Ana fastened her cloak and slung her rucksack over her shoulders. It held everything she had left in this world—two bronze cop’stones, several globefires, a map, a pouch of coins, and a compass. That, and the silver Deys’krug she wore around her neck, to remember the promise of an old friend. Yuri had promised they would meet again.
“Sweep the tracks leading to your dacha,” she told Shamaïra. “Once I get back to town, I’ll have the Whitecloaks glimpse me so they won’t think to look for me here. If they hunt me there, you’ll be safe.”
Shamaïra waved a hand. “You underestimate me. I can take care of myself.”
Despite herself, Ana felt a smile linger at her lips. “Oh, I’ve no doubt,” she said, turning to open the front door. Night air rushed in, sharp with cold and smoke.
Ana breathed in deeply.
She would need to find Ramson first and offer an apology for being so late. She huffed a sigh. She could already imagine his smug look, the lopsided grin he would give her.
They would make for Goldwater Port together, for a sturdy ship and steady sails that would take them to Bregon.
Behind her, she heard Shamaïra call softly: “Deys blesya ty, Red Tigress.” With a sweep of her hand, she drew her hood up and stepped into the dark.
In the early morning, Novo Mynsk lay in ruin and darkness. The snow was streaked with ashes, the smell of smoke and war churning in the air. Ana kept her Affinity flared as she hurried her valkryf through deserted streets, keeping to the side alleyways, the snow muffling their steps. A hollow wind had picked up, whistling through cracked doorways and dragging on the glass of broken windows.
Once or twice, Ana passed the flare of a distant torch and the corresponding tug of blood on her Affinity.
The Broken Arrow was several streets from the outskirts of town, near the Dams, a district once known for criminal activity. The area now lay silent and still, the small river flowing through it frozen thick with ice.
Ana turned the corner and paused before a building with broken-in windows. It took her several moments to make out the name on a wooden sign creaking slowly in the early-morning draft, the shaft of an arrow protruding from one end and the tip protruding at another, at odd angles.
The Broken Arrow.
She wrinkled her nose in disgust. She’d expected Ramson to make slightly different—better—accommodations in Novo Mynsk, the city he’d boasted to hold in the palm of his hands. Of course she shouldn’t have trusted his word.
She settled her valkryf in the empty stables and entered the inn. The parlor was empty, ransacked and looted so that all that remained were a few upturned chairs and tables. Overhead, a broken chandelier dangled from its chain, its shadows reaching like crooked fingers across the parlor.
“Ramson,” she called softly. When there came no response, she called on her Affinity. It came slowly, reluctantly, faint as a memory and half-alive, like the ghost of a dream. She’d expended too much of it earlier in the night, there was little left to use. Gritting her teeth, she swept it around the place, once.
Blood lit up in her senses, up the stairs, beyond a wall. It was cold and still, and she could make out two distinct pools.
Her heart began to beat fast. If anything had happened to Ramson—
Ana hurtled up the stairs, two at a time. The door to the first chamber was open. Moonlight spilled through a cracked window, illuminating the two bodies on the floor.
She scrambled to them, checking their faces, and then sighed in relief. She had no idea who they were, but the important thing was that Ramson was nowhere to be found. And that meant he was alive.
If anything had happened to him, she would never forgive herself.
In the maelstrom of her thoughts, she didn’t catch the pulse of blood flickering to life in her Affinity until it was close.
Ana had half turned when pain exploded in her back. Her mouth filled with blood, warm and metallic.
The intruder yanked the dagger from her. Her body screamed, her Affinity exploding in a way that drowned all her other senses. She fought to stay conscious. Her fingers had become sticky, wet. Her head rang with a strange, high-pitched whine. Ana grasped at the blood, anything to stop it, to slow it, but her head was light, her power weaving in and out of focus. The pain was electric.
She was aware that she’d slumped against the wall, feeling only a numbing fatigue spread through her body. Her vision was beginning to blur, dark spots filling the world.
Out of that darkness stepped a figure.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this, Anastacya,” a familiar voice said. The Second-in-Command of the Redcloaks stood over her, wiping his dagger on a pale handkerchief. “It’s really nothing personal.”
Ana tried to speak, but blood was all that bubbled from her lips. The world was fading fast.
Seyin sheathed his dagger. There wasn’t a spot of blood on his white shirt. “As I said, the monarchy must die. Now that I’m done with you, I have only Morganya to take care of.” Theshadows began to thicken around him until he was swallowed by darkness. The last Ana heard was his voice, fading into the night.
“Good-bye, ‘Red Tigress.’ ”
