“All I ever wanted to do was protect you, Theo. I hope you know that,” he says.

“I do,” I say, considering my words carefully. “And there was a time when I wanted that—needed that, even. But I don’t anymore. What I need is for you to trust that I know what I’m doing and I know what I’m risking. I need you to have faith in me the way I’ve had faith in you.”

He looks down at the sand between us. Only a foot separates us, but it feels like an uncrossable ocean.

“Do you think you can ever forgive me?” he asks, his voice barely loud enough to be heard over the wind.

It’s a loaded question that I can’t begin to answer. I want to say, Of course. You’re my closest friend and I love you and you are my past and my present and my future. You’re already forgiven. But that wouldn’t be the truth. The truth is he betrayed me, he hurt me, and that will leave a wound of its own, and there is no telling how long it will take to heal or what kind of scar it will leave behind when it does.

“I think you need to forgive yourself, Blaise,” I tell him. “I think that if you’ve truly decided you want to come out of this war alive, you need to make sure you build a life worth living. I can’t do that for you. Only you can.”

Blaise swallows and nods, lifting his head to meet my gaze again.

“Do you know what Ampelio said to me—the last thing he said—before he let the Kalovaxians catch him, to spare me? He said that it was his time, but it wasn’t mine.”

The words prickle at my memory.

“He said something similar to me,” I tell him. “When he asked me to kill him, he said that it was time for the After to welcome him, time to see my mother again, but that I had to live and keep fighting.” I pause before forcing myself to say the words buried deep in me. “Sometimes I resent him for that. He got peace, and I got…”

Blaise understands what I mean. “You got me, showing up and throwing your life into chaos.”

I shrug. “It isn’t as if it was a good life. It needed the chaos. It needed you in it. But it was a much easier life, in so many ways. It was a much simpler thing, to be a princess of ashes instead of a…” I trail off.

“An Ember Queen,” Blaise says. I must look confused, because he continues. “It’s what I’ve heard some of the people call you. It started with the former Fire Mine slaves, but it’s caught on. A bit less of a mouthful than ‘Queen of Flame and Fury.’?”

“It may be less of a mouthful, but it still feels too big for me,” I admit.

He shakes his head, taking a step closer, though he doesn’t reach out for me. I almost wish he would—but I’m even more relieved that he keeps his hands to himself.

“Ampelio gave up his life for us,” he says, his voice soft. “I think that no matter what comes of this rebellion, he would be proud of what we’ve done with his sacrifice.”

I blink away the tears forming behind my eyes and try to smile. “I think that when the time comes, he’ll greet us in the After with open arms.”

“Yes,” Blaise says. “But that time is not going to be for many, many years, Theo. Not for either of us. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

I SAW AMPELIO, IN THE MINE. I remember this as I finally settle into bed that night in one of the tents that have been set up in the camp. As soon as that shard of memory returns, piercing painfully into my mind, the rest of it follows, bleeding in like watercolors as sleep drags me under.

* * *

—

After leaving my mother in her dead garden, I hit hard ground with a thud that reverberated through my bones. The floor felt like dirt and stone beneath my fingers but it was too dark to tell, too dark to see anything at all but black. It was the sort of dark that I never knew existed.

And then the hands were on me, dirty fingers with ragged bloody fingernails, grabbing at my skirts, my skin, anything they could reach.

Panic rose in my chest and I summoned a flame to my hand. It was buried deep inside me then, smothered by layers of bone and flesh and sinew, but it was there. I pulled it forward to the tips of my fingers. It wasn’t much, but it allowed me to see.

As soon as I could, I yearned for blindness once more.

A girl stood before me, grabbing at me desperately, hungrily, her face covered with a long tangle of dark brown hair.

“It’s all right,” I told her, trying to catch her hands with my unlit hand, to calm her. “I can get you to safety.”

The girl went still and quiet. “Safety,” she repeated, tasting the word.

I knew that voice. It spilled over my skin like a shock of cold water. The flames at my fingertips responded and expanded, casting a brighter glow around us.

“Haven’t you learned better than to promise that by now?” She looked up at me, her hair falling away from her face. She had the same wide brown eyes, the same freckles on her cheeks, but now her lips were black and patches of her skin were charred. From the Encatrio the Kaiser made her drink.

“Elpis,” I said, my voice shaking. “You’re dead.”

She smiled, revealing black teeth. “And whose fault is that?”

The words were a slap, though it was nothing I hadn’t thought myself. After it happened, I would have given anything to be able to apologize to her, to have a moment just like this one to admit my mistake and tell her how much I regretted putting her in danger. Now that I had the chance, though, I froze.

“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.