful of soft footsteps, but nothing more. They’re trained to be neither seen nor heard, and I’m sure they have Spiritgems aplenty to aid them in that. I’ve heard that cloaks lined with Air Gems can make the wearer invisible for a time, and nearly soundless.
They’ll tell the Kaiser about this, though I doubt they’ll dare get close enough to hear what we talk about. He won’t be pleased to hear that I exchanged words—no matter how innocent—with an Astrean slave. Thora’s voice sounds again in my mind, urging me to stay safe, but Blaise’s is louder. Twenty thousand.
“Do you live in this area with your parents?” I ask her as we walk.
“Yes, my lady,” Elpis says carefully. “Well, with my mother, at least, and my younger brother. My father died in the Conquering.”
The Conquering is what the Kalovaxians call the siege. It makes it sound more honorable, I suppose, to conquer something wild rather than to lay siege to something defenseless.
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” I tell her. “What does your mother do?”
“She was a botanist before, but now she’s a seamstress for the Theyn and Lady Crescentia.”
“How old is your brother?” I ask.
She hesitates. “He’ll be ten soon,” she says, a hard edge coming to her voice. “He’s my half brother.”
“Oh,” I say, glancing at her uncertainly. Even at court, there are women who have children out of wedlock, and it’s far less shameful for a widow than a maiden. If my math is correct, the siege would have just ended when her mother became pregnant. The pieces fit together and I realize what Elpis isn’t saying.
Conqueror’s Rights allowed warriors to terrorize and rob and enslave my people without fear of retribution, but I’d never thought of all that would entail. Rape. I won’t let myself think around the word or use one of the many euphemisms to try to dull it. Another injustice my people have faced. Another thing I swear will be paid for.
Elpis isn’t as practiced at hiding her anger as I am. It plays over her face like words on a page, evident in the tension in her jaw and the intense focus of her eyes. She could turn a person to stone with a gaze like that. It’s an anger I know too well.
Elpis isn’t loyal to the Kaiser, I’m sure of it. But that doesn’t mean she’ll be loyal to me. I’m not her queen, after all; I’m a spoiled, sheltered girl who is friends with the one who keeps her chained.
I have to take a moment to translate my words to Astrean in my mind before I say them. “Does he look like them?” I ask her quietly, dropping my voice to a whisper. I keep a tight hold on my smile so that it will fool my Shadows into thinking I’m babbling about something silly and inconsequential. Hopefully, after years of watching me do nothing of interest, they won’t expect anything more now.
I am poking at a bruise. Elpis flinches at my words, but I don’t back down. I need her anger; I need her to know it isn’t hers alone to bear, that I am on her side.
Her eyes narrow and she opens her mouth to answer before clamping it shut again. “Yes,” she says shortly in Kalovaxian before switching to Astrean and lowering her voice so that even I can barely hear her. “What is it you want from me, my lady?” she asks me, her voice tight.
The streets are deserted, though there are sunken eyes watching from broken windows. Children too young to work, the ill, the elderly. Hoa must live somewhere around here when she’s not with me. The thought strikes me as strange—it isn’t something I’d ever wondered about.
“What do you want?” I ask Elpis.
Her eyes dart around, searching for the Shadows, too, the ears that are always listening, the eyes that are always watching. They’re not here, though, I assure myself. Not close enough, anyway. But I don’t fully believe it. I’ve been wrong too many times before.
“Is this a trick, my lady?” she asks, switching back to Kalovaxian.
She doesn’t trust me. And why should she? She’s watched me for years with Cress. She would be a fool to trust me, and she’s lived too rough a life to be a fool.
If anything, the fact that she doesn’t trust me makes me trust her.