ROWBOATS BRING US TO THE shores of Astrea—they bring us home. Though it has been ruled by my enemies for most of my life, it still lifts my heart to see it. Those rocky shores, the rolling green hills behind them, the quickly fading night sky overhead—all of it is a part of me, deeper than bones or muscle or blood. Astrea is mine and I am hers.

It takes a dozen trips back and forth to unload all the warriors, if they can truly be called that. Though S?ren and Artemisia say they’ve trained well in the last two weeks, they are still civilians—bakers and teachers and potters and such. Some of them are old enough to be grandparents; others are as young as fourteen—children. At least they would be in a different world, a fairer world. All of them asked to fight, they trained hard, and they are all going into this battle knowing that they very well may not survive it.

There will be more blood on my hands after this is done, no matter how it ends. I will have killed them by sending them into this battle.

“How did you do it?” I ask S?ren from where we sit on a cluster of boulders, watching the warriors line up. He glances at me, brow furrowed, and I clarify. “When you led battalions. You knew that not everyone would survive, even when you led them into a battle you were sure you’d win. You knew there would still be casualties. How did you send them into battle anyway?”

He considers it for a moment, his gaze unwavering as he looks out at the assembling troops. His expression is unreadable, carved from stone. There was a time I thought that was all he was—a hard, emotionless shell—but I know better now. I know that expression is its own kind of armor, donned whenever he feels vulnerable.

“I suppose I never really thought of myself as their leader, even when I was giving orders. My men and I were a team and I respected them enough to believe that they knew the risks and were making a choice. I respected that choice.”

“You fought beside them, though. What you asked of them was nothing you weren’t willing to give yourself. But I’m ordering them to fight while watching from a safe distance.” It’s difficult not to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

My eyes find Artemisia in the crowd, her shock of blue hair making her stand out. She shouts commands, arranging everyone into lines and groups. In a different life, could I have been as fierce as she is? Could I have charged into battle and cut my way through a sea of enemies with ease and grace?

That path must have existed for me at some point, but it’s long gone now.

“They’re following you, Theo,” S?ren says. “You can’t fight alongside them, but you can still be the leader they need, and in order to do that, you have to respect the choice they’re making. You have to send them into battle and do everything you can to make sure as many of them make it back as possible. And then you have to honor the fallen as best you can by continuing to fight for a world they would be proud to live in.”

We’re both quiet for a moment and I think he’s done. Just when I’m about to thank him, though, he speaks again.

“I never really did that,” he admits. “I sent them into battle and I respected them, that much is true, but I don’t think I ever honored them the way I would have liked to. At the end of the day, we were never fighting for anything we really believed in. We were fighting for my father, because he ordered it. They died for his greed and his bloodlust and I let them. That guilt is mine and I’ll carry it with me forever, but it won’t be yours.”

My throat tightens. Though I appreciate his words, I’m not sure if they’re true. Even if we do win, even if we do manage to take back Astrea and destroy the Kalovaxians, I don’t think there will ever be a day I don’t feel guilty for every life I lost—Ampelio, Elpis, Hylla, Santino, Olaric, Archduke Etmond, Hoa. They were the beginning, but after today I won’t be able to recite all of their names.

It’s for the greater good, I remind myself. The deaths of a few in order to save the many. There are so many people enslaved in Astrea, so many people we can save, but not without this sacrifice.

The thought makes me feel better for only a moment before I realize “the greater good” was what the Kaiser used to say his warriors died for as well.

I turn to S?ren. “Do you still worry that you’re the same as your father?”

He tears his gaze away from the warriors and looks at me thoughtfully.

“Not as much as I used to but still often enough,” he admits. “Why?”

I shake my head, pressing my lips together as if I can keep the words inside, but they slip out anyway. “Sometimes I worry I’m like him, too. He’s left his mark on me, not just my body or my mind but my soul as well. Sometimes I worry he shaped me.”

His eyebrows arch so high they nearly disappear into his hairline. “Theo,” he says, lowering his voice. “I have never met anyone so unlike my father as you. The fact that you’re worried about that, that you feel guilt over sending your people into a necessary battle, only proves that more.”

“But—”

He stops me by taking hold of my hand, his grip tight and urgent. “You aren’t who you are because of my father. You’re who you are in spite of everything he did, in spite of everything he tried to twist you into. Don’t give him that kind of credit.”

His words do little to ease the black pit growing deeper in my stomach, but I’m still glad to hear them. I squeeze his hand.

“He can’t take credit for you either, S?ren,” I tell him.

S?ren gives me a small smile that doesn’t meet his eyes.

I suppose neither of us really believes the other.

* * *

—

When the sun is a mere sliver over the horizon, I stand before the assembled troops on the shore, feeling small. I can’t let that show, though, so I draw myself up to my full height and survey my warriors like I am actually worthy of commanding them. I strengthen my voice so that I sound confident and regal. Like someone who deserves their loyalty.

“I want to go home,” I begin. “I know that all of you want the same, no matter where that home might be. And I know many of you have no home to go back to—it has already been destroyed in the Kalovaxians’ wake, razed to the ground so that life there is unsustainable. Goraki gives me hope that life after a siege is possible, that your countries can rebuild themselves. And if that is not the case, I would offer a new home in Astrea.”

I pause before continuing.

“Today, we begin our triumph over the Kalovaxians,” I say. “Today we tell them that they have trampled us for too long, they have taken too much, they have destroyed too many. Today we tell them enough and we begin to take our revenge.”

Cheers go up throughout the crowd and I stand a little straighter.

“Today, we show them what we are made of. For Astrea,” I shout. “And for Goraki and Yoxi and Manadol and Tiava and Rajinka and Kota. We will rise, together, and we will show the Kalovaxians how wrong they were to ever think us weak.”

This time, the cheers are so loud they are deafening.

THE BATTLE BEGINS AS THE sun bleeds over the horizon. Surprised shouts, alarm bells, metal clanging against metal, pained screams—all echo between the mountains that surround the camp, amplified tenfold at the cliff I watch from, flanked on either side by S?ren and Blaise.

We can’t get too close, but the battle can change in an instant and we need to be near enough that we can adjust our strategy and get messages to Artemisia and Heron. We need to be near enough that we can order a retreat if we must.

We don’t go too high—none of us is dressed for mountain climbing. I wear my red gown again—the most queenlike outfit I have—while Blaise and S?ren are dressed in heavy armor in case they’re needed in battle. I can’t imagine they will be, but neither enjoys sitting still.

Even I have to admit that it’s difficult to keep watch and do nothing. We have more warriors than they do, more than they’re prepared for, and in the hazy dawn light, the Kalovaxians are taken by surprise. For a moment, we are winning, our ramshackle army cutting down trained warriors, pushing toward the mine and the camp next to it—but that moment is over before the sun lifts away from the horizon.

S?ren was right: the Kalovaxians are skilled enough to make up for the discrepancy in numbers. They fight with precision and strength that our warriors aren’t able to match. What I don’t think S?ren prepared for, though, is the energy of our warriors—the rage and desperation that drives every one of their movements, making them stronger and fiercer than they should be.

“They fight like they know they won’t survive it,” S?ren says from my right side, a sense of awe in his voice.

“They fight like they don’t care if they survive it,” Blaise corrects from my other side.