Blood Heir

by Amélie Wen Zhao

  They held each other as the squall around them rose to a scream, slamming Sadov against the carriage door. Another blast and the door flew open, and Sadov tumbled out of sight.

  The wind died; the world quieted.

  Ana untangled herself from the Windwraith, her heart still racing. She looked to the other girl, who had picked herself up without a sound. Tears streaked her face, and she clutched the wall with one hand, a dagger in the other as her chest hitched with small, shallow breaths.

  “Are you all right?” Ana asked, her gaze fixing back on the open door. Beyond, the forest stretched out in alternating patterns of shadow and moonlight.

  “Yes.” Her voice was as faint as a breath of air. “Who is he?”

  “It’s a long story.” Ana bent to pick up a shard of glass, holding it like a weapon. “We need to go after him. Can you move?”

  The girl gave a swift nod. Her steps were light, like the rustle of a small bird’s wings, as she darted past Ana and hopped out the carriage door. Ana followed.

  Her feet landed in soft, freshly fallen snow. Outside, the six guards that had ridden with the carriage lay dead, glassy-eyed beneath the shifting treetops. Dull metal blades protruded from their necks and chests. The snowfall had stopped and the skies had cleared, showing a bright moon and a blur of stars dotting the midnight sky. Sadov was nowhere to be seen.

  The Windwraith pointed. A trail of footsteps led away from the carriage, into the darkness of the trees beyond. “I can go after him. He can’t be far.”

  Ana closed her eyes. If she could just use her Affinity to sense where Sadov was right now…

  But the Deys’voshk had already fully worked its way through her system, and the dosage that Sadov had given her could take as long as a day to wear off.

  Ana shook her head. “He has an Affinity for fear. It would be dangerous for you to go by yourself.”

  The Windwraith nodded. She flitted among the guards’ bodies, plucking knives and rations from them. For the first time, Ana realized that she was still in her ball gown, her beaded purse hanging from her wrist. The cold stung her skin and she wrapped her arms around herself.

  “Here.” The Windwraith held out a bundle of clothes.

  Ana hesitated. She’d heard so many stories of the Kemeiran Empire growing up—of how the far-eastern kingdom raised deadly assassins and deployed them as spies to serve its brutal regime. Distrust toward the nation was rooted deep in the bones of every Cyrilian. Papa had warned her of them, her tutors had taught her to be wary of them, and Luka had told her of the long war between the two empires.

  Yet…this girl’s countenance, her quiet uncertainty, the naked fear that had seized her, all indicated otherwise. She had saved Ana’s life.

  The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

  Ana reached out and accepted the clothes. “Thank you,” she said. There were a million questions she needed to ask this girl. “How did you find me?”

  The girl looked startled; she fixed her gaze on Ana. “It was part of the deal.”

  The sentence sounded all too familiar. “Deal?” The word rushed from her in a breath.

  “Yes.” Another sharp nod, and then a slight crease of confusion in the girl’s brows. “My contract was purchased after my battle with the Steelshooter at the Playpen. He came and collected me that night.” Her eyes turned soft. “He wouldn’t tell me his name. He said I had a choice: I could make a Trade with him and gain my freedom right there.”

  Ana could barely breathe.

  “He asked me to protect you when the time came. Then he freed me, and told me to wait for him in Novo Mynsk until he sent word with a snowhawk.” The Windwraith’s hand darted to her hair. “He called on me this evening, so I came.”

  Despite what Tetsyev had told her—despite all the evidence to the contrary and all the facts that screamed against her greater instincts, Ana knew instantly that it was Ramson. Ramson had sent this girl.

  The air was suddenly too cold, each breath piercing Ana’s lungs like broken glass.

  Kerlan only kept him alive long enough for me to get there.

  Ramson hadn’t been good—and perhaps some part of him had wanted to change that. In a world of grays, he had made a choice. And that choice had saved her life tonight.

  She blinked back tears. She couldn’t afford to think of Ramson, or to try to piece together the full story of why he’d done the things he’d done, made the choices he’d made…not now, not when Luka would be forced to abdicate in five days leaving Morganya to begin her reign of bloodshed and terror.

  Five days was barely enough time to make the journey but she had to get to Salskoff. She would return to the Palace, even without Tetsyev, and she would accuse Morganya of treason against the Empire.

  She had proof already. The antidote was in the apothecary’s wing, along with the poison. And Luka—Luka would listen to her. He would believe her.

  Suddenly, the night seemed a little less dark.

  The girl was untying the horses from the carriage when Ana made her way over. “What’s your name?”

  “Linnet,” the girl whispered, as though tasting a strange word on her tongue. “My name is Linnet.”

  Ana drew a deep breath. Her next words were a gamble, but it was a gamble she had to take. She had nothing left to lose. “My name is Anastacya Kateryanna Mikhailov,” she said. “Crown Princess of Cyrilia. And…I need your help. Please.”

  Linnet listed her face to the sky, closing her eyes briefly in the silver fluorescence of the moon. “My people believe in fate. That man freed me from my indenturement so that I could protect you; and you saved my life from that Affinite. The gods have joined our fates, and now I must complete the circle. I will be the blade in your hands and the wind at your back.” She paused, and resolve shaped her expression. “Call me Linn.”

  There was a pale-eyed ghost in the darkness with him.

  Ramson moaned. It was the only sound he could make.

  The ghost peered at him, candlelight shifting on its face. Ramson had seen the face somewhere, but he could not remember where.

  “Stop. I’ll tell you anything,” he slurred. And then a new thought occurred to him. “Am I dead?”

  Slowly, feeling was coming back to his body. His limbs were on fire. His head felt as though it had been used as a battering ram. And his chest—Deities, his chest…

  “Not yet, Ramson Quicktongue,” the ghost said. He was hooded, and he was prodding at Ramson in the most painful, irksome way.

  “I suppose not,” Ramson mused. “Death would feel better, and I’d be in the company of some honey-eyed girl instead of an ugly old hagbag.”

  The ghost gave him what resembled a sullen expression. He was starting to look extremely familiar, but Ramson could not think beyond the aching of his head as to who this was.

  “Where am I?” he asked instead. It was too dim to see.

  “The Kerlan Estate. In the dungeons.”

  The Kerlan Estate. Ramson pushed at his muggy consciousness, wincing at the effort. The memories came back to him in a slow, painful trickle. He looked at the man-ghost, suddenly wary. “Who are you?”

  The man looked up at him from beneath the hood. Bulbous eyes, thin nose, bald head.

  And then the name clicked.

  “Tetsyev,” Ramson croaked. “What do you want? What are you doing to me?”

  “I am healing you,” Tetsyev said calmly. “Though if you insult me again, I might change my mind.”

  Ramson then noticed the strange smell of herbs and chemicals, and the feeling of cold gel all over his body. He looked down at his chest and winced.

  His skin resembled a bloody slab of meat, sliced in a dozen different directions. And on his chest, almost where his heart would be, was a shiny patch of flesh, seared over his old brand. The insignia of the Order of the Lily.
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  He remembered the iron, white-hot before his eyes. The insurmountable fear as it was pressed to his chest. The unspeakable pain, and the welcomed darkness that followed.

  His resolve wavered, and the feeling of helplessness that washed over him was nearly enough to drown him. “Why are you healing me?” he asked, and despite all of his efforts, his voice trembled. “Preparing me for another torture session?”

  Tetsyev stepped back and squinted at Ramson’s chest. A bowl of translucent salve glistened in his hand. “No,” was all he said.

  Ramson was shivering, and he struggled to keep his voice steady. Memories of cold black water poured down his throat and filling his lungs were enough to break his resolve. He could still taste bile on his tongue, feel the searing pain of iron burning his flesh. “Please,” he said hoarsely. “Just kill me.”

  Tetsyev raised an eyebrow. “No,” he repeated, and shuffled away to the nearest shelf. When he returned, he was holding a roll of bandages. Slowly, the bald man began to wrap the gauze around Ramson, pausing only to tuck corners or adjust a strip slightly. He remained silent.

  At last, Tetsyev leaned away, casting another critical eye upon Ramson. He nodded, and began fishing around in his robes. Ramson caught a flash of metal.

  No, he wanted to beg. Please.

  But Tetsyev reached toward his shackles. There were a few clicks, and then Ramson fell forward, no longer held up by the chains on the wall. His limbs flailed behind him uselessly. When he hit the ground, it felt as though his bones would shatter. He gave a choked sob.

  “Get up,” Tetsyev said. “The Kolst Pryntsessa is waiting.”

  His brain felt like mush, and it was difficult to grasp what the alchemist was saying. Ramson waited for the involuntary tremors in his muscles to stop, for the blood to recirculate, for the feeling of cold to drain away. Slowly, in fits and starts, he pushed himself into a sitting position. The wounds on his chest protested with a dull, throbbing pain. He had an inkling that he was meant to feel much weaker than he actually did.

  “The salve facilitates the healing of the flesh,” Tetsyev said, as though he had heard Ramson’s thoughts. “I injected another serum in you that speeds recovery of the muscles.”

  Ramson leaned against the wall, drawing deep, shaky breaths. He flexed his hands, turned over his arms. Before—minutes, hours, or days ago, he’d lost count—he had felt as though every inch of his flesh were on fire and peeling from his bones. The pain was still there, but dull and fading. “Why are you doing this?”

  “I’m repenting. Perhaps it is too late to save my soul, but I must try. I must make my choice.”

  “Wonderful,” Ramson wheezed. “The Deities will reward you handsomely for saving my life.”

  “It isn’t your life I’m saving. It’s the Princess’s.”

  “Even better,” Ramson wheezed. “A noble life bears more weight in the eyes of the Deities, I’m sure.”

  Tetsyev sighed. “I lived an entire life of regrets,” he whispered, and his words struck an odd chord of resonance in Ramson. “And I am making the choice to amend my mistakes.” He cast a sorrowful eye upon Ramson. “Kolst Pryntsessa Anastacya needs us. She needs you. So, what choice will you make, Ramson Farrald?”

  Choice. Ramson’s mind was still foggy with pain, but the word brought back memories of a girl. Our choices define us. “The Princess,” he repeated slowly, and just like that, his muggy world clicked into sharp focus.

  Ana. Princess Anastacya.

  Memories ignited like sparks before his eyes. The sense of familiarity he’d felt looking into her face back at the abandoned dacha near Ghost Falls. That same face had been painted in dozens of his childhood textbooks, by the side of the Emperor and Empress and Crown Prince of Cyrilia. And it had vanished from the public eye when she’d allegedly fallen sick and slowly faded from everyone’s memories over the years. He recalled the sweet noble’s lilt in her Cyrilian. The tilt of her chin, the command in her tone, the gravitas of her presence.

  Ana was the Crown Princess of Cyrilia, the younger sister of Emperor Lukas Aleksander Mikhailov, and the heiress to the Cyrilian Empire and its sick, dying Emperor.

  “I see you’ve finally pieced it all together.” Tetsyev looked amused.

  Ramson’s head spun. But…no. “That’s impossible,” he said faintly. “She died a year ago. Executed for treason.”

  “No. One year ago, I murdered the late Emperor Aleksander Mikhailov.” Tetsyev’s voice shook. “Princess Anastacya…was framed for it that night. She was accused of murder, but she tried to run and drowned before the trial. Or so the story goes.”

  Ramson clutched his chest, his breaths coming short as he stared at Tetsyev. The alchemist. He heard Ana’s voice in his head, the urgency to her tone when she spoke of him. And when he’d asked—many times throughout their journey—she hadn’t relented a word as to why she was after him.

  “You murdered her father and then framed her for it?” With sickening realization, he thought back to the number of times he had threatened her with her alchemist, dangling her quarry before her and forcing her to comply to his terms. And all along, this was the reason she sought him.

  Tetsyev’s voice was raw with regret. “It is more complicated than that.”

  Ramson thought of his own choices. The story was always more complicated. But that didn’t justify anything. Neither did it change anything.

  “Please, listen to me. We haven’t much time.” Tetsyev’s tone was pleading. “Countess Morganya has been plotting to overthrow the Mikhailov line for years. The Princess is on her way to Salskoff now, to stop her.” Tetsyev knelt before Ramson. “I begged Kerlan to let me heal you. I convinced him to drag it out, to make you live longer and suffer more.

  “I saved you for a reason. The Princess needs help. This empire needs help. And she cannot do it alone.” Tetsyev’s face had settled as he watched Ramson, and resolve flickered in his eyes. “Even if you won’t go, I will. For so many years, I have been robbed of the power to make a choice. I am making that choice now.” He stood, straightening his reedy frame and adjusting his white alchemist’s cloak. A silver Deys’krug circlet hung over his neck, half-hidden beneath his worship robes. “I’m going after the Princess. And I’m going to help her.”

  Your choices, whispered a small voice. Jonah’s voice. Your heart is your compass.

  He’d known for some time now, felt the irrepressible tug on his chest toward her. With each smile, each frown, each word, she’d drawn him in, slowly, irrevocably. And that slow, smoldering flame had roared to life beneath a winter sky of snow, glowing brighter than anything else in his life. She was the bearing to his compass, the dawn that his ship had been chasing for so long over an empty horizon.

  My heart is my compass.

  Ramson’s mind cleared. In the darkness of the dungeons, he could barely make out the retreating outline of the alchemist, the white flashes of his cloak as he hurried in the direction where the escape tunnel lay.

  “Wait,” Ramson said.

  Ana awoke to silence, snow, and stars. A cold draft stirred through the broken windowpanes of the dacha she and Linn had found. The fire in the hearth had gone out. From the soft, silver-blue glow of light beyond the tattered curtains, she could tell that it was still night. Dawn lingered, just out of reach.

  Yet something had shifted in her senses. It took her a moment to realize that her Affinity was back.

  Relief flooded her, and she sat up in the rugs and furs she and Linn had piled together for a makeshift bed. The girl was nowhere to be seen, but the soft whickering of their horses near the door told Ana that her companion would not be gone for long.

  Ana clutched her head in her hands. She always felt off balance when her Affinity returned; it was like being able to see again, darkness slowly giving way to patches of light and blurred movement.

  It had b
een a day since they’d ridden from the Kerlan Estate and escaped Sadov in the Syvern Taiga. In the semidarkness, she could still taste the nauseating fear that had coated her tongue, the hiss of Sadov’s voice from the shadows.

  In five days’ time, your brother will announce his abdication due to ill health and appoint the Kolst Contessya Morganya as Empress Regent of Cyrilia.

  The world drew into sharp focus. She had four more days to get to the capital of her empire.

  She reached under the pile of blankets until her fingers grasped the beaded purse that had been tied to her wrist when Sadov had abducted her. Now ragged with dust and blood, it still held the last of her belongings.

  Ana dug out a globefire and shook it. The chemical powders inside the orb rattled, and eventually, a spark caught on the oil coating the inside of the glass. Light lanced across the small cabin, and she held it close as she rummaged through her purse.

  Her map was still in there, tattered and stained. Holding the globefire over it, she found the name of the village they’d passed last evening before settling into this empty dacha: Beroshk.

  With her thumb, she traced the distance to Salskoff, and calculated.

  Exactly four days of travel by horse. Her stomach tightened. They would just make it; they needed to be on their way soon.

  She shifted her position, and the remaining contents of her purse spilled out. A copperstone and a silver pocket watch glinted in the light of the globefire. The sight of these objects brought back memories that ached like fresh wounds.

  She held a purse full of things that belonged to people who, no matter how hard she tried, she would never be able to bring back.

  Ana hurled the purse across the room.

  The door opened behind her, bringing a breath of cold wind. Ana turned to see Linn clutching a satchel to her chest. Her knives were strapped to her waist, her movements sharp and lithe.

  Ana looked away, ashamed to be seen crying.

  Without a word, Linn crossed the room and plucked the scattered belongings up and carefully tucked them back into Ana’s purse. She hesitated, her eyes searching Ana’s face. “These seem precious to you,” she said.