“I think you’re right,” he says after a breath. “But Artemisia is right, too. Your first kiss shouldn’t be with him.”
I look back at him, surprised. His eyes are suddenly locked on mine with such intensity that I can’t look away. I don’t want to.
“You said my first kiss was with you,” I point out, surprised at how quickly my heart is beating all of a sudden.
“Well,” he says, taking a step toward me. Then another one. He only stops when there are mere inches separating us. When he continues, his voice is barely louder than a whisper and I can feel his warm breath against my cheek. “I was told that didn’t count.”
His mouth moves closer to mine. I want to push him away, but I also want to pull him closer, though that desire surprises me. When did that happen? He’s my friend—the oldest, and in some ways truest, one I have. But there’s something more between us as well. Blaise terrifies me, but he also makes me feel safe. He reminds me of my life before, when I was cared for and protected and unscarred and surrounded by people I loved. How can a person be so many different things? How can he make me feel so many different things?
Before I can think myself out of it, I tilt my head up to brush my lips against his. Because he’s right and Artemisia is right: my first kiss shouldn’t be with S?ren. Even if he is different from his father, he’s still one of them and there are parts of me I won’t give them.
For a second, Blaise doesn’t move and it feels almost exactly like how we kissed as children, like we’re going through the motions without any actual want. Just when I’m ready to pull away, his mouth softens against mine and he’s kissing me back. His warm hands grip my waist and bring me closer to him, their heat seeping through the silk of my dress. When he draws back, he stays close enough that I can still feel his breath against my lips.
“I think even Artemisia would agree that counted,” I say lightly, reaching up to touch his face.
He releases my waist and catches my hand in his. Something dark flickers over his expression and his grip tightens until it almost hurts.
“The Prinz will be here soon, I’m sure,” he says, dropping my hand. “Don’t do anything stupid tonight.”
The words come out hard, but I’m beginning to understand Blaise enough to know that he means them teasingly, like he used to tease me when we were children. The years since then have robbed him of that lightness, instilled everything around him with a weight that feels suffocating if you get too close.
I laugh, but his expression remains unreadable, which is doubly unfair considering how my own doubt and hurt must be starkly written across my face. Cress and I have often talked about kisses—who we wanted them with, how we wanted them to go. She dreamed of a first kiss with the Prinz on their wedding day, like in one of her books. My imaginings were less picturesque, but they were certainly more than this. I never thought whoever I kissed would regret it the way Blaise seems to. He won’t even look at me.
Embarrassment rises hot to my cheeks, but I force a smile and try not to let him see it.
“Not to worry, I was saving stupid for tomorrow, or maybe next week. I haven’t decided yet,” I reply.
He manages a smile, but he still doesn’t look at me. When he turns to leave, I’m tempted to call after him, but his name dies in my throat. I doubt he would have listened anyway, whether I’m his queen or not.
BLAISE USED TO HATE HAVING me trail after him everywhere when we were young. He ran, he hid, he called me names, but still I wouldn’t leave him alone. We were exploring a tunnel in the abandoned dungeons below the palace when his patience finally ran out. He shut me in the tunnel and closed the door. I was in there only ten minutes when Birdie found me crying, but it was the most trouble he’d ever gotten in.
“She’ll be your queen one day,” his father told him later. I don’t remember Blaise’s father as an angry man. He was the rare sort of person who listened far more often than he spoke, and never raised his voice. That day, however, was the fiercest I’d seen him. “If you want to be a Guardian, you protect her with everything you have, because without her there is no Astrea.”
I can’t help but think about that day now, after Hoa has brought and whisked away both tea and dinner. Now the only thing left to do is wait to see if S?ren will show up. Artemisia and Heron are still out, so it’s only Blaise behind his wall, and we haven’t spoken since he left my room hours ago. The quiet is awkward and heavy, like a wool cloak in the dead heat of summer. I feel like that child again, clinging to him when he wants nothing to do with me, even though I know that isn’t true. He’s here, he’s helping me, he wouldn’t do that if he didn’t care. But maybe he’s thinking of his father’s decree to protect me. Maybe it’s his loyalty to my royal blood that keeps him here, not me as a person.
The idea of it frustrates me.
He had been the one to come into my room—even sending the others away first. He had been the one to bring up our childhood kiss. He had started it. I want to say something about it, but it would only lead to another argument and I’m so tired of fighting with him.
My mother always shrugged off her romances, picking a new favorite for each season, though Ampelio was usually close and never fully out of favor.
Not for the first time, I wonder how she did it. I only have to worry about the feelings of two boys and I already feel like I’m being pulled apart at the seams. It should be simple: one is my ally, one is my enemy. In a perfect world, that’s all either of them would ever be in order to keep things uncomplicated, but there doesn’t seem to be any hope of that now. I can still feel Blaise’s lips, warm and soft against mine, even as I look at my reflection in the mirror and wonder what S?ren will think when he sees me.
If he sees me. It must be nearly midnight now and there’s no sign that S?ren is going to come after all. Blaise and the others must have been wrong.
“Why don’t you like Dragonsbane?” I ask Blaise when the silence gets to be too much.
“I like her just fine,” he says, clearly taken aback.
“You don’t, though,” I press. “Every time she’s mentioned, you look uncomfortable. She’s always your last option. You don’t trust her, but she’s saved so many lives—”
“If they could afford to be saved,” he says before sighing. “I’m not…I get it. It’s expensive, keeping her ship running and her crew fed. I can’t begrudge her for needing reimbursement, but I’ve seen people die because they couldn’t afford her help. And the attacks on the Kaiser—”
“She’s been a thorn in his side since the siege, you can’t deny that.”
“Can’t I?” he asks. “Ampelio did often enough over the years. Those ships she attacked, the cargo ships? Who do you think crewed them? A handful of Kalovaxians and ten times as many Astrean slaves. Who do you think took lifeboats out before the ships sank? Who do you think drowned in chains?” His voice has turned hard and angrier than I’ve ever heard it.
My stomach clenches at the idea of Astreans drowning in chains, helpless and afraid.
“I never thought about that,” I admit quietly.
He gives a slow exhale. “She’s done a lot of good, I won’t deny that. But the price…Ampelio thought it was too high, and I agree with him.”
Before I can reply, a knock comes, soft and tentative.
“Theo?” Blaise whispers, suddenly still behind his wall.
“I heard it,” I say just as quietly, rolling out of bed and smoothing my dress down before walking toward my door. I’m halfway there when the knock sounds again, a little louder and not coming from the door at all. It’s coming from my wardrobe. I grab the nearest thing—a brass candlestick set on the bedside table—with my heart pounding against my ribs. The other entrance. I realize S?ren must have found it.