Lady Smoke (Ash Princess Trilogy #2)(126)

Blue hair. She crouches down beside me, her touch cold. Two hands on my skin like water, but it hurts so much more than the fire ever could. If the poison turned me to fire, this dissolves me into nothing but steam.

Everything goes black.





I WAKE UP IN A TENT, the bright sunlight filtering through the stitches that hold the roof together. My skin feels like it’s been rubbed raw, every nerve on fire, but the pain doesn’t overwhelm me anymore. I can think through it. I remember drinking the poison and Cress screaming for her guard. I remember the guard dragging S?ren away and Artemisia coming to help me instead of saving him.

Rolling over on the threadbare mattress chafes my skin and I let out a groan, closing my eyes tight.

“Theo?” a voice says, small and afraid.

I force my eyes open again to find Artemisia sitting on the ground next to my cot, looking at me with solemn, worried eyes. Judging by the dark circles under them, I don’t think she’s slept in a while. I try to sit up, but it sends another wave of pain through me and I lie back down, bringing my hands to cover my face.

Beneath my fingertips, the skin is smooth but slick with sweat. Not like Cress’s charred, dry skin. I check my hair, too, expecting to find singed ends, but it is the same as it’s ever been, except for a single piece. When I bring it in front of my eyes, I see that it’s stark white. I shudder.

I’m alive, though, I realize, and that thought both stuns and buoys me. I’m alive even though I shouldn’t be. I’m alive, but I am not the same. The potion may not have marred me like it did Cress, but it changed me. Where before, heat gathered in my fingertips and spread slowly, now I feel it everywhere, a constant dull heat coursing through my veins. It doesn’t scare me anymore, though. After drinking Encatrio, I can’t imagine anything will truly frighten me again.

“How long have I been asleep?” I ask, though it comes out rough, my throat aching around every word.

“Two days,” Art says. “The Kalovaxians retreated. Their Kaiserin gave us a piece of paper saying we own the mine now, though I don’t think it’s worth much.”

“No,” I agree, though I’m surprised that Cress kept her word at all. She must think I’m dead, I realize. “And S?ren?”

I hear her swallow. “They took him when they left, said he was a Kalovaxian traitor and he belonged to them. Erik tried to stop them—Heron and Blaise, too—but S?ren agreed to go with them to keep anyone else from getting hurt. You’re both noble idiots,” she says, but there’s no mistaking the fondness in her voice.

“Blaise?” I ask. “He went into battle. Is he—?” I break off, unable to finish.

“He’s alive,” Artemisia says. “He’s been lingering nearby, but he said you wouldn’t want to see him.”

I’m not sure how wrong he is. Our argument still echoes in my mind and I see him leaving, no matter how I begged him to stay. But I’m alive and he’s alive and both of those facts feel like miracles, so how can I be angry?

“You saved me,” I tell her, remembering how she used her Water Gift on me. The poison would have killed me otherwise, or disfigured me like Cress, if nothing else.

“You saved everyone else,” she says with a shrug. “It was the least I could do. How do you feel?”

She asks the question like she isn’t sure she wants to know the answer. Because she isn’t asking about my pain—she’s seen that clearly in my winces, heard it in my groans. She’s asking about something deeper.

“The same, mostly,” I tell her, unsure how to explain how different I feel.

Artemisia touches my cheek. “Your skin is still warm,” she says. “We thought it was a fever at first, but Heron couldn’t heal you. He said it was something else.”

I swallow and stare harder at my palm. I saw what Cress was capable of. If I’m going to stand against her, I can’t be afraid anymore. I summon fire, imagine it leaping to life there, but something feels wrong. I can feel the fire in me, but it’s buried deep. I have to dig for it, fight for it, but at last, with some effort, a small flame appears in my hand.

Artemisia doesn’t even jump, she only stares at the fire with a vague sort of curiosity.

“It’s different than it was before,” she says. “You can control it.”

“Yes,” I agree, frowning. “But it’s not like I imagined. It’s weaker.”

She nods. “Well, you won’t have to hide it anymore. A queen who sacrificed her life for her people only to rise even stronger like some sort of…” She trails off, unable to think of the right term.

It comes to me right away. “Like some sort of Phiren,” I say. She looks confused and I elaborate. “A bird in Gorakian mythology. Hoa told me about it—it turns from ash to smoke to flame and back again.”

The thought of Hoa hits me with fresh agony. “How’s Erik?” I ask her.

Before Artemisia can answer, the tent opens and Dragonsbane slips inside. When she sees me, she actually smiles, though there is still something feral about it that looks nothing like how I remember my mother’s. It looks like Art’s smile.

“You’re up,” she says with a curt nod. “How are you?”

Instead of answering, I light up my hand again. Seeing her eyes go wide with fear and awe makes me happier than it should. “I know that you don’t believe in the gods, Aunt,” I say. “But it seems they still believe in us.”