Lady Smoke (Ash Princess Trilogy #2)(80)

I nod. “Do it, then,” I say. “Erik and Hoa are coming as well, we’re meeting them in an hour. Art, will you see what you can overhear people saying about the earthquake? I can’t imagine anyone would think it was anything other than natural, but I want to be sure.”

They both nod and hurry out, leaving Blaise and me alone.

I wring my hands. Blaise and I go to such lengths to avoid talking about his worsening instability that I’m not sure how to bring it up now.

“I can’t stay in the palace, Theo,” he says after a moment passes in silence. “I can set up a tent outside the capital walls, far enough away that I won’t hurt anyone. But I’ll be close enough to help if you need me.”

“You would leave me here alone?” I ask.

He winces. “Don’t do that,” he says. “You wouldn’t be alone. You would have Heron and Art.”

“It isn’t the same. They don’t see me the way you do. They never knew me before all of this. I need you, Blaise.” My voice breaks and I shake my head. “We’ll go to the camp first. We’ll find information. If you still want to leave after that, I won’t stop you.”

He shakes his head. “We can’t just ask strangers about this. If anyone else finds out—”

“Heron and Artemisia know and they haven’t done anything,” I point out. “They don’t treat you any differently.”

“Because they’re my friends,” he says. “But even Art will if it happens again. Strangers? They’ll try to kill me on the spot.”

“Well, we won’t tell them it’s you. We’ll just ask some hypothetical questions, gather general knowledge.”

“There’s no way that won’t sound suspicious,” he says.

“Then we’ll hide one inquiry in another,” I say, an idea coming to me. “We’ll see if anyone knows something about what happened to Cress, why she has Houzzah’s gift after drinking the Encatrio. And then we can go from there.”

Blaise gives a labored sigh, but he doesn’t disagree, and that’s something.

“Chances are it won’t lead to anything,” he says after a moment, toying with the Earth Gem bracelet I gave him half a lifetime ago. He keeps it tucked in his pocket usually, but now he’s rolling it between his fingers absentmindedly. “There’s no cure for mine madness.”

It isn’t mine madness, I want to say, but I’m not sure it isn’t anymore. What is mine madness, after all, but a gift given to someone unable to handle it? Maybe it isn’t something completely separate from being blessed. Maybe they are two sides of the same coin. I realize with a jolt how little I know about my own country. Though I’m more adult than child now, I understand little more about the gods and the mines than I did at the age of six.

Blaise is holding the Earth Gem bracelet so tightly his knuckles have gone white.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have that,” I say, nodding toward it. “Maybe it’s making it worse.”

His grip tightens even more. “No, it helps,” he says. “It channels it into something manageable, more often than not.”

I bite my lip and look back up at him. “I can’t lose you, Blaise,” I tell him quietly. “If there’s even the slightest chance that we can help you, we have to take it.”

Blaise doesn’t say anything for a moment, his jaw clenched tight. Finally, he nods. “All right, Theo,” he says. “We’ll try. But if it comes to nothing, I’m leaving.”

A sick feeling spreads through my stomach at the idea, but I nod my head. Tentatively, I step forward and fold him into my arms again. At first, his body is stiff and unyielding, but finally he softens, holding me like I’m as fragile as the vase was before he shattered it.

“I love you,” I tell him, my voice muffled against his shoulder. Maybe it is another manipulation, more words wielded like the only weapon I have at my disposal, but that doesn’t make them untrue. It feels good to say them out loud.

Blaise’s breath hitches and a part of me feels guilty. As honest as the words might be, I know my motivations for saying them here and now are tangled. I’m telling him what he needs to hear in order to give me what I want.

I push my guilt aside and focus on Blaise, standing in front of me. Blaise who needs to keep fighting, no matter what. Blaise, who I don’t know how to survive without. I don’t want to learn how to. I just want him, healthy and happy at my side, ready to reclaim our home, save our people, and avenge our parents.

“I love you, too, Theo,” he says, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

Though I already knew that, his words still send a flutter through my chest. I pull back slightly to look at him.

“Then don’t you dare leave me. I don’t care if Glaidi herself tries to usher you to the After. You say, ‘Not today.’ Do you hear me?”

Blaise swallows, the lump in his throat bobbing. “I hear you,” he says.

The words don’t mean much; we both know that people don’t have a choice in when death comes for them—we’ve lost far too many people before their time. But it’s nice to pretend for a moment that we do have some control over it.





ONCE WE’VE EATEN BREAKFAST AND dressed, the four of us go to meet Erik and Hoa by the palace entrance. The sunlight is so bright it’s blinding, and I have to shade my eyes as I step out the front door of the palace. Artemisia reported that the damage from the earthquake was, thankfully, minimal—mostly just cosmetic damage to the palace tower. Nothing more than some broken knickknacks and baubles, a few wall sconces that fell, some cracked tile floors. Nothing that King Etristo won’t be able to have repaired quickly.