“And if I choose to stay with you?” he asks quietly.

Warmth spreads over my skin, and I have to force myself not to reach for him. I bite my lip to keep from telling him how badly I want that. “Queens don’t marry,” I tell him instead. “It’s not a tradition I intend to break.”

He laughs at that. “I can assure you, I have no desire to be king or a Kaiser or anything of that nature.”

“Then what do you want to be?” I ask.

He doesn’t hesitate. “An ambassador,” he says. “At court here half the year, the other half spent sailing to those other eight countries, ensuring the well-being of my people and quelling any hints of rebellion that might crop up in them as peacefully as possible.”

“Your people,” I echo. “I thought you had no desire to be Kaiser.”

“I don’t,” he says. “But you should understand better than anyone else that it isn’t always a choice. I don’t want a crown, I don’t want a reign—but they are my people still, and it’s my duty to see to their well-being.”

I do understand. “Very well,” I say. “Is that all you want?”

At that, he reaches for me, and pulls me toward him so that we’re standing face to face. “Well, I want you, but I didn’t think I had to say that,” he says. “In whatever capacity I can have you, for however long you want me, I’m yours.”

I smile, rolling onto the balls of my feet to kiss him softly.

“Yana Crebesti,” I murmur against his lips. “No matter what comes.”

I LEAVE S?REN AT THE EDGE of Cress’s cell block. He seems to understand without me explaining—some things I need to do on my own. The dungeon is dark and I bring a ball of flame to my hand to light my way. The ground is still wet beneath my feet after the flood, but that is the only sign of it. Already the cells are full again, with Kalovaxian warriors this time. Each cell block is guarded by an Astrean who bows as I pass.

When I reach Cress’s cell, all I see is her body curled up in a corner, her silver gown traded for a homespun shift, her white-blond hair glowing in the low light. For an instant, I think she’s still asleep, but then she shifts, a soft groan coming from her lips.

Her eyes open, focusing on me, and for a moment, she says nothing.

I’m suddenly reminded of a very different night, when she visited me in a cell here and stared at me from this side of the bars with fury in her eyes, promising me my execution in only a few hours’ time.

Though I’ve come with similar sentiments, I don’t feel any fury in me. What anger I felt for her has been buried like the garden after the earthquake. Now, all I feel when I look at her is sadness and exhaustion.

How did we get here? But I know the answer to that. We were always here, on separate sides of a war we didn’t even know we were fighting. Maybe, in another world, it could have gone a different way. Maybe, in another world, I would have told her about the rebellion I was planning and she would have stood beside me. Maybe, in another world, I wouldn’t have given Elpis the poison to use against her.

But that is not the world we live in.

“Come to gloat?” Cress asks me, sitting up, her back against the stone wall.

“No,” I say, and I mean it. “I told you that when this moment came, I would offer you no mercy.”

She grimaces. “Yes, I remember quite well,” she says. “So why are you here? If not to gloat? If not to offer mercy?”

I reach beneath the skirt of my gown, to the holster at my thigh that holds my dagger.

“Maybe it is an act of mercy after all,” I tell her, fingering the fine filigreed hilt, the sharp edge of the blade. “In the morning, you will be publicly executed in the square, in front of thousands of people cheering for your death. It will be a violent spectacle without any semblance of dignity.”

She winces, but it’s slight. “And?” she asks, eyes still on the dagger in my hand. “Are you here to tell me you’ll keep my head?”

It’s an echo of what she said to me so long ago. I drop down and fit the dagger through the bars of the cell, sliding it toward her across the ground. Then I step backward, out of arm’s reach before she can do something ill-advised.

“I’m here to give you the opportunity to die in private, away from the eyes of strangers who hate you,” I say. “Away from the crowds and the cheers. You can do it with your own hand. End it quickly.”

Cress stares at the dagger on the ground before her, hesitating. She looks up at me.

“Why?” she asks finally.

I don’t have an answer to that. The truth is, I don’t know why I’m here, why I’m offering her a gift that she never would have extended to me if our positions were switched. Still, I try to put it into words as best I can.

“Because you were kind to me, once,” I say. “You were kind to me when you didn’t have to be. And your kindness might have come with thorns, but it was enough for me, then. Consider this exactly that—a kindness with thorns.”

Cress purses her lips, reaching for the dagger and turning it over in her hands. Without saying anything, she nods, tears welling up in her eyes.

I turn to go, but her voice stops me.

“Will you…” She trails off before trying again. “Will you stay with me? I don’t want to die alone.”

She sounds so afraid that my heart twists in my chest despite everything. You deserve to die alone, I want to tell her, thinking about Blaise, about that garden full of frightened slaves, of the mines she burned with thousands of people inside. But I don’t. I turn back around, careful to keep a distance from the bars in case she gets ideas about doing other things with that dagger.

I nod, once, not speaking.

She places the dagger’s point at her stomach, her hands shaking as she looks at me. “If there is an After like you believe,” she tells me, “I hope that one day I’ll see you there.”

It doesn’t sound like a threat but like a genuine wish. Maybe yesterday it would have moved me, but today I feel nothing.

“If there is an After,” I tell her, “you won’t be allowed in.”

She closes her eyes, tears leaking down onto her cheeks. With one final, quivering breath, she plunges the dagger into her stomach.

WHEN I STAND ON THE dais of the banquet hall, packed tightly with a crowd of people—my people, many of them still in their uniforms, wearing the rips and burns and bloodstains like badges of honor—I feel like I am not quite in my body. In some ways, I’m not. In some ways, I am still in the dungeon, watching the life leave Cress’s eyes, or in the garden, holding Blaise’s cold body.

I shouldn’t be here, celebrating, when today has been a day shadowed by death as much as by triumph. But I am the Queen of Astrea, I remind myself. My name is Theodosia Eirene Houzzara, the Ember Queen, and there is no one left who would call me any different.

Behind me, Artemisia clears her throat from her place between Maile and Heron, with S?ren and Erik on Heron’s other side. When I glance at her, she gives me a meaningful look, urging me to speak.

But what is there to say? Standing before so many expectant people, I wish I’d planned something, because now nothing seems appropriate, nothing seems like enough.

I take a deep, steadying breath.

“Today marks the end of the reign of darkness that the Kalovaxians brought upon this country more than a decade ago,” I say. “But it marks something else as well—a beginning. From this day forward, Astrea is free once more. So are Rajinka and Tiava and Lyria and Kota and Manadol and Yoxi and Goraki. We are all of us free once more, and we will never be chained again.”

At that, cheers go up, deafening and thundering enough to make the dais beneath my feet quiver. I wait for them to quiet before speaking again. As I do, I scan the faces, finding some familiar ones looking back at me. Sandrin is there, toward the front, his eyes level on me, with Mina beside him. And in the far corner, leaning against a post at the back of the room, I can see Dragonsbane, in her usual black-heeled boots, arms crossed and eyes appraising, not quite a part of the crowd.

“There are many people who should be here tonight to celebrate our freedom, people who fought for it, who gave their lives so that we could stand here today,” I continue, thinking of my mother, of Ampelio and Elpis. Of Hoa. Of Laius. Of Blaise. Of so many others whose names I never knew. “I believe they are watching us from the After now with pride.”

My voice cracks over the last word, and my face begins to burn as I realize how I must look, standing here before them. A queen so weak that she would cry in public.