And then there were the nights, when he graciously left her the bed and she accepted as though it were her right. Ramson hadn’t minded. He’d looked up at her from his vantage point on the floor, taking in the delicate curve of her neck, the soft flutter of her lashes, the stern curve to her mouth even as she dreamt.
He shook those thoughts loose. The silver timepiece at his chest ticked away the minutes. It had been too long.
Ramson had just stood, when a noise gave him pause. It was faint, so faint that it might have been the groan of the old inn beneath the brush of the wind outside.
But Ramson’s senses tightened. He moved to the door and flattened himself to the wall behind it, the moonlight cutting just beyond the tips of his boots. Slowly, so as to not make a sound, he drew his misericord.
Another muffled footstep, and this time, a loud creak from the trick stair at the base of the second-floor landing. Ramson had chosen this room specifically for this reason: He would hear any intruders coming his way.
The smallest sound of a pin jiggling in the lock on his door, and then with a click, the handle turned.
The door opened and two men burst inside. They wore thick furs and dark padded coats, stitched through with patches. Their movements were lumbering, clumsy, and a quick look at their faces, necks, and hands yielded no markings to reveal an underground gang association.
They were likely low-ranking brutes scavenging for prizes in the Dams. And they’d hit gold with him.
Ramson cleared his throat. “Looking for me?” he said, and as they spun to face him, he lashed out.
He flicked the silverleaf he’d been playing with and it shot out like a projectile, hitting one of the men square in the eye. As the man stumbled back, hand to his face, howling in pain, the second leapt forward.
Ramson dodged easily, the arc of his opponent’s sword cutting a hairsbreadth from his nose. He pivoted and let out a breath. “My nose is my most handsome feature,” he said. “I mislike your attempts to sever it.”
The man gave him a growl and lunged, but Ramson had him all figured out. These brutes fought street-style: dirty, with no technique. Ramson fought dirty, too, but he was highly trained.
He easily undercut the brute’s swipe. By the time the man regained his sense of balance, it was too late.
Ramson’s blade pierced his throat. “Now you see why it’s called a misericord,” he muttered as he kicked the man’s body aside.
A shuffle of footsteps behind him. Ramson ducked just as the other brute struck out. His sword thumped to the floor, biting into the wood with the force of his swing.
“Ah, ah, ah.” Ramson clucked his tongue. “Clumsy. I could hear you coming from a mile away.”
In a flash, his sword was at his opponent’s neck, digging into the softness of the man’s flesh. “Tell me who you work for,” Ramson growled. “Tell me how you found me.”
The man resisted—they all did, at first—but Ramson tightened his grip into a choke hold, cutting off the man’s air. Drops of blood warmed Ramson’s fingers.
“Each time you make me ask, I slice a little more of your throat,” Ramson crooned. “Now, let me ask again—”
“We’re…for hire,” the brute gasped. “Saw…Kerlan’s…kill order…”
Ramson hummed. Olyusha would need to do better if she wanted to protect his—and therefore her precious, stupid husband’s—life.
At the same time, these brutes were so amateur, Ramson could imagine her rolling her eyes at him. I leave the small fries to you, she’d say. I take the big fish.
At least her information had been accurate.
“P-please,” the mercenary was choking out. “Hard…times…”
“I understand,” Ramson said, and then slit the man’s throat anyway.
The second body thumped to the ground. Ordinarily, he might have given more thought to letting these men live, but his mind was focused on one thing.
Ana.
Their meeting place was clearly compromised, and Ramson didn’t even want to think about what would happen if any mercenaries or gang members lingering around the Dams got to her first. Hells, he cursed to himself, he should’ve considered that first, before he picked an inn in the middle of what used to be the most dangerous district in Novo Mynsk. He’d thought that, with the fall of Kerlan, the entire Cyrilian criminal underground had collapsed, too.
It turned out that wasn’t the case.
His heart beat in a drumroll, and he wiped his misericord on one of the dead men’s shirts, then sheathed it. He needed to find her…he needed to get to her first.
Because he couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to her.
Ramson threw on his cloak and stepped neatly over the two bodies, making for the stairs. He didn’t bother shutting the door behind him.
In the time it took her to cross the city, Novo Mynsk lit up like a rack of coals. The glow of torches colored the winding streets red, and the cloud-heavy sky was afire with shades of corals and crimsons. People had gathered in the streets, some groggy with sleep and some terrified. They shuffled forward together, papers in hand.
Whitecloaks were present on almost every street. They pounded on doors, barking orders at civilians, directing them to the town square. Most of them wore the blackstone-infused mail, rendering their bodies well out of Ana’s Affinity’s reach.
Yet some were outfitted in the newer armor, Morganya’s insignia blaring out from the plates on their chests. Ana focused on them, observing as one melted a door with nothing but a flick of their hands while another broke down an entire stone wall of a dacha with the touch of a finger. The number of Inquisitors was few, peppered among the vast majority of non-Affinite Whitecloaks, but the effect of their presence, coupled with unbridled power and violence, was chilling.
The crowds thickened the closer she drew to the center of town. The stench of smoke and fear rose thick in the air, choking the skies. The dachas around them were jagged against the night, reflecting the color of blood from the torches that blazed.
Ana turned and the town square of Novo Mynsk unfolded before her.
The entire town seemed to have gathered. Torches were staked in the ground, the square awash in crimson and shadows. And in the very center of it all, a wooden scaffolding had been set up, lit in the light of the torches surrounding it. On the cobblestone ground, Imperial Patrols formed a ring around the stage, the whites of their cloaks tinted red from the flames. About half wore the lighter gray of the Inquisitors’ uniform.
Fluttering above it all in the middle of the scaffold was the silver-blue flag of Cyrilia, now bearing Morganya’s sigil. And chained to its pole, shivering in nightclothes, was a group of civilians.
The image cut through Ana’s exhaustion, bright and sharp.
A hush rippled through the square as a Whitecloak made his way to the center of the platform. His breastplate bore the new insignia of the crown and the Deys’krug, labeling him as an Inquisitor. As he unfurled a scroll and began to speak, the prisoners tied to the pole behind him shivered in the cold.
“Citizens of Cyrilia, we are gathered here today in the spirit of Kolst Imperatorya Morganya, our Glorious Empress, to dispense justice upon the land and carry out the will of the Deities.”
The ashes of Ana’s anger stirred, deep inside.
“These prisoners gathered before you today have been accused of heinous crimes against the Empire and Her Glorious Empress,” the Inquisitor continued, and as he spoke, there was movement on the stage.
Two Whitecloaks dragged a woman onto the scaffold. She was dressed in a silk nightgown, one sleeve torn, her hair falling out of a disheveled bun. She was crying and clutching a bundle to her chest.
One Whitecloak shoved her to the ground. The woman cried out, but her body curled around the small bundle. Protecting it.
From in
side the layers of cloth came a thin, high-pitched keening.
A baby, Ana thought. Her head grew light with horror. There was nothing in what she had seen tonight that indicated justice, not in the way that Cyrilia had always enforced it: with a court, with a trial, and with evidence.
No, this was uninhibited cruelty, dictated by a monarch who now served as judge, jury, and executioner.
“All those who oppose our Glorious Empress oppose divine goodness and rightful justice and must be punished.” The Inquisitor looked up, his eyes burning fever-bright. “We will purge this empire of unholy beings and criminals. From the root!” His voice rose into a shout.
Cold crept up Ana’s veins. She could see what these Whitecloaks were doing, using words such as divine goodness and rightful justice to justify Morganya’s actions. Morganya was using the Imperial Inquisition to steel her rule with an iron fist, and to spread the message that her will represented the Deities’ will.
In Cyrilia, the emperors sought the blessing of the Deities before each coronation. But none had ever dared to equate their actions with the wishes of the gods.
Seyin’s voice whispered to her again. The people have suffered for too long under the theory of a benevolent ruler.
Sweat slicked Ana’s palms. Onstage, one of the Whitecloaks crouched and began to drag the woman by her hair. The other wrapped his silver-gloved hands around the tiny bundle.
“No!” In the utter silence, the mother’s scream was jarring. She lurched back, shielding her child with her body. Her pleas echoed through the square. “Please, mesyr, I beg you, my baby is innocent—we are both innocent—”
“You would deny that you kept indentured Affinites in your household?” the Inquisitor roared.
“Employed, mesyr, we gave them wages and food and boarding—”
“Under a criminal contract!” the Inquisitor shouted, drawing his sword. It sliced through the air, flashing red in the torchlight. “You and your family are condemned to death for these crimes.”
“Not my baby, mesyr, please—spare my baby—”
The Whitecloak began to pull the bundle away, but the woman clung on, dragging herself from the floor, her dress ripping as the other Whitecloak grasped at her feet. From inside the bundle came the thinnest keening noise, threading through the crackle of the torches and the commotion onstage.
It happened so quickly.
The Whitecloak gave another pull and slammed his boot into the woman’s stomach. She slipped.
The sound of her fall cracked across the square like the whip of a lash. Blood seeped crimson across the platform, twisting serpentine through Ana’s Affinity. The woman’s body lay motionless.
Across the silent square, there was only the wailing sound of the baby as the Whitecloak carried it away.
Ana closed her eyes. Her thoughts were fragmenting, splintered by the blood of the dead mother and the cries of the child.
She’d come here to seek information on Morganya’s new regime, and for what? So that she was able to form a long-term plan, slowly build herself up to take down the enemy? But wasn’t the end goal of it all to create a better world? One that kept its people safe?
What kind of a sovereign was she if she simply stood here now, letting her people die as she watched? She might not have the answers to everything just yet, but there was one principle that she had always held fiercely—that she’d use her power to fight, to protect the innocent and vulnerable.
Your Affinity does not define you, her brother, Luka, had once told her. What defines you is how you choose to wield it.
Ana’s eyes opened with clarity. Her Affinity bloomed. Red clouded her vision.
She targeted the Inquisitors first. Whoever had designed their uniforms had forgotten that while the removal of blackstone made these Affinites able to use their gifts, it also made them utterly vulnerable to enemies whose Affinity was to the very makeup of their bodies.
Ana hooked her Affinity around the bright, warm pulse of their blood and shoved.
There were shouts of alarm from the other Whitecloaks as their companions crashed into them, and in that moment of distraction, Ana barreled past them.
With a leap, she was on the scaffold.
The lead Inquisitor’s yell cut off as Ana seized him with her Affinity and lifted him into the air. The world was alight in flames and blood, the air rippling with heat. Her hair had come undone, and as she turned to face the Imperial Patrol head-on, her long red cloak swept out from beneath her in a sudden gust of wind.
Shouts of confusion melded with gasps all around them as the crowd began to see what was happening.
The kapitan dangled in the air before Ana. When he looked closer at her, shock registered on his face, followed by recognition.
A cry went up somewhere in the crowd. “It’s the Blood Witch of Salskoff!”
And then another. “It’s the Crown Princess! She’s alive!”
And a third. “The Little Tigress of Cyrilia has come to save us!”
Somewhere between her getting from the crowd to onstage, her hood had slipped from her face. The night air, swirling between the fire’s heat and the winter’s cold, gusted against her cheeks.
Ana’s first instinct was to hide. Fear, drilled into her from her childhood, froze her in place; the stares of thousands of pairs of eyes weighed on her chest until she could barely draw breath. Her mind blanked; nausea roiled in her stomach.
But then, through the ringing in her ears, filtered another sound. A far-off, high-pitched noise. Something that reminded her of the Salskoff Palace, of her father standing before his court, his hands raised, his eyes bright.
Cheering.
It was faint at first, but as her eyes roved through the crowd, she saw it, here and there: People’s hands were raised toward her, and they were clapping.
The people had spoken. For her.
Heat sparked inside her, spreading to her fingertips and thawing the ice in her veins. The world crashed back in a tangle of smoke and fire and blood. In her panic, she’d let go of the kapitan. He now lay in a crumpled heap at the edge of the stage.
In the corner of her eye, she could see other Whitecloaks approaching, their outfits flashing in the swirling flames and smoke.
Ana ran for the civilians tied at the flagpole, picking up a Whitecloak’s discarded sword along the way. Clumsily, she lifted it and slashed at the ropes of the prisoners. They fell forward with cries of relief. Several were only children, the youngest barely up to Ana’s waist.
There was a possibility that the children’s parents were associated with Affinite traffickers, or that they had engaged in the indenturement of an Affinite through an illegal contract. But the way Morganya’s Imperial Inquisition was being conducted gave no distinction between the crimes. And children, barely old enough to understand the concept of Affinite indenturement, had been caught in the bloodshed.
If there was a way to rebalance the Empire, this was far from it.
Ana turned, her Affinity flaring again. In between the formation of his subordinates, the lead Inquisitor had pushed himself to his knees. Blood dripped from his temple, staining the pale metal of his helmet, as he raised his gaze to her.
Ana didn’t wait. She lashed out with her Affinity at the Inquisitors—the soldiers with powers that she would have the hardest time fending off—and tore.
The world blanched around her, fading to a darkness splattered with searing spots so bright they burned.
When she came to, she was drenched in sweat. Blood steamed all around, coating the air and pulsing in waves beneath her fading Affinity. She looked up and saw the procession of Whitecloaks closing in on her beyond the scaffolding. They advanced slowly, their swords raised, expressions of horror twisting their faces, firelight lancing off the unmistakable gray glitter of blackstone on their armor.
Where she might once have felt disgust at her own actions, now Ana only felt a sense of weary necessity. In war, she was beginning to learn, there was only kill or be killed.
The cheering had stopped by now, replaced by the sound of shouts and screams as the crowds around her realized the Imperial Inquisition was closing ranks around them. The town square was awash in commotion as civilians began to flee.
Ana tried to focus on the Whitecloaks, grasping for their blood, but her Affinity had hollowed out. Sweat trickled down her lip. She tasted salt and smoke as the flames from upended torches ringed higher around the platform.
She wouldn’t get out of this. Not without help.
In the chaos, something drew her attention: an echo of her Affinity, catching on to blood threaded through with darkness.
Ana lifted her gaze.
Seyin stood at the edge of the square, his black eyes unflinching as he watched her. Yet it wasn’t pride, or approval, or camaraderie that burned in his eyes.
It was cold fury.
They looked at each other for what seemed like an eternity: he, still as stone beneath the shadows of a dacha; she, drenched in blood and firelight, swaying where she stood.
Against her wishes, against her pride, a single thought gathered itself from the edges of her consciousness. Help me, Ana thought.
Seyin looked at her a moment longer. And then he turned away, leaving her with a hollow echo of his voice as he disappeared into the crowd.
The monarchy must die, Anastacya.
Something whizzed through the air, arcing past the wall of flames and bouncing on the wooden platform. Ana had only a brief glimpse of it—a glass vial of some sort—before it exploded.
Blue smoke filled the air, along with a charred smell that carried with it the faint scent of incense. The world became shadows and noise and fog.
Through the flickering haze of her Affinity, Ana could make out two bodies—horse and rider—fast approaching. There was a tint to the rider’s blood that was familiar: bright, sharp, rimmed with icefire blue, the calm of rosewater.
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