Linn sat down at the counter; following closely behind was the yaeger. He stopped when Ana stood.
Linn gave Ana a panicked look. “Ana,” she said softly.
Ana gestured at the bar top before them. “You can have aseat.”
The yaeger hesitated, then stepped into the warm circle of lamplight.
He looked exactly as she remembered: tall and dark-haired and chiseled. Now, however, his skin bore a crisscross of new scars and blooming bruises; his left cheek had turned an ugly red from a burn. Dressed in a plain gray tunic and breeches and without the adornment of his bright white cloak, he was still as lethal as he had been back in Kyrov.
She couldn’t look at him without memories and a familiar anger stirring inside her. He was a part of the reason May had been captured, forced into an indentured contract, then killed. Ana had had to bury her friend deep in the earth, shutting the bright turquoise eyes of a girl who had seen yet so little of the world and was owed so much. And now May was still gone, and he was still here, standing right before her.
Ana stepped forward. Facing him, addressing him, went against every instinct in her body.
It was the yaeger, though, who spoke first. “I understand if you want to kill me.” His voice was a quiet bass, barely audible over the splash of waves and the creak of the ship’s hull. “But I have my reasons for everything.”
“I’d kill you if it could bring May back,” Ana retorted without missing a beat. Her voice was rough, harsher than she’d intended, if only to cover the ache of tears at the back of her throat. “You’re only alive because of the mercy my friend showed you.” She sensed Linn flinch. “You’ll have to earn it, with me.”
The yaeger’s face was smooth, unreadable. “After Morganya’s coup, I stayed with the Imperial Patrols because I thought they would protect Affinites,” he said. “But the Empress—Morganya—she’s slaughtering those who choose to leave her side. Even Affinites who simply wish to live in peace. You saw her troops back there.
“I was trapped as a soldier, with no way out. I wanted to reach the rebellion, and you were the only way for me to do that.”
His words struck Ana as true, ringing echoes of something else he had told her, moons ago.
In this empire, if I am not the hunter, then I become the hunted.
“Let me help you,” the yaeger continued, his eyes now fixed intently on Linn. “I can give you information on Morganya’s plans.” He shifted his gaze back to Ana. “I can train you to wield your Affinity better. I can fight with you. All I ask is that you give me a chance.”
She knew it was the more strategic move to give him a chance and take whatever information she could from him, but all her instincts screamed against it. She couldn’t even look at him without seeing the glare of the sun reflecting off his cloak in the Vyntr’makt that day. Without remembering May, standing in the middle of the square, holding up her small hand.You will not hurt her.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he was here, alive and well, when May was not. She didn’t want to give him a chance, when he hadn’t given one to May.
There was the scrape of a chair, and Ramson stood. His eyes flicked to hers and he gave her a nod, almost imperceptible. She could almost hear his voice in her head, whispering for her to calm down, to think logically.
Ramson prowled forward to face the yaeger. They were almost the same height, but Ramson’s gait, the small smile on his face, the insouciant tilt to his head, revealed who was in control. “We’ll give you a chance,” Ramson said, folding his arms in front of his chest. “You can start by telling us everything you know.”
They spoke long into the night, Kaïs recounting everything Morganya had done since she’d taken the throne. Most of it was information Ana already knew; some revelations twisted her stomach.
“She murdered children.” The yaeger’s voice had grown quiet. “She extorts the weak and the helpless. She separates families, holding them hostage in order to get what she wants.” The cool front Kaïs had put up fell away, leaving behind something so raw, so desperate.
“And what about the Affinites the Imperial Inquisition is kidnapping?” Ramson leaned against the bar, drink in hand. Behind him, Daya held a bottle of amber-colored liquor, listening intently. “Heard anything about that?”
Confusion crossed Kaïs’s features. “Do you mean the Affinites she has conscripted into her army?”
“And the man with the two Affinities,” Ana cut in, her irritation growing. “What do you know about that?”
He shook his head. “I only saw what Linn saw. I don’t know anything else about it. Ifeltit, though—that he had two Affinities, warring inside him.”
Frustration pinched at Ana. The yaeger seemed to know nothing more than what they already knew.
Ramson caught her eye. He tilted his head, and Ana followed, gesturing at Linn to do the same. They left Kaïs with Daya, who was rearranging the supplies beneath the counter.
“Nothing new that we didn’t know,” Ramson said when they were out of earshot. He ran a hand through his hair.
“Do you think he’s hiding something?” Ana asked.
To her surprise, it was Linn who spoke. “I think he is telling the truth,” she said quietly. “When we saw that blackstone wagon, he looked…scared.” She swallowed. “Whatever they did to that Affinite, I think he is as afraid of it as we are.”
“We tell him nothing more,” Ramson said. “Especially not about how that Affinite you saw could relate to Morganya’s artifact.”
