Lady Smoke (Ash Princess Trilogy #2)(109)

I’ve been trying to emulate my mother, I realize, who was always graceful and confident, but I am not her. I would be a fool to be confident and no one needs my grace. They need shelter and food and a path forward, and those are all things I can give them. They will have to be enough.

Sandrin breaks through the crowd and comes toward us, bowing at the waist. Blaise follows him a few paces behind, dark eyes hard and wary. The circles under his eyes are starker than I remember them, and there is an energy about him that startles me. It seems to vibrate in the air around him.

“Your Majesty,” Sandrin says, drawing my attention back to him.

It’s the first time he’s called me that, and the title feels strange coming from his mouth. It doesn’t feel like something I’ve earned yet.

“Sandrin,” I say, inclining my head. “Thank you for your help. As soon as we get everyone on the ships, we’ll depart. We have little reason to believe the Sta’Criverans will give chase. They aren’t much for fighting.”

He nods. “I’ve passed your message on to everyone,” he says, glancing at Blaise behind him. “Many are still considering it.”

“It isn’t a choice to be made lightly,” I say. “There will be time to discuss it more on the ship. You’ll stay aboard mine, won’t you? And all the Elders as well. I would appreciate all of your guidance going forward.”

He looks surprised by that but nods. “I would be glad to,” he says. He bows again before joining the other Elders in leading the refugees out of the camp.

Blaise approaches when he’s gone, thoughts clearly weighing heavily just behind his eyes.

I’m not sure what to say, so I settle for thanking him.

“I was glad to be of use,” he says. “Artemisia thought the battle would be too dangerous for me.”

It was a smart decision, but Blaise doesn’t sound happy about it.

“I needed you here,” I tell him. “How do you think it went? I know Sandrin said that many were still considering it, but…”

Blaise knows what I’m asking and a grim smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “I think that for most of those who can fight, their first impulse was to say yes and I think that impulse will end up outweighing their hesitations.”

I smile, an ember of hope sparking in my belly.

For a moment, he mulls over his words. “I gave Art my gems,” he says. “It’s too dangerous for me to go on the ship with them.”

He gave them to Art like before, for safekeeping. Not for good. He’ll still take them back; he’ll still try to do something stupid and noble. But not today. Today he is here and he is safe and he is just Blaise.

He reaches for me, his arms encircling me. The embrace is too hot, especially under the Sta’Criveran sun, but I hold him back just as tightly. “We’re going home, Theo,” he murmurs in my ear. In his voice, the word home is spun sugar, sweet but delicate.

It echoes in my mind long after he releases me—a word, a prayer, a promise that I will see fulfilled.





TWO THOUSAND PEOPLE AGREE TO fight.

It’s a tight fit on the fifteen ships Dragonsbane’s crew took from the harbor, but we manage to get everyone on board. Cramped as it is, I think they have more room than they did in the camp. Dragonsbane’s own fleet takes many of the refugees who can’t or don’t want to fight, though I’m not sure what she’s going to do with them.

I might not trust Dragonsbane with much—I don’t always trust her loyalties or her judgment or her opinions of others—but I have to believe that she’ll do right by these people after failing many of them so terribly the first time around. We both want what is best for Astrea, even if we might disagree on what that is more often than not.

When we go our separate ways, it’s difficult not to feel a twinge of sadness. She failed me, too, in smaller ways. Forgivable ways, if she ever gave me a chance to forgive her. That isn’t Dragonsbane, though. She doesn’t want forgiveness from anyone. She didn’t want it from my mother and she doesn’t want it from me. She won’t even ask for it from her daughter, though Art knows better than to expect anything else.

We stand together on the aft of the ship, watching her small fleet disappear into the distance. Though I keep hoping they will turn around and come with us after all, Artemisia only looks resigned.

“It’s what she does best,” she says after a moment. “It’s why she’s survived this long—she knows when to run.”

There’s a layer beneath the factual tone of her voice, a layer I might have missed even a few weeks ago when I didn’t know her as well as I do now. She never expected her mother to stay, but she wished it all the same.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her.

She shrugs her shoulders, the move sharp and graceless, without any of her usual swagger. Her jaw is clenched so tightly I’m surprised she can get words out.

“Only fools waste time with wishes and apologies,” she says, but the words don’t have their usual bite.

We’re both fools, then, I think, though I don’t say it out loud. This isn’t something Art wants to talk about and she doesn’t need to. So I don’t press her to share her feelings; I don’t even try to touch her the way I think I would like someone to touch me if I were in her position. That isn’t what she needs. She needs someone to stand at her side and pretend not to notice when her tears begin to fall. So that is what I do.