Lady Smoke (Ash Princess Trilogy #2)(118)
We’re both quiet for a moment and I think he’s done. Just when I’m about to thank him, though, he speaks again.
“I never really did that,” he admits. “I sent them into battle and I respected them, that much is true, but I don’t think I ever honored them the way I would have liked to. At the end of the day, we were never fighting for anything we really believed in. We were fighting for my father, because he ordered it. They died for his greed and his bloodlust and I let them. That guilt is mine and I’ll carry it with me forever, but it won’t be yours.”
My throat tightens. Though I appreciate his words, I’m not sure if they’re true. Even if we do win, even if we do manage to take back Astrea and destroy the Kalovaxians, I don’t think there will ever be a day I don’t feel guilty for every life I lost—Ampelio, Elpis, Hylla, Santino, Olaric, Archduke Etmond, Hoa. They were the beginning, but after today I won’t be able to recite all of their names.
It’s for the greater good, I remind myself. The deaths of a few in order to save the many. There are so many people enslaved in Astrea, so many people we can save, but not without this sacrifice.
The thought makes me feel better for only a moment before I realize “the greater good” was what the Kaiser used to say his warriors died for as well.
I turn to S?ren. “Do you still worry that you’re the same as your father?”
He tears his gaze away from the warriors and looks at me thoughtfully.
“Not as much as I used to but still often enough,” he admits. “Why?”
I shake my head, pressing my lips together as if I can keep the words inside, but they slip out anyway. “Sometimes I worry I’m like him, too. He’s left his mark on me, not just my body or my mind but my soul as well. Sometimes I worry he shaped me.”
His eyebrows arch so high they nearly disappear into his hairline. “Theo,” he says, lowering his voice. “I have never met anyone so unlike my father as you. The fact that you’re worried about that, that you feel guilt over sending your people into a necessary battle, only proves that more.”
“But—”
He stops me by taking hold of my hand, his grip tight and urgent. “You aren’t who you are because of my father. You’re who you are in spite of everything he did, in spite of everything he tried to twist you into. Don’t give him that kind of credit.”
His words do little to ease the black pit growing deeper in my stomach, but I’m still glad to hear them. I squeeze his hand.
“He can’t take credit for you either, S?ren,” I tell him.
S?ren gives me a small smile that doesn’t meet his eyes.
I suppose neither of us really believes the other.
* * *
—
When the sun is a mere sliver over the horizon, I stand before the assembled troops on the shore, feeling small. I can’t let that show, though, so I draw myself up to my full height and survey my warriors like I am actually worthy of commanding them. I strengthen my voice so that I sound confident and regal. Like someone who deserves their loyalty.
“I want to go home,” I begin. “I know that all of you want the same, no matter where that home might be. And I know many of you have no home to go back to—it has already been destroyed in the Kalovaxians’ wake, razed to the ground so that life there is unsustainable. Goraki gives me hope that life after a siege is possible, that your countries can rebuild themselves. And if that is not the case, I would offer a new home in Astrea.”
I pause before continuing.
“Today, we begin our triumph over the Kalovaxians,” I say. “Today we tell them that they have trampled us for too long, they have taken too much, they have destroyed too many. Today we tell them enough and we begin to take our revenge.”
Cheers go up throughout the crowd and I stand a little straighter.
“Today, we show them what we are made of. For Astrea,” I shout. “And for Goraki and Yoxi and Manadol and Tiava and Rajinka and Kota. We will rise, together, and we will show the Kalovaxians how wrong they were to ever think us weak.”
This time, the cheers are so loud they are deafening.
THE BATTLE BEGINS AS THE sun bleeds over the horizon. Surprised shouts, alarm bells, metal clanging against metal, pained screams—all echo between the mountains that surround the camp, amplified tenfold at the cliff I watch from, flanked on either side by S?ren and Blaise.
We can’t get too close, but the battle can change in an instant and we need to be near enough that we can adjust our strategy and get messages to Artemisia and Heron. We need to be near enough that we can order a retreat if we must.
We don’t go too high—none of us is dressed for mountain climbing. I wear my red gown again—the most queenlike outfit I have—while Blaise and S?ren are dressed in heavy armor in case they’re needed in battle. I can’t imagine they will be, but neither enjoys sitting still.
Even I have to admit that it’s difficult to keep watch and do nothing. We have more warriors than they do, more than they’re prepared for, and in the hazy dawn light, the Kalovaxians are taken by surprise. For a moment, we are winning, our ramshackle army cutting down trained warriors, pushing toward the mine and the camp next to it—but that moment is over before the sun lifts away from the horizon.