Lady Smoke (Ash Princess Trilogy #2)(16)

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My own screams wake me up and I turn, burying my face in my pillow to muffle them. I’m aware of the empty space next to me, the fact that the pillow is still warm. Blaise must have left only moments ago. I take a few breaths to calm myself, closing my eyes before immediately opening them again when I see Cress’s grotesque smile behind my eyelids. The sheets tangled around my legs are drenched in sweat, and it takes me a moment to extract myself from them. The braid I put my hair into last night has come unraveled; bits of hair are now plastered to my forehead and cheeks.

Shakily, I get to my feet and cross to the basin in the corner, pouring a bit of water into it from the pitcher beside it and splashing my face and neck. It feels like ice, but it does little to soothe the ghost of the fire I still feel crawling over my skin.

After drying my face with a threadbare towel, I turn back to my bed and barely manage to stifle a scream. There, stark against the white sheets, are two black handprints the size of mine.

Just shadows of my dream, clinging to me, I tell myself. I try to blink them away, but there is no erasing them, no matter how I try.

It’s a figment of my imagination, it has to be, but when I reach out to touch one of them, the charred cotton flakes beneath my fingers and falls apart, turning to ash.

I stumble back, my mind a whirl of panic and denials that don’t make sense. And what does make sense? That I did that? That I scorched my sheets? I turn my hands over to look at the palms, only to find them bright red, though they don’t hurt. There is only a faint, hot tingle dancing over the skin. It feels like magic, the way I felt at court when I got too close to a Fire Stone.

I swallow the panic working through me. My thoughts are too jumbled to make sense of. I press my hands against my nightgown, as if that can solve anything.

What is happening to me? I thought I’d imagined the heat that came over me in Dragonsbane’s office, but I can’t pretend I’m imagining this, not when there is proof right before my eyes.

I’ve always felt an affinity with Houzzah, the fire god; I’ve always felt drawn to Fire Gems. I thought it was because I am descended from him, but that can’t be true. I share his blood as much as Artemisia and Dragonsbane do, but neither of them seems to feel drawn to Houzzah. Dragonsbane doesn’t believe in any of the gods, and Artemisia was blessed by Suta, the water goddess. It can’t just be my blood. This is something else, something dangerous.

I think of Cress as I last saw her in the dungeon, surviving a dose of poison that would have killed a man twice her size but looking like death had left its fingerprints on her nonetheless. How had she survived? And not just that—her touch hot enough to scald. That, too, should have been impossible, but I saw her with my own eyes and felt those bars with my own hands. Hot as my own touch was just moments ago.

I don’t know how any of that is possible, but I can’t bring myself to believe that my god would see fit to save a Kalovaxian—to bless her with his gift—as thousands of his own people went mad in the mines.

I have to force myself to breathe.

I still feel Cress’s hand on my chest just over my heart, feel the fire of her touch as she turned me to ash. I can’t be sure, but I could swear my own hands begin to grow warmer again.

Without thinking about it, I pull the sheets off the bed, bundling them in my arms so that the scorch marks don’t show. I try to still my shaking hands as I walk into the hall. It doesn’t take long before I find a skeleton crew member scrubbing the floors—a boy only slightly older than I am.

“Y-Your Majesty,” he stutters.

“Good evening,” I tell him, managing an embarrassed smile as a plan falls into place. “I’m afraid there was an…incident with my monthly bleeding.”

For an instant, he stares at me bewildered before his face turns scarlet and he looks away. “Oh, er…”

“Can you please ask someone to bring me new sheets? There’s no hurry, but by tomorrow evening would be wonderful.”

“Oh…of course,” he says warily. “Should I…er…take those?” he asks, nodding toward the sheets I’m carrying. He looks terrified of them, as if they’re some kind of dangerous animal instead of ruined linens.

“No need, I can take them to the washer,” I tell him, and he visibly sags with relief.

He nods and mercifully doesn’t ask any more questions. But I don’t go to the washer. Instead, I take the ruined sheets to the empty kitchen and feed them into the furnace, watching as the flames take hold and burn through them until there is nothing left but ash. Watching the proof disappear, I can almost let myself believe that I imagined all of it, but I know I didn’t. I can still feel my palms tingling and warm. I’m not imagining it; I’m not mad. I don’t know what I am. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know anything.

The idea of going back to my empty room and being alone with my thoughts is unbearable. Childish as it makes me feel, I want someone to hold me and tell me everything is going to be all right, even if I can’t imagine talking about any of it out loud. Blaise is my first thought, but he must have left for his work shift and I don’t want to bother him. Artemisia is not someone familiar with sympathy, and I don’t want to go to Heron either, after everything that has passed between us.

There is another option, though I don’t need Artemisia to tell me it’s a foolish one. But already my mind is churning out lies and excuses for my presence in the dungeon, and foolish as it may be, that is where my feet lead me.