Ash Princess (Ash Princess Trilogy #1)(50)

I give a shaky laugh. “I’m just worried. Can you blame me for that? I feel like I’m balancing on the edge of a cliff and even a slight breeze will push me over.” He opens his mouth and I know he’s going to offer to pull me out again. I’m not sure I’ll be able to say no twice. “I have it well in hand, though. You’ve seen it yourself. They all underestimate me and they won’t see it coming until my knife is buried in their backs.”

When we were children, we would play a game where we would each pinch each other on the soft underside of our arms to see who would react first, who would cry out or pull away or even blink. This feels like that. Which one of us will show our fear first? It won’t be me. I hold his gaze and set my jaw, trying to radiate a confidence that I don’t feel.

He sighs and drops his gaze. “You’re doing well, but I can’t help but think that if Ampelio were here, he would flay me alive for agreeing to this plan. I promised him I’d keep you safe, not send you into the arms of the enemy.”

“S?ren was your idea, Blaise, and it was a good one.” I hesitate, focusing on the wall behind him. If I look at him, I’m sure he’ll see my secrets laid bare. “He’s not his father. He isn’t cruel.”

“I think you’re right,” he says after a breath. “But Artemisia is right, too. Your first kiss shouldn’t be with him.”

I look back at him, surprised. His eyes are suddenly locked on mine with such intensity that I can’t look away. I don’t want to.

“You said my first kiss was with you,” I point out, surprised at how quickly my heart is beating all of a sudden.

“Well,” he says, taking a step toward me. Then another one. He only stops when there are mere inches separating us. When he continues, his voice is barely louder than a whisper and I can feel his warm breath against my cheek. “I was told that didn’t count.”

His mouth moves closer to mine. I want to push him away, but I also want to pull him closer, though that desire surprises me. When did that happen? He’s my friend—the oldest, and in some ways truest, one I have. But there’s something more between us as well. Blaise terrifies me, but he also makes me feel safe. He reminds me of my life before, when I was cared for and protected and unscarred and surrounded by people I loved. How can a person be so many different things? How can he make me feel so many different things?

Before I can think myself out of it, I tilt my head up to brush my lips against his. Because he’s right and Artemisia is right: my first kiss shouldn’t be with S?ren. Even if he is different from his father, he’s still one of them and there are parts of me I won’t give them.

For a second, Blaise doesn’t move and it feels almost exactly like how we kissed as children, like we’re going through the motions without any actual want. Just when I’m ready to pull away, his mouth softens against mine and he’s kissing me back. His warm hands grip my waist and bring me closer to him, their heat seeping through the silk of my dress. When he draws back, he stays close enough that I can still feel his breath against my lips.

“I think even Artemisia would agree that counted,” I say lightly, reaching up to touch his face.

He releases my waist and catches my hand in his. Something dark flickers over his expression and his grip tightens until it almost hurts.

“The Prinz will be here soon, I’m sure,” he says, dropping my hand. “Don’t do anything stupid tonight.”

The words come out hard, but I’m beginning to understand Blaise enough to know that he means them teasingly, like he used to tease me when we were children. The years since then have robbed him of that lightness, instilled everything around him with a weight that feels suffocating if you get too close.

I laugh, but his expression remains unreadable, which is doubly unfair considering how my own doubt and hurt must be starkly written across my face. Cress and I have often talked about kisses—who we wanted them with, how we wanted them to go. She dreamed of a first kiss with the Prinz on their wedding day, like in one of her books. My imaginings were less picturesque, but they were certainly more than this. I never thought whoever I kissed would regret it the way Blaise seems to. He won’t even look at me.

Embarrassment rises hot to my cheeks, but I force a smile and try not to let him see it.

“Not to worry, I was saving stupid for tomorrow, or maybe next week. I haven’t decided yet,” I reply.

He manages a smile, but he still doesn’t look at me. When he turns to leave, I’m tempted to call after him, but his name dies in my throat. I doubt he would have listened anyway, whether I’m his queen or not.





BLAISE USED TO HATE HAVING me trail after him everywhere when we were young. He ran, he hid, he called me names, but still I wouldn’t leave him alone. We were exploring a tunnel in the abandoned dungeons below the palace when his patience finally ran out. He shut me in the tunnel and closed the door. I was in there only ten minutes when Birdie found me crying, but it was the most trouble he’d ever gotten in.

“She’ll be your queen one day,” his father told him later. I don’t remember Blaise’s father as an angry man. He was the rare sort of person who listened far more often than he spoke, and never raised his voice. That day, however, was the fiercest I’d seen him. “If you want to be a Guardian, you protect her with everything you have, because without her there is no Astrea.”