Ana’s gaze flicked to the roofs, then cut back to Sorsha. “Call off your soldiers.”
Sorsha thrashed, and when it was of no use, she let out a screaming cackle. “Or what, you red-eyed bitch?”
Ana’s smile was wicked as she tilted her head, her irises swirling a familiar shade of crimson as they caught the light. For a few moments, nothing happened. The wind threaded through their alleyway, rattling empty bottles on the cobblestones.
And then Sorsha gave a shout. She staggered, clutching her chest. For the first time since Ramson had seen her, that smirk slid from her face, and she looked…angry. “What are you doing?” she hissed, her eyes narrowed at Ana.
“Teaching you some manners,” Ana replied, and stepped closer. “That was just a taste. Call off your soldiers, or I won’t hold back next time.”
Sorsha spat blood. Slowly, her lips curled, and her eyes brightened like a child looking at a delectable tart. Bloodied spittle dribbled down her chin. “Magen,” she gasped. “Blot magen!”Blood Affinite.
Ana pulled off her gloves and lifted her hands. Dark veins twisted over her flesh, rising from each of her fingers and stretching to the skin of her arms. Ramson had seen her do this on occasion—had seen a shadow cross her face, morphing her features into something cruel.
“Fascinating,” whispered Sorsha, and then her voice rose into a shriek. “This isfascinating! I want to see—I want to see you bleed my soldiers dry! Can you do it? Will you do it forme?”
A flicker of uncertainty crossed Ana’s face. “I came to negotiate with the Bregonian government, not with you,” Ana snapped, and for a moment, her eyes flicked to Ramson. “I demand an audience with King Darias Rennaron and the Three Courts of Bregon.”
Sorsha blinked. “And who the hells are you?” she snapped.
Ana lifted her chin. “My name is Anastacya Kateryanna Mikhailov,” she said, “and I am the rightful Empress of Cyrilia.”
Silence fell across the streets. The shadows lurking over rooftops and hidden in alleyways seemed to still. But Ramson kept his gaze pinned on the only important player in this scene.
Sorsha’s face was frozen, caught between a snarl and surprise. She stared at Ana, her thin lips slightly parted. And then she collapsed in a peal of laughter. “TheEmpress,” she shrieked, her voice rising to a hysterical scream, “of Cyrilia!”
Ana looked unsettled; she took a slight step back.
For once, Ramson was at a loss for what to do.
“Gods!” Sorsha screamed, tilting her head to the skies, clutching her stomach. “TheEmpressof Cyrilia is here, dressed in tattered rags like a common whore—”
Ramson’s mind blanked to a searing white heat.A common whore.He’d heard those words his entire life, whispered in the stone hallways of the Naval Academy or in the dank dormitories at the Blue Fort, seen it in the smiles of his peers and in the shadow of his father’s turned back.The son of a whore.
Something in him snapped then, and before he knew it, he’d sprung forward, his hands closing around Sorsha’s throat.
He slammed her against the brick wall of the alleyway, hard enough to rattle the breath from her and shake the laughter from her face.
“Have some respect,” Ramson hissed, his face inches from hers, “for the common whores.”
Sorsha’s lips curled into a cruel sneer. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, my filthy half brother?”
Ramson knew that about a dozen invisible arrows were pointed at him right now, but he didn’t care. His plan was shattered, the ugly truth torn out and strewn on the street like blood. There was no point in hiding it now; he needed to focus on turning the situation around.
If he did, indeed, share a father with this girl, then that was something he could exploit. After all, Ramson knew the tactics of his father better than anybody in this world. “The Admiral,” he said, his tongue twisting around the word as it had for his entire life, “has an agreement to see her. And I don’t think he shared his plans withyou.Not with a worthlessdaughter.”
It had been a lie, a gamble, but he saw it in her eyes. The mad glint turning to sudden fear, and then cold anger.
Ramson recognized it. The years and years of subtle, cutting remarks that slowly but surely burrowed into your heart like a thorn, and bled you little by little. A turned shoulder, a cool glance, the knowledge that you were never good enough.
Perhaps Sorsha was more his sister than she realized.
They were both, after all, their father’s children.
One illegitimate son, barred from power for his birthright, and one angry daughter, barred from inheritance for her sex.
There was only one way to save this situation: by convincing Sorsha that Ramson had planned this with their father, all along.
So Ramson seized that thorn their father had buried in Sorsha’s heart throughout all these years, and he twisted it. “He has a grand plan, little sister, that doesn’t involve you,” Ramson whispered. “Do you really think it a coincidence that his long-lostsonwould show up on his doorstep with the rightfulEmpressof the largest empire in the world?”
