He clears his throat. “When you said the Kaiser made you answer for our failure…” He trails off.
I sigh and turn my back to him, tugging down my collar just low enough that he can see the tops of some of the fresh scars. Even with Ion speeding up the healing process, they’re raw. They look a few days old instead of a few hours, but are still red and raised and painful. He lets out a curse under his breath, and when I turn back I see he’s gone a few shades paler, so that he almost looks like a full-blooded Kalovaxian.
He’ll tell S?ren about this, I realize, and I can use that to my advantage. I can fuel S?ren’s anger at his father even more.
“It’s not the first time, and I doubt it will be the last,” I say, pulling the collar of my dress back up so that the wounds are covered once more.
“When S?ren finds out—”
“He’ll do what, Erik?” I ask, choking out a bitter laugh. He’ll repeat this to S?ren, so I need to make it count. “He won’t stand up to his father. He won’t take me away from here. He’ll marry Crescentia, just like the Kaiser wants him to, and keep me as, what? His mistress? Or his stepmother, if the Kaiser gets his way. And we both know he always does.”
The idea is so ridiculous that I can’t help but laugh, as much as it sickens me. I glance at Erik, expecting surprise, but he shows none.
“You’ve heard the rumors,” I say. “He hasn’t been very subtle. Does S?ren know?”
He shakes his head. “S?ren prefers to ignore rumors, even ones he knows are true,” he says. “In our many years of friendship, he’s never once asked me if I’m really his father’s bastard.”
The revelation shocks me, but at the same time, it makes sense. I assumed Erik was someone important’s half-Gorakian bastard, though I’d thought it was a baron or a count. I never even considered the Kaiser, which was foolish. Now that he’s said it, I see the similarities in their features—the jawline, the nose. He and S?ren even have the same eyes, the Kaiser’s eyes.
He must see my surprise, because he laughs. “Come now, Thora. Here I thought you were brighter than you pretended. I thought you’d have figured it out by now, especially since you see more of my mother than I do.”
“Your…,” I start, but trail off. There are very few people I see regularly, and since Crescentia can’t be his mother, that only leaves one other woman. Hoa. He’s talking about Hoa.
Erik gives me a level look and for a second I could swear he knows all my secrets. But that’s impossible. “My mother plotted against the Kaiser from his bed after the Conquering of Goraki. He was kind enough to spare her life, even though she’s a traitor.”
He says the words too easily, the way I do when I’m reciting one of the lies the Kaiser has burned into my mind. I want to challenge him on it, but I can’t without losing part of my mask as well, and I cannot risk that. His eyes scan my face, watching for a reaction I’m careful not to give. After a moment, he sighs and pushes himself off the bench.
“It’s a person,” he tells me.
“Pardon?” I ask, bewildered.
“A berserker,” he says. “It’s an Astrean, to be exact. I’m assuming you know what happens when most people spend too long in the mines.”
“They go mad and are put to death,” I say.
He avoids my gaze, staring at the stone floor instead. “Yes to the first, no to the second. The madness, I’m sure you know, is caused by the concentration of too much magic from the mines. It’s what gives the gems their power. Over time, it makes its way into the blood of people who work there. Some people can handle it, most can’t. You know the symptoms,” he says.
I frown. “No. People still went mine-mad before, occasionally, but the details weren’t the kind of thing anyone talked about in front of a child, and after the Conquering…well, no one discusses anything like that with me.”
Erik lists them off on his fingers. “Feverish skin, erratic bursts of magic, emotional instability, insomnia. The short of it is, they become dangerous,” he says.
A thought rises in my mind, but I push it down before it takes shape. No.
He continues. “Human powder kegs. Send them to the front lines with a gem to nudge them over the edge and it’s only a matter of minutes before their power is unleashed, uncontrollable and strong enough to take out everything within a twenty-foot radius. In fire, water, earth, or air. It doesn’t matter much, the result is the same: ruination.”
“You’re lying,” I say, though I don’t think he is. Try as I might, I can’t imagine it. Corbinian is evil, I have never doubted that, but this? This is beyond anything I thought even he was capable of. “How do you know?”
The look he gives me is one I’m not used to, almost tender. It puts me on edge. It is the kind of look you give a person before you shatter them.
“Because I saw it. In Vecturia. S?ren used ships full of a few hundred of them, but even that wasn’t enough. S?ren put off using them until the last minute. It was too late—the battle was already lost.”
All my breath leaves me. No. The Kaiser may be capable of this, but not S?ren. Not the boy who ate chocolate cake with me and asked me the Astrean word for it. Not the boy who promised to take me away from this godsforsaken place. Not the boy who kissed me like maybe we could save each other.
But of course he did. Because that is who he is: a Kalovaxian warrior to his last breath. He is not the chivalrous prinz and I am not lovesick Lady Thora, no matter how we try to pretend otherwise.
“He refused at first,” Erik says after a moment, as if that makes it any better. “The Kaiser insisted.”
I swallow the rage burning through me. I can’t let it show. Not yet. “I’m sure S?ren did what was required of him,” I say as calmly as I can, though I know I don’t sound convincing. Tears blur my vision, but I will not let them fall.
“Thora,” Erik says after a moment. “Are you all right?”
How can I possibly be all right? I want to scream and hit something and maybe vomit at the thought of hundreds of my people being used like that, dying like that.
With a concentrated effort, I get to my feet and smooth out my skirt. When I look up at Erik again, I keep my expression neutral.
“Is your mother loyal to the Kaiser, Erik?” I ask him.
He watches me warily, like I’ve become a tiger who could pounce at any moment.
“As loyal as you are,” he says finally. “She doesn’t want trouble. She’s had enough of that in her life.”
It isn’t an answer, really. I can interpret those words any number of ways, and after my misstep with Cress, I should be more careful. I should trust no one. Yet I can’t help but remember Hoa tucking me into bed when I was a child, how she held me when the Kaiser had this garden burned. I don’t know what the Kaiser will do when he finds out I’ve escaped—when he finds out I’ve killed his friend and his son—but I know I can’t leave her here to face the brunt of it.
“Take her and get out of the city tonight,” I tell him.
I expect a protest, or at least a question, but Erik only searches my expression for a few seconds and nods tersely.
“Thank you,” he says with a slight bow. “May our paths meet again, Theodosia.”
It isn’t until he’s left me alone in the garden that I realize he called me by my true name.