Lady Smoke (Ash Princess Trilogy #2)(12)

Two men stand guard outside a door at the end of the final passageway, both holding crudely made spears at their sides and looking sleep-drawn. Seeing them makes my whole body tense, though I should have expected them—there’s no way Dragonsbane would have left S?ren unguarded.

Heron feels my panic and he squeezes my hand before uncurling his fingers from mine and moving my hand to his forearm instead. He keeps walking toward them, so I imagine he must have a plan. Stepping out of the shadows, he lets his invisibility fade so that he comes into focus before the guards, startling them.

I wait for visibility to come over me, too, a bevy of poor excuses flying to my lips, but my invisibility holds. I cling to his arm tightly, my heart pounding in my chest.

“Evening,” Heron says, nodding to each of them in turn.

“Looking for a shot at him?” one of them asks.

I’m not sure what he means, but Heron only nods. “I’ll be ten minutes,” he says.

The two guards step aside and let Heron pass, me half a step behind him, trying to puzzle out his words.

A shot at him. It doesn’t mean what it sounds like. It can’t mean that. Dragonsbane would never allow—but as soon as I start to think it, I know she would. Heron would have told me if he knew, though. He would have tried to stop it. That much I am sure of.

But when the door closes behind us and my eyes adjust to the dimly lit room, my stomach sinks.

S?ren is slumped against the far wall, an open porthole the size of my hand above his head the only source of fresh air. Heavy, rusted iron manacles are clasped around his wrists, old and new blood on the skin around them. He’s wearing the same clothes he wore the last time I saw him, though now they’re tattered and bloody. He doesn’t look anything like he did only two days ago; his close-cropped hair looks more crimson than blond and his face is covered in bruises and open cuts.

He doesn’t lift his head when he hears us enter, though he does flinch away from the sound.

There is a plank of wood on the ground near him, the edge of which is covered with blood.

Bile rises in my throat and I recoil from Heron, breaking our connection when I do. I turn and retch in the corner, emptying my stomach.

I feel Heron behind me and he reaches a tentative hand out to touch my shoulder, but I shove him away.

“You knew about this,” I hiss. Even with this rage and nausea racking my body, I’m aware of the guards on the other side of the door.

Heron’s eyes don’t leave mine; he doesn’t cower from my anger. He lets it wash over him.

“Yes.” He doesn’t sound quite like the Heron I know. It’s like he’s been broken into two jagged halves, sharp enough to draw blood.

I swallow the fresh waves of sickness that come over me, placing a hand on my stomach.

“Did you take part?” I ask, though I’m not sure I want to know the answer.

“No,” he says, and I let out a breath of relief. “Though it was tempting.”

“You didn’t tell me—”

“It’s the same thing they did to you, Theo,” he says.

But not S?ren, I think, even though I know that’s a poor defense. I understand how this happened, how so many people on this ship would want to come here and take their fury and grief out on the only person they can reach who is responsible. I understand the desire to take something back from the Kalovaxians, I do, but it isn’t right.

“Thor…Theodosia?” S?ren’s voice is hoarse and cracked, barely stronger than a whisper. He tries to lift his head but winces in pain and lets it drop again.

I shoulder past Heron and hurry to S?ren, dropping to my knees beside him. There have been times when I’ve hated him so much I’ve wanted to kill him—I almost did—but this is something more. I know all about the blood on his hands, the lives he’s taken, the wars he’s waged on innocent people. I haven’t forgiven or forgotten that, and I can’t imagine I ever will. Maybe he deserves this. Maybe it’s his due. Maybe it’s justice.

But it is not a world I want to live in.

I reach out to touch his face, and he flinches.

“Theo,” Heron says behind me, though I’m not sure if it’s a warning or an attempt at an apology.

“You’re going to fix him,” I say, without looking at Heron, my voice shaking. “Use your gift. Heal him.”

“No,” he replies.

“That wasn’t a question,” I snap over my shoulder. “It’s an order. From your queen.”

Heron is quiet for a moment.

“No,” he says finally, though he doesn’t sound as sure.

“Then consider it leverage,” I say through gritted teeth. “You need me to get you answers, and I’m not getting them for you until he’s healed.”

“You know what he’s done, Theo,” Heron says. “You know what he is.”

“I do,” I say. “But I also know that we’re better than them. We have to be, or what is the point of the war we’re fighting?”

He hesitates again. “If I heal him, they’ll only do it again.”

“I’ll stop them,” I say, though I’m not sure how.

“Elpis’s mother seems to find some comfort here. Is that something you want to take away from her?”