I leave the brig quickly, hearing his voice echo in my mind even as I bid farewell to the guards and try to wipe the blood from my wrist before they can see.

I hear him say my name over and over and over again, and I wish Artemisia were here to tell me to snap out of it. I always thought that my feelings for S?ren were not really mine but Thora’s, the broken, twisted girl that the Kaiser had created out of the ruins of me. I thought that they were kept separate enough that they didn’t overlap. I thought that when I left the palace, I left her as well.

But here I am, hundreds of miles away, and my feelings for S?ren are as complicated and knotted as they were the night I left.

I DON’T GO STRAIGHT BACK to S?ren. I know he’s still hungry and needs some more company from someone who doesn’t want to beat him, but the thought of being alone with him again paralyzes me. It isn’t that I don’t trust myself around him. It’s that the way he looks at me highlights my vulnerabilities and brings back little pieces of who I was in the palace. Being around him makes me forget that I’m a queen and that there are tens of thousands of other people depending on me. It takes all I have not to order the guards to give me their keys and break him out of there regardless of the consequences.

Changing course, I walk toward the aft of the boat, tray balanced in my arms as I look for a shock of blue hair.

Artemisia is easy to find in the chaos, her hair bright amid the various shades of brown and black hair that most Astreans have. She’s standing in the middle of an open space on the aft deck of the ship with a sword in each hand. They’re smaller than the swords the Kalovaxians favor, though they aren’t quite small enough to be called daggers. They’re about the length from her elbow to her outstretched middle finger, with filigreed gold hilts that gleam in the sunlight.

I don’t recognize her opponent, but he looks a couple of years older than she is and is much taller, with broad shoulders and a face with angles sharper than broken glass. His dark eyes are intent on Artemisia as they circle one another, his mouth set in a firm line. For her part, Artemisia dances instead of walks, each move graceful as a cat’s. She even smiles at the boy, if it can truly be called a smile.

All at once they lunge at each other, metal clanging against metal as their swords clash.

It’s immediately clear that they are unevenly matched, though not in the way they first appear to be. Though the boy is twice Artemisia’s size and strong, his movements are slow and clumsy, and Artemisia is quick enough that he misses more often than not, wasting energy he needs to keep up with her.

She is showing off, throwing in a twirl here, an unnecessary but dramatic arc to her swing there. It’s more performance than fight for her, until it’s not. She sees the moment his breathing becomes too labored, his steps dragging, and in that moment she doubles her own efforts. Her strikes rain down one after another, though he blocks them all. She seems to want him to and uses his distraction to back him up farther and farther until he stumbles over an uneven plank in the deck and falls backward. Before he can register what is happening, Artemisia is on top of him, her swords crossed over his neck and her grin triumphant.

I’m not the only one watching. Dozens of others have stopped their work to gape at the spectacle, and now they cheer for her.

“I’d say I missed sparring with you,” the boy says, more amused than annoyed at his loss. “But I’d be half lying. I’ll be sore tomorrow, you know.”

Artemisia clicks her tongue. “You let yourself slip while I’ve been gone,” she volleys back, sheathing her swords at her hips and extending a hand to help him up.

He’s prideful enough to ignore it, pushing himself back up to his feet with a groan. He retrieves his swords and sheaths them. “I didn’t expect you to come back this good,” he says. “When did you have time to practice in the mines?”

She shrugs her shoulders, though a dark cloud passes over her face. “I didn’t, but I managed to stow a lot of anger, and that makes up for rusty muscles, at least somewhat.”

The boy looks like he wants to say something, but then his eyes find me and widen.

“Y-Your Majesty,” he stammers, dipping into a hasty bow before I can tell him not to.

Artemisia whirls around to face me, cheeks pink with exertion.

“That was impressive,” I tell her.

“It would be more fun with an opponent who’d lifted a sword in the last year,” she says, shooting a halfhearted glare at her partner.

He rolls his eyes. “I’ll practice more,” he says. “And you’ll wish I hadn’t when I beat you.”

She snorts. “As if you ever could,” she says. “Theo, this is Spiros.”

“Nice to meet you,” I tell him. “Trust me, you did far better than I could have.”

“I did offer to fix that,” Artemisia reminds me before she notices my tray. “Taking breakfast in your room?”

“Not quite,” I say. “Do you have a few moments free?”

She nods before turning back to Spiros. “I’ll see you at supper.”

“If I can walk by then,” he says.

Artemisia and I don’t speak until we are out of earshot. When I confess about my visit to S?ren, she wastes no time telling me how foolish I was.

“As soon as the guards’ shift is over, they’ll be tattling to my mother about your visit and she’ll find some way to use it against you,” she says.

“I know,” I reply. “But I have an idea about that.”

Artemisia arches a dark eyebrow and purses her lips, waiting for me to continue.

“Your gift can change your appearance. Can it change mine?”

She looks surprised for a half second before her mouth bows into a smile. “It can. But in return, I’m going to put a sword in your hand and teach you how to use it. Deal?”

I start to protest again, but then I think about the way she fought a few minutes ago, unafraid and powerful and ready to take on any enemy. I still don’t know if I have that in me, but I would like to find out.

“Deal,” I say.

Artemisia gives a curt nod. “Well then, whose face would you like to try on?”

* * *

—

It is a strange thing, to be wearing my mother’s face. Dragonsbane’s face, I remind myself, though it doesn’t feel like Dragonsbane’s. I try to mimic her posture as Artemisia and I walk toward the guards. Art managed to change the appearance of my clothes, but she couldn’t do anything about my boots—I hope my straight-backed stance will help to disguise the fact that I’m a couple of inches shorter than Dragonsbane.

When the guards see us approach, they stand up a little straighter.

“Captain,” they say in sync.

“I’m here to see the prisoner,” I reply, clipping my words the same way Dragonsbane does.

“Of course,” one of the guards says, fumbling to open the door as quickly as possible.

“Is there anything you would like to report?” I ask, knowing that there is.

The guards don’t disappoint. They trip over each other to tell me about my own visit, how long I stayed, what they overheard through the door. I make a note to myself to speak softer, even if they didn’t hear anything particularly damning this time. Only my concern, only me convincing him to eat.

“You’ll speak of this to no one, am I understood?” I say, looking between the two of them with what I hope is the same intensity that Dragonsbane always has.

They both nod frantically and step aside, letting Artemisia and me pass.

* * *

—

I should have brought paper and a quill with me. I hadn’t expected much from S?ren—the names of a handful of other countries similar to Astrea willing to join with us against the Kaiser—but he lists close to a dozen, and Artemisia has plenty more to add. It turns out that growing up on a ship crewed by people from all over the world has given her a unique insight into the elements of their cultures that S?ren never picked up during his visits to their courts.

Each country seems to have a different structure. None of them is a matriarchy, the way Astrea is, though plenty follow the same patriarchal structure as Kalovaxia, even if the names of the rulers change. There are kings and emperors and potentates, yet as far as I can tell they all mean the same thing, more or less.

“I never understood the concept of the bloodline tracing through male heirs,” I admit after S?ren tells me about Prince Talin of Etralia, whose legitimacy as an heir is questionable at best.