“No.” My voice comes out hoarse.

“ ‘I’ve given you two countries to rule, my love. Now what will you give me?’ ”

The words send a shiver down my spine. “Why are you telling me this?” I ask.

She closes her eyes and takes a moment to calm herself. Her shaking slows, and when she opens her eyes again, the cloudiness is gone, replaced by a fire I didn’t think her capable of. “Because I know the spark of rebellion when I see it. There was a time when I knew that spark very well. But I need you to understand that you are playing a dangerous game with a dangerous man. And there are consequences when you lose—and you will lose. I know that as well.”

I glance around the room, expecting to see holes in the walls, expecting to hear guards burst into the room ready to arrest us both for speaking against the Kaiser. She sees this and smiles.

“No, little lamb, I rid myself of my own Shadows years ago. All it took was a decade of docility and submission for Corbinian to call them off—or, I suppose, to give them to you. With enough time, you’ll lose them as well. Once Corbinian stops seeing you as a threat, or you have someone he can use against you the way he uses Søren against me.”

“I’m still not quite sure what you want from me,” I tell her, but I know I don’t sound convincing.

She lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “My son came to me last night. He had some…concerns about Corbinian’s plans to marry you off and hoped that I could change his mind. He was smart, to come to me instead of going straight to his father. Of course, you were smarter still to seek out his help in the first place.”

I force my expression into one of innocence, though I’m starting to think it’s useless with her. “The Prinz and I have become friends, Your Highness. I was…troubled, understandably, when I heard the Kaiser intended to marry me off to Lord Dalgaard, and I turned to Søren. As a friend.”

For a long moment, she’s quiet. “I have taken the liberty of arranging an alternative marriage for Lord Dalgaard,” she says finally. “One he found perfectly amenable.”

“I am very grateful, Your Highness,” I breathe. It might be the first true thing I’ve said to her.

Her thin eyebrows arch. “Aren’t you curious to know whose well-being was traded for your own?”

I try to look chastened, but I can’t quite manage it. The truth, damned as it might make me, is that I don’t care at all which spoiled and vicious Kalovaxian girl the Kaiserin had to trade for me. I’d watch them all die without batting an eyelash.

Even Crescentia? a small voice asks in the back of my mind, but I ignore it. Cress is too valuable to marry off to someone like Lord Dalgaard. It would never happen.

“I would imagine, Your Highness, that the wisest choice would have been Lady Dagmær,” I say. “Such a match would please everyone. Dagmær’s father likely put up a fuss about Lord Dalgaard’s history, but since it was you asking—and I assume adding a little extra to Lord Dalgaard’s bid—he gave in easily enough.”

She purses her lips. “You have a sharp mind, little lamb, and all the sharper still for keeping it hidden. But make no mistake: there will be another match made for you, likely a crueler one.”

“I don’t see who could be crueler than Lord Dalgaard.” I say it, holding her gaze with mine.

“Don’t you?” she asks, tilting her head to one side. “My husband would hardly be the first kaiser to rid himself of his wife to take a younger bride. I have nothing left to give him, after all,” she says casually. “But you’re young. You could give him more children and strengthen his hold on the country. And I’ve seen him look at you. I’d imagine the whole court has—my chivalrous fool of a son included. Corbinian isn’t exactly subtle, is he?”

I try to speak but words fail me. The python is back, wrapping itself around my stomach and chest so tightly I’m sure it will kill me. I want to deny her words, but I can’t.

She gets to her feet and I know that I should rise as well and curtsy, but I’m frozen in place. “Some advice, little lamb? Next time you close a window, make sure it doesn’t open a trapdoor beneath your feet.”

She’s halfway to the door when I find my voice. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admit, barely louder than a whisper.

The Kaiserin hears me, though. She turns and regards me with that disconcerting, unfocused stare of hers. “You’re a lamb in the lion’s den, child. You’re surviving. Isn’t that enough?”

I’M SHAKING AS I WALK down the hall, though I try to hide it. I smile pleasantly at the barrage of courtiers who just so happen to be taking leisurely strolls near the royal wing, but I don’t really see them—just a blur of bland, pale Kalovaxian features bleeding together until they’re one face. The Kaiserin’s voice echoes in my head: “You are playing a dangerous game with a dangerous man.” It’s no more than I already knew, but hearing it from someone else—the Kaiserin, of all people—sets everything in a new light.

I’d thought that the worst things that could be done to me had already come to pass—the public whippings, executing Ampelio, watching my mother die. I’d never imagined something worse was possible. But being forced to marry the Kaiser would be just that. I would burrow so deep inside myself that I’m not sure I would ever break free.

I would die first.

It doesn’t matter, I tell myself; it won’t come to that. In a month I’ll be gone from this place and I’ll never have to look at the Kaiser again. Still, fear and disgust course through me at the prospect of the Kaiser sharing my bed.

My Shadows’ footsteps fall into place a good distance behind me, and I resist the urge to look back at them. I feel their eyes on me, but I can’t let them know how afraid I am. I can’t let them know about this new threat either. Blaise would insist that we leave the city immediately. He would stow me somewhere safe while Astrea turned to dust.

When I slip back into my room, Hoa is smoothing the coverlet into place over my bed, but she stops and looks up at me in alarm. I try to shift my expression into something neutral, but can’t manage. Not today.

“Leave,” I tell her.

Her eyes dart to the walls—a silent reminder or an old habit, I’m not sure—and for a second she looks like she wants to do something, but she only nods and disappears out the door.

I go to stand at my window, less for the view of the gray garden and more because it’s the only way to hide my face from my Shadows. Still, the weight of their stares is unbearable. I can practically hear Artemisia’s throaty scoff again and Heron’s beleaguered lecturing voice. I imagine Blaise rolling his eyes and deciding to take me out of here tonight because it turns out I can’t do this after all and I don’t know why I thought I could. I’m only the broken little Ash Princess who can’t save herself, let alone her country.