She laughs, a full throaty sound that is somehow prettier for its roughness.

“It is what I’ve always called you in my mind,” she explains. “I forget that you never heard me. I had so many conversations with you over those years, but you never heard any of them.”

She leads me back to the seating area and sits down on the sofa, pulling me down next to her.

“In Goraki, there is a legend of a bird made of fire,” she says. “It never dies, the Phiren. First, it is made of embers, glowing bright and new before they burst into flames. The Phiren burns brightly for many years, but no fire burns forever—it is smothered into a bird of smoke, wispy and dark. It stays like that for a stretch of time—sometimes centuries even—but the day always comes when an ember within it sparks and its life begins anew.”

“Is it a real bird?” I ask.

She laughs. “That I cannot say,” she admits. “It’s a story we tell children to keep them occupied. ‘Look for the Phiren while the adults talk about adult things—if you spy it you get a wish!’ Or a way to explain away bad weather or a poor showing of crops. We would say that the Phiren had molted into smoke but it would turn to flame again soon and Goraki’s luck would turn with it. Sometimes people would claim they’d seen it, but I think most don’t believe it to be more than a myth.”

She pauses, regarding me thoughtfully. “Still, you reminded me of the legend. With your bright eyes and crown of ashes and Fire Queen mother. Lady Thora, everyone called you, but I thought of you as Lady Smoke. I knew it would only be a matter of time before your ember sparked again, until you once more burned bright enough to escape him.”

The lump in my throat swells and tears sting at my eyes.

“Sometimes I felt like I hated you,” I admit. “I wanted you to do something, to help me, to save me. I don’t think I realized just how much of a prisoner you were as well. Until Erik told me, I didn’t realize the Kaiser had…” I trail off, unable to say it. She understands what I mean, though.

“That I’d shared his bed,” she says before shaking her head. “No, that isn’t right. That sounds like I had a choice in it, though I suppose you understand what I mean better than most.”

“He didn’t touch me,” I tell her. “Not like that.”

She lets out a slow breath. “I will always be grateful for that,” she says. “I dreaded the day that would happen. I like to think I would have stopped it somehow, that I would have found a way to get you out before then, but I’m not sure that’s true. There was no way out for us, not until you cut the path yourself.”

She rests a hand on top of mine and squeezes. Her fingers are all bone, like the Kaiserin’s were, but Hoa’s are warm to the touch. She is alive and I am alive, and sometimes the Kaiserin is right and that is enough.

“I’m proud of you, my Phiren. You may be just brave—and just foolish—enough to triumph.”

THE WORD PICNIC MEANS SOMETHING different in Sta’Crivero than it did in Astrea. In Astrea, a picnic meant a blanket outside in the shade of a tree; it meant a basket of finger foods and a pitcher of fruit juice; it meant an easy day lying languid in the sun.

In Sta’Crivero, however, it is as elaborate as everything else. That it is outdoors is the only difference between it and a regular banquet. There’s a heavy gilt table with plush chairs set up on top of a sand dune just outside the capital’s walls. A large cloth awning shields the diners from the unforgiving sun, and two servants stand near us waving large cloth fans to keep the air a tolerable temperature. The plates and utensils are gold and laden with jewels. The food is a full five-course meal complete with an entire turkey—which seems excessive considering there are only four of us and three of us are women with waists corseted so tightly in Sta’Criveran dresses that we can scarcely breathe, let alone eat.

Chancellor Marzen arranged for this private outing with me, though I wonder how much he paid King Etristo for my company. If it weren’t for Dragonsbane and Salla Coltania’s presence as chaperones, I would feel like a courtesan whose company can be bought by the hour.

“You look very sharp in that color, Queen Theodosia,” the Chancellor says to me, refreshing my glass of lemon water, even though I’d only taken a few sips.

I glance down at the dress Marial selected for me today, pale blue chiffon. Pale blue has never been my color. Cress used to say that I was made of fire and she was made of ice the way we dressed—I in warm colors, she in cool ones.

“Thank you” is all I can think to say.

Dragonsbane elbows me, harder than seems strictly necessary, and nods meaningfully toward the Chancellor, who is waiting expectantly.

“Oh,” I say, realization dawning. “You look very dashing as well, Chancellor Marzen.”

But, of course, it’s too late and too halfhearted to sound genuine. I don’t think it matters, though; the Chancellor is charmed enough by his own company. He hardly needs me here at all.

He clears his throat, glancing at my aunt and his sister before turning his attention back to me and lowering his voice. “I look forward to getting to know you better,” he says in a way that slides over my skin like grease.

“And you as well,” I echo, keeping my voice level. “Isn’t that the point of these outings, Chancellor? To get to know one another better?”

“Of course,” Coltania cuts in with a blinding smile, all white teeth and red lips. She idly runs her manicured fingers over the rim of the gold plate in front of her. “You know, Marzen and I didn’t have things like these when we were growing up.”

“Coltania,” the Chancellor says, his voice heavy with warning.

She only laughs, giving her brother a teasing nudge. “Oh, come now, the fact that you are so relatable is what led our people to elect you,” she says to him before turning back to me. “We grew up on a farm, if it can truly be called that. There were animals, I suppose, though most of them were too old or ill to be of much use.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, because it seems like the only thing to say.

She shrugs her sharp shoulders. “It was the only life we knew,” she says. “It was normal. My mother died giving birth to a third bastard, which turned out to be the best thing to happen to us.”

“Coltania,” the Chancellor says again, his voice sharpening.

She ignores him. “That isn’t the way he tells it in his heartfelt speeches, but it’s true nonetheless,” she says. “After she died, Marzen and I—we must have been nine and ten at the time—left our shack behind and went to the city to try our luck there. Marzen always had more charm than he knew what to do with. He managed to talk himself into apprenticeships above more qualified boys. First it was a blacksmith, wasn’t it?” she asks. “You used to come home covered in sweat and coal.”

The Chancellor nods, though his eyes have grown distant. “Then a silversmith,” he adds.

“You weren’t very good at either,” she says with a laugh. “But you made friends. He’s always been very good at making friends,” she says to Dragonsbane and me. “Not me. People tend to dislike me.”

“You put them off,” Marzen says, not unkindly. “You say what you mean and it makes people uncomfortable.”

Coltania considers this before shrugging her shoulders. “Well,” she says, “I don’t like most other people because they don’t say what they mean. But that isn’t the point.”

“What is the point?” Dragonsbane asks, sounding bored.

Coltania smiles again, but this time there is something hard and feral to it. She doesn’t so much as glance at Dragonsbane—all her attention is focused on me. “The other rulers here have had everything handed to them,” she says. “Their crowns are their birthright, they haven’t been earned. None of them have suffered like we have and so no one can understand you like we do.”

I don’t flinch away from the intensity of her stare, though I very much want to. There’s a hunger in her eyes, as though she’d swallow me whole if it meant she never had to know hunger again. It should frighten me, but it doesn’t. I recognize that look—I’m sure I’ve worn it myself too many times to count.

“We’re like sisters, don’t you think?” she asks.

Considering that we haven’t spoken for more than five minutes total, the word sisters seems a bit much, but I respect the tactic. She can’t know that the word chafes against my skin, that it reminds me of the last girl who called me her sister.

I force myself not to think about Cress, not here and not now. I can’t miss her, I can’t feel guilty. Wherever she is, she certainly doesn’t miss me.

“What does your title mean, Salla Coltania?” I ask her to change the subject. “I’ve heard others use it but I’m afraid I don’t know its origin.”

Coltania smiles. “It’s simply a term of address, like Lady or Miss,” she explains.

“A bit more than that,” Dragonsbane laughs. “It’s an Orianic honorific. It means she’s an expert in her field.”