Ash Princess (Ash Princess Trilogy #1)(92)

It’s practically a fairy tale, but the real thorn is in the ending. The current King of Elcourt, generations removed from his fishmonger forefather, is as awful as the one the country rebelled against in the first place.

That bit isn’t in Crescentia’s book, of course, but I’ve heard the rumors all the same.

After reading for only a few moments, Crescentia puts the book aside and takes hold of my hand.

“I’m sorry. I understand now,” she says, voice heavy. The words twist at my stomach because she doesn’t understand, as much as I wish she did. She thinks she understands why I tried to rebel against the Kaiser, but only because of the punishment, only because of the recent reminder of how terrible my circumstances are. She thinks that is why I acted. She understands my pain because she loves me, but her compassion ends there.

She takes a shaky breath. “I told you I didn’t remember my mother, but that isn’t true. I remember some things, though I wish I didn’t.”

I sit up, though my welts scream at the movement. In the ten years I’ve known her, Cress has mentioned her mother exactly once, when she told me she’d died when she was very young. I don’t even know her name.

“You know we were in Goraki before we were here. I was born there. So was S?ren,” she continues before her voice turns bitter. “My mother was said to be one of the most beautiful women in the world. Everyone was in love with her. She could have married a duke or an earl if she’d wanted, but for some reason, she chose my father, an upstart warrior at the time, the son of a shipsmith. I suppose she must have loved him.”

Her smile is a brittle, broken thing, so different from the one I’m used to from her, the one that can light up a room and elicit a smile from me, even at my moodiest.

“I’m sure you can surmise that he climbed from there until he became the Theyn. I’m sure you can surmise what it means to climb to that position. My mother hated it. I heard her scream that she didn’t want him to touch her, not with the blood of so many on his hands. She didn’t realize, or maybe didn’t care, that he did it all for her, to give her the life he thought she deserved.”

She pauses and swallows. There are no tears in her eyes, but she looks like she’s in physical pain. She’s never spoken about this, I realize, not to any of her other friends or even to her father. This must have sat between them, heavy and unacknowledged, for the better part of her life.

“She didn’t die when I was a baby. She didn’t die at all, as far as I know, but it’s easier to pretend, I suppose. She left us before we came here; she said she couldn’t do it anymore. She wanted to take me with her, but my father wouldn’t allow it, so she left me behind.”

There, her voice cracks, and she hastily wipes away tears that have only just begun to form at the corners of her eyes. Normally, Cress’s tears are weapons, employed against her father or a courtier who won’t invite me to a party or a dressmaker who claims not to have time to make her something new that week. These tears are not weapons, though, they are a weakness and so she cannot show them. She is the Theyn’s daughter, after all.

“Did you want to go with her?” I ask carefully.

She shrugs. “I was a child. My father was away most of the time, and he scared me a bit. My mother was the one I loved best, but I didn’t have a choice. Don’t misunderstand me, Thora,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m glad my father kept me with him. I know you think he’s awful, and I can’t blame you for that, but he’s my father. Still, sometimes I miss her.”

Her voice breaks again and I reach out to take her hand. “You’re a good friend, Cress,” I tell her, because it’s what she needs to hear. In a simpler world, her friendship would be enough. But in this one, it isn’t.

She smiles and gives my hand a squeeze before releasing it.

“You should get some rest,” she says, standing up. “I’ll see you at the banquet tonight.”

She pauses, eyes lingering on me warily for a moment.

“You didn’t…you didn’t have true feelings for him, did you? S?ren, I mean.” She says it like she doesn’t really want to know the answer.

“No,” I tell her, and the lie slides easily off my tongue. It isn’t even a lie anymore, I realize.

She smiles, relieved. “I’ll see you tonight,” she repeats, turning to go.

“Cress?” I say when she’s at the door.

She looks back to me, pale eyebrows raised, smile tentative. A confession bubbles to my lips. I don’t know that I can let her walk to her death.

I see a scale in my mind, Cress on one side, the twenty thousand of my people still living on the other. It shouldn’t be a difficult decision to make; it should be simple. It shouldn’t feel like it’s tearing my heart out.

I swallow. “I’ll see you tonight,” I say, knowing that my last words to her are just another lie.





ANOTHER BANQUET MEANS ANOTHER ASH crown, though I swear to myself this will be the last time I wear one. The guard who delivers it along with the gown I’m to wear looks perplexed to see me instead of Hoa, but I tell him she stepped out for a moment to deliver my dirty clothes to the laundresses and he accepts that easily enough, pressing the boxes into my arms and leaving without another word.

I set the smaller box on my vanity, then lay the larger one on my bed and open it. The gown always goes on first in Hoa’s routine so that the crown is saved for the last possible second.