The boy paused at the edge of the stage. With a light hop, he stepped off. “Seyin, Second-in-Command.”
Sothiswas the Redcloaks’ Second-in-Command.
Ana noted how he didn’t bow. Determined to show him proper courtesy, she dipped her head. “Anastacya Mikhailov. Heir to the Cyrilian Empire.”
She thought she caught Seyin’s eyes narrowing for a fraction of a second, but she blinked and his face was expressionless again. “Well, meya dama,” he said, and once again, she noticed that he didn’t address her with any honorifics. “I am here by request of our Commander.”
It was easy to derive a second layer of meaning to his words.I am not here of my own will.
Everything he said, every move he made, was done with deliberation, and she was beginning to sense a subtle hostility beneath his cool diplomacy.
She suddenly wondered what Yuri had said to his Second to invoke the distant coolness with which he regarded her. It had been over a moon since she’d last seen Yuri, back at Shamaïra’s when their paths had crossed briefly, then separated again.
When you’re ready, send a snowhawk to Goldwater Port,he’d told her. His eyes had brimmed with warmth back then.
She looked into the cold, dark gaze of his Second. Had something changed? “Thank you for your time,” she said. “I’ll get to the point: I’m here to take up an alliance with the Redcloaks.”
There was a pause, and she had the strangest sense of the shadows around her deepening, pulsing, as though they were alive. Seyin watched her impassively. “And why,” he said slowly, “would the Redcloaks agree to an alliance with you?”
The question caught her off guard. An alliance with the Redcloaks had seemed only natural after her parting exchange with Yuri.
Ana met Seyin’s gaze. “Have you spoken with Yuri?”
“I have” was all Seyin said in response.
“Then you know that we are fighting on the same side, to bring down Morganya. I want to make a safe world, for Affinites and non-Affinites alike.” Her breath unfurled in an icy mist. “I can defeat Morganya. I can take back the throne.”
Seyin stepped forward, pulling back the darkness around them. Moonlight spilled over them in a silver pool. “You must realize that is precisely why we are not, and cannot be, allies.”
The sentence robbed her of breath. “No, Idon’tunderstand. Is it not the wish of the Redcloaks to make an equal world?”
Seyin’s smile was cold. “It is.”
“Then why—”
“But it is not yours,” Seyin interrupted, his eyes glittering. “Tell me, what is the difference between you and Morganya? You are, after all, both Affinite empresses promising a better world for your people.”
Shock burned through her, followed closely by disgust. What game was he playing with her? “Seyin,” Ana said, grappling for calm. “You’ve seen the charred villages, the burnt corpses, the trail of blood left behind by Morganya’s forces. She is not creating equality. She is using violence to upend the social order of the Empire while cementing her own rule.”
“And isn’t that what you, too, will do once you take the throne?” Seyin spread his hands in a careless shrug, then brought them together. “I see two Affinites fighting for the throne, both promising better futures to the vulnerable and exploited.”
Fury licked up her chest, hot and searing. “Morganya isslaughteringthe innocents—”
“She is purging those who were affiliated with Affinite trafficking and exploitation.”
“And that isn’t equality or freedom! That’smassacre.”
A twisted little smile played at Seyin’s lips. “But isn’t that what history tells us? The path to becoming a ruler is painted in blood. In the death of thousands of innocent lives. Morganya, too, promised us equality and freedom. What makes you so different, that we should throw our forces behind you? You’re just a girl born to a silver spoon and a golden crown. That says nothing of whether you are capable of ruling.”
The fire that had been building inside her flickered out, leaving her cold.
“You see,” Seyin continued, “the issue that I have isn’t whether you or Morganya will make for the better ruler, Anastacya.” She flinched at the way he spoke her name, with dominance, as though he’d suddenly stripped her naked. “It is with the system itself. The last emperor, and the one before him, and the one before him…they all promised the people wonderful things. Yet letting a monarch go unchecked means there is nothing to protect the people should that monarch fail.” He looked somber now, spreading his hands. “Suppose you are merciful. Suppose you are gracious, and that you rule with justice. What happens after you die? What about the next ruler, or the next, or the ones after that? Can you guarantee that they, too, will carry the benevolence and sense of justice that you claim to have?”
Ana struggled to think of a rebuttal and found that she had none. She thought of the first time she’d run into Imperial Patrols, of how they’d treated her and May like criminals, of how she’d seen, with her own eyes, the inequities that her father had allowed to bloom like a sickness in their empire.
All along, she’d sought the throne because she trusted herself to change it all, because she knew with a conviction greater than her own life that she would bring equality to her empire once again.
Yet never had she thought to question the system of rule itself. What Seyin was saying…was unthinkable to her in themoment.
