The first Bregonian Navy warship appeared nearly right beneath the cliffs where he stood. Even high up, he could see the tips of flaming arrows being lit, the shape of a bell clocking back and forth as it rang out the commands for war.
Flamed arrows shot into the sky, and under their light, the colors of the ships’ flags rippled bright: navy-blue sails, flashing the gold of a roaring, triumphant Bregonian seadragon.
The Bregonian Navy was here.
Ramson sank to his knees.
The first Cyrilian ship went up in flames, and the rest followed suit. Arrows peppered the sky, arcing like comets, carving blazing paths across the night, finding more and more targets.
And still, Bregonian warships kept coming, more and more of them. Their arrows lit the sky so bright that it looked likeday.
In the distance, Morganya’s fleet burned, the light from their fires reflected in the lingering clouds, lighting the sea and the sky a triumphant, violent crown of corals and golds.
At first, there was nothing but the shriek of wind, pummeling her like fists and threatening to tear her apart as she plummeted. In the distance, Linn heard the splash of waves.
And then, in the darkness of her mind she felt hands wrap around her.
A familiar presence: liquid silver, cold-blooded hunter, fierce warrior in one.
“Look at me.” His deep voice was in her ear. They were spinning, tumbling, free-falling.Look at me.He’d said those exact words to her, back at the prison. It had been her and this soldier and the vast emptiness of night all around them.
She sensed his Affinity on hers, yet instead of clamping down, he pulled hers up. Out of the haze of fear clouding her mind, up and up, until she opened her eyes to the sight of a silvering sky and darting waves below her.
“Look at me,” he commanded again, and she did. There was nothing but firm resolution in his eyes. “Now, fly.”
With his steady grip on her, Linn closed her eyes.
And called on her winds.
The day broke clear and blue, the air golden with the early-morning sun. In the distance, the sea lapped at the sky, always touching yet never meeting. Ana strolled through the courtyard of the Blue Fort, her white linen shirt tucked into navy breeches and a Bregonian blue cloak.
She walked slowly, sometimes pausing to clutch her side. She felt hollow; the world had not been quite right since the Battle of Godhallem three days ago.
Since her Affinity had been siphoned.
She’d spent one day in the medical wing burning with fever, her world an alternating swirl of searing red and churning black, roiling with nightmares. When she’d woken again, everything had become a little duller. The colors, the sounds, the scents…she experienced it all as though from behind a tinted glass window.
The healers hadn’t been able to determine anything wrong with her physically, and had attributed the symptoms to an adjustment period after losing her Affinity.
It still felt…wrong. Sometime throughout the sleepless nights, as she’d tried to reach out in her dark room for a trace, a hint, of her power, she’d realized that this was what she had always wanted. Since her Affinity had manifested, she’d wanted it gone. How many lonely days had she spent before the mirror of her chambers back at the Salskoff Palace, scratching until her arms were covered in trails of red, hoping to dig it out of her? How many nights had she woken to nightmares and tear-soaked pillows, sobbing for her father?
And yet…she had seen, repeatedly, evidence that her Affinity could be used forgood.That, all along, Luka had been right: it wasn’t her Affinity, but how she wielded her power, that defined her. She had harmed, she had murdered—but she had also fought against the wicked and the cruel of this world, had learned to heal and strengthen. Kaïs had taught her that her Affinity was a double-edged sword, and he’d been right.
She had just realized it too late.
Ana paused to lean against the pillar of a stone archway. She forced her thoughts to the present, grounding herself in the slow hum of activity as the Blue Fort began to wake all aroundher.
Though the Bregonian Navy had decimated Morganya and Kerlan’s forces, Sapphire Port had been hit hard, its quays destroyed, parts of the town reduced to rubble. Bregon had pulled together its resources to begin reconstruction of their capital.
The Blue Fort had miraculously survived unscathed. In part, it was due to the resilience of its structure, built atop cliffs with impenetrable defenses. King Darias had locked up the research dungeons and was getting to the bottom of all those involved in the siphon scheme. Thus far, they had discovered that of the three leading scholars involved in the research, two had died—including Tarschon—and one, a so-called Scholar Ardonn, had not been found.
Sorsha, too, was still missing.
The courtyards were relatively empty as Ana made her way toward Godhallem, the alder trees still fresh with the scent of rain. A few walkways over, by the small, man-made streams that tinkled through the courtyards, two Affinites sat enjoying the early morning peace. She recognized them; they belonged to the group Linn had rescued from the dungeons and had fought valiantly at the Battle of Godhallem. Bathed and fed and dressed in fresh clothes, they looked young, almost like children. One drew water from the streams in a curling ribbon and flicked droplets at his friend, who summoned twigs and leaves from nearby trees and twisted them into beautiful figurines.
The sight brought an ache to Ana’s throat, and she was reminded of a memory once upon a time, when she’d looked upon a small girl sitting in the dead of winter, blowing life into a flower in a snow-covered field. She was reminded, too, of the world she fought for, the one she sought to build after this was all over.
Smiling faintly to herself, Ana turned down the open-air arches that led to the side entrances.
