Liquid cold spread through his veins, and suddenly, all the plans he’d been spinning for himself the past few weeks seemed to dissipate into smoke before him. Goldwater Port had been center to any prospects of a future he’d dreamt up for himself.
Only, Kerlan had gotten there first.
He heard Olyusha speaking as though from very far away. “I thought that would get your attention. Here’s my proposal: an alliance to take down Alaric Kerlan together, once and for all. Find him, find Bogdan, and bring my husband home to me. And in return, you’ll have my protection. Someone watching your back from the enemy’s side. Whoever from the Order is looking for you, I’ll get to them first.”
Ramson was silent as he considered, his thoughts already running ahead, weaving situations and possibilities and weighing the pros and cons of it all. He’d wanted to leave Kerlan alone, to let the Order fade away as a part of his past that he’d wished to bury—but it seemed they had come looking for him, instead. And by taking Goldwater Port, Kerlan had seized the most valuable asset between them, backing Ramson into a corner.
Through the broken windows, moonlight spilled onto the floor. Even in the empty house, Ramson thought he could feel his old master’s presence, like a cold shadow looming behind him.
This was all a game to Kerlan; it was Ramson’s turn to make a move.
He was tired of playing the pawn.
“Well?” he heard Olyusha say at last. “Do we have a Trade?”
“I’m inclined to say so,” he said. “Though don’t expect me to shake with you on it.” He’d witnessed the tricks she hid up her sleeves, how one drop of her poison could paralyze a man entirely.
Olyusha’s smile didn’t meet her eyes. “I knew from the start that you wouldn’t save Bogdan out of the goodness of your heart unless there was something in it for you. Seems I was right.”
“Am I really that predictable?”
Olyusha shrugged. “I’m not one to lay any claims as to how well I know you, Quicktongue,” she said, picking at one of her nails, “but Bogdan and I would not have survived for so long in Kerlan’s Order without someone watching over us. Of course, you might have done those things to buy yourself insurance…but I do think that, despite everything about you, you have the propensity to be good, in your own terrible ways.”
The words stirred an echo of a memory. A girl, standing beneath the softly falling snow of a new winter, her eyes brighter than the moon. You could be good. Make the right choice, Ramson.
Olyusha’s voice dragged him from the memory. “Before we part, I have one more gift for you,” she said. “I know someone in Goldwater Port. Kerlan hired her for a few shipping jobs before, specific to Bregon. She’ll have more information.”
Ramson listened carefully to the name Olyusha gave. It didn’t ring a bell, which surprised him. Perhaps there were still secrets that Goldwater Port carried, buried deep beneath its sands by the man who’d made Ramson the person he had been: the person he still was.
It was time for Ramson to carve his own path.
He turned, tipping his cap at Olyusha. “Well met, Olyusha,” he said. “You sit pretty and focus on murdering our ex-colleagues. By the time you’re done, I’ll be back with your idiot husband.”
He heard her give a throaty laugh, the sound echoing over the clip of his boots as he walked away. “I’m not giving up on you just yet, Quicktongue.” A pause, and then: “When you do find Kerlan, promise me you’ll send him my regards.”
“I don’t make promises,” Ramson replied. “That way, I can’t break them.”
Yet even as he spoke, he could feel the sharp edges of a vow burying deep into his heart.
Jonah had once told him to live for himself. Thing is, Ramson, he’d said, his raven-black eyes sharp with intelligence and uncanny wisdom for his twelve years of age, you can achieve everything in this world, but if it’s for someone else, it’s pointless.
Yet as Ramson walked through the snow, the Kerlan Estate hovering behind him with its empty-eyed windows and broken, gaping mouth of a door, he realized that the path in front of him was still far out of reach, blocked by a shadow that grew larger and clearer with every step he took.
Alaric Kerlan represented everything he despised about himself, his life, and this world. As long as Kerlan lived, he could never be free.
And right now, if Kerlan was establishing a new criminal empire in Goldwater Port, using the trade routes Ramson had built to get to Bregon, then he was the obstacle that stood in the way of the glimpse of the future Ramson had hoped for.
One that involved planting the roots of the resistance in the south with Ana, and then making some semblance of a life for himself after the war was won.
Ramson tilted his face to the starless sky, his breath unfurling before him in a cloud as he spoke. “I’ll find my own path, Jonah,” he said aloud. “But first, I’m going to hunt down Alaric Kerlan. And I’m going to kill him.”
Winter held its breath over the city of Novo Mynsk, the bladed silence of night shrouding Anastacya Mikhailov as she searched the streets for blood. Here and there, her Affinity picked up faint traces of it: a splash, soaking the ground like paint; a handprint on a broken streetlamp, faded to a smear.
She hadn’t imagined she would return to this place again, where she’d experienced loss and seen the cruelty of her empire firsthand. But several weeks earlier, on the run after Morganya had almost killed her, Ana had sent a snowhawk to her old friend Yuri, leader of the Redcloaks, requesting a meeting.
The response had come, cryptic in case of interception: Meet at the ninth hour on the twenty-sixth day of the first moon of Winter, at the location where we last met. Search for my contact in the shadows.
In just one moon, Novo Mynsk had been reduced to a husk of what it been back when she and Yuri had been reunited. Dachas had been left abandoned as the wealthy fled south from Morganya’s regime; those remaining stayed indoors, their blood flickering faintly beyond thin walls as Ana passed by.
It wasn’t an unfamiliar sight.
Many times throughout Ana’s travels in the past few weeks, she and Ramson had found empty towns, the wind whistling through smashed windows and half-shuttered shops. Through glimpses of announcements and flyers scattered on streets, they’d pieced together Morganya’s plans for her new regime.
Newly Crowned Empress Morganya Mikhailov Rules by Justice and Imperial Court Reforms Spawn New Era for Cyrilia, one headline had blared; others had declared Non-Affinite Registration Required; Identification Papers to Be Carried at All Times.
Slowly but surely, Morganya was reversing the fates of Affinites and non-Affinites. But the specifics of it, Ana had yet to find out.
When she turned the next corner, Ana drew a sharp breath. Her steps faltered.
Where the Playpen once was sat a charred skeleton of a building. The farcical imitation of a Cyrilian cathedral was burned black, the stained-glass windows once depicting scantily clad women now shattered. Gaping holes were left in their wake like empty eye sockets staring out from a ruined face.
It was hard to imagine the Playpen as it had been over a moon ago, when she had encountered Yuri in the midst of an Affinite trafficking ring: raucous, crowded with writhing bodies, and hot with the pungent smell of sweat and cloying perfume. Now, the gilded mahogany doors had been smashed through. Debris cracked beneath her boots as she entered, her steps echoing loudly in the silence. Beaded curtains littered the floor like pearls from a broken necklace, and the love seats were overturned, stuffing spilling from them.
Ana cast her Affinity before her like a torch, sensing the outline of the place through the blood splattered on the walls around her and the steps leading to the room below.
Gradually, she picked up on a single flicker somewhere beneath her.
Her contact.
With a gloved hand she retrieved a gl
obefire from the inner pocket of her new cloak—a dark red this time, the color of blood. It was one she’d chosen in a remote village in a rare act of self-indulgence.
Ana shook it. The chemicals inside rattled and then, within seconds, crackled to life in the form of a small, persistent fire, throwing light onto her surroundings.
Holding the globefire before her, she descended the staircase and made her way down the long corridor that led to the auditorium. Ana’s Affinity pulled taut, tuned in to the flicker of blood that grew closer with every step.
She entered the room that just weeks ago had been alive with torchlight and laughter and the thrum of drums.
The performance dome now resembled a graveyard. Stone pillars were in pieces and covered the floor, the silk and ribbons once clinging to them now half-buried among the rubble. Here and there, the walls were scorched with burn marks, and people had toppled the statues of the Deities that once guarded the stage. A sorrowful stone face stared up at her as she picked her way across the room.
Ana stopped before the stage. It was still littered with flowers and bits of whatever elements had been used to perform before it was destroyed. The blackstone-infused glass that May had brought down glittered like snow. No one had even bothered to clean up this place. Kerlan must have left it like this after the rebellion.
For a moment, a ghost of a memory flickered in her mind, and she saw a child standing on the stage, nursing a flower to life. The child looked up, her ocean-eyes bright, her hair a soft tangle around her face.
We are but dust and stars.
Ana turned away abruptly. Tears ached, deep in her chest.
But there was something else. In the torrent of her emotions, Ana almost—almost—missed the flicker of movement at the edges of her Affinity.
The light of her globefire suddenly vanished, plunging the auditorium into darkness.
Ana could hear her own breathing, the stuttering of her heartbeats…and the slightest shuffling sound from somewhere beyond the wreckage of the stage. She shook her globefire; the chemicals rattled, the glass was warm, as though the flame still burned…but there was no light.
She could sense the person standing about a dozen paces from her.
Ana drew a sharp breath. “Show yourself,” she said.
A spark of light flickered in the globefire, between her fingers. And then the light flared again, filling the chamber.
On the stage, by the statue of a weeping Deity, stood a young man. He’d appeared as suddenly as an illusion, and as he gazed at her intensely, she had the distinct impression that he was less illuminated by the light than carved out by an absence of shadows.
“Apologies if I frightened you.” His voice was smooth, cold, dark as velvet night. “It is necessary that we take the utmost precautions when meeting with strangers.”
She considered him, thinking of the way the light of her globefire had been stolen, watching how the shadows seemed to drape him like a cloak.
Search for my contact in the shadows.
An Affinite, then. A shadow Affinite.
“I’m a friend,” Ana replied, “of Yuri’s.”
“I highly doubt that.” He began to walk toward her, debris cracking beneath his polished shoes. His outline flickered, shadows licking at his edges, and as he drew near, she began to make out his features. He looked to be around Ramson’s age, just a few years older than she. A crop of straight, ink-black hair fell with casual neatness over his forehead, framing a startlingly beautiful face with the features of the Aseatic kingdoms. He was clad in an all-white tunic, silver buttons fastened tightly at his pale throat. Lithe and elegant, he resembled a fairy-tale prince.
Only, his eyes held a wild darkness.
Briefly, she wondered whether he had been trafficked into the Empire at a young age, like her friend Linn; like May.
The boy paused at the edge of the stage. With a light hop, he stepped off. “Seyin, Second-in-Command.”
So this was the Redcloaks’ Second-in-Command.
Ana noted how he didn’t bow. Determined to show him proper courtesy, she dipped her head. “Anastacya Mikhailov. Heir to the Cyrilian Empire.”
She thought she caught Seyin’s eyes narrowing for a fraction of a second, but she blinked and his face was expressionless again. “Well, meya dama,” he said, and once again, she noticed that he didn’t address her with any honorifics. “I am here by request of our Commander.”
It was easy to derive a second layer of meaning to his words. I am not here of my own will.
Everything he said, every move he made, was done with deliberation, and she was beginning to sense a subtle hostility beneath his cool diplomacy.
She suddenly wondered what Yuri had said to his Second to invoke the distant coolness with which he regarded her. It had been over a moon since she’d last seen Yuri, back at Shamaïra’s when their paths had crossed briefly, then separated again.
When you’re ready, send a snowhawk to Goldwater Port, he’d told her. His eyes had brimmed with warmth back then.
She looked into the cold, dark gaze of his Second. Had something changed? “Thank you for your time,” she said. “I’ll get to the point: I’m here to take up an alliance with the Redcloaks.”
There was a pause, and she had the strangest sense of the shadows around her deepening, pulsing, as though they were alive. Seyin watched her impassively. “And why,” he said slowly, “would the Redcloaks agree to an alliance with you?”
The question caught her off guard. An alliance with the Redcloaks had seemed only natural after her parting exchange with Yuri.
Ana met Seyin’s gaze. “Have you spoken with Yuri?”
“I have” was all Seyin said in response.
“Then you know that we are fighting on the same side, to bring down Morganya. I want to make a safe world, for Affinites and non-Affinites alike.” Her breath unfurled in an icy mist. “I can defeat Morganya. I can take back the throne.”
Seyin stepped forward, pulling back the darkness around them. Moonlight spilled over them in a silver pool. “You must realize that is precisely why we are not, and cannot be, allies.”
The sentence robbed her of breath. “No, I don’t understand. Is it not the wish of the Redcloaks to make an equal world?”
Seyin’s smile was cold. “It is.”
“Then why—”
“But it is not yours,” Seyin interrupted, his eyes glittering. “Tell me, what is the difference between you and Morganya? You are, after all, both Affinite empresses promising a better world for your people.”
Shock burned through her, followed closely by disgust. What game was he playing with her? “Seyin,” Ana said, grappling for calm. “You’ve seen the charred villages, the burnt corpses, the trail of blood left behind by Morganya’s forces. She is not creating equality. She is using violence to upend the social order of the Empire while cementing her own rule.”
“And isn’t that what you, too, will do once you take the throne?” Seyin spread his hands in a careless shrug, then brought them together. “I see two Affinites fighting for the throne, both promising better futures to the vulnerable and exploited.”
Fury licked up her chest, hot and searing. “Morganya is slaughtering the innocents—”
“She is purging those who were affiliated with Affinite trafficking and exploitation.”
“And that isn’t equality or freedom! That’s massacre.”
A twisted little smile played at Seyin’s lips. “But isn’t that what history tells us? The path to becoming a ruler is painted in blood. In the death of thousands of innocent lives. Morganya, too, promised us equality and freedom. What makes you so different, that we should throw our forces behind you? You’re just a girl born to a silver spoon and a golden crown. That says nothing of whether you are capable of ruling.”
The fire that ha
d been building inside her flickered out, leaving her cold.
“You see,” Seyin continued, “the issue that I have isn’t whether you or Morganya will make for the better ruler, Anastacya.” She flinched at the way he spoke her name, with dominance, as though he’d suddenly stripped her naked. “It is with the system itself. The last emperor, and the one before him, and the one before him…they all promised the people wonderful things. Yet letting a monarch go unchecked means there is nothing to protect the people should that monarch fail.” He looked somber now, spreading his hands. “Suppose you are merciful. Suppose you are gracious, and that you rule with justice. What happens after you die? What about the next ruler, or the next, or the ones after that? Can you guarantee that they, too, will carry the benevolence and sense of justice that you claim to have?”
Ana struggled to think of a rebuttal and found that she had none. She thought of the first time she’d run into Imperial Patrols, of how they’d treated her and May like criminals, of how she’d seen, with her own eyes, the inequities that her father had allowed to bloom like a sickness in their empire.
All along, she’d sought the throne because she trusted herself to change it all, because she knew with a conviction greater than her own life that she would bring equality to her empire once again.
Yet never had she thought to question the system of rule itself. What Seyin was saying…was unthinkable to her in the moment.
“You say you fight against Empress Morganya,” Seyin continued quietly. “You say you wish to create an equal world under a monarchy. But it is the monarchy itself that is the fault here. The people—Affinites and non-Affinites alike—have suffered for too long under the theory of a benevolent ruler. It is time we had a say in the way our lives are ruled.” Seyin spread his hands. “The future is in the hands of the people. That is the mission of the Redcloaks.”
It felt as though her world were shifting, signs she had missed earlier blazing to life. Yuri loved her, but he had never promised her anything—not a throne, not an alliance, not even a common goal. She’d hinged all her hopes on him and his revolution. In her own creed for justice, for equality, she had never paused to question whether they were even on the same path.
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