She’d come here to seek information on Morganya’s new regime, and for what? So that she was able to form a long-term plan, slowly build herself up to take down the enemy? But wasn’t the end goal of it all to create a better world? One that kept its people safe?
What kind of a sovereign was she if she simply stood here now, letting her people die as she watched? She might not have the answers to everything just yet, but there was one principle that she had always held fiercely—that she’d use her power to fight, to protect the innocent and vulnerable.
Your Affinity does not define you,her brother, Luka, had once told her.What defines you is how you choose to wield it.
Ana’s eyes opened with clarity. Her Affinity bloomed. Red clouded her vision.
She targeted the Inquisitors first. Whoever had designed their uniforms had forgotten that while the removal of blackstone made these Affinites able to use their gifts, it also made them utterly vulnerable to enemies whose Affinity was to the very makeup of their bodies.
Ana hooked her Affinity around the bright, warm pulse of their blood and shoved.
There were shouts of alarm from the other Whitecloaks as their companions crashed into them, and in that moment of distraction, Ana barreled past them.
With a leap, she was on the scaffold.
The lead Inquisitor’s yell cut off as Ana seized him with her Affinity and lifted him into the air. The world was alight in flames and blood, the air rippling with heat. Her hair had come undone, and as she turned to face the Imperial Patrol head-on, her long red cloak swept out from beneath her in a sudden gust of wind.
Shouts of confusion melded with gasps all around them as the crowd began to see what was happening.
The kapitan dangled in the air before Ana. When he looked closer at her, shock registered on his face, followed by recognition.
A cry went up somewhere in the crowd. “It’s the Blood Witch of Salskoff!”
And then another. “It’s theCrown Princess! She’s alive!”
And a third. “The Little Tigress of Cyrilia has come to saveus!”
Somewhere between her getting from the crowd to onstage, her hood had slipped from her face. The night air, swirling between the fire’s heat and the winter’s cold, gusted against her cheeks.
Ana’s first instinct was to hide. Fear, drilled into her from her childhood, froze her in place; the stares of thousands of pairs of eyes weighed on her chest until she could barely draw breath. Her mind blanked; nausea roiled in her stomach.
But then, through the ringing in her ears, filtered another sound. A far-off, high-pitched noise. Something that reminded her of the Salskoff Palace, of her father standing before his court, his hands raised, his eyes bright.
Cheering.
It was faint at first, but as her eyes roved through the crowd, she saw it, here and there: People’s hands were raised toward her, and they were clapping.
The people had spoken. Forher.
Heat sparked inside her, spreading to her fingertips and thawing the ice in her veins. The world crashed back in a tangle of smoke and fire and blood. In her panic, she’d let go of the kapitan. He now lay in a crumpled heap at the edge of the stage.
In the corner of her eye, she could see other Whitecloaks approaching, their outfits flashing in the swirling flames and smoke.
Ana ran for the civilians tied at the flagpole, picking up a Whitecloak’s discarded sword along the way. Clumsily, she lifted it and slashed at the ropes of the prisoners. They fell forward with cries of relief. Several were only children, the youngest barely up to Ana’s waist.
There was a possibility that the children’s parents were associated with Affinite traffickers, or that they had engaged in the indenturement of an Affinite through an illegal contract. But the way Morganya’s Imperial Inquisition was being conducted gave no distinction between the crimes. And children, barely old enough to understand the concept of Affinite indenturement, had been caught in the bloodshed.
If there was a way to rebalance the Empire, this was far fromit.
Ana turned, her Affinity flaring again. In between the formation of his subordinates, the lead Inquisitor had pushed himself to his knees. Blood dripped from his temple, staining the pale metal of his helmet, as he raised his gaze to her.
Ana didn’t wait. She lashed out with her Affinity at the Inquisitors—the soldiers with powers that she would have the hardest time fending off—and tore.
The world blanched around her, fading to a darkness splattered with searing spots so bright they burned.
When she came to, she was drenched in sweat. Blood steamed all around, coating the air and pulsing in waves beneath her fading Affinity. She looked up and saw the procession of Whitecloaks closing in on her beyond the scaffolding. They advanced slowly, their swords raised, expressions of horror twisting their faces, firelight lancing off the unmistakable gray glitter of blackstone on their armor.
Where she might once have felt disgust at her own actions, now Ana only felt a sense of weary necessity. In war, she was beginning to learn, there was only kill or be killed.
