Ash Princess (Ash Princess Trilogy #1)(76)

When I speak, my voice is soft and level. It is remorseful, despite the resentment coursing through me. “How do I fix it, then?” I ask her.

It’s exactly what she wants to hear. Her smile is genuine, relieved. She reaches across the table to take my hands in hers.

“You do what’s expected of you,” she says, as if it’s simple. To Cress, it is. She’s always done what is expected of her and she’s going to get a crown because of it. But we are not the same. We live in two different worlds, and different things are expected of us. “You give the Kaiser what he wants. You stay alive until I can save you.”

I swallow down the bile rising in my throat. She means well, which makes it so much worse.

“Will you tell the Kaiser?” I ask.

She draws her hands back and clears her throat. “I don’t see why he needs to know. You faltered, it’s to be expected. But no real harm has been done, has it?” she says, as if I broke a piece of china instead of plotted treason.

“No,” I say.

She nods, pressing her lips together thoughtfully. After a second, she gives me a smile, but it’s sharp enough to cut through steel.

“Well, then I suppose I can keep it to myself, given that it stops.” She pauses, taking a sip of her coffee. She is playing a game where she holds all the cards, and she knows it. She’s weighing how much she stands to gain from her win. “You’ll end things with the Prinz when he returns. The Kaiser is going to arrange our betrothal when S?ren gets back, and I don’t want him to refuse because of your meddling.”

“Of course,” I say obediently.

“And the others? The ones you gave my gems to?” she says. “They’re the ones who put you up to all of this, I know. You would never have done this on your own. They led you astray, and we’ll have to turn them over to the Kaiser.”

Cress has written her own version of this story, and it’s an easy enough one to play along with. Better, by far, than the truth. She wouldn’t have forgiven me so easily if she knew my feelings for S?ren were genuine, or that I acted of my own volition. But if she thinks of me as a pet, trained to do tricks for her amusement, why would she expect anyone else to see me differently?

“They’re gone,” I tell her. It’s getting easier to lie to Cress. This one doesn’t even cause my stomach to clench. I know I need to convince her, though, to keep the others safe, so I continue. “They knew a hopeless cause when they saw one. After I gave them the gems, they left. They said they would barter passage on a ship to Grania. They offered to take me with them, but I…I couldn’t leave.”

Cress’s smile softens into something more natural. “I’m glad you didn’t go,” she says. “I would have missed you.” She picks up her quill again and glances at her book before looking back at me again. She hesitates for a second. “This is what’s best for you, Thora. He’ll kill you otherwise. You know that.”

The words stick in my throat, but I force them out. “I know.”

She reaches across the table to pat my hand before returning to her poem. Her mind is easy once more, the one wrinkle in her life smoothed out. It is simple to her, like the chess games she and her father play. She has me in checkmate, so the game is over and done. She’s won.

But it is not simple. Everything in me feels torn to pieces, and I know there will be no mending me.

I focus on the candle between us, the steady dancing of the flame as it shrinks and grows at the same pace as my quick heartbeat. I watch as it slows and a strange calm spreads over me. I shouldn’t be calm. I should want to rage and scream and slap her across her pretty face.

I should not be calm, but I am. There is one path ahead of me now, and I can see it clearly lit. It is an awful path, one I hate. I will never forgive myself for walking down it. I will not come out the other side the same.

But it is the only path I can take.

Cress glances up and opens her mouth to speak, but then she catches sight of something over my shoulder and shoots to her feet, posture ramrod straight. A second too late, I realize everyone else has stood as well, and I hurry to follow, even as my stomach sinks. With the Kaiserin dead and S?ren still at sea, there is only one person whose presence could cause such a reaction.

In the instant before I fall into a curtsy, I see the Kaiser standing by the double-door entrance, dressed in a velvet suit with gold buttons that strain over his round stomach. As if that weren’t bad enough, the Theyn is at his side, which can only mean one thing.

Sure enough, they are coming our way. The Theyn is as stone-faced as ever, but the Kaiser’s eyes are bright with the kind of malicious glee that haunts my nightmares. Already, I am struggling not to shudder under the weight of his gaze.

Soon, I remind myself. Soon I will have nothing to fear from either of them. Soon I will be far away from them both. Soon, hopefully, they will be dead. Soon they will never be able to touch me again. But soon is not now. Now, they can still hurt me. Now, I still have to play the Kaiser’s games.

Again my eyes find the candle, because it’s easier to look there than at them. Though my heartbeat is quickening again, the flickering of the candle still matches it.

“Lady Crescentia, Lady Thora,” the Kaiser says, giving me no choice but to look at him.

His next move is coming, his latest game, but for the first time I am a step ahead of him, and I will use that to my advantage.