Her thin eyebrows arch. “Aren’t you curious to know whose well-being was traded for your own?”
I try to look chastened, but I can’t quite manage it. The truth, damned as it might make me, is that I don’t care at all which spoiled and vicious Kalovaxian girl the Kaiserin had to trade for me. I’d watch them all die without batting an eyelash.
Even Crescentia? a small voice asks in the back of my mind, but I ignore it. Cress is too valuable to marry off to someone like Lord Dalgaard. It would never happen.
“I would imagine, Your Highness, that the wisest choice would have been Lady Dagm?r,” I say. “Such a match would please everyone. Dagm?r’s father likely put up a fuss about Lord Dalgaard’s history, but since it was you asking—and I assume adding a little extra to Lord Dalgaard’s bid—he gave in easily enough.”
She purses her lips. “You have a sharp mind, little lamb, and all the sharper still for keeping it hidden. But make no mistake: there will be another match made for you, likely a crueler one.”
“I don’t see who could be crueler than Lord Dalgaard.” I say it, holding her gaze with mine.
“Don’t you?” she asks, tilting her head to one side. “My husband would hardly be the first kaiser to rid himself of his wife to take a younger bride. I have nothing left to give him, after all,” she says casually. “But you’re young. You could give him more children and strengthen his hold on the country. And I’ve seen him look at you. I’d imagine the whole court has—my chivalrous fool of a son included. Corbinian isn’t exactly subtle, is he?”
I try to speak but words fail me. The python is back, wrapping itself around my stomach and chest so tightly I’m sure it will kill me. I want to deny her words, but I can’t.
She gets to her feet and I know that I should rise as well and curtsy, but I’m frozen in place. “Some advice, little lamb? Next time you close a window, make sure it doesn’t open a trapdoor beneath your feet.”
She’s halfway to the door when I find my voice. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admit, barely louder than a whisper.
The Kaiserin hears me, though. She turns and regards me with that disconcerting, unfocused stare of hers. “You’re a lamb in the lion’s den, child. You’re surviving. Isn’t that enough?”
I’M SHAKING AS I WALK down the hall, though I try to hide it. I smile pleasantly at the barrage of courtiers who just so happen to be taking leisurely strolls near the royal wing, but I don’t really see them—just a blur of bland, pale Kalovaxian features bleeding together until they’re one face. The Kaiserin’s voice echoes in my head: “You are playing a dangerous game with a dangerous man.” It’s no more than I already knew, but hearing it from someone else—the Kaiserin, of all people—sets everything in a new light.
I’d thought that the worst things that could be done to me had already come to pass—the public whippings, executing Ampelio, watching my mother die. I’d never imagined something worse was possible. But being forced to marry the Kaiser would be just that. I would burrow so deep inside myself that I’m not sure I would ever break free.
I would die first.
It doesn’t matter, I tell myself; it won’t come to that. In a month I’ll be gone from this place and I’ll never have to look at the Kaiser again. Still, fear and disgust course through me at the prospect of the Kaiser sharing my bed.
My Shadows’ footsteps fall into place a good distance behind me, and I resist the urge to look back at them. I feel their eyes on me, but I can’t let them know how afraid I am. I can’t let them know about this new threat either. Blaise would insist that we leave the city immediately. He would stow me somewhere safe while Astrea turned to dust.
When I slip back into my room, Hoa is smoothing the coverlet into place over my bed, but she stops and looks up at me in alarm. I try to shift my expression into something neutral, but can’t manage. Not today.
“Leave,” I tell her.
Her eyes dart to the walls—a silent reminder or an old habit, I’m not sure—and for a second she looks like she wants to do something, but she only nods and disappears out the door.
I go to stand at my window, less for the view of the gray garden and more because it’s the only way to hide my face from my Shadows. Still, the weight of their stares is unbearable. I can practically hear Artemisia’s throaty scoff again and Heron’s beleaguered lecturing voice. I imagine Blaise rolling his eyes and deciding to take me out of here tonight because it turns out I can’t do this after all and I don’t know why I thought I could. I’m only the broken little Ash Princess who can’t save herself, let alone her country.
I try to calm down, but the Kaiserin’s words repeat over and over in my head. I remember the way the Kaiser has been looking at me in recent months. I never let myself think about it, as if that would make it untrue, but I know she’s right. I know how this story will play out.
Tears sting my eyes, and I hastily wipe them away before the others can see.
Heron called me a queen yesterday, and queens don’t falter; they don’t get frightened; they don’t cry.
The door opens quietly and I stiffen, hastily wiping my wet eyes on the back of my sleeve. When I glance over my shoulder, fake smile at the ready, Blaise is closing the door behind him, pulling his hood back.
“Blaise—”
He waves my words away dismissively. “There was no one in the hall, I made sure of it.” His eyes skim over my face and I know I didn’t hide my tears as well as I’d hoped. His hands fidget in front of him and he drops his gaze. When he looks at me again, there’s a softness in his eyes that makes him look like a different person altogether. “What happened, Theo? You’re paler than a Kalovaxian.”
He’s trying to make me laugh, but the sound that comes out of my mouth is halfway between a laugh and a sob. I glance down at my feet, focusing on stopping their shaking. It takes a few seconds and a couple of deep breaths before they still and I trust myself to speak.
“I need a weapon,” I tell him, keeping my voice calm.
He looks taken aback. “Why?”
I can’t tell him. As much as the words claw at my throat, I can’t share this burden. I might not know Blaise as well as I used to, but I know exactly what he will do if I tell him about the Kaiserin’s warning. And if we run, we won’t have another chance to strike out at the Kaiser from this close.
“I just need one,” I say.
Blaise shakes his head. “It’s too risky,” he says. “If anyone were to find it on you—”
“They won’t,” I say.
“Your maid sees you in nothing but your skin every morning and night,” he points out. “Where exactly do you propose to keep it hidden?”
“I don’t know,” I admit in a whisper. Nausea rolls through me again and I sit down on the edge of my bed. The mattress gives as he sits down next to me, his leg not quite touching mine.
“What happened?” he asks again, his voice softer this time.
“I told you,” I say, forcing a smile. “The Kaiserin is mad.” I push thoughts of the Kaiserin and her warning out of my mind and focus on the positives. “My test worked, though. The Prinz cares for me enough to go against his father, even if he did it in a roundabout way. I can get closer and push him harder, I know I can. If we can get him to turn against his father publicly, it will cause a rift in the court.”
As I say the words, a plan begins to form in my mind. Blaise must see where it’s going, because a grim smile stretches across his face.
“A rift,” he repeats slowly, and I can tell that his thoughts are mirroring my own. “A rift like that would become uncrossable if…say…the Prinz were to be killed under mysterious circumstances after confronting his father.”