Linn.
Over a moon ago, when she’d disappeared after the battle at the Salskoff Palace, Ramson had sent out a snowhawk with her scent to track her. He’d thought it a lost cause.
Until now.
“Is that…a bird?”
Ramson turned. Daya was gaping at him, her gaze darting to his snowhawk.
Suddenly, it was as though disparate threads were coming together. The snowhawk, bringing him news of Linn. The poster of the Red Tigress.
And he had been looking for just one sign.
“It’s not just any bird,” Ramson replied, and with a few light steps he was back at their booth. He snatched up the poster, picked up the pouch of coins from the table, and tossed it to her. “Wait for me here. Consider this down payment.”
He might have laughed at her bewildered expression. “Wait! Hey!Hey!” she shouted as he barreled past her. “Should I ready the ship?”
But Ramson had already leapt onto the dock and was running down the streets of Goldwater Port, his snowhawk soaring in the air above him, his steps surer than he’d felt in a long, longtime.
Ana rode through the night with Yuri and his companion, a Redcloak girl who had tracked Ana’s movements through the mountain with her Affinity to snow. “Follow me” was all Yuri had said to her before turning away and mounting his valkryf. It had been a quiet journey, each of them wrapped thickly in furs, focused on the tread of their steeds.
The sun had just broken from white-capped waves when they arrived at Goldwater Port, and the city was beginning to wake. The squeaking of wagon wheels blended with the screeches of gulls overhead. Here and there, colorful tarpaulins propped up as the morning markets sprang to life, raising calls from vendors hawking fish and seafood and rainbow-hued fabrics.
Ana felt as though she had stepped into a different world. One of the southernmost cities of Cyrilia, Goldwater Port bordered the Dzhyvekha Mountains that separated the Northern Empire from the Southern Crown of Nandji. Long ago, nomadic tribes that wandered the Dzhyvekha Mountains and the Aramabi Desert had settled into Southern Cyrilia, building cities of their own and taking the cultures of the two lands and shaping them into something at once familiar and new.
My mother included,Ana realized. She’d never seen so many people with Mama’s complexion—rich fawn skin and umber-dark hair. Mama had been born here, yet raised in the north in Salskoff, the capital of Cyrilia, where the climate and people were colder and the buildings were pale, with drops of color in red rooftops and gilded domes.
Southern Cyrilia was warmer and vibrant, thriving with dozens of colors in the space of a dacha: sun-yellow domes dotted with green circles and sky-blue turrets with gilded edges and poppy-red spindles on rooftops that spiraled in alternating patterns of deep violet and royal blue and lime green. It made Ana think of Shamaïra’s brightly colored quilts and settees, the brocade curtains she used as room separators, and everything in her dacha that she had brought with her to the Northern Empire as a reminder of her home.
Mama’s ancestors had come from here. And it was half of her legacy that Ana had inherited.
“We’re here.” Yuri’s tone was still closed off, his face unreadable.
They stopped in front of a shop with a cheerful yet faded lemon exterior and a redbrick roof. Large glass windows looked in and the early-morning sun hit a chipped wooden sign hanging on the door.Dama Kostov’s Kafé,it declared.Closed.
Yuri’s companion stepped in without pause, but Ana grabbed Yuri’s wrist. He froze, and when their eyes met, his were no longer the steady coal gray that she had known her entire life. A fire roared within them.
A distance stretched between them, filling with everything they hadn’t said until it gaped into a bleeding abyss. And Ana thought of the shadows, of a knife in her back and a cold voice.You are the antithesis to our movement.
“What do you want from me?” Her voice came out hollow from days of neglect.
Something flickered in Yuri’s eyes. “I just want to talk.”
He stepped into the shop, leaving her looking after the silhouette of a boy she’d once known.
Ana drew a deep breath and entered.
She was standing in a restaurant. The inside was pleasantly warm, the wooden floorboards creaking beneath her boots. Bright yellow tablecloths draped over the tables, spotted with patterns of leaping fish and birds. Farther in the back were several booths, an empty counter, and a door that led to the kitchens. It smelled of bliny and fish.
Yuri gestured at a booth by the window. “Have a seat,” hesaid shortly.
The snow Affinite had disappeared through a set of doors at the back of the restaurant. The entire place seemed empty but for the two of them.
Something tightened in Ana’s chest. “Why did you save me?” she demanded. Her wound gave a sharp throb, and the words spilled from her lips before she could help it. “Did you ask Seyin to do it?”
Anger broke on Yuri’s face, and Ana found herself relishing it. Anything but that cold, forced calm. “All these years you’ve known me,” he said, and she felt a part of herself crack. “Do you think me a coward, Ana?” He drew a tight breath and looked away. “Seyin acted of his own accord. He has been dismissed from his position.”
Before they could say anything else, there came the sound of plates clanking and a thudding noise, and the next moment, a wooden door swung open at the back of the restaurant. A girl emerged, squealing as she charged at Yuri.
