Lady Smoke (Ash Princess Trilogy #2)(4)
“Just…hold me?” I say.
He sighs and I know he’s going to say no, that he should keep his distance because I am not his childhood friend anymore. I am his queen, and that makes everything so much more complicated. So I play a cheap card, one I know he won’t say no to.
“I’ll feel safer, Blaise. Please.”
His eyes soften and I know I have him. Without a word, I let my hand fall away from his lips and I pull him with me to the bed. We fit together perfectly, his body curling around mine, his arms around me. Even here at sea, he smells like hearth fire and spice—like home. His skin is scorching hot, but I try not to think about that. Instead, I feel his heartbeat thrumming through me, falling into a rhythm with my own, and I let it lull me to sleep.
WHEN I WAKE UP, BLAISE is gone and the room is too cold without him. There’s a note on the pillow next to my head.
Had swabbing duty this morning. I’ll see you tonight.
Yours,
Blaise
Yours. The word sticks with me as I try to smooth my frizzy hair into something presentable and adjust my rumpled clothes. In another life, I would probably flutter over a word like that, but now it rubs me the wrong way. It takes me a moment to work out why that is: it’s the same way S?ren signed his letters to me.
I try not to let my thoughts linger too long on S?ren. He’s alive and safe and that’s all I can do for him now. It’s more than he deserves after what he did in Vecturia, after his hands became too drenched in blood to ever really be clean again.
And what about your hands? a voice whispers in my mind. It sounds like Cress.
I pull on the boots Dragonsbane gave me. They’re a size too large and they clunk when I walk, but I can’t complain, especially considering that unlike Blaise, I don’t have any chores on the ship. Yesterday, during Dragonsbane’s tour, she explained that everyone aboard has some assigned daily task to earn their keep. Heron got a daily shift in the kitchens and Artemisia will have to run the sails for a few hours each day. Even the children take on small tasks like pouring water at mealtimes or running errands for Dragonsbane.
I asked Dragonsbane what I could do to help, but she only smiled and gave my hand a condescending pat.
“You’re our princess. That’s all we need for you to do.”
I’m your queen, I’d wanted to say, but I couldn’t make my mouth form the words.
When I step out onto the deck, the sun is surprisingly high in the sky, so bright it’s blinding. How long did I sleep? It must be close to noon, and the ship is buzzing with activity. I search the crowded deck for a face I know, but all I find is a sea of strangers.
“Your Majesty,” one man says with a bow as he hurries past, carrying a bucket of water. I open my mouth to reply, but before I can, a woman curtsies and repeats the sentiment.
After a while, I realize it’s best to just smile and nod in response.
I make my way across the deck, nodding and smiling and searching for someone I know, but as soon as I find a familiar pair of eyes, I wish I hadn’t.
Elpis’s mother, Nadine, is standing beneath the mainsail, mop in hand as she washes the deck, though she stands frozen now, the mop suspended and dripping gray water. Her eyes are heavy on mine, yet her face remains blank. She looks so much like her daughter that it took me aback the first time I met her—the same round face and dark, deep-set eyes.
When I told her about Elpis last night after Dragonsbane’s tour, she said all the right things, even through her tears. She thanked me for trying to save her daughter, for being a friend to her, for vowing vengeance against the Kaiser, but the words felt hollow and I would have rather she railed against me and accused me of killing Elpis myself. It would have been a relief, I think, to hear someone give voice to my own guilty thoughts.
She tears her eyes away from me and focuses on her mopping again, scrubbing hard at the deck, as if she wants to wear a hole in it.
“Theo,” a voice says behind me, and I’m so grateful for the distraction that it takes me a moment to realize it’s Artemisia calling me.
She stands against the railing of the ship in an outfit like mine—slim brown trousers and a white cotton shirt—though hers somehow looks better, like it’s something she’s wearing by choice and not because there are no other options. Her body faces the water, with her arms outstretched, though she looks at me. Her hair hangs down around her shoulders in messy white waves that transition to bright cerulean tips. The Water Gem pin I stole from Crescentia is embedded in her hair, and the ink-blue stones glisten in the sunlight. I know she’s self-conscious about her hair and I try not to stare at it, but it’s difficult not to. At her hip is a sheathed dagger with a gold filigreed hilt. At first, I think it might be mine, but it can’t be. I saw mine moments ago in my room, tucked away under my pillow.
It takes me a moment to realize what she’s doing. The Water Gem in her hair isn’t glistening in the sunlight—it’s actually glowing. Because she’s using it. When I look closely at her fingers, I can almost see the magic flooding from them, as fine as the ocean’s mist.
“What are you doing?” I ask her as I approach somewhat warily. I like to think that I’m not afraid of Artemisia, but I’d be a fool not to be. She is a fearsome creature, even without her magic.