Lady Smoke (Ash Princess Trilogy #2)(5)

She gives me an impish smile and rolls her eyes. “My mother thinks we should be going faster in case the Kalovaxians are following,” she says.

“So she asked for your help?”

At that, Artemisia laughs. “Oh no, my mother would never ask for help from anyone, not even me,” she says. “No, she ordered this.”

I lean against the rail next to her. “I didn’t think you took orders from anyone,” I say.

She doesn’t respond to that, only shrugs.

I look out at the great expanse of blue waves, stretching as far as I can see. I can make out the other ships in Dragonsbane’s fleet trailing in the Smoke’s wake. “What are you doing exactly?” I ask her after a moment.

“Twisting the tides in our favor,” she says. “So that they’re going with us, not against us.”

“That’s a sizable use of power. Are you sure you can handle it on your own?”

I don’t mean offense at the question, but Artemisia bristles. “It’s not as difficult as it seems. It’s pushing a natural body of water to do what it wants to do anyway, just changing direction. Literally turning the tide, as it were. And it isn’t as if I’m changing the whole Calodean Sea—just the bit around our fleet.”

“I trust your judgment,” I tell her. Silence falls and I watch her work, her hands twisting gracefully in the air before us, the fine sea mist of magic seeping from her fingers.

She’s my cousin, I remember suddenly, though I don’t think that thought will ever become less ludicrous. We are as different as any two people could be, but our mothers were sisters. Twins, even.

The first time I saw her, she changed her hair from the blue and white that marks her Water Gift to a deep brown tinged with red, like mine. I thought she’d been mocking me or trying to make me uncomfortable, but that must have been the color her hair was before she was marked, the same as her mother’s and my mother’s and mine. She must have always known we were cousins, but she never said a word.

The same blood runs through our veins, I think, and what blood it is.

“Do you ever think it strange that we’re descended from the fire god but you were chosen by the water goddess?” I ask her after a moment.

She glances sideways at me. “Not particularly,” she says. “I’m not much of a spiritual person, you know that. Maybe we are descended from Houzzah, or maybe that’s only a myth to enforce our family’s claim to the throne. Either way, I don’t think magic has anything to do with blood. Heron says that Suta saw me in her temple, that of everyone there, she chose me and blessed me with this gift, but I don’t know that I like that answer either.”

“What answer do you like?” I ask her.

She doesn’t respond, instead focusing on the sea before her, moving her hands through the air with the grace of a dancer. “Why are you so curious about my gift?” she asks.

It’s my turn to shrug. “No reason in particular. I would imagine most people are.”

“No, not really,” she says, frowning as she jerks her hands suddenly to the left, then back in front of her. “Mostly, people just tell me how blessed I am. Sometimes they say it while combing their fingers through my hair—I always hate that. Either way, no one ever asks me questions about it. That would dance too closely to talking about the mine, and they don’t want to hear about that. Better they think of it as something mystical that exists beyond the realm of their curiosity.”

“I didn’t think you would be surprised to find that few things exist beyond the realm of my curiosity,” I say lightly, though her words still have a thorned grip on me.

If Artemisia notices my discomfort, she ignores it. “You slept in awfully late,” she says instead. There’s a barb in there somewhere, but it doesn’t land as hard as her barbs usually do. It was the same yesterday, after we came on board the Smoke—she mumbled and fidgeted, and I’ve never known Artemisia to do either. There is none of the bite or sarcasm I’m used to from her. In her mother’s shadow, she’s become less of herself.

“I didn’t mean to oversleep. I was up most of the night—”

“Blaise said you weren’t feeling well,” she interrupts, but the smug look she gives me says she thinks that’s a euphemism for something else entirely. The rumors must have already begun to spread.

My cheeks burn. “I’m fine,” I tell her before searching for a way to change the subject. After a moment, I nod toward the dagger sheathed at her hip. “What’s that for?”

She lowers her hands and the flow of magic ceases. She touches the hilt idly, the same way I’ve seen women at court fiddle with their jewelry. “I wanted to try to get some practice in after my shift,” she admits. “There wasn’t a lot of opportunity to use it after taking out your Shadows, so I’m rusty.”

“You killed them?” I ask.

She snorts. “Who did you think? Heron says it goes against his gift to cause harm, and Blaise doesn’t like to get his hands dirty unless it’s necessary. He likely would have if I’d asked it of him, but…” She trails off.

“But you like doing it,” I finish.

Her eyes flash and her smile is grim. “It feels good,” she says. “To take something back.”