Heron lets out a loud exhale. “What you should do is get some more sleep. I got some of the dreamless potion into you as soon as I could after you passed out, but I have more here.”
I think about my dream, of Cress on the other side of that glass wall, unable to break through, until she did. Heron digs in his pocket, pulls out a vial of blue liquid, and I hesitantly take it. It’s cool in my hand. I want to tell him that I’m not sure how much good it does, but I can’t. He would only worry. Besides, it held well enough, and when it didn’t, I woke up.
“What do we do now?” I ask him.
He pauses. “While you were asleep, we made some decisions,” he admits. “We got word to Dragonsbane, and she’s heading to the Savria River now—she’ll meet us there in two days’ time to take our wounded before leaving for the Earth Mine.”
“But if Cress sent her ghouls to the Earth Mine, too—”
“Blaise said the same thing. We’re sending a group there, in case something similar is happening, but we don’t want to send everyone in case we’re walking into another trap.”
I nod. It makes sense, and at this point, I don’t think there’s anything Cress isn’t capable of.
“Blaise is going to lead them,” he adds, almost hesitantly.
At that, I force myself to sit up, ignoring the throbbing in my head. “Blaise,” I echo. “The same Blaise trying to avoid using his gifts is going to wander into an area with tens of thousands of Earth Gems, begging for him to use them?” I ask.
Heron doesn’t look happy about it, either, but he nods. “He’s the only one who’s been there,” he says. “He knows the camp, knows the layout. It’s necessary.”
I want to argue, but I know he has a point. “And what about the rest of us?” I ask. “Where will we go after we meet Dragonsbane?”
“That’s up to you,” Heron says. “Of course, Maile has been very vocal about a lot of ideas. Most of them revolving around storming the palace, despite the fact that our numbers are depleted.”
I sigh, shaking my head. “It would be a death strike,” I say.
Heron frowns. “Death strike?”
I realize that the term is a Kalovaxian one, so I explain. “It’s what the Kalovaxians call it when they wage a battle they know they’ll lose—either to weaken the enemy or make way for a larger victory or whatever the end game is. But it’s a sacrifice for the greater good. Usually the commandants throw their lower warriors at it, knowing they won’t survive it, but so that the more important ones will live to make the next battle count.”
“We don’t have lower warriors, or more important ones, for that matter,” he points out. “It wouldn’t be a death strike; it would just be death.”
I nod, but the truth is that I don’t know what to do now, where to go from here. It’s hard to believe that just two nights ago, we were celebrating what we thought was an imminent victory. How did everything change so quickly?
I tuck the dreamless-sleep potion into the pocket of my nightgown. “I’ll have to sleep later,” I tell him. “Now there’s too much to do.”
“You really should rest,” Heron cautions. “I healed you as best I could, but there are some things your body has to do on its own.”
“I’ll rest soon, I promise,” I tell him. “But we can’t stay here. You know that. We’re sitting ducks and Cress knows exactly where we are. Can you bring the others? We need to discuss our options.”
“Theo—” Heron says.
“I’ll rest after,” I tell him. “And I’ll keep an eye on Artemisia while you’re gone. When she wakes up, you’ll be the first to know.”
I don’t say if. I try not to even think it, but Heron must hear it all the same because his brow creases with worry and he looks back at her sleeping form.
“All right,” he says with a sigh, dragging himself to his feet. “I’ll get some food as well. You need to eat something.”
I DON’T TAKE MY EYES OFF Artemisia for a second while Heron is gone. I barely blink. Every rise of her chest, every subtle movement she makes while she sleeps, I notice all of it.
Wake up, I think. Wake up, wake up, wake up.
But she sleeps on, oblivious, and I hope that her dreams are at least more peaceful than mine.
Even though every movement makes my body ache, I climb off my own bedroll and move next to hers so I can see her face in the flickering candlelight. Asleep, she is almost unrecognizable, her expression slack and peaceful. I don’t know that peaceful is a word I could ever imagine using to describe Artemisia—no fight, no fury, no ferocity. Peaceful doesn’t suit her at all.
I take hold of her hand, but it is limp in mine.
“I’m so sorry, Art. Please wake up,” I whisper. But Artemisia has never been one for orders, so I’m not entirely surprised that she pays me no mind.
There’s a rustling as the tent opens and a blade of light cuts in. I wipe away the tears that have formed in my eyes, before turning to see who it is.
S?ren stands awkwardly at the entrance of the tent, eyes darting between Art and me.
“You’re awake,” he says when I don’t speak, and I realize I once again put him in the position of thinking I was going to die.
I nod, biting my lip. “I am,” I say. “Which is more than so many others can say.”
He steps toward me, his expression torn. “Don’t do that, Theo,” he says. He drops down beside me so that we are eye to eye. “That’s a dangerous path to let your mind travel down, and there is nothing at the end of it. Trust me. I’ve been there.”
“It’s not a path I think my mind has any control over,” I point out.
“She won this battle,” he says slowly. “She took far more than we did this time. There is nothing you can do to change that now. All you can do is ensure that you win the war. You can’t do that if you’re so wrapped up in guilt that you can’t see straight. I can’t tell you how to untangle yourself from it—I don’t know if it’s possible to, entirely—but don’t lose sight of what you’ve accomplished. Don’t lose sight of the fact that Cress did this to incapacitate you, and if you let her do that, then she’s won.”
I nod, looking down at Artemisia. “She’ll wake up, won’t she?”
At that, S?ren laughs, but it sounds forced. “Art?” he says. “She didn’t survive everything she’s been through just to die at the hands of a socialite with gaudy taste in clothes.”
I can’t help but snort, mostly because I know he’s right. Art will survive if for no other reason than to spite everyone who doubted she would. “How did you know about Dagm?r?” I asked.
He looks away. “We found her body in the ruins. Almost unidentifiable, but she was wearing a Fire Gem choker and it had her name inscribed on the back.”
“A gift from Cress,” I guess.
He nods. “There were two others,” he adds. “A Maeve and a Freya. The names didn’t register for me, but it’s easy enough to assume who they were.”
“Part of Cress’s army of wraiths,” I say. “They were all dead?” I remember seeing their blackened bodies before I lost consciousness, but still I need to hear him say it.
“All dead,” he confirms before hesitating. “Did you…”
He can’t finish the sentence, but he doesn’t need to.
“I killed them all,” I say. “I…I didn’t just hold fire or push it in one direction or another. S?ren, it was like the fire was a part of me, like I was a part of it. It was like I reached out with my own arm and grabbed each one of them. Like I felt the life leaving them beneath my own touch.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. Instead he puts a hand on the back of my neck and presses his forehead to mine. His eyes close and he exhales softly. I feel his breath against my lips, sweet from the coffee he must have had this morning.
“You saved a lot of lives,” he murmurs. “I know that doesn’t feel like enough right now, but it’s something. And you survived. That’s something, too.”
I let out my own breath, feeling myself sag against him. I want to stay like this for another moment or hour or day, even, but at the sound of familiar voices outside the tent, we pull away from one another just as Blaise, Heron, Erik, and Maile enter in quick succession.
Each set of eyes goes to Artemisia first before moving to me.
“No change,” I tell Heron, reluctantly letting go of her hand and turning my attention to them. “Well? What do we do next?”
Only days ago, we had this same conversation and everyone had a different idea, a different plot ready, complete with the potential upsides and downsides. Days ago, no one could agree on any one path because there were so many we could take.
Now, though, no one has any plans at all to offer up. No ideas. No suggestions. Instead the tent is only filled with a heavy, impenetrable silence.
“Blaise,” I say, breaking it. “You’re heading to the Earth Mine, aren’t you?”
He hesitates a beat before nodding. “There’s no way the Kaiserin could have known for sure we were heading to the Air Mine. It makes sense that she would have sent her people to both mines, just in case.”
“But if that’s the case, they would have already gotten there,” Maile says, shaking her head. “There will be nothing left but ashes.”