She’s quiet for a second. “I do, but it isn’t the same. It isn’t the way you feel about Søren and Blaise, or the way Heron feels about Erik. I wish it were, even though that would make things so needlessly complicated. But no, I don’t like him like that. I’ve never really liked anyone in that way, even years ago, before the mines, when all the girls my age were getting crushes and swooning….Well, I’ve never been a swooner, I suppose.”
“Oh,” I say, uncertain of how else to respond.
She shrugs. “I don’t mean that I don’t…you know…love people. There are people I find attractive, I suppose. I just…I’m not attracted to them in that all-consuming way it seems to affect the rest of you.”
“I understand,” I tell her, and it’s at least half-true.
The rest of the walk passes in a silence that is not uncomfortable. Artemisia is an enigma who has revealed herself to me on her terms, in slivers and shades and hints that have slowly come to form a hazily defined portrait of her. Maybe the image will never be entirely complete, but maybe it’s all the more beautiful for it.
WHEN I DREAM, I DREAM of Cress. She stands on the bow of a Kalovaxian ship, near the dragon figurehead, bone-pale hands clasped behind her back. Her gown is made of thick, billowing smoke, curling around her figure in dark swirls that twist and writhe over her skin. Her white hair is cut bluntly at her shoulders, just as it was the last time I saw her and the time before that, the edges singed. It doesn’t grow anymore, I realize. It’s dead at the roots.
She must feel me there, because she turns, her face sharp and shadowed and bloodless. At first, she looks right through me, but then her eyes refocus and meet mine. Her mouth curves into a grim smile.
“You’re here to haunt me,” she says, sounding unsurprised. “I confess, I hoped you would be.”
I open my mouth to tell her that she’s the one haunting me, before I realize what’s so strange about the scene—Cress is on a boat, and though it is rocking wildly back and forth as if in a storm, she looks serene.
“You aren’t seasick,” I say.
She turns her face to look out at the dark and violent sea. “No,” she says. “I don’t get seasick anymore. A lot has changed since you died.”
“I’m not dead,” I tell her.
Her smile turns sad. “When you thought I was dead, did you feel it?” she asks me.
For a moment, I don’t know how to answer.
“No,” I admit. “But I didn’t kill you myself. When I gave the poison to Elpis, I knew there was no turning back. I hated myself for it, but I didn’t have time to linger over that. There was so much to do still, so much to plan. I didn’t have time to stop and feel your death until after I knew you’d survived.”
Cress frowns. “Elpis,” she says. “Was that the girl’s name? I didn’t think I remembered it.”
“You wouldn’t,” I say. “I don’t know if you ever thought of her at all.”
“But I must have remembered it somewhere,” she says, frown deepening. She takes one step toward me, then another, until she’s within arm’s reach. “I couldn’t dream it otherwise.”
“This isn’t your dream,” I tell her, but she ignores me.
“I don’t feel your death, either,” she tells me, sounding vaguely disappointed. She’s close enough now that I can feel her breath against my skin, and that sensation jars me. I can feel it as if she’s really standing in front of me. “I thought I would. But I don’t feel much of anything anymore.”
“I’m not dead,” I say again, my voice stronger this time. “You didn’t kill me. I’m stronger than ever now, and when we meet again, we will end this once and for all. And I assure you, when that day comes, you will feel something.”
Her eyes bore into mine, one corner of her mouth quirking up into a mocking smile. She reaches out to touch my face, but unlike the last time, her hand isn’t hot. Instead it feels like ice against my skin. I flinch away from her, but that only seems to amuse her and she keeps her hand pressed firmly to my cheek.
“Do you know why you held your own in our last battle?” she asks me.
I don’t answer, but she doesn’t seem to expect me to.
“Because you made a patchwork quilt of warriors from different countries with different beliefs, different goals, and though your numbers were impressive, you made a grave mistake. Because in a quilt like that, all it takes is for one thread to be cut, and then the whole thing comes apart. It should make for quite the spectacle. I only wish you could be here to watch it unravel.”
My stomach turns. “What do you mean?” I ask her. “What did you do? Did you send troops?”
She smiles. “No, not troops,” she says, shaking her head. “Why would I waste troops on a mission when a single messenger would be plenty? Those men and women who rallied around you, they don’t deserve a glorious death. It’s too noble for traitors like them—like you were once. No, I’m going to let them die pathetically. Quietly. And then their names will be lost to the wind, just like yours. But my name will never be gone. It will live on in history books, and etched into stone, surviving long after I’m gone.”
Her voice grows shrill at the end, grating against my mind like the sound of metal against metal. I cringe, wincing away from her, but this time she stops me, bringing her other hand to my other cheek, holding me in place.
“Maybe we will see one another again, Thora,” she says, her voice returning to its normal melodic tone. “But not for some time and not in this world. Maybe there are no wars in the next one.”
She presses her black lips to my cheek, and the cold left behind spreads over my skin until I can’t feel anything else.
THE SOUND OF A PEALING bell drags me from sleep an instant before Artemisia pushes her way into my tent, eyes alight. If there is one thing I’ve learned about Artemisia, it’s this: anything that makes her eyes light up is usually trouble of the highest order. I force myself to get to my feet, reaching for the cloak hanging over the edge of my cot.
“An attack?” I ask her, even as I hear Cress’s words in my mind. “Why would I waste troops on a mission when a single messenger would be plenty?” But that was only a dream, and this is emphatically not.
“I don’t know,” Artemisia says. “But I intend to find out, and people tend to be more forthcoming with you than with me.”
I can’t resist a snort as I pull on my cloak. “That’s because I ask nicely.”