Lady Smoke (Ash Princess Trilogy #2)(6)

She opens her mouth and I ready myself for a pointed comment about how I couldn’t kill S?ren when I had the chance, but it doesn’t come.

“I can teach you,” she says instead, surprising me. “How to use a dagger, I mean.”

I look at the weapon at her hip and try to imagine myself wielding it—not like I did in the tunnel with S?ren, with shaking hands and paralyzing doubt, but like someone who knows what they’re doing. I remember the Kaiser’s breath on my neck, his hand gripping my hip, inching up my thigh. I felt helpless in those moments, and I never want to feel helpless again. I push the thought away. I’m not a murderer.

“After Ampelio…I don’t think I have it in me,” I tell her finally, wishing that it weren’t the case.

“I think you’d be surprised at what you have in you,” Artemisia says.

Before I can reply, we’re interrupted by the approaching tap of boots against the wood deck, the sound stronger and more clipped than anyone else’s step. Art must recognize the gait, because she almost seems to shrink in on herself before turning toward it.

“Mother,” she says, the hand on the hilt of her dagger fidgeting again. A nervous habit, I realize, though yesterday I would have laughed at the idea of anyone making Artemisia nervous.

Steeling myself, I turn to face her as well. “Dragonsbane,” I say.

She stands tall and poised, taking up more space than it seems like she should, given her size. She wears the same outfit as the rest of the crew, apart from the shoes. Instead of bulky work boots, she wears knee-high boots with a thick block heel. I wondered, at first, how practical they were to wear on a ship, but she never so much as stumbles, and they give her a few extra inches in height that I imagine make her appear more imposing to her crew.

When her eyes meet mine, she smiles, but it isn’t the same smile my mother used to wear. Instead, she looks at me the way Cress would look at a poem she was having trouble translating.

“I’m glad to see the two of you are getting along,” she says, but she doesn’t sound glad at all. She sounds vaguely cross about something, though I think that might be how she always sounds.

“Of course,” I say, trying on a smile. “Artemisia was invaluable in getting me out of the palace and in murdering the Theyn. We wouldn’t have been able to do anything without her.”

Next to me, Art doesn’t speak. She stares down at the planks of wood beneath her mother’s boots.

“Yes, she’s quite special. Of course, she’s the only child I have left, so she’s particularly invaluable to me.”

There’s an undercurrent in her tone that makes Art flinch. She had a brother. She told me he was with her in the mine, that he’d gone mad and was killed by a guard she later murdered. Before I can think too much about the energy between them, Dragonsbane snaps her attention to me.

“We have plans to make, Theo. Let’s discuss them in my cabin.”

I begin to respond, but Art gets there first.

“Your Majesty,” she says quietly, though she still won’t look at her mother.

“Hmm?” Dragonsbane says, yet judging by the way her shoulders tensed, she heard perfectly well.

Artemisia finally looks up to meet her mother’s gaze. “You should call her ‘Your Majesty,’ especially where others can hear you.”

Dragonsbane’s smile is taut as a bowstring ready to snap. “Of course, you’re right,” she says, though the words sound forced. She turns back to me and bows shallowly.

“Your Majesty, your presence is requested in my most humble cabin. Is that better, Artemisia?” she asks.

Artemisia doesn’t answer. Her cheeks are bright red and her gaze drops again.

“It’ll do,” I tell her, diverting Dragonsbane’s attention before she reduces her daughter to a pile of dust.

Dragonsbane frowns at me, then looks back to Artemisia. “And I’d assigned you to manage the tides until noon. You have another hour, if you think you can manage it.”

The challenge in her voice is clear and Art clenches her jaw. “Of course, Captain,” she says, lifting her hands toward the sea once more.

Without another word, Dragonsbane turns and motions for me to follow her. I catch Artemisia’s eye and try to give her a reassuring smile, but I don’t think it registers. For the first time since I met her, she looks lost.





AS SOON AS WE STEP into Dragonsbane’s cabin, I wish I’d asked Art to come with me. It’s a selfish wish—she was clearly anxious to get out of her mother’s presence—but I wish it all the same. The two men waiting there are thoroughly devoted to Dragonsbane, and it feels like I’ve walked into a trap. It isn’t the way I felt around the Kaiser and the Theyn—like a lamb in the lion’s den, as the Kaiserin said—but it isn’t so far off. I will have no allies in this room.

I am the queen, I remind myself, squaring my shoulders. I am my own ally, and that will be enough.

The men clamber to their feet when they see me, though the show of deference might, in fact, be for Dragonsbane.

Eriel, a little older than Dragonsbane, with a full russet beard and no hair at all on top of his head, leads Dragonsbane’s fleet—the Smoke, the Fog, the Dust, the Mist, and half a dozen smaller ships whose names I can’t keep straight. Last night, he told me he lost his left arm in battle a few years back. It’s since been replaced with a stub of polished black wood with carved fingers frozen in a fist. The loss would have meant retirement for most soldiers, but Eriel’s strategic prowess makes him invaluable even though he can no longer fight. Dragonsbane’s small army has held its own against Kalovaxian battalions three times their size, and it’s largely due to his careful planning with the captains of the other ships.