“The Kaiser’s,” I told her finally.
She laughed, but it wasn’t the laugh I remembered from Elpis—it was high-pitched and grating and sharp-edged.
“Was the Kaiser the one who turned me into an assassin at thirteen?” she asked me. “Knowing I could be killed? That even if I survived, I would be a murderer?”
I stumbled backward a step. “I gave you a choice,” I said, but my voice wavered.
“I was a child,” she bit out. I tried to move away from her, but her hand grabbed my wrist, her burnt black fingertips crumbling to ash as soon as they touched my skin. “And now I will never be anything else.”
I pulled away from her, only to hit something else. I turned, holding up my burning hand, and found myself face to face with another ghost.
“You killed me,” Hoa said, her eyes just as glassy and lifeless as they’d been the last time I saw her.
“You killed me,” Archduke Etmond said, his face purple and swollen.
“You killed us,” the Guardians from the prison said, their voices harmonized as one.
“And us,” added warriors—so many warriors, dressed in so many different uniforms.
“And me.” That was Laius. Impossible as it should have been. The memory was so long ago now, he shouldn’t have been here with the dead, but he was.
They surrounded me, pressing in on all sides. The smell of decay and burning flesh permeated the air, their breath hot against my skin. I tried to scream but it died in my throat. I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t even breathe. I did this to them, I ended lives, either by my own hand or through my actions. I did this and I could never undo it.
“I’m sorry,” I managed to choke out, the words mangled. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could take it back.”
“Do you truly?” A single voice broke through, silencing all of the others. The crowd of spirits parted, making way for one man.
The last time I’d seen him, he had been in chains, but now he walked free, his only injury the one I’d caused—the sword wound in his back that was bleeding through his stomach, marring the white robe he wore.
“Ampelio,” I said, the name little more than a breath on my lips.
His smile was grim. “You killed me,” he said. “Would you take that back?”
“You asked me to,” I told him.
Ampelio shook his head. “The choice was yours, Theo,” he said. “If you could go back, would you make it again?”
A sob wrenched itself from my throat, and the flames at my fingertips flickered, threatening to go out, but I managed to keep hold of them.
“Yes,” I said finally. “You were a dead man as soon as you were caught. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else. And your death allowed me to fight back, to escape, to liberate this mine. It’s why we’re going to take our country back. I wish I hadn’t had to do it, but yes, I would do it again.”
Ampelio said nothing and I looked around at the others. So many faces, so much blood and death. Too much, yes, but all of it a necessary sacrifice. Ampelio stepped toward me, his hand reaching out to take hold of the pendant around my neck—his Fire Gem.
“Then you need to let us go, Theo,” he told me, his voice quiet and soft. He released the Fire Gem and took hold of my wrist instead. His skin was warm against mine, pulsing with life. He was not real, I told myself, but I wasn’t sure I really believed that. His eyes locked on to mine as he brought my flaming hand toward his chest. “You know what to do.”
I shook my head, but I knew he was right. He gave me an encouraging smile, and so I summoned what strength I had left and pressed my flaming hand to his chest.
He slipped into smoke, gone in an instant.
The other spirits closed in around me, but now their wails and accusations didn’t wound as much as they had before. I still felt their cries acutely, but they didn’t incapacitate me.
“Your deaths were necessary,” I said, to them and to myself. I looked at my warriors, the Guardians, Elpis, Laius. “Some of you knew this; some of you chose it. Some of you were bystanders,” I added, looking at Archduke Etmond and Hoa. “But you died honorably and I hope that you have found peace.”
Hoa’s wailing quieted first, and for just an instant, there was a spark in her lifeless eyes. She brought a hand up to my cheek, and I felt her touch again.
“My Phiren,” she murmured to me.
I touched my flaming hand to her cheek and let her go.
Archduke Etmond followed, then the trio of Guardians. Elpis. Laius. Each of them bowed their head to me before I set them free. My soldiers were next, a seemingly endless line of them in their mishmash of colors. Astrean, Gorakian, Rajinkian—no matter where they’d come from, I kissed their forehead, placed my hand on their cheek, and set them free.
HERON WAKES ME THE NEXT morning when the sun is a mere suggestion in the sky, the barest hint of dawn light bleeding through my tent.
“Theo?” he says, shaking my shoulder.
I force myself to breathe in, breathe out as the dream slowly loosens its grip on my mind. Artemisia was right—that memory of the mines was even more difficult than the first. I can still feel their hands on me, still hear their shrieks, still feel the guilt like lead in my chest. But I set them free, I let them go, I honored them the only way I could. It was a test I passed.
“Are you all right?” Heron asks.
I’m not sure how to answer that. “Another memory from the mine,” I tell him softly.
He understands and doesn’t press the matter.
“You’re here,” he says instead. “You survived. You’re all right.”
I nod once. I survived, but that isn’t what hurt so much about that memory—it was all the people who hadn’t. But Ampelio was right. We wouldn’t have come this far without their sacrifice, and I owe it to them to honor it.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him, pushing the thought from my mind.
He shakes his head, lips pursing. “We thought it best that Erik speak with Jian—as terrible as his Gorakian is, we thought he’d be able to explain what happened with Brigitta better than the rest of us.”
“And? Was he?” I ask.
In truth, I all but forgot about Jian, in the chaotic day we’ve had. I wonder how Laius is doing, though I know I’ll drive myself mad if I keep thinking along those lines. He knew what he was choosing when he volunteered to take Jian’s place. All I can do now is honor his sacrifice.