Red Tigress

by Amélie Wen Zhao

  “Bregon. Three Courts.” Kerlan’s tone turned magnanimous, echoing slightly indoors. “It is time for change. For so long, we have been sat on stale waters. Admiral after Admiral, Court after Court, with no big changes, no show of our true strength to the world.

  “Tonight, all that will end. Tonight, Bregon will declare its allegiance to Her Glorious Majesty Morganya of the Empire of Cyrilia. And it will be my absolute honor to serve…as your Admiral, and as your new King.”

  There was a ripple of tension across the hall from the courtiers. Ramson froze in his progress, holding his breath. The searock floor was cool, shimmering torchlight weaving between streaks of aquamarine and navy blue. If he pressed his cheek to it, he could pretend he was underwater.

  He took a moment to glance back at the entryway, the heavy doors that remained open despite the lashing rain outside. Beyond, there was only darkness. Ana was nowhere in sight.

  “In just a few moments,” Kerlan continued, “we will be joined by King Darias, who will pass his position to me. Those who join me will be reappointed as officials of our new kingdom.” He snapped his fingers. “Nita, loosen their control a bit. Let us see what they have to say.”

  A shout immediately rose up, somewhere in the area of the Sky Court. “You are nothing but an exiled criminal come to take your vengeance upon this kingdom,” the courtier declared. “I would rather die than serve under you.”

  A rumble of conversation began as others prepared to call out their answers.

  But Kerlan held up a hand, and Ramson’s veins turned cold when his old master said calmly, “Then your wish shall be granted.”

  A whizzing sound, a cry, a thud of a body on the stone floor.

  Godhallem fell into an ominous silence.

  Ramson gritted his teeth. The bells, he thought, and lifted his head to look at the brass lever on the wall ahead. Focus on the bells.

  “Delicious,” Sorsha purred. Ramson heard the clinks of her iron spikes. “More—give me more!”

  Ramson shinnied forward faster. He was so close, just eight or nine steps away. They felt like the length of an ocean. The brass lever gleamed in front of him.

  “I am generous, you see,” Kerlan continued. “I would not deny you a choice, provided that you make the correct choice.”

  Five steps. Crawling had never seemed more torturous. Sweat beaded on Ramson’s forehead. In the background, he could hear his sister speaking.

  “Oh,” Sorsha said happily. “But I think we’re about to have even more fun, Lord Kerlan.”

  Two steps. The lever hovered overhead.

  “Won’t you show yourself,” Sorsha cackled suddenly, and Ramson’s blood froze, “oh Brother Dearest?”

  The rain was lashing down in torrents by the time Linn and Kaïs reached the research wing of the Naval Headquarters. It took them each several seconds to take down the guards, and they were struggling to catch their breath by the time they reached the interior of the research wing.

  It was pitch-black in the hall. There was the flare of a flame, and a torch burned to life. Kaïs raised it, and the shadows peeled away.

  Linn looked up at him. Rainwater slicked his hair, trickling down the carved edges of his jaw and running down his neck in rivulets.

  He motioned to her and began to make for the door to the research dungeons. This time, when he opened it, the light from his torch flared into the darkness beyond. Linn followed him through, and they began to descend.

  “What happens to your mother if you help us?” she asked quietly.

  “She’s the strongest woman I know.” Kaïs held the fire high, the outline of his shoulders tense. His voice was distant, as though clouded in memories. “She would never hesitate to do the right thing. I’ve been focused on surviving and finding her for so long that I had begun to forget what she was like.”

  “Sometimes,” Linn said, “I feel as if I have been away from my family for so long, I would not know them if I saw them again.” Her voice caught. How many nights had she spent sleepless, trying to conjure up her mother’s face, filling in the details with her imagination where her memory failed?

  Kaïs’s steps slowed; he turned to look at her. “But we hold on to the spirit of their memories, and we do the best that we can to honor them,” he said.

  No one had ever phrased it more perfectly, as though stringing the words from her soul and breathing them to life, sparking and bright and warm.

  “The night we arrived, Sorsha came to me and showed me my mother’s shawl. I recognized it at once—she has kept it all these years we have been apart. They’d spotted me at Goldwater Port; they were waiting for me.” Kaïs continued steadily, his steps echoing in rhythm as he made his way down the stairs. “I almost lost it then. I was prepared to do anything and everything to save her. I’d always thought it didn’t matter how many people I killed or whom I hurt, if that meant I would get her back. But now I realize…I realize I have been dishonoring her memory by doing so. Tonight, I fight for her.”

  They were nearing the bottom of the steps; Linn could see the arch of the doors that led into the room of her nightmares. Kaïs drew his sword and turned to her. His eyes blazed. “Who do you fight for, Linn?”

  Names, faces, and memories flooded her mind. Enn, free as a sparrow, his life cut too short. Ama-ka, still waiting for them back at home. Ana, the friend who had helped her search for her destiny; Ramson, who had started all this the night he’d shown up at the Playpen and handed her the keys to her freedom.

  And me, she thought. The girl who had staggered onto the cold, icy shores of a foreign empire. Who had been worked and chained and beaten to within an inch of her life, but who had held on stubbornly, doggedly, through it all. Against all odds.

  There were so many others out there like her, still waiting for their chance to fight back.

  Linn drew her daggers. “I fight for freedom” was all she said as she wrenched open the doors and stepped inside.

  The chamber was longer than she remembered; she saw now that it stretched farther back, the walls interspersed with alcoves. When Kaïs lifted his torch, figures stirred in the far corners of the room.

  The gold-haired girl Linn had watched Sorsha experiment on earlier was still sprawled in the same spot. Linn flitted over to her. Her body was cold, and when Linn touched a finger to her neck, she found nothing. She looked up, met Kaïs’s gaze, and sadly shook her head.

  He held up the set of keys he’d taken from the scholar back in the library and motioned her forward.

  As they approached the back of the room, Linn saw that there were more prisoners chained to the walls, their wrists and ankles bound by blackstone manacles. They squinted against the torchlight and shrank away as they approached.

  Linn raised her hands. “Do not worry, we are here to free you,” she said as Kaïs began unlocking their chains one by one.

  There were twenty of them, and they each fell forward with cries of relief as they were released. A few were just as emaciated as the gold-haired girl from earlier, but most were in better shape. They pulled themselves to their feet, helping those who could not to stand. Linn realized that not all of them bore distinctive Cyrilian looks; there were several who looked to be from the Aseatic Kingdoms, and one or two who resembled the people of the Southern Crowns.

  Had they all been tricked to go to Cyrilia, only to find themselves being trafficked to a second foreign kingdom as human experiments? The thought made her sick. She needed to tell them that they were safe. That they would never come to harm again. Looking at their haunted expressions now, Linn felt as though she were looking into a mirror of her past self.

  It gave her courage. It gave her inspiration.

  “I am an Affinite,” she said quietly. “And like you, I was trafficked to the Cyrilian Empire, and bound under a work contract against my will.”

 
They were silent, watching her. Waiting.

  “Tonight, a battle is taking place—one that will decide the course of history. Anastacya Mikhailov, the Red Tigress of Cyrilia, is putting a stop to the plans of the man who did this to you—Alaric Kerlan. She fights against the exploitation of people like us. But she cannot do it alone.” Linn looked around, meeting each of their gazes. “I am choosing to fight for freedom. I am choosing to fight so no other Affinite needs go through what I did.

  “You are free to do as you wish now. You may leave if you like. But if you wish to fight by our side—if you have the strength to fight with us—we need your help.”

  She had no idea where the words had come from, nor how she was able to deliver them so succinctly. She had always shied away from attention, preferring her shadows and wind, but as she looked around the room, Linn felt emboldened by the sight. She had saved twenty lives tonight. She had made a difference.

  A dark-haired man in the back raised a hand. “I fight.”

  Another Affinite, a boy several years younger than Linn, spoke, too. “I’ll fight.”

  One by one, the Affinites spoke, their words ringing loud and clear in the chamber and filling Linn with courage. Ten of them were strong enough to volunteer.

  Linn raised her blade and motioned to them. “We must make haste.”

  As she turned to leave, she caught Kaïs’s eyes. He was smiling at her. “Your mother would be proud.”

  Linn grinned back. “As would yours.”

  He looked forward, and Linn recognized the emotion dancing across his face with the torchlight.

  It was hope.

  Ramson scrambled to his knees and lunged forward. For a moment, he thought he might actually reach the brass lever; it gleamed in the torchlight as he arced through the air, his arm stretched as far as he could—

  He saw movement at the corner of his eye. There was a whizzing sound and he could only watch, as though time had slowed, as a metal blade lodged in his right wrist.

  Blood spurted, and a moment later, pain exploded.

  Ramson’s hand fell on the lever, limp, the tendons in his wrist sliced neatly through.

  He scrambled, reaching with his left hand, but something rammed into his back, slamming him onto the floor, knocking the air from his lungs. He thought he heard one of his ribs snap.

  “You’re weak,” Sorsha hissed in his ear. She grabbed his right arm and pushed the blade in deeper. Stars burst in Ramson’s vision; his head grew fuzzy with pain as the tip of Sorsha’s blade protruded through the other side of his wrist. Blood dripped, hot and thick, down his arm. “For years, I’ve lived in the unworthy shadow of you and your like. Our father used my body as an experiment. So I killed him.” Sorsha tilted her chin back, her eyes catching the bloodred glow of the torch, and Ramson wondered whether she had completely tipped into madness. “I will destroy all of you.”

  “Enough,” Kerlan called. “Sorsha, bring him over. I’m going to kill him with my bare hands once I finish with the King.” He bared his teeth at Ramson in a smile. “Third time’s the charm, right, my son?”

  Ramson had escaped death twice at Kerlan’s hands.

  He suspected Kerlan would not let it happen again.

  Sorsha yanked Ramson up by his arm and jabbed a dagger into his side. “Move,” she growled.

  Ramson’s head swam. His right arm alternated between searing pain and hot numbness. Ana, he thought, doing a quick search of the hall as he limped forward. It swam before his sight, but beyond the sea of courtiers, he could barely see the door, let alone whether she was still there. Stay where you are, he wanted to tell her. Whatever you do, don’t be stupid. Don’t be the heroine. Don’t do anything rash.

  He could only pray to the Three Gods, at this point, that she would remember her promise to ring the bells.

  “It’s time,” Kerlan declared, and snapped his fingers at Nita. “Bring in the King.”

  There was a brief silence as Nita leaned in to whisper to him, and Ramson looked up to see displeasure spreading on Kerlan’s face. As Sorsha shoved Ramson toward the front of the rows of courtiers, he caught snatches of their conversation.

  “What do you mean,” Kerlan hissed, “you don’t know where he is?”

  A small spark of hope flickered in Ramson’s chest. It lasted only a brief second, before he felt Sorsha’s boot in his back. Ramson’s breath left him as he slammed against the foot of the dais. Pain exploded over his injured right wrist.

  A shadow fell over him.

  “My dearest guests!” Kerlan spread his hands in a benevolent gesture, his rings flashing as he descended the dais. “It seems there has been a delay on my end. I apologize for the confusion.” He flicked a glance at Ramson, and it promised retribution. “So, first, a little demonstration of what happens to traitors of this new regime.”

  The first blow sent his head cracking against the floor. The world went dark for a moment. When he resurfaced, he found himself gazing into the cold, ruthless eyes of Alaric Kerlan.

  His old master was saying something, but it didn’t matter anymore. Ramson’s thoughts were scattering as he coughed up blood. For some reason, his eyes wouldn’t focus on Kerlan’s face in front of him. Instead, all that Ramson saw were the strangely bright metal rims of the bells of Godhallem looming overhead, blurring in and out of focus.

  Suddenly, they began to move.

  And the hall of Godhallem filled with the low, somber calls of its War Bells, echoing far and deep into the night.

  Ana gripped the lever and straightened. Overhead, the bells sounded, their sonorous tones filling the entirety of Godhallem and reverberating within the searock walls. She spread her Affinity, the heat of the freshly spilled blood within these halls stirring nausea at the pit of her stomach.

  It had taken every ounce of her self-control to hold back her Affinity when Sorsha had cut Ramson with her dagger, when Kerlan had slammed his head to the rock so hard that she heard the crack across the hall.

  He’d made her promise to ensure that the bells rang, and Ana intended to keep her promise.

  But now, looking at him lying on the floor, his hand in a pool of blood puddled beneath him, fury closed in around her.

  “Let him go,” she snarled, reaching for Kerlan with her Affinity.

  A woman stepped in front of him. Ana recognized her as his Deputy. She raised her hands, hair flashing dark with a sheen of blue, and Ana reached for her blood—

  Their Affinities hit each other at the same time.

  A wave of exhaustion slammed into Ana, her muscles loosening and giving way. Her heart slowed and her lungs grew heavy. Her thoughts turned sluggish. As the other woman’s Affinity squeezed tighter, Ana sank to her knees. Spots burst before her eyes. She couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe.

  But she still had her Affinity.

  Ana closed her eyes, grasped the girl’s blood, and tore.

  The Affinite’s cry cut off sharply. She stumbled back, clutching her side as a trickle of blood wound down her chin. Ana twisted again, and the other Affinite collapsed, her eyes fluttering shut as she lost consciousness.

  The hold on Ana’s organs and muscles receded. Drawing in deep breaths, she pushed herself back to her feet.

  Kerlan sat on his throne, no longer smiling. His forces closed in around him, several of whom, Ana noticed, had called on their Affinities. One man held orbs of water hovering over his palms, droplets coalescing from the streams that encircled the dais. Another twined a cloud of sand over her shoulders like a glimmering shawl.

  They waited for their master’s command.

  If that was how they wished to play, Ana would give them the fight they wanted. She swept her Affinity around the hall, navigating through the moving bodies to the open pools of blood cooling around the bodies of the courtiers Kerlan had murdered. The blood began to rise in strea
ms of twisting red ribbons. They coalesced into crimson spheres beneath the light of the chandeliers. And then they began to lengthen, shifting and hardening into blades.

  At Ana’s beckoning, the blood daggers turned and pointed at Kerlan and his Affinites. “Surrender, Kerlan,” Ana called. “The War Bells are rung. Bregon’s Navy will set sail at any moment to foil your attack on the Blue Fort.”

  Kerlan watched her, his expression cold. The War Bells had fallen silent by now, but echoes of their great, sonorous tones continued to hum in the air.

  “The Admiral may be dead,” Ana continued, “but as long as I live, I will never allow your plan to succeed.”

  But there was something different in Kerlan’s expression as he straightened to look at her. It wasn’t fury or failure that twisted his face.

  It looked like…triumph.

  As Ana skimmed her gaze over the group of Affinites encircling him, she realized something.

  Sorsha was gone.

  Too late, she caught the flash of movement. Too late, her Affinity picked up on the blood signature cutting amid the crowd and moving toward her instead of running away.

  Ana had barely turned when Sorsha slammed her fist into Ana’s neck.

  A sharp pain pierced her flesh, and then blood exploded across Ana’s senses. Not in the normal way that it did when her Affinity returned to her, but magnified tenfold, a hundredfold.

  She could sense everything, as though she had cleaved the world apart and saw from the greatest heights of the skies to the deepest parts of the oceans, churning beneath the waves. Every fleck of blood, every drop of crimson.

  Everything was red, everything was burning, the blood so bright that it seared. Her mind and body were afire, the pain electric, tearing into her very bones. As though from a distance, she could hear someone screaming—or perhaps it was her own voice, entwined with the sound of maniacal laughter.