Ash Princess(Ash Princess Trilogy #1)(12)
“Is there anything else you need, my lady?” he asks in my ear. “Wine, perhaps?”
Something in his voice prickles a memory, though I can’t place it. I steal a glance, hoping not to be noticed, and when my eyes meet the slave’s, I freeze.
His face is gaunt, and he has black hair cropped close to his scalp. His chin is covered in stubble and there’s a hardness in his jaw, like he’s either angry or hungry. A puckered white scar slices across deep olive skin. But I see the shadow of an apple-cheeked boy sitting next to me in the palace playroom before the siege, always competing for our teacher’s favor as she taught us how to write. I remember Astrean words that flowed like water from our quills, his name and my name side by side. I see races I always lost because my legs weren’t as long as his. I see solemn green eyes inspecting my scraped knee and I hear his gentle voice telling me it’ll be fine, to stop crying.
“Blaise.”
I don’t realize I’ve said it out loud until Prinz S?ren turns to me.
“Pardon?” he says.
“I…I said please. Wine would be lovely. Please.”
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.