The cheering had stopped by now, replaced by the sound of shouts and screams as the crowds around her realized the Imperial Inquisition was closing ranks around them. The town square was awash in commotion as civilians began to flee.
Ana tried to focus on the Whitecloaks, grasping for their blood, but her Affinity had hollowed out. Sweat trickled down her lip. She tasted salt and smoke as the flames from upended torches ringed higher around the platform.
She wouldn’t get out of this. Not without help.
In the chaos, something drew her attention: an echo of her Affinity, catching on to blood threaded through with darkness.
Ana lifted her gaze.
Seyin stood at the edge of the square, his black eyes unflinching as he watched her. Yet it wasn’t pride, or approval, or camaraderie that burned in his eyes.
It was cold fury.
They looked at each other for what seemed like an eternity: he, still as stone beneath the shadows of a dacha; she, drenched in blood and firelight, swaying where she stood.
Against her wishes, against her pride, a single thought gathered itself from the edges of her consciousness.Help me,Ana thought.
Seyin looked at her a moment longer. And then he turned away, leaving her with a hollow echo of his voice as he disappeared into the crowd.
The monarchy must die, Anastacya.
Something whizzed through the air, arcing past the wall of flames and bouncing on the wooden platform. Ana had only a brief glimpse of it—a glass vial of some sort—before it exploded.
Blue smoke filled the air, along with a charred smell that carried with it the faint scent of incense. The world became shadows and noise and fog.
Through the flickering haze of her Affinity, Ana could make out two bodies—horse and rider—fast approaching. There was a tint to the rider’s blood that was familiar: bright, sharp, rimmed with icefire blue, the calm of rosewater.
A figure emerged from the smoke, shawl and patterned pants fluttering in the breeze.
“Ana,” said Shamaïra, her eyes fierce. She swung her horse to the edge of the platform. “Take my hand!”
Exhaustion stole whatever questions might have been at the tip of her tongue. Ana barely had the strength to hobble over. Shamaïra was surprisingly strong for someone so small, her callused fingers gripping Ana’s hand. Shamaïra pulled her onto the back of the saddle, and she wrapped her arms around the Unseer’s waist.
The blue smoke Shamaïra had conjured blended with the bitter black plumes from the torches and the burning scaffolding. Ana clung tightly to her friend as they charged forward, galloping past people blundering their way through the confusion, shadows staggering past fallen torches, still burning to the end of their wicks.
Gradually, the firelight receded, churning into ash that coated Ana’s tongue. Darkness closed in upon them. The scenes of the Imperial Inquisition swirled in her head like smoke, along with a final, damning whisper.
The path to becoming a ruler is painted in blood.
In the span of one moon, everything and nothing about Shamaïra’s dacha had changed. There was something muted about the house now, once alive with colored lamps and scents of roses and tea. Only a single lamp flickered in the hallway, washing the walls a dim yellow. Ana padded quietly after Shamaïra, their shoes left at the door.
The brocade curtain partitioning the parlor from the hallway hung limp, and Ana hesitated before it. It felt like only yesterday she had trailed in with a group of Affinites, carrying the weight of a small body in her arms.
“Make yourself comfortable, child.” Shamaïra’s voice was its usual steel, but there was something softer, kinder about it tonight. “I’m going to make tea.”
Ana ducked past the curtain into the parlor. The fire and blood and screams from the Imperial Inquisition were still fresh in her mind, and the sudden silence was jarring, as was the homey scene before her. It felt as though she had stepped into another world. A crackling fire blazed in the hearth still, the one that Shamaïra kept alight throughout the day and night, filling the room with a musky warmth. Bookcases lined the far wall, creaking beneath the weight of tomes labeled in the curving letters of the Nandjian language. A Nandjian rug filled the center of the room, upon which stood a round oak table strewn with tattered tea-stained maps and cheap goatskin scrolls, scribbled through with elegant handwriting.
Ana sank into one of the settees, closing her eyes and letting the events of the night stream through her mind.
Patrols, their white capes drenched crimson from their own blood.
Her face, unhooded. Facing the crowd for the world to see the red of her eyes, the truth of what she was.
Whoshe was.
Footsteps interrupted her thoughts. Ana opened a bleary eye to see Shamaïra ducking through the brocade curtain, tray in hand. “Tea,” the Unseer said matter-of-factly as she settled on the divan across from Ana and began to pour steaming liquid from a silver samovar into a glass cup. “Drink up.”
Ana gratefully accepted the cup. The tea was dark, strong, with the faint taste of cardamom and roses. She hadn’t realized how utterly drained she was until now, her Affinity nothing but a faint flicker at the back of her mind, barely registering Shamaïra’s presence in the room. The tea settled in her stomach, somehow filling her with warmth, from her nose to the tips of her fingers. “Shamaira,” Ana said, lowering her glass. “Thankyou.”
