Lady Smoke (Ash Princess Trilogy #2)(85)

His hand falls away from mine and he sits up a little straighter. “What about Guardians?” he asks.

I hesitate, a confession about Blaise’s earlier outburst rising to my lips. I push it down and choose my words carefully. “There was a Kalovaxian girl I became friends with—or, I thought we were friends, I suppose. I’m not sure what we were, really. Before I left, I poisoned her and her father with Encatrio and it killed him, but she survived.”

Sandrin stiffens. “She survived,” he echoes. “But she is not the same.”

I shake my head. “She’s scarred by it and she has…she has Houzzah’s gift.”

He takes this in, his expression unreadable.

“It’s impossible,” I say when he remains quiet. “Houzzah would never bless a Kalovaxian. He would let the poison have her and be done with it.”

His smile is tight and grim. “To try to understand the reasoning of the gods is to court madness.”

“No,” I repeat. “I don’t believe it’s possible. I don’t believe…” I trail off because I have no choice but to believe it. I saw it with my own eyes—I felt the heat her touch left behind on the cell bars that separated us, hot enough to burn.

“What is to be done, then?” I ask. “A Kalovaxian with those kinds of powers…and she’s the Kaiserin now as well.”

“I have no answer to that,” he admits. “None you don’t already know.”

I swallow. “You mean I’ll have to kill her.”

It isn’t the first time I’ve been told this, but the last time, Cress was innocent. She was just a girl who liked pretty dresses and wanted to marry a prinz. It still feels like a fist closing around my heart, but it’s different this time. Sandrin is right—I knew somewhere deep down that killing Cress was the only way to stop her. All those nightmares that have been haunting me, they all ended with her ending my life, and dreams or not, I know there is truth in them.

I push the thought aside before Sandrin can see how much it affects me. “And…,” I trail off again, unsure of how to phrase my next question. Blaise was right; if anyone suspects he’s unstable, they’ll kill him. I’m not naive enough to believe that Sandrin is an exception to that.

“Have you ever heard of someone going mine-mad and surviving it?” I ask him.

Sandrin frowns. “That, in and of itself, is a contradiction. Mine madness by its very definition results in death. If it doesn’t, it isn’t mine madness.” He pauses. “But then again, I suppose death comes for us all in the end, so perhaps that isn’t fair. How long has it been?”

“It’s not…” I tell him. “It’s hypothetical.”

He doesn’t believe me, I can tell. For a second, I expect him to press me for details, but eventually, he shakes his head.

“Mine madness is not a disease, no matter how we might treat it like one. It’s the magic in the mines—some people can handle it, some people can’t,” he says.

“It depends on the gods’ blessings,” I say, nodding. This much I know.

He cocks his head to one side thoughtfully. “That is the most common explanation, yes. It has always been the one I have chosen to believe, but there are others. Less poetic ones. There are some who believe it comes down to other factors—a person’s blood, or their constitution. Perhaps it is all true, in a way.”

“If this is philosophy, I don’t think I care for it,” I tell him. “How can they both be true?”

“I’ve always thought that belief in something lends a kind of truth to it. In this case, we may never have a sure answer, so belief is the only truth we have.”

Frustration bubbles up in me. “That’s not an answer, it’s only more questions,” I say. “Have you ever heard of someone who’s gone mine-mad and survived?”

He eyes me warily for a moment before shaking his head. “No,” he says. “I’ve never heard of a case of mine madness lasting more than three months before the sufferer perished,” he says.

Perished. It’s a pretty word, prettier than died.

“How does it happen?” I ask, though I’m not sure I want to know the answer.

He shakes his head. “I saw it once, with my own eyes. Not in battle—this was years before the siege. A poor, frightened man ran away from the temple when he realized that he was mine-mad. They used to kill them, even before the siege, though I imagine there was more mercy in it. Still, he panicked and ran to a nearby village for shelter. No one else was hurt when he finally lost all control, but it was a terrible sight all the same. There wasn’t much left of him afterward, and the village had been razed to the ground. It’s better if you don’t know anything more than that, and I hope you never have to see it yourself.”

I want to press him for details, but I hold my tongue. I don’t want those images in my mind; I don’t want to see it happening to Blaise every time I close my eyes. Awful as my nightmares about Cress are, I know I would prefer them to that.

“What if it does last longer than three months?” I ask him instead. “What if someone survives the mine, if they have a gift, the way a Guardian would…but if they sometimes can’t control that gift?”

Again, he’s quiet for a moment, his eyes growing faraway as he turns his mind over for an answer. “Is it dangerous?” he asks.