“Anastacya?”
She blinked and turned her attention back to King Darias. He was smiling widely at her. “The Three Courts of Godhallem have unanimously voted in favor of an alliance,” he said, and as she turned to look all around, Ana saw that all the courtiers of the Three Courts were standing, facing her. She thought of the first day she had arrived here, of the sneers and jibes these men had given her as she stood beneath them in her ragged clothes.
Now, their expressions held only respect.
Perhaps, Ana thought, change was not so impossible afterall.
King Darias spread his arms. “Well, Red Tigress of Cyrilia?” he asked. “Do you accept?”
Courage filled her, a surge of hope. She had lost her Affinity, but here…herewas proof that she did not need it to lead. That her Affinity was not what made her capable, that it did not define her after all.
She was the Red Tigress of Cyrilia, and that would be enough.
Ana drew a deep breath, threw her shoulders back, lifted her chin, and stepped forward. “King Darias and the Three Courts of Bregon,” she said, her voice ringing loud and clear in the halls of Godhallem, “I accept.”
The sun had risen higher in the sky by the time she left Godhallem. The Blue Fort was now bustling with activity, the courtyards surrounding Godhallem crowded as messengers, courtiers, and soldiers of the Blue Fort hurried to and fro. There was a Succession Ceremony to take place at noon as King Darias sought to refill the seats in his government left vacant by Kerlan’s massacres during the Battle of Godhallem.
Ana walked away from the direction of the crowds. She followed a familiar path that wound through the alder trees. People around her grew sparser until at last, she turned the corner of a building. Ana parted the curtain of vines and ascended the steps.
The old guard tower was haloed in sunlight, its outcrop of rock carving a private, intimate space over the ocean below. Outlined against the sky was the young man she sought.
Light glistened on his sandy-brown hair and lit up the gold emblazoned on his navy-blue tunic. He tapped an impatient rhythm with his knee-high boots. A sword hung at his hips, its hilt the proud, roaring sigil of a seadragon.
He turned at her approaching footsteps, and his expression softened. The bruises on his face had been carefully covered in powders, but she saw the stiff way he carried himself, the bandages on his hands and arms.
She’d barely seen him in the past two days, which he’d spent under extensive supervision in the medical ward of the Blue Fort, surrounded by healers. Her heart opened as she drank in the sight of him now, and she couldn’t help but think of the way he had kissed her that night in the storm, of how gently he’d held her back at Godhallem.
“You look better,” Ramson said. His expression was smooth, closed, his gaze cool and clinical as he surveyed her. Ana’s steps faltered, the flickers of warmth within her turning cold. Why did it feel as though a strange new distance had opened up between them?
“Thank you,” Ana said. They hadn’t spoken about her Affinity; she’d found it easier if he didn’t bring it up. It felt like a wound, and each mention or thought only served to reopen it. “I just met with the King and the Three Courts.” This, she had told him about, in the brief moments they’d exchanged words.
A shadow crossed his eyes. He turned his gaze to the ocean. “How did it go?”
“The alliance is approved. We leave this afternoon.”
Ramson continued to stare out at the sea, as though he hadn’t heard her. The waves crashed onto the shores far below the cliffs.
Finally, he spoke. “I’m not going with you.” The words were so quiet, they might have blended with the wind.
The world seemed to slow around her then. She could swear she felt a piece of her heart cracking. “What?”
Ramson turned to look at her at last, and she knew him well enough to understand the shuttered expression that he had carefully constructed. He’d been hiding something from her, and she’d been too caught up in her own affairs to catch it.
“King Darias offered to reinstate me in his Navy as a commander,” Ramson said tonelessly. “I turned down the offer.”
She stared at him, her lips parted, her breathing becoming unsteady.
“So,” Ramson continued, “he offered me an unofficial appointment, as captain of a special fleet of the Navy, tasked to hunt down the remainders of Alaric Kerlan’s allies in Bregon.”
The space and the silence stretched an ocean between them now, filled with the churning of waves in a storm-tossed sea.
For your path, Little Tigress, I see an ocean.And, as Ana took in the sight of him, outlined against a vast blue of sky, she began to have an inkling that Shamaïra’s words held one more facet of meaning to them than she’d known.
“And you accepted.” The words fell cold from her mouth.
He inclined his head in confirmation. “I am to attend the Succession Ceremony today as an unofficial guest.”
Seeing him now, watching her with a gaze that made her feel as though they were the only two people left in this universe, Ana couldn’t stop the thoughts she’d been keeping out.
