“I hoped this was still here,” he says. “But I didn’t want to have to share it with the others. We would have only gotten a sip each if I had.”

“I suppose you still don’t have glasses?” I ask him.

“You are a queen now,” he says with a dramatic sigh, raising his eyebrows. “I suppose going without glasses is too barbaric for you?”

“I’ll make an exception for you,” I joke.

He laughs and pulls a lever on the side of the ship’s helm, locking it into place, then takes my hand and guides me to the bow of the ship. Together, we lay out my blanket and sit down. When I shiver without it, S?ren pulls me toward him so that I’m sitting between his legs, back against his chest, and his arms around my shoulders, keeping me warm while he tries to open the wine.

It takes a moment for him to work the cork out of the bottle with his dagger, but it finally comes free and he sets the knife aside, cork still wedged onto the tip. For a few moments, we sit in silence, passing the bottle back and forth and listening to the waves crash against the hull.

When the bottle is half-empty, S?ren speaks, his breath warm against my ear.

“Sometimes, I think about what would have happened if we’d actually left that night,” he says, his voice low. It sends a shiver down my spine.

“If we’d gone to Brakka and feasted on intu nakara?” I tease.

He laughs and takes another swig. “Sometimes, it’s nice to imagine an easy life for a moment,” he says. “Just you and me, on some foreign shore where no one knows us, where we have no responsibilities.”

I lean my head back into the crook of his neck. “It’s a nice fantasy,” I admit.

“Yes, but that’s all it is—a fantasy. It’s tempting on the surface, but it’s not deep enough to sustain either of us. We wouldn’t have been happy somewhere else.”

I consider that for a moment. “I wouldn’t be me somewhere else,” I say finally. “Technically, I became Queen when my mother died, but I think the moment when I truly felt it was when I faced your father, when I stood up for myself and Astrea. And I don’t think you were really you then, either. You defined yourself in relation to your father, but you didn’t know who you were on your own yet.”

I take the bottle and drink another sip before continuing.

“Maybe we could have been happy somewhere else, with a simpler, easier life together,” I say. “But we wouldn’t have been us. And I would take this, here, with you—as we are now—over anything else.”

He doesn’t reply. Instead he draws my hair aside and drops a lingering kiss on my shoulder, where the strap of my shift meets my skin. Then, again, farther up my neck. And again. And again.

A shiver runs through me and he feels it, his mouth smiling against my throat. His hands move down, over my rib cage, over the curve of my waist, pausing at my hips. Through the thin material of my dress, I can feel the callouses on his fingers.

With shaking hands, I set the bottle out of the way and lift myself up onto my knees, turning around so that we are face to face and I can see my own nerves reflected back at me in his clear blue eyes.

“Theo,” he says, his voice barely more than breath. Just one word, just my name, but it floods my body with warmth, turning me into light.

There is so much I want to say to him, so many words that I know will never be enough to encapsulate how I feel. So I don’t try to tell him at all—I show him. I kiss him, slow and bruising, dragging a hand through his short blond hair. My fingers slide down his back, feeling the bones of his spine through his shirt. He lets out a soft moan against my lips, and a thrill runs through me.

I did that to him, and I wonder what else I can do.

“Theodosia,” he says, breathing the name into my mouth like it’s something dangerous and holy. His hands trace down my hips to my knees, where they find the hem of my shift, fingers dancing ever so slightly underneath, unsure.

I reach around the front of his shirt and undo the lowest button, then the next, then the next. When they’re all loose, I push his shirt off his shoulders and look down at his bare chest, marked with scars and ugly words that will never heal completely. Seeing them breaks my heart, but I remind myself that they also mean that he survived. I remind myself that in some ways, they match mine.

Words race through me but I don’t trust myself to speak, afraid of how my voice will give away how everything in me is breaking apart at his touch. Instead I kiss him again, longer and slower, and let my hands trace over his chest, over the scars and the words, because they are something beautiful and sacred.

His hands shake when he lifts my shift, and I break away from him, unable to hold back a laugh.

“What?” he asks, breathless, releasing the hem of my dress so that it falls back down. “What’s funny?”

There’s worry in his face, and I try to kiss it away.

“Nothing’s funny,” I tell him, unable to stop smiling. “I just never thought I would see you afraid—and here you are, afraid of me.”

He swallows, trying to smile back. His eyes are dark and wide open, locked onto mine with such intensity that I want to look away, but at the same time, I wouldn’t dare.

“Of course,” he says. “You’re a terrifying creature.”

I smile wider and kiss him again, quickly. Before I can think too much about it, I pull off my shift myself so that there is nothing on my skin at all except for the chill of the sea air.

S?ren lets out a sound that doesn’t seem entirely human, a sound that raises goose bumps on my skin. His arms come around me once more, laying me back on the blanket and kissing me, kissing the corner of my mouth, kissing my jaw, all while his hands are everywhere else, exploring. When one makes its way between my thighs, I gasp, digging my nails into his back.

S?ren pulls back, his face looming over mine. “Are you sure about this?” he whispers—as if there’s anyone close enough to hear but me.

There aren’t many things I’m sure of in this world. I’m not sure what tomorrow will bring, or the day after. I’m not sure if either of us will live long enough to find out. I’m not sure what will happen to Astrea or Kalovaxia or if peace is something we will ever find. But I am sure about him, I am sure about us, I am sure about this.

“Yana Crebesti,” I whisper before twining my arms around his neck and pulling him down into another kiss.

IN THE MORNING, I AVOID S?ren as much as I can on such a small boat, worried that if he looks at me for too long, I will somehow combust entirely. My gift has become easier to control since I went into the mine, and even easier after I started training with Blaise, but every time our eyes meet over our meager breakfast on the deck with the others, it feels like too much—everything we did last night laid out for everyone to see. I finish my coffee in two large gulps before standing up.

“Do you still feel up to pulling the tides?” I ask Artemisia.

Art frowns at me, confused for a second, before she shrugs and crams the last corner of her share of stale bread into her mouth.

“Let’s go,” she says, pushing herself up to her feet. She winces in pain, but she manages to stay standing without any help.

“Are you all right?” Heron asks her.

“Fine,” she says through gritted teeth. She swallows down her discomfort and takes one step toward the bow of the ship, then another. Pleased with herself, she smiles.

“See?” she shoots back at us. “I told you I’d be better. By the time we reach the capital tomorrow night, I’ll be as good as new.”

Maile’s brow creases. “You can’t be serious about that,” she says. “You’re in pain. You’ll only slow us down.”

“Not by tomorrow night I won’t,” Artemisia insists, her dark eyes hard. “Tell her, Heron.”

Heron shrinks a bit under Artemisia’s gaze, but after a second, he nods. “She’s healing fast,” he admits, though he sounds like he’d rather not say anything. “At the rate she’s going, she’ll be just about at her normal capacity by tomorrow.”

Just about at her normal capacity is still better than most warriors are in their prime. I know this, and the others must as well, because no one protests.

“If you die,” I tell her, linking my arm through hers so she has some support, “your mother will kill me. And then I’ll find you in the After and I’ll kill you again.”

Artemisia smiles and elbows me in the ribs. “Deal,” she says.

We sit at the bow of the boat, at the very front where the figurehead juts out from the wood, the head of a drakkon carved from iron.

“You’re acting strange,” Artemisia tells me, settling herself on the deck, stretching both of her legs out in front of her. They’re still bandaged up, but more lightly than they were even yesterday.

“How am I supposed to act?” I ask her, with a laugh I hope she doesn’t see through. “Tomorrow night, we’re laying siege on the palace—on my palace. Tonight, I’ll sleep again on this ship, but the next night? I could be in my own bed.”

“Or,” Artemisia says, lifting her arms and beginning her complicated pattern of movements, “you’ll be dead.”