Ash Princess (Ash Princess Trilogy #1)(85)

“Thank you,” I whisper.

His sigh ruffles my hair, but he doesn’t reply. I tilt my head up to look at his face. In the fading moonlight, his dark green eyes are spectral and his scar stands out sharply, pale white against dusky fawn skin. I brush my thumb over it, feeling him flinch before his eyes flutter closed and he leans into my touch.

“What happened?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “You don’t want to hear that story. Not now, after…” He trails off, unable to say it.

“Please.”

Blaise shifts slightly, his eyes moving past me to stare at the space over my shoulder. “In the mines, there are quotas,” he says after a moment. “You need to bring in a set weight of gems a day, otherwise they withhold your dinner rations. Which only makes you weaker and means that the next day you’re even more likely to miss quota. Not a very fair system, but it keeps everyone on edge, makes us determined not to come up short even once. If you miss it three days in a row, they put you in a cell deep in the mines, so far below ground you forget what fresh air tastes like.” His voice begins to waver, but he clears his throat and continues. “Most people who go into the cell don’t come out sane. Being that deep…it does something to people. It’s like spending years in the mines, but in the space of a day or two. Usually the people who are sent there are taken straight to their execution afterward.”

“But you weren’t,” I say quietly.

He shakes his head. “I was ten or so, and there was a man who slept on the cot next to mine. Yarin. He was about my father’s age before he…Anyway, he wasn’t well. The dust from the mines gave him a terrible cough and made him weak. He missed a lot of quotas, but never three in a row. He was careful about that, and our group always shared rations with him when he lost his. It wasn’t easy—the rations were meager already—but…what else could we do? We all knew that if he was sent to the cell, he would never come back to us.

“The guards knew it, too. They weren’t right, those men. They enjoyed watching us fail, they enjoyed beating us for it. And, maybe more than anything, they enjoyed taking people away for executions. And Yarin was an easy target. More than once, I saw them knock a handful of gems off the scale when they weighed his so that he came up short. The Kalovaxians are monsters, you’ve seen it as surely as I have.”

I think of the Kaiser and can’t disagree, even as thoughts of S?ren and even Cress protest.

Blaise continues. “Yarin was on his third day, and I knew there was no possible way he would make his quota. His cough was worse than it usually was, and he had to stop every few minutes to catch his breath. When the day started to draw to an end, he didn’t even have half of what he needed.” He stops to swallow, the lump in his throat bobbing. “But I did. The guards didn’t stay down there with us—they didn’t want to risk mine-madness—so they only entered for a few moments at the beginning of the day and the end. Before they came to fetch us after sundown, I switched my pail with Yarin’s. Yarin tried to stop me, of course, but it was done.

“When the time came to measure, Yarin passed, even when the guards took a handful out. And I didn’t come close to making it. But the guards had been overseeing us for as long as I could remember. They knew that since my first day in the mines, I never missed quota. They knew what I’d done, even if they couldn’t prove it. I thought I would die that day, but they had worse in mind. They killed Yarin with just a swipe of a dagger across his throat, right in front of the whole group, and then they took me down to the cell.

“I found out later that they left me there for a week, but I didn’t know that at the time. Down there, alone in the dark, a day feels like a year and a minute at the same time. When they finally came for me, I was huddled in the corner, my fingers shredded. I’d tried to claw my way through the stone, I think, but I don’t remember any of it. And I had this.” He gestures to the scar. “A mark, like Art’s hair.”

I trace my fingers over his cheek. Despite the chill in the air, the scar itself is hot to the touch, and it pulses through me like a second heartbeat. It draws me closer and drowns my thoughts in a pleasant hum, like when I hold a Spiritgem. The power of it frightens me, and though I don’t want to let go, I start to pull my hand away. Blaise’s hand covers mine, holding my hand over his skin, his scar. His eyes are so intent on mine that I can’t look away.

“You feel it, don’t you?” he asks.

“It’s strong,” I say, trying to hide my unease. I don’t remember Ampelio’s scar having that kind of power, nor did the markings on any other Guardian I’d heard of. I try to force confidence into my voice. “Glaidi blessed you. She knew how strong you were, even then. Your father would be proud.”

The muscle in his jaw tightens as he swallows. “It doesn’t feel like a blessing, Theo.” His voice is more of a breath than anything. “I can’t control the power. You saw what I did to the Kaiser’s chair, what happened in the throne room today. Ampelio helped as much as he could, but it wasn’t enough. I scared him, I think. I scare myself. It’s my fault they caught him. If I hadn’t lost control…”

“The earthquake at the mines,” I realize. “The one that sparked the riot.”

He nods, eyes dropping. “The one that killed a hundred people,” he adds. “And led to Ampelio being caught.”