A figure emerged from the smoke, shawl and patterned pants fluttering in the breeze.
“Ana,” said Shamaïra, her eyes fierce. She swung her horse to the edge of the platform. “Take my hand!”
Exhaustion stole whatever questions might have been at the tip of her tongue. Ana barely had the strength to hobble over. Shamaïra was surprisingly strong for someone so small, her callused fingers gripping Ana’s hand. Shamaïra pulled her onto the back of the saddle, and she wrapped her arms around the Unseer’s waist.
The blue smoke Shamaïra had conjured blended with the bitter black plumes from the torches and the burning scaffolding. Ana clung tightly to her friend as they charged forward, galloping past people blundering their way through the confusion, shadows staggering past fallen torches, still burning to the end of their wicks.
Gradually, the firelight receded, churning into ash that coated Ana’s tongue. Darkness closed in upon them. The scenes of the Imperial Inquisition swirled in her head like smoke, along with a final, damning whisper.
The path to becoming a ruler is painted in blood.
In the span of one moon, everything and nothing about Shamaïra’s dacha had changed. There was something muted about the house now, once alive with colored lamps and scents of roses and tea. Only a single lamp flickered in the hallway, washing the walls a dim yellow. Ana padded quietly after Shamaïra, their shoes left at the door.
The brocade curtain partitioning the parlor from the hallway hung limp, and Ana hesitated before it. It felt like only yesterday she had trailed in with a group of Affinites, carrying the weight of a small body in her arms.
“Make yourself comfortable, child.” Shamaïra’s voice was its usual steel, but there was something softer, kinder about it tonight. “I’m going to make tea.”
Ana ducked past the curtain into the parlor. The fire and blood and screams from the Imperial Inquisition were still fresh in her mind, and the sudden silence was jarring, as was the homey scene before her. It felt as though she had stepped into another world. A crackling fire blazed in the hearth still, the one that Shamaïra kept alight throughout the day and night, filling the room with a musky warmth. Bookcases lined the far wall, creaking beneath the weight of tomes labeled in the curving letters of the Nandjian language. A Nandjian rug filled the center of the room, upon which stood a round oak table strewn with tattered tea-stained maps and cheap goatskin scrolls, scribbled through with elegant handwriting.
Ana sank into one of the settees, closing her eyes and letting the events of the night stream through her mind.
Patrols, their white capes drenched crimson from their own blood.
Her face, unhooded. Facing the crowd for the world to see the red of her eyes, the truth of what she was.
Who she was.
Footsteps interrupted her thoughts. Ana opened a bleary eye to see Shamaïra ducking through the brocade curtain, tray in hand. “Tea,” the Unseer said matter-of-factly as she settled on the divan across from Ana and began to pour steaming liquid from a silver samovar into a glass cup. “Drink up.”
Ana gratefully accepted the cup. The tea was dark, strong, with the faint taste of cardamom and roses. She hadn’t realized how utterly drained she was until now, her Affinity nothing but a faint flicker at the back of her mind, barely registering Shamaïra’s presence in the room. The tea settled in her stomach, somehow filling her with warmth, from her nose to the tips of her fingers. “Shamaira,” Ana said, lowering her glass. “Thank you.”
Shamaïra poured her own cup and huffed a sigh as she leaned back and took a long gulp. The silk of her shawl shone in the candlelight: a plum purple today that beautifully complemented her olive skin. There were dark bags beneath her eyes, which were the same blue of ice that Ana remembered.
“You’re going to ask me how I knew you were here,” Shamaïra said, stealing the words from Ana’s lips. “I’ve waited for your return, Little Tigress.” She paused, then frowned. “And you can close your mouth and wipe off that stupid expression of surprise now. You forget who I am.”
Shamaïra was an Unseer, a practitioner of a Nandjian magic that gave her the ability to see fleeting glimpses of Time: past, present, and future. Her faith consisted of two halves of a whole: Brother and Sister, light and dark, physical and metaphysical.
Ana had first met her through Yuri one moon ago, when Shamaïra had provided shelter for the Redcloaks and the Affinites they had rescued from Kerlan’s Playpen.
The thought gave her a jolt of unease now. “I met with the Redcloaks earlier, Shamaïra,” Ana said. “I thought I was meant to ally with them and we would bring down Morganya, together. But…”
“You find differences in your paths,” Shamaïra said softly. “I believe you’ve met Seyin, then.”
“You’re still involved with the Redcloaks?” Ana asked.
“I do what I can. Most are so young, still children. Even the leaders are merely the age my son would be today.” Shamaïra’s tone turned hard. “But you’d best stay away from Seyin. That boy sees only his goal, and nothing else.”
“What he said, about the monarchy…” Ana frowned into her tea, the liquid swirling like her thoughts. “I couldn’t think of how to answer him. He only thinks of our differences, but we must remember that we face a common enemy.”
Shamaïra’s expression was soft, her eyes filled with understanding and wisdom of a life beyond what Ana could imagine. “Little Tigress, let me ask you this first.” The gold glow of the fire burnished the Unseer’s face. “What would you sacrifice for your empire? For your people?”
Something drew Ana’s attention to the window. In the darkness, she could just make out the silver of a trellis of winterbells, beneath which someone very precious to her lay buried in the gentle earth. A child, with ocean-eyes. The thought still cut, and the wound was fresh, but day by day, it had been getting better.
Ana swallowed, and the answer came out in a whisper. “Everything.”
Shamaïra’s eyes were sad. “I suppose that is something you will not know until the time comes,” she murmured, almost as though to herself. “Your wish to protect this empire will come at a cost. You will need to choose between two paths, for there are two Anastacyas now, my love: the girl you once were, and the ruler you will become. A day will arrive when you will be asked to sacrifice that which you hold dearest for the good of your empire. That is the choice you must make: which of the Anastacyas you shall be.”
The words churned in her head, but their meaning remained as elusive as smoke. How could she separate the ruler she was to become from the girl she was now? Both were an intrinsic part of who she was, one bleeding into the other. “I will always choose what is best for Cyrilia,” Ana replied. “I was there at the Imperial Inquisition, Shamaïra. I saw what Morganya is doing to my empire. I heard my people cheering for me when I took a stand against the atrocities the Whitecloaks are committing. They support me.”
Shamaïra watched her very carefully. She took another sip of tea. “Then why is it that it still seems you are trying to find your path, Little Tigress?”
“I just…” Ana gripped her teacup, thinking of Seyin, of her throne, of the way he had shifted her entire world with just a few words. “I need to speak to Yuri. We have our differences, but we need to work together to bring down Morganya first.” She let out a long breath and met the Unseer’s eyes. “I need to know if this is the right path, Shamaïra.”
Shamaïra swirled her tea and took another long drink before setting it down on the saucer. Her eyes pierced. “You will remember what I told you of my ability to see the future,” she said. “That it is equivalent to dipping a single finger in the great river of Time. The future is ever-shifting, depending on the choices that you make, and those of others that inevitably shift the course of your life. I can only catch glimpses of certain events along certain paths.” She tilted her head back, her gaze growin
g distant. “For your path, Little Tigress, I see an ocean.”
Ana looked up. “An ocean?” It wasn’t what she had expected, in the tangled web of allies and enemies, monarchs and revolutions. “What do you mean?”
“The visions the Sister permits me to see are not always singular in purpose,” Shamaïra said. “But there must be a strong reason behind it all. The ocean represents the direction you must take in all aspects of your path. Think, Little Tigress. What might it signify?”
There were many aspects in her path that could be tied to the ocean, now that she paused to consider it. The ocean had brought her May; it had, in some ways, brought her Linn, whom Ramson was still trying to track down with his snowhawk.
Ramson. Like the ocean, he wasn’t someone she could harness or control. There was a wild freedom to his spirit that was as open as the sea.
With a start, she remembered that she was meant to meet him at the Broken Arrow—and that she was about two hours late. He’ll wait, Ana thought more aggressively than needed, determined to push him from her head and focus on the task at hand.
The ocean. There was something else. “Goldwater Port,” Ana said quietly. “That’s where I was headed.” She paused, and her voice grew soft. “Where Yuri is.”
Shamaïra watched her through heavy-lidded eyes. “There is much more to be discussed between the two of you. The path of the Empire lies in your hands.”
A shadow of doubt stole over Ana. “Seyin didn’t leave much room for negotiation when I spoke to him,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what I’ll do if I cannot convince Yuri.”
In the light of the fire, Shamaïra suddenly looked tired; the lines of her face seemed more pronounced than they had ever been. “Seyin wants a revolution, and you want the throne. All I want is a life in what’s left of the world after all this—a life with my son, without war or bloodshed or pain. Without waking up in the middle of the night, calling his name only to find him gone.” She closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them again, they glistened with unshed tears. “I know that you’ll find, in your heart, what is best for your people. What they—what we—want.”
Ana gazed at Shamaïra, taking in the sight of the extraordinary woman who had crossed the Dzhyvekha Mountains and survived the Syvern Taiga, all in search of her son. She’d been fighting alongside Ana and alongside the Redcloaks all along, and yet the ordinary people did not care for the power struggles of kings and queens. When monarchs played at war, it was the people who suffered. And sooner or later, Ana thought, her gaze tightening on Shamaïra with newfound fear, it was those she loved who would bear the cost.
Abruptly, she stood. “You shouldn’t have done this,” she said quietly. “You shouldn’t have saved me, shouldn’t have brought me here….What if they come after you next?”
Shamaïra lifted her chin. “Let them try.”
Ana closed her eyes for a brief moment. Yet again someone had saved her life, offered her food and shelter; yet again she had incurred a blood debt, one that she had no means to pay at the moment.
Ana stood and knelt by Shamaïra’s side. She took the woman’s hand, callused and wrinkled with time. Gently, she kissed it. “I mustn’t stay long,” she said. “If the Whitecloaks are hunting me, it isn’t safe for you if they track me here.” She hesitated. “But if you’ll permit, I’d like to say hello to an old friend.”
Shamaïra’s smile was tender. “She is out in the back garden, where the flowers grow.”
“I’ll be right back,” Ana said, and made for Shamaïra’s garden.
The cold air filled her lungs with the scent of snow and conifers. Out here in the garden Shamaïra kept behind her dacha, the snow remained untouched, a blanket of white over the sleeping earth. Farther back, the tall, jagged outline of the Syvern Taiga cut into the night sky.
A lovely trellis stood a little ways from the dacha, and the sight took Ana’s breath away: the wood, pale and completely uncovered even after the thickest of snowfalls, and the small winterbells that clung to it, white and lovely, the moon dusting them so that they seemed to glow in the night.
Ana knelt beneath the trellis, resting a hand on the untouched snow. The structure arched over her and the winterbells cocooned her, their soft leaves and velvet petals curling against her neck. For a brief moment, she let herself believe that magic had made this garden of vines and flowers that grew from the spirit of a little girl.
“Hello, May,” she whispered.
A small wind picked up, and all around her, the little winterbells seemed to stir, drawing the soft scent of snow.
It was when she returned here, Ana thought, leaning her head against the trellis and closing her eyes, that she always found herself and her purpose.
May had died to free dozens of other Affinites. She had only been ten years of age—and she’d spent most of her life indentured to her employer, working to clear the debt she’d accumulated from a contract she hadn’t even been able to read when she’d signed it.
Promise me, Ana, she’d whispered even as her ocean-eyes turned still, you’ll make it better.
Ana dipped her head. She knew, in her heart of hearts, that this would always be the reason she chose to fight. That she’d meant what she said when she told Shamaïra she would sacrifice everything to protect her empire, to protect her people, to protect the most vulnerable of her citizens.
She fought so that not another Affinite would become exploited in this empire that had trusted her and another long line of monarchs to watch over their well-being.
She fought so that sometime, somewhere, another little girl could sit on snow-frosted ground and bring a flower to life with her bare hands.
It wouldn’t do if there no longer existed a world for her to rebuild after everything.
Ana drew a deep breath and touched a hand to the ground. “Wait for me,” she murmured. “I made you a promise, and I’m going to see it through.” She paused, and her breath misted in the cold before her as she added, “No matter what it takes.”
When she returned to the parlor, Shamaïra stood at the open window. The wind was as cold and sharp as knives; the fire in the hearth flickered as the Unseer turned to Ana. She held something in her hands. On the windowsill, a snowhawk spread its wings and took off into the night. “Little Tigress,” she whispered, and held out a scroll.
The parchment was damp with snow and soft between her fingers when Ana took it and unfurled it. Surprise bloomed in her stomach.
It was a portrait of her, in a scene that was all too fresh in her mind, and all too familiar.
The artist had painted her in the moment she’d stepped onto the wooden scaffold at Novo Mynsk and seized the Imperial Patrol with her Affinity. Her face was twisted with fury, her eyes crimson, her scarlet cloak sweeping behind her in a magnificent arc. In the background, a fire raged.
Red Tigress Rising, the gold-emblazoned title blared triumphantly. The Crown Princess lives. The rebellion begins.
Ana looked up. “Who made this?” she asked.
Shamaïra’s eyes were bright. “The people, Ana,” she said. “Your people.”
Ana closed her eyes and pressed the poster to her breast, letting this moment sink in.
She had fought for her people.
And now, her people were rallying behind her.
Seyin had tried to convince her that she wasn’t what the people needed, but here, clutched between her fingers, was the very proof that they were supporting her.
She’d ride for Goldwater Port. She’d speak with Yuri, show him this poster, recount to him how the people had supported her. How they would follow her. And she’d reassure him that their goals were one and the same—that Ana’s ultimate goal was based on nothing more than a promise she’d made to a small girl, a friend. To make it all better.
“I’m going to Goldwater Port,” she said and clasp
ed her hands over Shamaïra’s. “From the bottom of my heart, Shamaïra, thank you. Do not think that I have forgotten all the help you gave me. I owe you my life, and I’ll repay that with a life. When I return, when I am Empress, I promise you I will find your son.”
Shamaïra squeezed her hands. “Remember my words. Most of all, remember who you are. Who the people need you to be.” Her eyes grew hard as steel. “Take the valkryf, my child. The beast spends half its days stamping around in my stables; an old lady like me can hardly keep it entertained. You’ll need it more where you’re going.”
Ana fastened her cloak and slung her rucksack over her shoulders. It held everything she had left in this world—two bronze cop’stones, several globefires, a map, a pouch of coins, and a compass. That, and the silver Deys’krug she wore around her neck, to remember the promise of an old friend. Yuri had promised they would meet again.
“Sweep the tracks leading to your dacha,” she told Shamaïra. “Once I get back to town, I’ll have the Whitecloaks glimpse me so they won’t think to look for me here. If they hunt me there, you’ll be safe.”
Shamaïra waved a hand. “You underestimate me. I can take care of myself.”
Despite herself, Ana felt a smile linger at her lips. “Oh, I’ve no doubt,” she said, turning to open the front door. Night air rushed in, sharp with cold and smoke.
Ana breathed in deeply.
She would need to find Ramson first and offer an apology for being so late. She huffed a sigh. She could already imagine his smug look, the lopsided grin he would give her.
They would make for Goldwater Port together, for a sturdy ship and steady sails that would take them to Bregon.
Behind her, she heard Shamaïra call softly: “Deys blesya ty, Red Tigress.” With a sweep of her hand, she drew her hood up and stepped into the dark.
In the early morning, Novo Mynsk lay in ruin and darkness. The snow was streaked with ashes, the smell of smoke and war churning in the air. Ana kept her Affinity flared as she hurried her valkryf through deserted streets, keeping to the side alleyways, the snow muffling their steps. A hollow wind had picked up, whistling through cracked doorways and dragging on the glass of broken windows.
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