Ash Princess (Ash Princess Trilogy #1)(34)

“Did they have berserkers?” Blaise asks.

I shake my head, then stop. “Well, I can’t really say—I still don’t have a clue as to what they are.”

“Even with just their cannons and warriors, he’ll destroy Vecturia,” Artemisia says, more alert now. “There are five islands, but each can’t have more than a few hundred people. A fraction of that will be trained soldiers, and they’re all spread out. If they aren’t ready for an attack, the Kalovaxians will pick them off one island at a time without a drop of sweat for their efforts.”

“There must be something we can do to help them,” I say.

Blaise shakes his head. “The Vecturians didn’t lift a finger to help during the siege. If they had…well, we likely still would have lost, but we would have had a chance.”

“Exactly,” Heron says. “Is it heartless to say I care more about the dirt under my fingernails than them?” he asks. “This is no more than they deserve. If we’d stood together, we might not be in this mess. I certainly won’t cry over them now.”

As harsh as his words seem, I can’t help but agree with them.

“Still,” I reason, “we might need the Vecturians’ help when we start gathering allies to take on the Kalovaxians. Let’s not make the same mistake they did. Besides, when we do manage to take Astrea back, we won’t keep it long if the Kalovaxians have taken over our neighboring country as well. They’ll just regroup there and come back.”

Blaise gives a labored sigh and I’m almost positive he’s rolling his eyes. “Vecturia made it clear that they aren’t our ally, and we need to save what little power we have for ourselves.”

Part of me knows he’s right. He gave me the numbers. One thousand of us against the tens of thousands of Kalovaxians in Astrea.

“If we help Vecturia, we could forge a new alliance. You said it yourself, our numbers don’t stand a chance against theirs, but if we add another few hundred from Vecturia…”

“It still won’t be near enough,” Heron says. Even though I know he’s trying to be kind, I can hear the impatience coming through in his voice. “And that’s an if. It’s far more likely we’d be sending warriors we need to die in a fight that isn’t ours. Vecturia will still fall, and we won’t be far behind.”

What would my mother do? I wonder. But even as I ask myself the question, I know the answer. “It isn’t fair. There are people on those islands and we’re dooming them to carnage and slavery. If anyone should understand the stakes here, we should.”

Artemisia scoffs. “Blaise was right. You’ve been locked in your cushioned cage too long, and it’s turned your mind soft,” she says. “We’ve seen more carnage than you ever will, felt more loss. We’ve starved and bled and lingered at the door of death so often we lost count. We know exactly what we’re dooming Vecturia to, but they aren’t Astrea, and therefore they aren’t our concern.”

“It’s what my mother would have done,” I say.

Again Artemisia scoffs, and if I could reach through the hole in the wall, I would slap her. But before she can say anything about my mother, Blaise cuts in.

“May the gods bless Queen Eirene forever in the After, but until the end, she was the queen of a peaceful country. Her reign was largely untested and easy; she never had to know war until the Kalovaxians came and slit her throat. She had the luxury of being a sympathetic queen. You don’t.”

There is no barb in his voice. It is a calmly stated fact, and as much as I would like to argue it, I can’t right now. From her place in the After, I hope my mother understands. One day, I will be a magnanimous ruler. I will be everything the Kaiser isn’t; I will be as gracious as my mother was. But first, I need to make sure my country survives.

“All right,” I say after a moment. “We do nothing.”

“Good choice,” Artemisia says.

Though I don’t know what she looks like, I’m sure she’s quite smug behind that wall. I’m grateful to have them here, truly I am, but I can’t help but feel I’m carrying far more weight than I was this morning, and that even more people are now waiting for me to fail. They’re my allies—the only ones I have—but that doesn’t mean we’ll always be on the same side.

“You need to be prepared,” I tell them. “Cushioned as my cage might seem, my life here isn’t all flirtations and pretty dresses and parties. If something happens to me…you’re going to let it happen. I don’t care what it is or what sense of duty makes you want to try to defend me. Your attempt will fail, and then you’ll be compromised as well—and that won’t do anyone any good.”

“Theo—” Blaise starts heavily.

“He won’t kill me. I’m too valuable to him for that. Whatever he does to me, I will recover from it. The same can’t be said for you. Swear it.”

There’s a stubborn silence for a long moment and I worry that they’ll protest. I realize I’m asking them to go against Ampelio’s dying wishes. He wanted me safe, but my country needs me to stand.

“I swear it,” Artemisia says, echoed by Heron a breath later.

“Blaise?” I prompt.

He gives a grunt that I interpret as acceptance, but it isn’t a promise.