I take a step away from him. “That isn’t what this is about and you know it. You caused an earthquake today, Blaise. You’re dangerous—to yourself, to me, to everyone around you. That isn’t a gift.”

“It might not be a gift to you, Theo, but it will be to the Kalovaxians when we finally meet on the battlefield and I unleash every last ounce of whatever kind of power this is—gift or curse, I will use it against them just the same.”

The proclamation knocks the air from my lungs. I imagine a pot boiling over. “That would be suicide,” I tell him. “Is that what you want? To die at seventeen by turning yourself into a weapon?”

He’s quiet for a moment, taking a shuddering breath. “I want to save Astrea,” he says finally. “Whatever it is that happened to me in that mine, it made me stronger. Stronger than other Guardians. Stronger than I ever could be without it. If you take that away from me…I have nothing.”

I try to bite back the words, but they slip out anyway.

“You have me,” I tell him. The words are a whisper, almost lost altogether in the harsh desert wind.

He shakes his head. “I love you, Theo. I said that and I meant it. But I would rather have you safe on your throne without me than be with you for the rest of a long life spent running and cowering and hiding from the Kaiser.”

“It doesn’t have to be one or the other,” I tell him, stepping around the horse so that there is nothing between us. “I want to take that throne with you at my side, like Ampelio was at my mother’s.”

His smile is bitter. “I don’t think you learned anything from those stories of the gods we loved as children,” he says. “Didn’t you ever notice what they all had in common?”

I shake my head. “Monsters and heroes and acts of stupid bravery?” I ask. “Happily-ever-afters?”

“Sacrifice,” he says. “The hero never wins if they don’t sacrifice what they love to do it. You want everything, and you aren’t willing to give anything up to get it—not your freedom or me or the Prinkiti. But I think I can sacrifice enough for the both of us, when the time comes.”

Blaise finally turns to look at me, though his thoughts are sealed so well behind his eyes that it feels like I’m looking at a stranger instead of the person I know best in this world.

“If you won’t give up your gems, you’re a danger to all of us,” I tell him, struggling to keep my voice steady even as I force myself to say the hardest words I’ve ever said. “You have to leave.”

His shock and hurt last only an instant before they are sealed away again behind his placid expression. He nods. “I’ll take Hoa back to the capital, but after that, I’ll go. It won’t be far—I’ll make camp a mile outside the wall. If you need me, you can send word through Heron or Art.”

I always need you, I want to say. I wouldn’t have escaped the Kaiser without your plans. I wouldn’t be any kind of queen. I would still be just a scared girl, cowering before the Kaiser. I don’t know who I am without you.

The words die in my throat, smothered by my pride and my anger. This is his choice, I remind myself.

He doesn’t wait for my response anyway, instead turning and walking back to the others with his empty bucket, leaving me alone in the hot sun with a shattered heart.

I HEARD SOME KALOVAXIAN SOLDIERS WHO lost appendages in battle talk about how they could still feel their limbs even though they were no longer there. For me, it’s the same way with Blaise. Even when we return to the palace without him, I still feel his presence. It’s a shock every time I look for him, only to find Heron and Artemisia. They seem to feel his absence as well, and when we all retire to my room that night, a blanket of silence drapes over us.

As I lie in bed, I try not to imagine Blaise, alone outside the capital wall with the Sta’Criveran heat bearing down on him even in the dark, amplified by the heat burning through him. But of course I fail and I know sleep will not come anytime soon.

Sleep, however, is not what I was planning on doing tonight.

This time, when I leave Heron and Artemisia asleep to visit S?ren, I write them a note so they won’t worry. I take my dagger with me. Little good it might do, but it’s sharp, and that will count for something if it comes down to it. I hope.

Erik is already waiting when I slip out the door and close it quietly behind me. He leans against the far wall with his arms crossed over his chest. He still doesn’t seem comfortable in his Gorakian clothes, but I can’t help but think that he looks better in them than he did in his ill-fitting Kalovaxian suit.

“We can’t do this during daylight hours?” he asks when he sees me. “You can’t tell me you aren’t exhausted—at least I got some sleep last night. You didn’t get any.”

It isn’t until he says it that I realize he’s right. With everything that has happened in the last two days, sleep has been the farthest thing from my mind.

“I’m fine,” I tell him. “I can sleep late tomorrow. King Etristo gave me leave to visit S?ren whenever I like, since he’s still my advisor, but I worry that if I do it when the King is awake, he’ll find some way to stop me.”

Erik laughs. “I’d like to see him try,” he says before pausing. “You aren’t like you were in Astrea—you don’t let anyone tell you what to do here, not even your friends.”

I shrug and start toward the riser. He quickly falls into step next to me. “I always take their thoughts into consideration,” I say. “But when it comes to S?ren, their opinions are always biased. They tolerate him and I think maybe they even like him on some level, but at the end of the day, he’s a Kalovaxian. They don’t trust him.”

“Why do you?” Erik asks.

It’s a question I’ve asked myself countless times without ever being able to find a full answer. This time is no different, but I try.

“S?ren loves me. Or he thinks he does, at least. Maybe he’s still confusing me with Thora, but that doesn’t matter, because his intentions are fueled by that feeling,” I explain. “Don’t misunderstand me—his hatred of his father is real, his guilt over the berserkers is real, his convictions are real.” I think it over for a moment. “But I also know where he stands. I know what he wants, and I know what he wants from me in particular. Because of that, I trust him more than King Etristo or any of the suitors. I trust him even more than I trust Dragonsbane.”

Erik considers this for a moment. “More than you trust me?” he asks.

I glance sideways at him. “Yes,” I admit. “I trust your intentions, Erik. But I still don’t know what you’re hoping to accomplish by being here, and until I do you’re still an enigma.”

“I rather like being an enigma,” he says with a grin, making me laugh.

We ring the bell for the riser and Erik slumps against another wall to wait, even though it’ll only be a moment. He looks like he wants to ask me a question, but doesn’t know how. It’s a show of uncertainty I’m not used to seeing from Erik, who usually masks his doubts with layers of false bravado.

“What is it?” I ask him.

He shakes his head, looking down at the ground. “Nothing.”

“Well, now you’ve piqued my interest even more. Come on, I’m not going to bite you.”

He hesitates a moment longer, and when he looks back up at me, his whole face is pink. “Do you know…does Heron like…is he interested in other boys?”

I don’t know what I expected him to ask me, but the question is so entirely out of the blue that all I can do is laugh, though I’m not sure why I am. After all, Heron is interested in boys—at the very least, he was interested in a boy, and the way he looked at Erik before makes me think it wasn’t a singular case.

Erik’s face turns an even deeper shade of pink. “I was only wondering. Some boys do, you know, just like some girls like other girls.”

“I know that,” I say, managing to get a hold of myself. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you about that. You just surprised me is all. Do you like other boys?”

He shrugs. “Mostly I think I just like everyone.”

“I didn’t realize,” I say.

“I don’t exactly lead with it in conversation,” he says. “Some people think it makes me…unnatural.”

“Some people are fools,” I tell him before hesitating. “Does S?ren…” I trail off.

Erik nods. “I think he’s known about as long as I have. I didn’t even have to tell him.”

I sigh. “Since I doubt you want me telling strangers your personal business, I’m not telling you Heron’s. If you want to know, you can ask him yourself.”

Erik considers this for a moment. “Maybe I will,” he says.

I press my lips together, thinking of Heron and his broken heart. After everyone he’s loved and lost, I don’t know how he would survive another heartbreak.

“Just…be careful,” I tell him. “I like you, Erik, but if I have to choose between you and my Shadows, I will choose them every time.”

He stares at me. “Huh,” he says.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He pushes off the wall to stand just as the riser whirs into place. “I think I caught a glimpse of the real Theodosia underneath all those masks. And she’s a lot softer around the edges than I’d thought.”