Ash Princess (Ash Princess Trilogy #1)(57)

“Seriously, Thora,” he says. Though the name is a stab in my gut, I’m grateful for it. I need the reminder that this bubble we’ve created isn’t real, that the person he sees when he looks at me isn’t real.

After a moment of thought, I decide to tell him the truth because I don’t think he’ll believe anything else right now.

“I used to,” I admit. “All of you were indistinguishable—you, the Kaiser, the Theyn.” I shake my head and take a deep breath. “Can you imagine what it was like to wake up in a world where you’re safe and loved and happy and go to sleep in one where everyone you love is dead and you’re surrounded by strangers who only let you live because it’s convenient?”

“No.”

“No,” I repeat. “Because you were only a year older than I was when it happened. It wasn’t your fault, and I know that.” I pause for a breath. “You aren’t your father.”

“But—”

“You aren’t your father,” I say again, more firmly. It’s the truth, but I can tell he doesn’t believe it.

Still, his expression softens and I realize just how much he needed to hear those words, even if he doesn’t believe them. Maybe his interest in me isn’t just about saving the damsel. Part of him also wants to be saved. If he’s stained by his father’s sins, then maybe I’m the only person who can absolve them.

I inch closer to him and lift my hand, resting it against his cheek. His eyes are as dark as the water around us.

“Yana Crebesti,” I say.

He swallows. “What does that mean?” he asks.

It could have meant anything, really, and he wouldn’t have known any better. I could have told him that I was planning to kill him, that I hated every Kalovaxian in Astrea—including him—that I wouldn’t stop until I saw them all dead. He wouldn’t have known the difference.

“It means I trust you.”

“Yana Crebesti,” he repeats.

I close the slight distance between us and brush my lips against his, softly at first, but when his hand reaches up and knots in my loose hair, anchoring me against him, there is nothing soft about it. We kiss like we’re trying to prove a point, though I can’t quite say what it is. I can’t quite remember who I am anymore. My edges blur. ThoraTheoTheodosia. Everything slips away until all that matters are mouths and tongues and hands and breath that is never quite enough. My hair falls around us like a curtain, shutting out the rest of the world. It’s easier than ever to pretend that nothing else exists but this, but us.

He must feel it, too, because when we can’t kiss anymore and he’s just holding me against him with my face tucked in the crook of his neck, he murmurs in my ear: “We can keep sailing. In a day, we’ll be near Esstena. A week we’ll be past Timmoree. A month, Brakka. And then, who knows. We can sail until we get somewhere where no one knows us.”

As traitorous as it makes me, I can imagine it. A life where a crown—gold or ash—doesn’t weigh heavy on my head. A life where I’m not responsible for thousands of people who are hungry and weak and beaten every day. A life where I can just be a girl, kissing a boy because she wants to, instead of a queen kissing a prinz because he’s the key to reclaiming her country. It would be an easier life in so many ways. But it wouldn’t be mine, and though he might hate his father and his world, it wouldn’t be his either.

Still, it’s nice to pretend.

“I’ve heard that Brakka has a delicacy called intu nakara,” I say.

He laughs. “Raw sea serpent. It’s only a delicacy because it’s so rare, not because it’s any good, believe me. It tastes exactly how you would imagine.”

I wrinkle my nose and kiss the small patch of exposed skin on his shoulder, just above his shirt collar. “And if I wanted to try it anyway?” I ask.

“Then you’ll have all the intu nakara you want,” he says. His fingers are tangled in my hair, combing through it idly. “Though I’m sorry to say there will be no aminets.”

“Amineti,” I correct him. “The plural is amineti.” As in, I woke up this morning never having had a single aminet but now my count is up to three amineti. With two different boys. I push thoughts of Blaise and his confusing kiss out of my mind and focus on S?ren. “But why is that?”

“Because intu nakara is notorious for causing terrible breath.”

“Is that so?” I ask, propping myself up on my arm again to look down at him. “I don’t think you’ll be able to help yourself.”

His hand leaves my hair and trails down to my waist. “I think you’re underestimating the stench. They say you can smell it a quarter mile away.”

“Disgusting,” I tell him, wrinkling my nose.

He laughs and rolls us over so that he’s looming over me, shoulder-length gold hair tickling my cheeks as he presses another lazy, lingering kiss to my mouth. When he pulls back, I follow him a couple of inches before breaking the kiss.

“Another day, I’ll take you to Brakka and you can eat as much intu nakara as you like, but it’s almost time to get you home.”

I sit up and watch him walk back over to the helm, take the wheel, and turn the ship around, aiming us toward the shore. In the light of the full moon above, the hard lines of his face are softer, younger than they look in the day. He is not the same person to me that he was when we stepped onto this boat tonight, and I don’t think there’s any going back to how things were before.