“This is the famed Guardian Ampelio,” the Kaiser says, drawing out each word mockingly. “You must remember him. He’s been sowing treason throughout the mines, trying to rally them against me. He even instigated the riot in the Air Mine last week. The Theyn found him nearby and brought him in.”
“Wasn’t it an earthquake that incited the riot?” The words slip out before I can stop them. They don’t feel like my words really. Or rather, they don’t feel like Thora’s.
Kaiser Corbinian’s jaw clenches and I recoil, readying for a strike that doesn’t come. Yet.
“Caused by him, we suspect, in order to rally more people to your cause,” he says.
I have a retort for that, too, but I bite it back and let confusion cloud my features. “My cause, Your Highness?” I ask. “I wasn’t aware that I had a cause.”
His smile sharpens. “The one seeking to, as they say, ‘restore you to your rightful place as Queen of Astrea.’?”
I swallow. This conversation is taking an entirely new direction, and I’m not sure what to make of it. I think I’d almost prefer the whip to whatever new game this is.
My eyes drop to the ground. “I’m not anyone’s queen, and there is no Astrea anymore. I am a lady now, by Your Highness’s mercy, and a princess only of ashes. This is my rightful place, and the only one I desire.”
I can’t look at Ampelio as I recite the line that has been burned into my heart over the years. I’ve said it so often the words have stopped meaning anything, but saying it now in front of him causes shame to run through my veins.
The Kaiser nods. “I said as much, but Astreans are stubborn old mules.”
The throne room erupts into laughter. I laugh, too, but it is a sound wrenched from my gut.
The Kaiser turns to Ampelio, his expression a mockery of sympathy. “Come and bow before me, mule. Tell me where I can find your rebels and you can spend the rest of your days in one of the mines.” He grins at the broken man still lying at my feet.
Agree! I want to yell. Pledge your loyalty to him. Survive. Do not anger the Kaiser and he will keep you alive. These are the rules.
“I bow before no one but my queen,” Ampelio whispers, tripping over the hard edges of the Kalovaxian language. Despite his low voice, his words carry throughout the room, followed by gasps and murmurs from the court.
He raises his voice. “Long live Queen Theodosia Eirene Houzzara.”
Something shatters within me, and everything I’ve held back, every memory I’ve repressed, every moment I’ve tried to forget—it all comes rushing forward and I can’t stop it this time.
Theodosia. It’s a name I haven’t heard in ten years.
Theodosia. I hear my mother saying it to me, stroking my hair, kissing my forehead.
You are our people’s only hope, Theodosia.
Ampelio always called me Theo, no matter how my nanny, Birdie, chided him for it. I was his princess, she said, and Theo was the name of a dirt-streaked ragamuffin. He never listened, though. I might have been his princess, but I was something more as well.
He was supposed to save me, but he never did. I’ve been waiting for ten years for someone to come for me, and Ampelio was the last scrap of hope I had.
“Maybe he’ll answer to you, Ash Princess,” the Kaiser says.
My shock is dim, drowned out by the sound of my name echoing again and again in my mind. “I…I couldn’t presume to have that power, Your Highness,” I manage.
His mouth purses in an expression I know all too well. The Kaiser is not a man to be refused.
“This is why I keep you alive, isn’t it? To assist as a liaison to bullheaded Astrean scum?”
The Kaiser is kind to spare me, I think, but then I realize once again that he doesn’t spare me out of kindness. He keeps me alive to use me as leverage against my people.
My thoughts are growing bolder now, and though I know they are dangerous, I can no longer quiet them. And for the first time, I don’t want to.
I’ve been waiting for ten years to be saved, and all I have to show for it is a scarred back and countless dead rebels. With Ampelio caught, there is nothing more the Kaiser can take from me. We both know he is not merciful enough to kill me.
“May I speak Astrean?” I ask the Kaiser. “He might feel more at ease….”
The Kaiser waves a hand and slumps back into his chair. “So long as it gets me answers.”
I hesitate before dropping to my knees in front of Ampelio, taking his shredded hands in mine. Even though the Astrean language is forbidden, some of the courtiers here must understand it. I doubt the Kaiser would let me speak it otherwise.
“Are there others?” I ask him. The words sound unnatural in my mouth, though Astrean was the only language I spoke until the Kalovaxians came. They pried it away from me, made it illegal to speak. I can’t remember the last time an Astrean word passed my lips, but I still know the language somewhere deeper than thought, as if it’s embedded in my very bones. Still, I have to struggle to keep the sounds soft-edged and long, unlike the halting and throaty speech of the Kalovaxians.
He hesitates before nodding. “Are you safe?”
I have to pause a moment before speaking. “Safe as a ship in a cyclone.” The Astrean word for cyclone—signok—is so close to the word for harbor—signak—that only a practiced ear would understand. But one might. The thought is paralyzing, but I push past it. “Where are the others?” I ask him.
He shakes his head and drops his gaze from mine. “Nowhere,” he chokes out, though he draws out the second syllable to sound more like “everywhere” to lazy ears.
That doesn’t make any sense. There are fewer Astreans than Kalovaxians—only a hundred thousand before the siege. Most are slaves now, though there were rumors they were working with some allies in other countries. It’s been too long since I’ve spoken Astrean; I must have mistranslated.
“Who?” I press.
Ampelio sticks his gaze to the hem of my skirt and shakes his head. “Today is done, the time has come for little birds to fly. Tomorrow is near, the time is here for old crows to die.”
My heart recognizes the words before my mind does. They’re part of an old Astrean lullaby. My mother sang it to me, and so did my nanny. Did he ever sing it to me himself?
“Give him something and he’ll let you live,” I say.
Ampelio laughs, but it quickly turns into a wheeze. He coughs and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. It comes away bloody.
“What life would it be at the mercy of a tyrant?”
It would have been easy enough to slur together a pair of consonants and make the Astrean word for tyrant sound like the one for dragon, the symbol of the Kalovaxian royal family, but Ampelio spits out the word with enough emphasis, directing it at the Kaiser, so that even those who don’t speak a word of Astrean can understand his meaning.
The Kaiser leans forward in his chair, fingers gripping the arms of the throne so tightly they turn white. He gestures to one of the guards.
The guard draws his sword and steps toward Ampelio’s prone form. He presses the blade to the back of Ampelio’s neck, drawing blood, before lifting the sword again to ready the killing strike. I’ve seen this done too many times to other rebels or slaves who disrespected their masters. The head never comes off on the first swing. I ball my fists in the material of my dress to keep from reaching out to shield him. There is no saving him now. I know that, but I can’t fathom it. Images swim before my eyes, and I see the knife drawing across my mother’s throat. I see slaves whipped until the life leaves their bodies. I see Guardians’ heads on pikes in the capital square until the crows take them apart. I’ve seen people hanged for going against the Kaiser, for having the courage to do what I haven’t.
Run, I want to tell him. Fight. Beg. Bargain. Survive.
But Ampelio doesn’t flinch from the blade. The only move he makes is to reach out and tether himself to my ankle. The skin of his palm is rough and scarred and sticky with blood.
The time is here for old crows to die. But I can’t let the Kaiser take another person from me. I can’t watch Ampelio die. I can’t.
“No!”
The voice forces its way through the fractured bits of me.