Five, six, seven…
There was a painful lump twisting in his chest, hot and cold at the same time, threatening to crack him open. Ana was limp beneath his hands, her eyes closed and her lips sealed.
Eight, nine, ten.
Ramson lowered his face to hers, prying open her mouth. One, two breaths. Logic steeled him through the white fog of panic in his mind, and he watched her chest for movement.
Ten compressions. Two breaths. Ten compressions. Two breaths. It had become a prayer of sorts, a chant that numbed him to the core. He was doubled over on his knees, his hands clasped before him. And this time, Ramson begged. He begged his three gods, the ones he had fervently hated and refused to believe in for years. He begged the Cyrilian Deities, the ones he’d dishonored by desecrating their empire. He begged anything and anyone that would listen.
Ten compressions. Two breaths.Please. I’ll do anything.
She coughed, then sputtered, and when she opened her eyes, the world itself seemed to move again. Even as she rolled over and threw up on the snow, he reached for her, and when her hacking coughs were reduced to gasps, he gathered her in his arms and pressed her tightly to him. As she clasped him in her embrace, Ramson realized that it was he who had needed saving all along.
His cheeks were warm with tears as he buried his face in the crook of her shoulder. Finally, Ramson thought as he let her hold him, he understood a bit of what his father had meant when he’d said that love was a weakness.
Ana was dreaming. Ramson held her, his outline silvered by the moon against the darkness, his arms twined around her as though he never wanted to let go. Pressed against him, through the fabric of their clothes, her heart beat in time with his.
Yet…she could sense the cold that numbed her entire body, the water dripping from Ramson’s hair onto her neck, the goose bumps on his neck as she pressed her cheek against it. And, by her side, a roaring sound steadily grew louder.
Bit by bit, cold breath by cold breath, the world seeped back in. The untouched snow blanketing the ground. The river rushing before them. The castle walls behind them. They’d washed up to the inner riverbank at the rear of the Palace—a place impossible to get to unless you swam through the river.
Ana pushed Ramson away with a gasp. He fell back and coughed, but his eyes never left her. His voice was hollow when he said, “I thought you were dead.”
“I thoughtyouwere dead,” she choked, staring at him. “Sadov said—Kerlan—”
And then the truth of what he had done—what he wasmeantto have done—hit her all at once. The Order of the Lily. The assassination attempt on Luka.
“Before you say anything,” Ramson said quietly, “just know that I know everything, Kolst Pryntsessa.”
“As do I.” Ana snatched his left wrist, where she’d seen the tattoo of that curled stem, those three small flowers. Ramson flinched. Her gaze cut to his. “I know you were working with Kerlan. I know he sent you to kill my brother. So tell me why I shouldn’t throw you back into the river right now.” She was shaking, her limbs growing numb from the cold. She needed to move—but she also needed to know.
Despite the fact that he was shivering as well, Ramson managed a half smile. “Because I’d just swim back out again?” Ramson twisted his hand, trapping hers in his grip. His eyes flicked to hers, hesitant but hopeful, water clinging to his lashes. “I know I’ve made some terrible choices in my past, Ana. I fell in with the wrong people. I’ve been running in the wrong direction ever since.” He swallowed, his throat bobbing, and traced a thumb over the inside of her wrist. “But then I met a girl who told me that it is our choices that define us. And I…I want to make the right choice. If it’s not too late.”
She had no idea what to say to that. No idea whether she was falling for some new trap he’d planted for her. She thought she’d seen a glimpse of the boy Ramson had once been, standing there beneath the first snows of winter with her—but perhaps that had been a lie, too.
Ana snatched her hand back and pushed herself to her feet. The river had borne them quite a ways. In the distance, the torches of the Kateryanna Bridge shimmered like forgotten stars. She could barely make out people gathered on the bridge, smaller than the size of her fingernails. She was glad for the walls of the Palace, looming over them and obscuring them in shadow. “I need to go, Ramson.”
“Then I’ll go with you.”
“No,” Ana said, already moving forward one step at a time. The cold dragged at her. Her gown was weighed down with water that would soon become ice in these conditions.
“Ana. Kolst Pryntsessa,” Ramson corrected, and his hand caught hers. He stepped in front of her. All traces of mirth were gone from his face when he said, “I didn’t come back for a princess. I came for the girl I met in a high-security prison. Who jumped down a waterfall with me. Who fought by my side for the past few weeks.” He reached out, and she held as still as she could when he cupped a hand to her cheek. “The girl who’s not afraid to stand up to me. Who threatens to choke me with my own blood. The girl who’s so much stronger than most people I know, but hides both her smiles and tears for when no one else is around.”
“Then tell me this.” She lifted her gaze. “Would you have killed Luka if you’d had the chance?”
He hesitated. Water trickled from his hair, threading a path down his neck. “I don’t know.”
Ana pulled away. He’d saved her—she owed him her life. But did that make up for whatever crimes he’d committed before?
Your choices,Luka whispered, and she suddenly saw herself reflected in Ramson’s clouded hazel eyes.Shehad killed;shehad tortured—and yet didn’t she still want another chance? Didn’t she still wish, resolutely, desperately, that above all the crimes she had committed and the people she had killed, her choices would define who she was?
Her mind was a whirl of emotions, of indecision. But the cold pressed at her, and time seeped through her fingers. The Coronation would start soon. She had to move. She had to make a choice.
“A friend told me that there is good and bad in everything,” Ana found herself saying. “It is the good that’s worth saving. I hope you have enough of that left in you, Ramson.”
She heard him exhale as she turned away. Ana tilted her head back, judging the distance from the Kateryanna Bridge to where they stood. Behind them, the Syvern Taiga rose, a dark outline blotting out the stars.
She knew where she was. “There’s a passageway to the dungeons up ahead,” Ana said quietly.
