Ash Princess (Ash Princess Trilogy #1)(28)

I take one last shaky breath before opening the door. A stern guard stands on the other side dressed in a crimson jacket, and my heart all but ceases to beat. He isn’t one of the Kaiser’s men, though. Great as their numbers are, I would know their faces anywhere by now. They’re burned into my memory so deeply they even haunt my nightmares. This man isn’t one of them but I don’t know if that’s better or worse.

He produces a square envelope from the pocket of his jacket and passes it to me, his expression frozen in a thin, straight line.

“From His Royal Highness, Prinz S?ren,” he says, as if the royal crest emblazoned on the front weren’t enough of a clue. “He asked that I wait here for a reply.”

Numb with relief and shock, I tear the envelope open with the corner of my pinky nail and skim the Prinz’s hastily scrawled words.

    Thora—

I’m sorry for abandoning you the other day, but I hope you enjoyed the tour. Allow me to make it up to you with lunch before I leave?

—S?ren





I read the words twice, looking for hidden meanings, but only see exactly what is written. It’s the sort of letter Cress receives from boys who are trying to court her. Could it be that Blaise was right about the way the Prinz looked at me? The letter lacks the usual poetry and flattery of a love missive, but that’s not surprising, considering S?ren’s demeanor. I doubt he would know a poem if one was written on the sails of his precious ships. But I cannot ignore the last line—the invitation to spend time alone together.

I know this opportunity to gather more information is one I can’t pass up, yet I still feel guilty. I imagine Cress pacing her own rooms over the last few days, anxiously awaiting a letter like this from the Prinz. The few times I’ve seen her since the harbor, she’s been giddy and bright-eyed, going over every moment of their time together in such fine detail I could swear I was there myself. But what I didn’t tell her is that while S?ren was courteous with her and did all the chivalrous things—held doors open, handed her into the carriage, escorted her back to her rooms and said goodbye politely at the door—it sounded like he was doing his duty and no more.

Not like this. Having lunch with me is certainly not a duty, and his father will be furious when he finds out. S?ren must have known that when he wrote the letter, but he did so anyway.

For a long moment, I can only stare at the paper in my hands, thinking over what I should say back, what I should wear, what I should talk to him about, all the while aware of the guard’s eyes on me. It’s only after a moment that I realize the best path to take, the one that will most assuredly keep the reins in my hand. Blaise did say that S?ren would want me all the more because he can’t have me.

I look up at the guard and give him my sweetest smile, though it doesn’t seem to do much good. His face remains frozen.

“I have no reply,” I tell him. “Good day.”

With a bob of a curtsy, I close the door firmly before he can protest.



* * *



—

The autumn air is thick and heavy on my skin as I walk through what was once my mother’s garden. My memory of her is still hazy, but I feel her presence stronger here than anywhere else. I remember color and a smell so heady it would wrap around me like a blanket—the scent of flowers and grass and dirt. It clung to my mother even when she spent all day in the throne room or walking through the city.

She was never happier than she was here, with dirt staining her skirts and life in her hands.

“The smallest seeds can grow the greatest trees, with enough care and time,” she would tell me, placing her hands over mine to guide them as we planted seeds and patted damp earth over them.

Ampelio used to say that if she weren’t a queen, she would have made a formidable Earth Guardian, but Astrean laws said she couldn’t be both. Of course, favor from the gods wasn’t hereditary. Though she gave me a small patch of the garden to work alongside her, I couldn’t even get weeds to grow there.

Nothing grows anywhere in the garden anymore. Without my mother’s diligent care, it grew wild, and if there is one thing the Kaiser cannot stand, it is wildness. He set fire to it all when I was seven. I saw the flames and smelled the smoke from my bedroom window, and I couldn’t stop crying, no matter how Hoa tried to quiet me. It felt like I was losing my mother all over again.

Nine years later, and the air here still tastes of ashes to me, though the charred remains have long been cleared, the dirt paved over with square gray stones. My mother wouldn’t recognize it now, with its hard floor and the few trees that break through the cracks to provide skeletal fingers of shade. There isn’t any color—even the trees have better sense than to sprout leaves.

The garden was always a busy place, before. I remember playing with Blaise and the other palace children when the weather was nice. There would be dozens of courtiers milling through the trees and bushes in chitons dyed a myriad of vivid colors. Artists with their paints or instruments or notebooks sitting alone as they worked. Couples sneaking off together for not-so-secret rendezvous.

Now it’s deserted. The Kalovaxians prefer the sun pavilions set up on public balconies to better take advantage of the light and the sea breeze. I’ve been a few times with Crescentia, and though the Kalovaxians play and work and gossip and flirt there as well, it never feels the same. Burnt and broken as this place is, it is the only part of the palace that still feels like home.