Ash Princess (Ash Princess Trilogy #1)(70)
She bites her lip and looks down at her coffee. “Maybe not. But he likes you.”
I force a laugh, as if the idea were ridiculous. “As a friend,” I tell her, surprised by how smoothly the lie rolls off my tongue. I nearly believe it myself, even with the fresh memory of S?ren’s mouth against mine. “Of course a boy considering marriage with a girl will seek out the friendship of her closest friend. When we talk, it’s always about you.”
She smiles slightly, her shoulders relaxing. “I do want to be a prinzessin,” she admits.
“You would make a good one,” I tell her, and I mean it. The Kaiserin’s words come back to me: all a prinzessin has to be is beautiful.
She’s quiet for a moment, crossing to sit down on the stone bench beneath the largest tree, motioning for me to join her. When I do, she takes a deep, wavering breath before she speaks. “When I am Kaiserin, Thora, you’ll never have to wear that horrible crown again,” she says quietly, staring straight ahead at the garden, now awash in pastel light from the rising sun.
Her words take me by surprise. Ever since the incident with the war paint, she’s never mentioned the ash crown, or even looked at it. I thought she’d grown used to it, stopped seeing it altogether. Again, I’ve underestimated her.
“Cress,” I start, but she interrupts me, turning to face me fully and taking my hands in hers and smiling.
“When I’m Kaiserin, I’ll change everything, Thora,” she says, voice growing stronger. “It isn’t fair, the way he treats you. I’m sure the Prinz thinks so, too. It breaks my heart, you know.” She gives me a smile so sad that for a moment I forget that I’m the one she’s pitying and not the other way around. “I’ll marry the Prinz and then I’ll take care of you. I’ll find a handsome husband for you and we’ll raise our children together, like we always wanted. They’ll be the best of friends, I know it. Just like us. Heart’s sisters.”
A lump hardens in my throat. I know that if I put my life in Crescentia’s hands, she would shape it into something pretty for me, something simple and easy. But I also know that’s a childish hope for sheltered girls with the world at their feet. Even before the siege, my mother impressed upon me the difficulties of ruling, how a queen’s life was never hers—it was her people’s. And my people are hungry and beaten and waiting for someone to save them.
“Heart’s sisters,” I repeat, feeling the weight of that vow. It isn’t something made lightly; it’s a promise to not just love another person but trust them. I thought I didn’t trust anyone, that I wasn’t capable of it anymore, but I do trust Cress and I always have and in almost ten years of friendship she has never once made me regret that. She is my heart’s sister.
My Shadows are watching, I know. I can make out the outlines of their figures in the second-story windows, peering down at us. But they won’t be able to hear anything.
“Cress,” I say, tentatively.
She must hear the hitch in my voice, because she stiffens, turning toward me, fair eyebrows arched over a bemused smile. My heart hammers in my chest. Words surge forward, and part of me knows I should hold them back, but Cress has never been anything but honest with me. We are heart’s sisters, she said it herself. She has to love me enough to put me first.
“We could change things. Not just for me, but for the rest of them as well.”
Her brow furrows. “The rest of who?” she asks. An uncertain smile tugs at her lips, like she thinks I’m telling a joke she doesn’t understand yet.
I want to turn back, to pull the words from the air between us and pretend they were never said, but it’s too late for that. And yes, Cress is the daughter of the Theyn and that makes her a perfect target, but it could make her an even more invaluable asset. Could I bring her in? I think of how I changed my Shadows’ minds about Vecturia. I can sell this to them as well. I can save her.
“The Astreans,” I tell her slowly, watching her expression. “The slaves.”
Her smile lingers for a moment, a ghost of its former self, before fading to nothing.
“There is no changing that,” she says, her voice low.
It’s a warning. I ignore it. I reach out with my free hand to take hers. She doesn’t pull away, but her hand stays limp in mine.
“But we could,” I say, desperation creeping in. “The Kaiser is a cruel man. You know this.”
“He is the Kaiser, he can be as cruel as he likes,” she replies. She glances around, as if there’s someone listening nearby. When her eyes find mine again, she looks at me like I’m a stranger, someone to be wary of. In all our years of friendship, she’s never looked at me that way.
I’m dimly aware of how tightly I’m clutching her hand, but she doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t try to pull away. “If you could be Kaiserin. If…if you could marry S?ren. You could change things. The people would love you, they would rally to you over the Kaiser, you could take the country from him easily.”
“That’s treason,” she hisses. “Stop it, Thora.”
I open my mouth to argue, to tell her my name is not Thora, but before I can speak, something over Cress’s shoulder catches my gaze in one of the high windows that borders the garden to the west. I see a pale figure in a gray dress. I see yellow hair trailing behind her like the tail of a comet as she falls. I hear a scream that echoes in my bones and ends with a sickening thud on the other side of the garden, a hundred feet away.