Prinz S?ren 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 S?ren’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 S?ren’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 S?ren, 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.
“S?ren,” he says. “Call me S?ren.”
“S?ren,” 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 S?ren’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 of 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. S?ren.
“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.
I try praying now as I lie in bed and wait for midnight. I pray desperately and hopelessly, to all the gods I remember from either religion. Mine feel more like ghosts now, echoes of ancestors I met once but remember more from stories than memories.
I never let a word pass my lips. In the silence, my Shadows’ presence is even heavier. Heresy is a death offense, and I’m sure they would fight one another for the chance to tell the Kaiser, if only so that they could finally be rid of what must be a truly terrible job. They aren’t even supposed to talk to one another, though they break that rule often. I usually fall asleep to them whispering.
Now the room is silent for the first time in my memory. They’re supposed to sleep in shifts, and that is one rule I know they always follow, because all three of them snore horribly and I only ever hear one at a time.
One snore erupts from the northern wall, so deep it almost feels like the floor shakes.
If it’s North’s turn to sleep, East and South usually snicker at his snore, but they don’t now. I close my eyes and listen, trying to strip away North’s snore to hear anything underneath.
And there it is—a whimper of a snore from East, like a mewling puppy.
The Kaiser will be furious if he finds out both of them are sleeping. He doesn’t like to take chances, and my Shadows, like most Kalovaxians, are too terrified of him to risk his wrath.
If only South is watching me tonight, there must be something I can do. One Shadow is easier to mislead than two, though not by much. It’s still one dedicated and deadly man whose entire job revolves around watching every move I make.
But then I hear it: a third snore, this one raspy and light, easy to mistake for a particularly riotous wind pouring through the cracked window.
The realization floods me with joy that’s all too quickly replaced by dread. What are the chances that on the same night Blaise appears and arranges a meeting, my Shadows are all asleep for the first time in ten years? Much lower than the chances that I’m walking into a trap. Felicie comes to mind again and I can see the Kaiser’s angry, red face and the whip in his hand.
This time, the punishment will be worse.
But if it isn’t a trap, if Blaise is really waiting in the kitchen cellar and he was in league with Ampelio, how can I not go?