Ana drew a deep breath and entered.
She was standing in a restaurant. The inside was pleasantly warm, the wooden floorboards creaking beneath her boots. Bright yellow tablecloths draped over the tables, spotted with patterns of leaping fish and birds. Farther in the back were several booths, an empty counter, and a door that led to the kitchens. It smelled of bliny and fish.
Yuri gestured at a booth by the window. “Have a seat,” he said shortly.
The snow Affinite had disappeared through a set of doors at the back of the restaurant. The entire place seemed empty but for the two of them.
Something tightened in Ana’s chest. “Why did you save me?” she demanded. Her wound gave a sharp throb, and the words spilled from her lips before she could help it. “Did you ask Seyin to do it?”
Anger broke on Yuri’s face, and Ana found herself relishing it. Anything but that cold, forced calm. “All these years you’ve known me,” he said, and she felt a part of herself crack. “Do you think me a coward, Ana?” He drew a tight breath and looked away. “Seyin acted of his own accord. He has been dismissed from his position.”
Before they could say anything else, there came the sound of plates clanking and a thudding noise, and the next moment, a wooden door swung open at the back of the restaurant. A girl emerged, squealing as she charged at Yuri.
Yuri’s mouth dropped, and he caught her as she barreled straight into him. “Liliya—”
“You’re back, Firebraids!” she cried, reaching up to pull at his ponytail.
The tips of Yuri’s ears flamed red. “We agreed you would stop calling me that,” he muttered, but tugged back at one of her gold pigtails. “And I told you to stay—”
“Who’s that?” The girl—Liliya—now turned to Ana, her eyes wide.
Yuri looked helplessly at Ana. We’ll talk later, his expression said as he tousled the girl’s hair and told her, “Liliya, this is Ana. Ana, this is Liliya, my sister.”
The girl grinned toothily at Ana, looking every bit like a smaller version of her brother down to the freckles on her nose. “You’re the princess!” she squealed, and sank into an awkward curtsy with her peony-patterned skirts. “Kolst Pryntsessa!”
But the greeting only tightened a string inside Ana’s chest. She didn’t look at Yuri as she smiled and dipped her head.
More footsteps thudded from the back; moments later, a woman emerged. She had Yuri’s solid build and heated gaze, softened by wrinkles around her eyes that made her look as though she were smiling already. Her bright red hair was swept back in a bun, and she held a wooden ladle in her sturdy hands. “Liliya,” she was shouting, “I told you to never leave the butter by the cooking stove or—”
The woman broke off as her gaze fell on Ana. Her eyes widened.
“Ma, this is Ana,” Yuri said. “Ana, this is my mother.”
“Please,” Yuri’s mother said, turning as red as her hair as she sank into a curtsy. “Call me Raisa, Kolst Pryntsessa.”
“Please, call me Ana.” A sudden surge of guilt clutched at Ana’s chest as she dipped her head and bid the woman to rise.
Back at the Palace, Yuri had always mentioned a mother and a sister in a village down south. She had never given a second thought to them, but now they were here, in the flesh. For most of her life, she’d thought of Yuri only as her friend, and a servant at the Palace. Never the fact that he had a whole family, a whole life, outside of bringing her hot ptychy’moloko and keeping her company. That he’d lived away from it all when he’d been with her.
Ana looked at Raisa’s linen kirtle, a faded red covered with splotches of various oils and sauces, at the woman’s swollen wrists and ankles, her hair spilling from her bun. She looked at the modest furnishings in the restaurant, the air smelling like grease and batter. At Liliya, whose sleeves were rolled up and whose hands were covered in soap water.
Up until now, the livelihoods of ordinary citizens of her empire had never seemed real, never seemed more than a sentence in a dusty tome or a letter of law penned in expensive black ink.
It all felt like a dream as Raisa ordered Yuri into the kitchens to set up some breakfast, and then led Ana up the rickety stairs to the wash closet. They passed a second-floor landing spaced with many rooms. “This used to be a boardinghouse,” Raisa explained, “but now Yuri’s children live here, and I provide room and board.”
“You mean the Redcloaks?” Ana asked as they squeezed between a plain clay tub, a gently steaming bucket of hot water, and a number of neatly organized drawers.
Raisa exhaled sharply. “A fancy title they give themselves. Most of them are young, with nowhere to go, believing in a cause too big for them to bite. I do what I can for them.” She rummaged in a cabinet. “Here—a medical kit. I can tell you have a wound from the way you move. Sit down, child; let me help you.”
Raisa’s hands were gentle as she peeled back Ana’s shirt and the bandages she had applied herself. “When Yuri got the post at the Palace, it was the best day of our lives,” she murmured, lathering warm water from the bucket and cleansing the wound. “We had moved down south because we heard it was safer down here for Affinites compared to the north. The Empire’s policies against Affinites are looser down here because it’s so far from Salskoff. Not,” she added quickly, glancing up, “that there was anything wrong with them.”
Ana caught Raisa’s gaze. “There was so much wrong with them,” she said gently, and Raisa’s shoulders loosened.
“He spoke so well of you,” Yuri’s mother whispered, her fingers nimble as she applied salve from a tin can and began to wrap fresh gauze around Ana’s midriff. “He said you are kind, and fair, and just. No matter what, I am glad for your friendship with my son.”
Ana’s throat tightened. “Thank you.”
They continued pleasantly, the clay tub sturdy as Ana leaned against it, Raisa telling Ana stories of her children punctuated by her warm, booming laughs and her chiding commentary.
By the time Ana went downstairs, the clock hanging over the faded cream wallpaper announced it was a little past eight hours, and the sun threaded orange through the winding streets of the Southern Cyrilian town.
Yuri and Liliya had set up a mouthwatering spread of food at one of the booths. Ana sat down, and it was all she could do not to lunge at the steaming pelmeny dumplings and golden pirozhky oozing with potatoes and minced beef. The interrupted conversation with Yuri felt like a distant past, mended with Raisa’s gentle hands and tender words.
Liliya had retreated upstairs. Yuri sat across from her, silent, his gaze distant. Ana poured herself a cup of koffee from a worn metal samovar. The hot liquid soothed her stomach. “Your mother has quick hands and a quicker wit,” she said into the silence. “And Liliya has stolen my heart. I’m glad I met them.”
Yuri’s hands tightened around his mug. “Ana,” he said, and finally looked up at her. “Things can’t be as they were. You understand that.”
Just like that, the dreamlike peace of the morning shattered. The soft beige wallpaper, the creaking wooden table, the warmth of her koffee dissolved into a familiar nightmare: cold, shadows, a blade between her ribs, and a familiar whisper. The monarchy must die.
“Not as long as you lay claim to the throne,” Yuri continued. “I believe Seyin made that clear.”
Crack. She’d knocked over her mug. Black koffee spilled across the tablecloth, warm and sticky on her fingers.
“Ana.” Yuri pressed down on the tablecloth with his napkin. “I’m sorry. For what happened.”
She looked up at him now. The brittle morning light carved his face in sharp planes, and for the first time, she noticed the bags under his eyes, the stubble at his chin. In the course of a moon, Yuri had become a stranger.
“I went to look for you as soon as Seyin sent me a note. He’d gone back to…to bury your body.” He looked away, his
napkin fisted tightly in his hand. Koffee dripped from it, forming a puddle on the floorboards. “If I’d known this would happen…” His voice shook, and she caught the glimmer of tears in his eyes.
Drip, drip, drip.
Ana stared at him, the sunlight shrouding them beneath a golden haze in this singular, inevitable moment.
A day will arrive when you will be asked to sacrifice that which you hold dearest for the good of your empire.
Could this be what Shamaïra had foreseen?
“What do you want to happen, Yuri?” It was as though someone else spoke with her voice, pushing the words past her lips. “When we spoke back at Shamaïra’s, you said you loved me—”
“And I still do. You’re like a sister to me, Ana.”
She dragged a long breath before fixing her gaze on him. “Back then, you asked me to stay,” she said softly. “You said we’d begin our revolution here, in the south. What changed?”
The sadness in his eyes was a chasm. “The world changed, Ana,” Yuri said. “Morganya took the throne, and I saw, with my own eyes, the destruction of my empire at the hands of a vicious monarch.” He shook his head, and there, she saw it again, behind the coal gray of his eyes, a spark of fire catching life. “The era for the monarchy has come to an end. A broken system makes villains of even the best people, Ana—surely you must see that.”
Ana looked away, at the patterned tablecloth, at the cracks in the wall, at the overturned mug of koffee—anywhere but at the boy who had been by her side since she could remember. There was an ache, deep in her chest, as though a part of her already knew what was to come. “And what is it that you want from me?”
Slowly, Yuri reached into the folds of his tunic and drew out a crumpled sheet of paper. He handed it to her.
Ana felt only a numb shock spread through her veins. It was the same poster that Shamaïra had shown her the night she’d left Novo Mynsk, only this one had been freshly painted and seemed unmarred by snow or storm. And it had reached not only an entirely different city but an entirely different region of her empire.
“If you want to work with us…if you want to join our cause to make this an empire ruled by the people for the people…” Yuri suddenly sounded very distant. “Then you must abandon the throne and renounce your cause as the Red Tigress.” The table creaked as he leaned forward, grasping her hand with his. “Join us, Ana. Together, we can make a better world.”
Ana tore her gaze from the poster to look at him. For the first time since they’d crossed paths again, Yuri’s eyes were bright, the warmth and hope of a time long past brimming in his gaze. In them, she found the boy who had crept to her chambers at the sound of her weeping, who had knocked softly against her tall mahogany doors. Why do you cry?
The one who had sat with her through all those empty days and lonely nights. Who had brought to her hot tea and freshly baked desserts and, most important, the companionship of a friend.
Her silver Deys’krug pressed against her neck. He’d gifted it to her a moon ago, promising they would come full circle again.
“Think about it, Ana,” Yuri was saying. “The Redcloaks are growing in numbers—we have over a hundred in forces, and counting, spread between here to the north. This provides us with a constant stream of intelligence on Morganya’s movements.” He hesitated, his eyes roving to the poster she held between her fingers. “And with the new movement in support of you, if you joined our cause, we could take down Morganya in one fell swoop. Finish the revolution and put the power in the hands of the people.”
A dull ringing sound grew louder in the back of her head, drowning out his words.
There are two Anastacyas now, my love: the girl you once were, and the ruler you will become.
Ana looked at him, but she was no longer seeing Yuri, her childhood friend, the one who had stayed by her side all these years.
Yuri was the leader of a revolution.
And she was heir to the throne.
It had been a dead end from the start, an utterly unachievable alliance between two parties with opposing goals.
She looked into his face, seeking out the trace she’d just seen of the boy who had been her friend. He gestured animatedly with his hands as he continued to speak, and she thought of how easy it would be to slip her fingers between his and promise him that they would be friends forever, that they would fight to the death together. She already knew how they would feel: callused and strong and hot. Once upon a time, they had made up her world.
But those memories belonged to Ana, the girl who had been lost and desperately lonely and frightened of herself.
She was no longer that girl.
That is the choice you must make. Shamaïra’s whispers stirred in her mind. The poster in her hands seemed to glow from the gold of the sun. Which of the Anastacyas you shall be.
“And what,” Ana said slowly, “would you do if I refused?”
They gazed at each other a moment longer, the inevitable truth hanging between them. Yuri opened his mouth. Before he could speak, a shadow fell across the window at their booth. Ana turned to look.
Standing outside, on the cobblestone street, was a Kemeiran girl, made of shadows and wind.
Linn.
Ana stood so abruptly that she knocked against the table, rattling cups and saucers. But whatever joy she’d felt dried on her tongue when a second figure appeared around the corner.
Sprinting across the street was a tall, dark-haired man. Linn had half turned, shock registering on her face, when he bowled her over, knocking her to the ground. He looked up, and when Ana looked into his eyes—the blue of ice and fire—recognition locked into place.
Ana had just taken two steps toward the door of the restaurant when the windows before her exploded.
Everything hurt, gods be damned—and the air smelled of smoke, singed and cloying. Ramson groaned as he picked himself up from the cobblestones, glass clinking as he brushed it aside and climbed to his feet. His ears were ringing, the world was swaying, and when he looked down at his hands, there was blood on them.
As though from a distance, he heard shouting. High-pitched…screaming.
He looked up, the world blurring in and out of sight as he struggled to focus. It wasn’t until someone crashed into him, screaming and covered in blood, that he realized what was going on.
The dust settled and Ramson saw, advancing down the streets, bulldozing through the crowds, Imperial Patrols, blackstone-infused armor shining, white cloaks billowing behind them, astride their sharp-eyed valkryfs.
Except it wasn’t just a squad of them, or even a platoon of them.
No, there were hundreds of them, stretching as far as the eye could see, a snaking army of silver white slithering through the streets.
Cold ran down Ramson’s spine.
The Imperial Inquisition was here.
Ramson squinted, shaking his head to clear it of the ringing. His snowhawk. Where was his snowhawk? He’d been following it through Goldwater Port because it had found Linn—Linn, whom he’d thought he would never see again—when the restaurant across the street had exploded.
Amid the columns of black smoke and clouds of dust, the snowhawk was nowhere to be seen.
Ramson looked at the approaching Whitecloaks. The kapitan, leading the charge, was close enough that he could make out Morganya’s unmistakable new emblem on his breastplate.
There was no way he would find Linn now, with his snowhawk gone and the Imperial Inquisition wreaking havoc in this town. And Ana…
The poster was crumpled in his hands, covered in a layer of soot and dust, the red of the painting barely visible.
Ramson smoothed the parchment over, his fingers lingering on the image of the girl. If he ran now, he could get far enough away to avoid capture. Daya was waiting for him; he could board her boat and leave for Bregon and never
look back at the doomed Northern Empire again.
Ramson scanned the frantic crowds one more time. He paused, only for a brief moment, before he slipped into them, disappearing like a fish into water.
The world was muted but for a distant ringing, the scent of smoke in her nose and burning in her lungs. Ana squeezed her eyes closed, then open, then closed again, waiting for the world around her to stop spinning. There was blood drenching her breeches and the back of her shirt—she could feel it all, bright spots of light against her Affinity, warm and flowing. But none of it was hers.
She forced her eyes open again. Across from the wrecked booth, Yuri lay facedown on the floor in a pool of crimson.
“Yuri!” The cry tore from her throat as she scrambled up, and the world came crashing back in a whirl of smoke and sound. Rubble covered the restaurant floor, interspersed with broken glass and shattered kitchenware. The breakfast they had been enjoying just moments ago—pelmeny and pirozhky and pies—was splattered across the floor.
Ana knelt and wrapped her Affinity around Yuri, trailing the familiar hints of smoke and fire and, at last, faint but fluttering like a dying butterfly, the soft gasps of his pulse. Without her help, he would die.
And if he dies, a very small voice whispered inside her, your path is clear of political rivals. The resistance movement will rally to you.
Yet in this moment, she looked down and only saw the familiar edges of his face. She touched her fingers to the bright red of his hair that she’d loved since as far back as she could remember, now dirty with blood and debris.
Ana looked at her friend, and in her heart of hearts, she knew that this was one of the moments Shamaïra had seen for her. The choice that she made now would begin to define which path she walked. Which of the Anastacyas she chose to be.
Ana rested a hand on her friend’s chest, closed her eyes, and applied her Affinity. The moments crawled by; the blood pouring from Yuri’s wounds slowed to a leak, and then a drip. She sensed someone crouching next to her, and when she opened her eyes, she saw Raisa, medical kit out, already pressing against some of Yuri’s wounds with her clean gauze. The woman raised her eyes to Ana’s. “You saved his life,” she whispered.
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