I’m still not sure if I’m Thora in his eyes, or Theo, or some bleeding watercolor of both together, but in this moment, we are the only two people in the world and we are not Thora and the Prinz. We are Theo and S?ren and it feels like he knows me as well as I know myself.

I stand and close the few steps of distance between us until we are only inches apart. He doesn’t step back, but he doesn’t move closer either, though his breath hitches. He makes no move to touch me, his hands hanging limp at his sides. He won’t, I realize, because I asked him to keep his feelings to himself.

It’s easier that way, smarter to leave things as they are. He is my advisor and my friend, and that is all he can ever be. But standing this close to him, it’s difficult to remember why that is. It’s difficult to remember Blaise, only a few cabins away, telling me he loved me. It’s difficult to remember the Kaiser, sitting on my mother’s throne with my once closest friend at his side. It’s difficult to remember the thousands of people who have agreed to follow me into battle, people who see S?ren as their enemy.

“S?ren,” I say, his name little more than a breath.

His eyes find mine—they’re the same shade of blue as the Kaiser’s, but even that reminder is dim now, a ghost in the back of my mind.

Tentatively, I reach up to touch his cheek. He’s in need of a shave and his stubble is rough against the palm of my hand.

S?ren looks like he wants to say something, but whatever it is falls away when I roll onto the tips of my toes and brush my lips against his. With that touch, all S?ren’s restraint falls away and in an instant he is kissing me back. One hand reaches up to cradle my face while the other settles at my waist, anchoring me to him. It is a gentle kiss, like the ones we shared back in Astrea, sneaking through palace tunnels and taking midnight sails when we were still strangers to each other, but we aren’t strangers anymore. I know him and he knows me and the darkest parts of our souls match.

The kiss deepens. S?ren tastes like the fresh bread and spiced wine we had at dinner. The kiss turns hungry, devouring, consuming until I’m not sure which breaths are his and which are mine. Our edges blur together, hands and skin and lips and teeth. When his mouth leaves mine, I want to pull him back, but all too quickly he’s kissing my jaw instead, my cheek, the shell of my ear, sending a shiver through me that feels like fire.

“Theodosia.” He whispers my name like a hymn. It doesn’t sound too big anymore; it fits me as perfectly as his hand fits the curve of my waist, as perfectly as his mouth melds to mine when he kisses me again.

* * *

—

I don’t have to ask S?ren to stay the night with me. The invitation hangs in the air without words, and he accepts it, shucking off his boots and crawling into my bed. We curl up together under my threadbare blanket, my head on his chest, his arms around me.

“If they find me here in the morning, there will be talk,” he says through a yawn.

“I know,” I say. I listen to the beating of his heart, steady and sure and in time with mine.

His fingers trace patterns on my back through the thin material of my nightgown. “In the garden, you told me not to mention my feelings for you because you believed them not to be true,” he says slowly.

“S?ren—” I start, but he interrupts.

“Just let me say this, please,” he says before pausing. “In Astrea, who you were—Thora—I wanted her. I wanted to protect her from my father, the way I never could protect my mother. I wanted to run away with her and save both of us. You were right about that. But what I felt then, it’s a shadow of what I feel for you, Theo.”

I open my mouth to tell him to stop again, but the words die in my throat. Dangerous as they are, I want to hear them so much it almost breaks me.

“I don’t want to protect you. I don’t need to protect you. You have others for that and you’ve done it yourself enough times by now. I don’t want to run away with you; I want to stand at your side and fight—fight for something I never even thought that I wanted, but I do. I’m stronger with you, and braver, and I never want to go back to living like I was before. I love you, and it isn’t anything to do with who you pretended to be. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I tell him softly.

When his breathing turns slow and even, I can’t help but think about Blaise saying those same three words to me only days ago. When Blaise said them, they were a balm for a wound he hadn’t delivered yet. S?ren says them like he’s breaking the chains that bind us together and hoping I will stay anyway.

THE SHIP WE’RE ON TRAILS behind the rest of the fleet. Though we made it from Astrea to Sta’Crivero in a week, it takes us twice that to wind around to the southeast coast of Astrea, where the Fire Mine is, and we make no effort to hurry. The two weeks pass in a flurry of training and strategizing, trying to turn our two thousand refugees into two thousand soldiers. The weapons and armor that were looted from one of the Sta’Criveran ships we stole are barely enough, but it will have to do, because the coast appeared on the horizon this morning, the silhouette of Astrea’s cliffs jagged against the rising sun. There isn’t much more time to wait and train and plan.

Though I know I’d do more harm than good if I tried to physically lead an army, it’s difficult not to feel like a cosseted infant in a cushioned cradle. S?ren must feel it worse than I do, though he’s never complained to me in the nights he’s spent in my room, the two of us huddling beneath the covers together, blocking out the rest of the world. Him fighting would be too risky and potentially confusing—Kalovaxian as he is, it would be too easy for a friendly sword to find its way to his heart. Still, I feel his disappointment permeating the air around him.

He tries to make up for it by throwing himself into strategizing. Because he’s seen the mines from the point of view of a Kalovaxian commander, his input is invaluable. Even my Shadows, who spent years in the mines themselves, are surprised by the detail in the illustration S?ren sketches out on the parchment we’ve laid out on my desk. We surround it, S?ren, Blaise, Heron, Artemisia, and I, our shoulders touching.

“I’ve circled everywhere guards will be,” S?ren says.

I glance from his somber face to the map. There are more circles than clear space.

“It’s a lot,” he allows when none of us speaks.

“A lot is an understatement,” Artemisia says, pursing her lips.

“The mine won’t be as easy to take as the camp was,” S?ren admits. “But we’ll still outnumber them and they won’t be expecting it, which gives us an advantage.”

“Enough to counteract their advantage of fighting on land they know, plentiful with their own resources, with more experience, strength, and gems to aid them?” Blaise asks.

S?ren hesitates. “Maybe,” he says.

Maybe isn’t good enough, but it’s the best we can hope for. I rub my temples and stare down at the map, pointing to the shore. “So we’ll approach from this direction?”

S?ren nods. “But it would be more effective if we also send a couple of the faster ships around here to come from this direction,” he says, pointing to the shore on the far side of the Fire Mine. “That way, we’ll be attacking on two fronts and it’s one less channel they’ll have to send a warning to my father.”

I nod. “Do we have enough men for it?” I ask. “Or will splitting our resources make it easier for them to pick us off one side at a time?”

S?ren stares at the map, brow furrowed in concentration. “We should have enough,” he says after a moment.

Should. There was a reason Dragonsbane didn’t want to join this fight with us—it’s a risk, and a big one at that.

“They won’t have any ships watching the southwest coast,” S?ren adds. “But they will have some ships patrolling farther north. We have enough ships to take them out, but we’ll likely lose a few of our own in the process.”

“Ships we can’t afford to lose,” I say, frowning. An idea takes hold of me and I look up at Heron. “How far can your invisibility spread?” I ask.

He considers the question. “I can’t say I’ve ever tried cloaking more than a couple of others.”

“Could you cloak the entire fleet?” I ask, though even as I voice the request, it seems like a hopeless question.

Heron’s brow creases. “No,” he says slowly. “But maybe I could fade us enough that we would be difficult to see, especially if I play with the water’s reflection. Not for long, though. Not long enough to get us past them.”

Artemisia tilts her head to one side, dark eyes becoming thoughtful. “If Heron can fade the fleet, I can manipulate the tides, push us past the Kalovaxian patrol faster. We might not be able to slip by unnoticed before he loses the invisibility, but at the very least, we could surprise them enough to minimize our losses.” She pauses, her eyes flicking to Blaise. “Or,” she says, her voice wary, “we could rip their ships apart without giving them a chance to fire a single cannon.”