Lady Smoke (Ash Princess Trilogy #2)(51)

“Queen of Astrea,” he repeats, shaking his head. “You’re hardly more than a child.”

I try to think of a retort but can’t. He’s right, after all. In Astrea, sixteen was still considered a child, though I hardly feel like one anymore myself. In another life, I would be, but I stopped feeling like a child the moment the Theyn slit my mother’s throat.

Instead of saying so, I shrug. “Maybe,” I allow. “But my mother’s dead and so it falls to me. Who are you?”

He doesn’t answer right away; instead he gives me a long look that I’ve come to recognize. He’s sizing me up. “I remember you, Theodosia Eirene Houzzara,” he says. “You were a babe on your mother’s hip when she came to visit my village some fourteen years ago now, thumb in your mouth and stubborn, defiant eyes that dared anyone to tell you to remove it.”

“I don’t suck my thumb anymore,” I tell him. “But I think you’ll still find me stubborn and defiant.”

At that, he laughs again, but this time I know he isn’t laughing at me. “I suppose you must be, to have come so far,” he allows. “Last I heard, you were being kept as the Kaiser’s toy. I’d ask how you managed to escape but I fear that would be a very long story.”

“Maybe in time I’ll tell it to you in full,” I say. “But for now, suffice to say that I ran away after killing the Theyn, and I managed to take the crown Prinz hostage with me.” I gesture behind me, toward S?ren.

It doesn’t feel right to take so much credit. Elpis killed the Theyn; I only told her to do it. And S?ren didn’t realize he was my hostage until we were already gone; it isn’t as though I managed to capture him myself. And I couldn’t have done any of it without Blaise and Artemisia and Heron. But that isn’t what this man wants to hear, or what he needs to hear. He needs to see me as someone formidable and intimidating, so that is who I’ll be.

He nods toward S?ren. “You call him a hostage?” the man asks.

I lift a shoulder in a shrug. “The Kaiser is an evil man—I doubt anyone here would argue that point, his son included. It turned out the Prinz was more valuable on our side than in chains.”

The man makes a noise in the back of his throat that I’m not sure how to interpret, though his eyes are still wary.

“It hardly seems fair that you know me but I don’t know you,” I tell him.

He eyes me for another few seconds before spitting at the ground between us, not close enough to me to be taken as an insult, but the lack of respect is clear. I’m not his queen, I’m just a girl with a long name.

“Sandrin,” he says finally. “Of Astrea. Nevarin in particular.”

Heron clears his throat. “I grew up not five miles away from Nevarin,” he says. “In Vestra.”

A gap-toothed smile stretches over Sandrin’s face. “I knew a girl in Vestra,” he says. “I think I might have married her if the Kalovaxians hadn’t come.”

“I think I might have done a lot of things if the Kalovaxians hadn’t come,” Heron replies.

Sandrin nods, along with most of the people in the crowd around him. “Who are you?” he asks.

“Heron,” he answers, before gesturing to Blaise and Artemisia and giving their names as well. “We were in the mines for years,” he says, eliciting gasps and murmurs from the crowd. “Until a man named Ampelio rescued us. He taught us how to use our gifts, and he told us that if anything should happen to him, we were to find the Queen, save her, and follow her.”

“We’ve done as Ampelio asked,” Artemisia says, her voice unusually thin. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say his name. “And she’s brought us here.”

“You’re Guardians,” Sandrin says, eyes alight with sudden understanding.

I half expect Blaise to deny it, but instead he inclines his head. “We are Guardians,” he agrees. “And she’s our Queen.”

Sandrin looks between us for another moment, appraising. After what feels like an eon, he nods. “Come on, then,” he says, voice weary. “I’ll introduce you to the others.”





SANDRIN LEADS US THROUGH THE crooked, dirt-caked streets, and I spy skittish, spectral figures peering out from doorways as we pass, until we reach a house at the end of one of the lanes. It looks very much like all the others: the thatched roof is collapsing in places, and the walls are a hodgepodge of scrap stones that I’d imagine are left over from other building projects. The wooden door is too small for the frame, leaving gaps of space. Hardly a door at all, really, since I can’t imagine it keeps much out.

The door swings open and a woman appears in a ragged dress that has been torn and patched over so many times it’s difficult to imagine what it looked like originally. Her skin is a deep, russet brown and her hair has been plaited close to her scalp so that I can see rows of skin between the dozen or so braids. It’s difficult to tell her age, though if I had to hazard a guess I would say she’s in her fifties. Her face is made up of sharp angles, and she has the narrow, suspicious eyes of a person who has seen far too much bad to expect anything else out of life.

“Tallah,” Sandrin says before approaching her alone and launching into a long spiel of words that I can barely understand, though I do manage to pick up some pieces that sound Astrean. Visitor. Help. Queen. Child. Others sound half-familiar—there’s a word that sounds like it might be traitor, but it’s been twisted and embellished too much for me to be sure. Most of what he says, though, I can’t make any sense of whatsoever.