Ash Princess (Ash Princess Trilogy #1)(44)
Her smile grows somewhat warmer as she calls for Elpis to come dress her hair. Her already minuscule sense of subtlety disappears when she instructs the girl to make it look like mine. Elpis gives me a brief, furtive look before setting to work heating up a pair of curling tongs in the dying embers of Crescentia’s fireplace.
“You’ll need something pretty to pin it back with,” I tell Crescentia, taking the opportunity to flip open the lid of her jewelry box and rummage through her wealth of baubles.
Like most court women, her collection is largely made up of Water and Air Gems for beauty and grace, with a few Fire Gems mixed in for warmth during the winter months. Unlike most women, Crescentia has one or two Earth Gems as well. Usually they’re built into sword hilts or embedded in armor to give warriors extra strength, and court women have no use for them, but it isn’t surprising the Theyn wanted his only child to take extra strength where she could get it.
I find a gold hairpin studded with Water Gems so dark they’re nearly black and hold it up. “This would complement the dress prettily, don’t you think?”
She glances at the pin in my hair, set with simple pearls, lips pursing thoughtfully. “If you like it so much, you wear it. I’ll wear yours.”
Too easy, I think, struggling to look put out. I slide the pin from my hair and pass it to her, replacing it with the Water Gem one. I’m not supposed to have Spiritgems, the Kaiser made that plain decades ago, but either Crescentia has forgotten or she doesn’t care at the moment. Either way, I’m not about to remind her.
The Water Gems send a thrum beneath my skin, working all the way down to my toes. The power dances under my fingertips, begging me to call on it. I have no cause to change my appearance, no thirst for water, but the need to use the gems pulls at me until it fills my mind with a pleasant buzz that is never quite enough.
This temptation was never there before the siege, when only Guardians carried a single gem each, but I remember holding Ampelio’s Fire Gem and feeling its power course through me. I remember him cautioning me never to use it, his usually jovial expression suddenly somber and heavy.
I push aside the memory and focus on the task at hand and sift through the jewel box again, pretending to look for earrings for Cress. As ugly as the dress is, I’m grateful for the long sleeves. They make it easy to slip an earring and a bracelet against my wrist, hidden from sight. Pressed up against my pulse, the Spiritgems find a steady rhythm I can’t ignore, echoing my heartbeat.
My fingers linger on a Fire Gem, though I know there’s no need for it. If the other gems buzz through me pleasantly, the Fire Gem feels like stepping into a familiar dream. Everything around me turns soft and light and comforting. It wraps around me like my mother’s arms, and for the first time in a decade, I feel safe. I feel in control. I need it more than I need to breathe. With just an ounce of power, just a touch of fire, I could maybe hold my own in this nightmare. And if I truly am descended from Houzzah, how can calling on his power be considered sacrilege? But I asked my mother the same question once, and I still remember her answer.
“A Guardian must dedicate themselves to their god above all else, but being queen means dedicating yourself to your country above else. You cannot do both. You can love the gods, you can love me, you can love whomever you wish to love in this world, but Astrea will always come first. Everyone and everything else gets only the leftover scraps. That was Houzzah’s gift to our family, but also his curse.”
I know that she was right, even as I wish she weren’t. It would be so much easier if I could call fire to my fingertips the way Ampelio could, but how would I be any different from my enemies then? I’m as untrained as any Kalovaxian, and most days I don’t give the gods a second thought. I only pray to them when I need something. If I were to set foot in the mines and try to seek their favor, try to train to wield a Spiritgem, the gods would surely strike me down.
Seeing the Kalovaxians wield power that they didn’t earn, that they didn’t sacrifice for, has always made me sick to my stomach. I will not go against my gods and risk their wrath. Besides, I am too much like the Kalovaxians already. This is the line I will not cross.
S?REN SET UP THE ROYAL family’s private terrace for our lunch and spared no luxury in his effort. The table is carved from solid marble and so heavy that I’m sure it took a small army—and a fair share of Earth Gems—to drag it out here from the formal dining room where it normally resides. On the table is a painted vase filled with fresh-cut marigolds at peak bloom and four gold place settings. All of it belonged to my mother once, and if I try hard enough, I can see her sitting there, across from me, sipping spiced honey coffee and talking about silly things like the weather and my lessons, blissfully unaware of the battalions closing in around us.
The sun is high in the sky when Cress and I step out onto the pavilion, and it streams through the red silk awning, casting the space in a garish light, but the view from here is breathtaking—all rolling ocean and cloudless sky and a few ships so small they’re the size of my pinky nail.
So much distance, I think. In ten years, I’ve never gone farther from the palace than the harbor. It’s easy to forget how big the world really is, but from here I can see miles and miles of ocean in three directions.
One day soon, I’ll be free again.
Prinz S?ren and Erik stand up when Cress and I approach, both of them dressed in traditional Kalovaxian suits. I wasn’t expecting Erik, but I’m glad to see him. He treated me like a person, which is more than I can say about most Kalovaxians. It’s difficult to say whether Erik or S?ren looks more uncomfortable in the layers of silk and velvet, though I suppose it must be Erik. At least S?ren’s suit was made to fit him. Erik’s is clearly secondhand, too tight in some places, too loose in others.