As though sensing her gaze on him, the yaeger’s head snapped to her. He’d found her.
The yaeger murmured something to Sadov and began to make his way to her carriage. As the familiar pressure descended on her mind and her awareness of blood winked out like a candle, Ana knew it was too late.
She flung open the door and stumbled onto the cobblestones. Shouts filled the air all around her; boots clacked over the bridge, and she heard swords being drawn. And then hands seized her roughly from behind, hauling her back and slamming her against the bridge’s railing.
Instinctively, she grasped for her Affinity to fling off the guards holding her—and hit the yaeger’s impenetrable wall.
Ana lifted her head. And met Sadov’s eyes.
“Ah,” he said softly. “I’ve been expecting you.”
Ana tugged on her Affinity again, but the wall remained. Next to Sadov, the yaeger’s eyes narrowed.
She had walked right into their trap.
Linn. Ana darted a glance at the line of carriages proceeding steadily down the bridge, disappearing into the gates of the Palace. Either Linn’s carriage had gotten through, or it still stood waiting to reach the bridge—buying her plenty of time to run.
At least Linn would be safe.
“Let me go,” Ana snarled at the guards, twisting against their hold. “I am the Crown Princess. I demand to see my brother.”
Around her, several guards’ eyes widened, but Sadov stepped in front of her. “I knew you’d be back,” he gasped, loud enough for everyone to hear. “You’ve returned to finish what you’d intended from the start: to murder your brother just as you murdered your father.”
“No!” Ana yelled, lunging at him. The pressure in her mind increased, and she sagged to the ground.
Sadov’s eyes were cold. “My yaeger has identified you as a dangerous Affinite. You must be subdued.”
From the folds of his cloak, he retrieved a familiar vial and raised it to her, like a toast. The Deys’voshk winked in the blazing torchlight.
The guards held Ana firm against the railing of the bridge. Beneath, the Tiger’s Tail frothed and churned.
There was no way out—not unless she could get far enough from the yaeger to regain the use of her Affinity. Ana took in the guards surrounding them in all directions. She gave another useless tug at her captors. This time, though, Sadov closed the gap between them and took her chin in his hand. His nails dug into her cheeks, and Ana knew what was to come even before his black eyes latched on to hers.
The first wave of Sadov’s fear manipulation hit her, scattering all logical thought. Ana’s knees gave way. Her body was paralyzed; she slumped against her restraining guards, gasping for breath, the wet cobblestones of the bridge spinning before her.
“Let her be,” she dimly heard Sadov say to the guards, who released her and took a step back. Ana slumped on the ground, shaking so hard that tears dripped from her eyes. “I can control her.”
Between the ebb and flow of fear, she clung tightly to one thought; a feeling, an instinctive calling from a memory ten years past.
There was only one way out.
As another spasm of fear shot through her, Ana doubled over and gagged.
“Come here, my little monster,” Sadov crooned. “Be good, and obey me. Take the Deys’voshk, and we shall bring you to the future Empress. She wants to be your ally, not your enemy.”
Despite the trembling in her muscles, Ana grasped the railing of the bridge and heaved herself to her feet. The railing dug into her lower back as she leaned against it, her hair clinging to her sweat-slicked face. Sadov’s Affinity pressed into her, and she remembered her nightmares of tumbling over the bridge and into the Tiger’s Tail. Images of the vicious white whorls flooded her mind, and she closed her eyes against the feeling of being tossed around in that violent storm.
I am afraid.
And it was Linn’s voice that came to her then, like a blade cutting through the mist of her fear. That is when we can choose to be brave.
Ana was sobbing so hard that she thought she would break. Her hands tightened around the railing.
With the lightest tip of her weight backward, she flipped herself over the Kateryanna Bridge and plunged into the yawning depths of the icy Tiger’s Tail.
When Ramson saw her fall, he was standing beneath a lamppost on the riverside promenade by the Kateryanna Bridge, waiting for Tetsyev’s signal that he had been cleared to enter the Palace.
Princess Anastacya is going to stop Morganya, the alchemist had said. And we must get to her before Morganya’s forces do.
Only the Countess and her forces had found Ana first.
He hadn’t believed his eyes when he’d seen her on the bridge—but, he’d realized, it was utterly Ana to attempt something so brazen and ridiculously foolish with stubborn pride. He’d watched the altercation unfold on the bridge with a growing sense of dread, his mind already racing five, ten steps forward and mapping out all the different scenarios in which this could play out.
He’d just never expected for her to jump.
And Ramson did the only thing he could think of. He dove after her.
He had the sense to take a deep breath before he hit the river like a bag of rocks. The water dragged him under, buffeting him this way and that and pulling him down to its depths. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t breathe, his world tossing in every direction possible. And, inevitably, the river’s wrath pulled him back to the stormy night that had changed the course of his life forever.
He was eight years old again, and he was drowning in the black waters of that storm that had almost claimed his and Jonah’s lives. But the real nightmare was that image of Jonah’s crow-black eyes, gaping and unseeing, seared into Ramson’s memories.
Terror choked Ramson. The darkness was absolute. He had no direction.
No, he thought, and the phantoms of his mind dispersed. By whatever means he’d met Jonah—coincidence, fate, or the Deities—it wasn’t Jonah’s death that his friend would have wanted him to remember.
It was what Jonah had taught him when he was alive.
Swim. The voice came to him, so real that Ramson opened his eyes. But instead of a pale-faced, dark-haired boy, there was a girl in front of him: a brave, selfless, and stubborn girl who had worked her way into his heart, by Jonah’s side.
He would not lose her.
Not again.
Swim, came the voice, but this time, it was his own.
Ramson kicked out. The currents were dragging her away, down to where it grew darker. She thrashed, her gown puffing out around her, pulling her down.
A sharp pain cut across his forearm and he flinched, lashing out to grab whatever it was that had bit him.
An arrow.
Another whizzed past him, and another. Archers. Those bastards were really intent on killing them.
The best way, Ramson knew, to escape archers was to swim deeper. The arrows decelerated within a yard of hitting the surface of water; he and Ana stood a better chance of surviving if they remained underwater and let the river carry them far enough.
He swam toward Ana. Her arms flailed erratically, but her movements grew weaker. One more kick, and he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her deeper.
They needed to stay submerged until the archers thought them dead—but there was another problem: they needed to breathe.
Ana opened her mouth. Bubbles drifted up; he felt her spasms against his chest. The lessons drilled into him from Bregon’s Blue Fort ran through his mind. Her lungs were expanding, drawn by the irresistible desire for oxygen. Water was rushing in. Soon she would lose consciousness. And after that, her heart would stop.
His own lungs burned with the need for air, and his legs grew weaker with every kick. As a recruit for the Navy, he was trained to handle water and
resist the yearning to draw in breath. He’d trained in the iciest waters in the middle of winter, building up his tolerance.
But even a Navy recruit could not defy the odds of nature.
Arrows be damned—they would drown first if they stayed like this.
Ramson kicked out. Up, up. But which way was up? His head spun, and the currents slapped harder, grew frothier.
Was that light? He needed to breathe. He needed to find out which way was up. Bubbles—he needed bubbles. They would lead him up. But letting out even the tiniest breath might drown him faster.
Ramson struggled against the darkness clouding his vision and opened his mouth.
And burst through the surface. Cold air rushed into his lungs, and he sucked in deep, blissful mouthfuls. Then, panting, he turned to Ana.
Her head bobbed in the water. Her mouth was open, but her eyes were closed; he couldn’t tell if she was breathing.
Crushing down his terror, Ramson tucked her chin over his shoulder and made for shore.
The swim to the bank was arduous in itself; the river stretched over a hundred yards wide, and the shore seemed to draw farther away with each kick. Ramson swam with the current, focusing on keeping his and Ana’s head above the water.
At long last, he reached the frozen bank and hauled himself and Ana up through the mud and snow. Far off, no larger than the palm of his hand, the lights of the Kateryanna Bridge shimmered hazily. His muscles begged for rest; it would have been so easy to lie down for a few minutes.
But Ramson turned to Ana. His hands shook from more than just the cold as he touched a finger to her lips.
Not breathing. He’d expected it, but hope did foolish things to a man’s head.
Ramson knelt by her side and placed his hands on her chest, one over the other. And then, counting the beats silently, he began to pump. One, two, three, four…
He wanted, more than anything, to beat the ground with his fists and scream, but Ramson forced himself to count a steady rhythm to his compressions.
Five, six, seven…
There was a painful lump twisting in his chest, hot and cold at the same time, threatening to crack him open. Ana was limp beneath his hands, her eyes closed and her lips sealed.
Eight, nine, ten.
Ramson lowered his face to hers, prying open her mouth. One, two breaths. Logic steeled him through the white fog of panic in his mind, and he watched her chest for movement.
Ten compressions. Two breaths. Ten compressions. Two breaths. It had become a prayer of sorts, a chant that numbed him to the core. He was doubled over on his knees, his hands clasped before him. And this time, Ramson begged. He begged his three gods, the ones he had fervently hated and refused to believe in for years. He begged the Cyrilian Deities, the ones he’d dishonored by desecrating their empire. He begged anything and anyone that would listen.
Ten compressions. Two breaths. Please. I’ll do anything.
She coughed, then sputtered, and when she opened her eyes, the world itself seemed to move again. Even as she rolled over and threw up on the snow, he reached for her, and when her hacking coughs were reduced to gasps, he gathered her in his arms and pressed her tightly to him. As she clasped him in her embrace, Ramson realized that it was he who had needed saving all along.
His cheeks were warm with tears as he buried his face in the crook of her shoulder. Finally, Ramson thought as he let her hold him, he understood a bit of what his father had meant when he’d said that love was a weakness.
Ana was dreaming. Ramson held her, his outline silvered by the moon against the darkness, his arms twined around her as though he never wanted to let go. Pressed against him, through the fabric of their clothes, her heart beat in time with his.
Yet…she could sense the cold that numbed her entire body, the water dripping from Ramson’s hair onto her neck, the goose bumps on his neck as she pressed her cheek against it. And, by her side, a roaring sound steadily grew louder.
Bit by bit, cold breath by cold breath, the world seeped back in. The untouched snow blanketing the ground. The river rushing before them. The castle walls behind them. They’d washed up to the inner riverbank at the rear of the Palace—a place impossible to get to unless you swam through the river.
Ana pushed Ramson away with a gasp. He fell back and coughed, but his eyes never left her. His voice was hollow when he said, “I thought you were dead.”
“I thought you were dead,” she choked, staring at him. “Sadov said—Kerlan—”
And then the truth of what he had done—what he was meant to have done—hit her all at once. The Order of the Lily. The assassination attempt on Luka.
“Before you say anything,” Ramson said quietly, “just know that I know everything, Kolst Pryntsessa.”
“As do I.” Ana snatched his left wrist, where she’d seen the tattoo of that curled stem, those three small flowers. Ramson flinched. Her gaze cut to his. “I know you were working with Kerlan. I know he sent you to kill my brother. So tell me why I shouldn’t throw you back into the river right now.” She was shaking, her limbs growing numb from the cold. She needed to move—but she also needed to know.
Despite the fact that he was shivering as well, Ramson managed a half smile. “Because I’d just swim back out again?” Ramson twisted his hand, trapping hers in his grip. His eyes flicked to hers, hesitant but hopeful, water clinging to his lashes. “I know I’ve made some terrible choices in my past, Ana. I fell in with the wrong people. I’ve been running in the wrong direction ever since.” He swallowed, his throat bobbing, and traced a thumb over the inside of her wrist. “But then I met a girl who told me that it is our choices that define us. And I…I want to make the right choice. If it’s not too late.”
She had no idea what to say to that. No idea whether she was falling for some new trap he’d planted for her. She thought she’d seen a glimpse of the boy Ramson had once been, standing there beneath the first snows of winter with her—but perhaps that had been a lie, too.
Ana snatched her hand back and pushed herself to her feet. The river had borne them quite a ways. In the distance, the torches of the Kateryanna Bridge shimmered like forgotten stars. She could barely make out people gathered on the bridge, smaller than the size of her fingernails. She was glad for the walls of the Palace, looming over them and obscuring them in shadow. “I need to go, Ramson.”
“Then I’ll go with you.”
“No,” Ana said, already moving forward one step at a time. The cold dragged at her. Her gown was weighed down with water that would soon become ice in these conditions.
“Ana. Kolst Pryntsessa,” Ramson corrected, and his hand caught hers. He stepped in front of her. All traces of mirth were gone from his face when he said, “I didn’t come back for a princess. I came for the girl I met in a high-security prison. Who jumped down a waterfall with me. Who fought by my side for the past few weeks.” He reached out, and she held as still as she could when he cupped a hand to her cheek. “The girl who’s not afraid to stand up to me. Who threatens to choke me with my own blood. The girl who’s so much stronger than most people I know, but hides both her smiles and tears for when no one else is around.”
“Then tell me this.” She lifted her gaze. “Would you have killed Luka if you’d had the chance?”
He hesitated. Water trickled from his hair, threading a path down his neck. “I don’t know.”
Ana pulled away. He’d saved her—she owed him her life. But did that make up for whatever crimes he’d committed before?
Your choices, Luka whispered, and she suddenly saw herself reflected in Ramson’s clouded hazel eyes. She had killed; she had tortured—and yet didn’t she still want another chance? Didn’t she still wish, resolutely, desperately, that above all the crimes she had committed and the people she had killed, her choices would define who she was?
Her mind w
as a whirl of emotions, of indecision. But the cold pressed at her, and time seeped through her fingers. The Coronation would start soon. She had to move. She had to make a choice.
“A friend told me that there is good and bad in everything,” Ana found herself saying. “It is the good that’s worth saving. I hope you have enough of that left in you, Ramson.”
She heard him exhale as she turned away. Ana tilted her head back, judging the distance from the Kateryanna Bridge to where they stood. Behind them, the Syvern Taiga rose, a dark outline blotting out the stars.
She knew where she was. “There’s a passageway to the dungeons up ahead,” Ana said quietly.
Ramson shook his head. “It’ll be locked. Trust me, I’ve studied the Salskoff Palace extensively.”
“Not this one.” Her breath frosted in the air as she waded through the snow. They were at the bottom of the riverbank, the Tiger’s Tail so close that one slip would send them back to the clutches of the terrifying waters. The bank sloped steeply upward to the edge of the Palace wall. Ana thanked the Deities that they were far enough to be hidden from view from the archers who would shoot anyone who approached the walls.
The cold weighed her down, robbed her of breath. Her hair, her gown, her skirts, and her shoes dripped water, and she was shivering so hard that talking felt impossible.
Ramson seemed to realize the danger they were in as well. Too long in the cold, drenched with icy river water, and their body temperatures could plummet below functional levels. His tone was devoid of its usual humor when he spoke next. “How far are we?”
“Almost,” she whispered. And—there. She spotted it, that thin crack along the Palace wall, large enough to be noticeable from this distance, but innocuous-looking. Someone had made it a long time ago.
Which meant…her passageway was…
Right here.
Ana crouched, running her fingers along the edge of the riverbank. And, surely enough, hovering just above the frothing waters was a hole, half-submerged in the Tiger’s Tail.
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