Time slows enough for me to realize that even now, I don’t hate her. I pity her, I fear her, but I also love her.

I close my eyes and wait for the blade to find its mark.

* * *

—

I wake up in a cold sweat. The weight of the last day is heavy on my shoulders, but it’s almost welcome. It’s a reminder that I am alive, that I have survived to see another day—even if it is also a reminder of those who didn’t. Elpis. Olaric. Hylla. Santino. I say a silent prayer to the gods that they are greeted warmly in the After, like the heroes they are.

Next to me, Blaise shifts in his sleep, brow furrowing deeply. His head jerks to one side and he lets out a whimper that clenches around my heart. Even asleep, he is not at peace.

I roll onto my side to face him and place my hand on his chest, fingers spread. He’s gained weight over the last few weeks in the palace, but I can still feel the hard line of his sternum through cloth and flesh. He continues to thrash for a moment, but I keep my hand steady until he calms and the tension smooths from his expression. Once more, he looks like the boy I knew in a different lifetime, before the world made ruins of us.

So many people I loved have been wrenched from my grasp. I have watched as the life left their eyes. I have mourned them and I have envied them and I have missed them every moment.

I will not lose Blaise, too.

Rustling comes from behind me and I pull away from Blaise, turning over to find Søren watching me with dazed, half-shut eyes.

Seeing him like this, bound and bewildered, causes guilt to rise in my chest until I can hardly breathe. Then Artemisia’s voice echoes in my head: We are not defined by the things we do in order to survive. We do not apologize for them. I cannot apologize for doing what I had to.

“Was it ever real?” he asks, breaking the fragile silence.

I wish he would rage or yell or fight. It would be better than having him look at me like this, like I’ve destroyed him. Søren might be a prodigy warrior, but just now he’s nothing more than a heartbroken boy.

It would be better to lie to him. It would make all of this easier, for both of us. Let him hate me and maybe one day I’ll be able to hate him, too. But I’ve lied to him too many times already.

“Every time I look at you, I see your father,” I say. The cruelest twist of the knife I can deliver, the words hurt me as much as him.

His body grows rigid and his fists clench. For a second, I’m worried he’ll tear through the ropes like they’re little more than straw, but he doesn’t. He only watches me, cold blue eyes glowing in the dim light.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

I dig my teeth hard into my bottom lip, as if that can keep the words in. “Yes,” I admit finally. “There was something real.”

He softens, the fight going out of him. He shakes his head. “We could have fixed things, Thora—”

“Don’t call me that,” I snap, before remembering Heron and Blaise are sleeping. This is not a conversation I want them to hear. I lower my voice but emphasize each word. “My name is Theodosia.”

He shakes his head. It makes little difference to him—a name is a name—but to me it means the world. “Theodosia, then. I am on your side, you know that.”

“I do,” I say after a breath. I mean it. He went against his father for me; he was willing to leave behind his country and his people.

“Then why…” He trails off, finding the answer on his own. “Because you would lose their respect. They would say that you were letting your emotions cloud your judgment, that you were putting me before your country.”

“And they wouldn’t even be wrong,” I say. “I can’t do that, Søren.”

If I didn’t know about the berserkers, would I have betrayed him?

But that’s the trouble with ifs. Once they start, there is no stopping them.

If he hadn’t told me that ridiculous cat story, could I have killed him?

If he hadn’t looked at me with such resignation, such self-loathing, could I have driven that knife home?

Paths stretch around me like cracks in a mirror, growing longer and fracturing off until I’m not sure where I stand anymore.

Søren shakes his head. “We want the same thing,” he says. “We want peace.”

A laugh bubbles up in my throat before I can stop it. It’s such a simple solution, and such an impossible one.

“After a decade of oppression, Søren, after tens of thousands of my people have been killed and even more forced into insanity in the mines. After they have been experimented on. After you let them be used as weapons. How can you think peace is possible between our people?” It takes all my self-control not to shout, and I have to breathe deeply to calm myself. “Between us?”

“Isn’t it?” he asks. “I know that I love you.”

The words give me pause, and for a moment I don’t know how to respond. He said that before, in the tunnel, but with everything happening there was no time to dwell on it. Søren isn’t the type to throw the word love around lightly, and I don’t doubt that he thinks he means it. But he doesn’t. He can’t.

“You love Thora, and Thora doesn’t exist. You don’t even know me.”

He doesn’t reply as I turn my back to him, curling my legs up to my chest. Tears sting at my eyes, but I hold them in. Nothing I said was untrue, but I wish it were. I wish there were some way for me to save my country and him. But there isn’t, and I made my choice. I might care for him, but I can’t forgive him for the berserkers, and I doubt he can forgive me for this betrayal, no matter what he says.

The earth between us has been scorched and frozen and salted for good measure. It’s not a place where anything will grow again.

I’m not sure how long we stay silent, but I’m acutely aware of his presence, his eyes on me, his pain. I almost wish I’d taken the drugged tea. Oblivion would be better than this.

Blaise shudders in his sleep, arms flailing to fight whatever nightmares plague him. I hold his wrists, pinning them down before he hurts himself or me. When he’s calm again, I release him, smoothing his short hair away from his face.

“It’s not a cure,” Søren says, his voice gentle. “You don’t need me to tell you that.”

I keep my back to him and curl in tighter, fitting myself against Blaise’s side. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

“Giving him a sleeping draft is like using a tea with special herbs to dull pain—it works for a time, but when it wears off, the pain is still there, just as bad. We tried similar things in the mines. It didn’t change anything, in the end. There is no cure for mine madness.”