She drew a deep breath and forced the maelstrom from her head to clear. Her mind settled on her Affinity, drawing it out long and sharp. She narrowed her view until there was only the blood pouring from Sorsha’s neck, bright as molten metal.
Ana burrowed, deeper and deeper, until she found the source of the opening, the severed skin and the blood that spilled from within.
Carefully, she wove her Affinity into the flow of blood, and began to direct it back, back, into skin and flesh and veins.
Sorsha’s slashed collar gave a glimpse of her skin, tanned from her days in the sun—yet crisscrossed with white scars around her collarbone. She wore a black necklace at the base of her throat, and Ana caught a glance as she focused her Affinity on the girl’s neck, applying the healing techniques Kaïs had taught her.
Gradually, the bleeding stopped. Ana exhaled and leaned back, letting her Affinity recede. The world slowly swam back into view: Sorsha’s body on the floor before her, chest rising and falling gently. The light streaming in from across the hall. The carvings of the eagle, stallion, and seadragon on either side, the Bregonian officials half standing, half gawking beneath them.
And finally, the Admiral, standing with his hands clasped behind his back, delight dancing in his eyes.
Fury rose in her, white-hot, threatening to spill over. He’d done it on purpose, to test her. There was nothing more she wanted to do than to shake some sense into this man, who’d drawn his own daughter’s blood for naught but agame.Anegotiation.
Ana straightened. This was a show, she was beginning to realize, a demonstration of power. And she would give them one.
With a sweep of her hands, she gathered the blood spilled on the polished searock floor, the droplets that had splattered on her boots. She spread her hands and the blood snaked over her palms, twirling into ribbons that glittered like rubies in the light. She was aware of the entire hall’s eyes on her, watching in fascination.
Ana smoothed her voice, sharpened her words. “King Darias, Three Courts of Bregon, I thank you for your attention. We face a common enemy, one that grows in power day by day. One that sits on the throne of Cyrilia, murdering my people. And now, she has turned her attention to the Kingdom of Bregon—to an artifact that would make her powerful beyond our imagination. One that would destroy both your world and mine.”
Her words reverberated across the hall, echoing in the utter silence of Godhallem. The officials of the Three Courts held their breaths.
Ana brought her hands closer together, the twisting strands of blood arching to close the gap between them. She drove her point home. “I stand before you, as the rightful Empress of Cyrilia, to negotiate an alliance with the Kingdom of Bregon.”
The Three Courts burst into an uproar as courtiers began to talk over each other, their voices rising into a crescendo. Amid it all, movement at the side of the hall caught Ana’s eye. A young, dark-haired man in white robes and a set of spectacles had risen from his seat at the end of the hall, parchment in hand, taking notes. His outfit was collared with teal edges that rippled with each step he took. He paused at the back of Godhallem and, as though sensing Ana’s eyes on him, looked up.
For a moment, their gazes met. Then, he blinked and disappeared through a set of doors leading out through the back.
Admiral Roran Farrald held up a single hand. Almost immediately, silence fell across the Courts. Finally, Ana felt their eyes on her, their gazes alert not in skepticism or mockery but in interest, and in fear.
Yes, she thought, lifting her chin a notch so that the sunlight caught the fading crimson of her eyes. Power was, indeed, a double-edged sword.
Roran Farrald tilted his head, his eyes narrowed. “I think, Blood Empress,” he said slowly, “that we have something to negotiate after all.”
Ramson stood at the open-air doorway to his chambers. It was almost evening, and even in the southern kingdom of Bregon, the sun hung over the unsteady sea, twilight unfurling overhead.
He had been placed in a guest suite in the Ambassador’s wing of the Blue Fort several courtyards away from Godhallem, with Ana and Linn being shown to their respective chambers. Ramson’s was a large room with pillars of searock and a balcony that overlooked the Whitewaves to the east, finer than any of the dormitories he’d known at the Naval Academy.
A set of steps led down from his balcony to a veranda below. This was the courtyard that stretched between the various towers in the fort. Winding streams of water flowed where crevasses had been carved into the ground, like veins that held the lifeblood of the structure. And interspersing the winding streams were the alder trees of his childhood.
The sound of wind and water and trees filled the air with a susurrus that washed over him like an old lullaby, dragging him back to a place of memories.
Bregon.Home.Seven years he’d been away from this place, yet it felt like a lifetime ago that he’d hidden on the back of a supply wagon, heartbroken and drowning in his grief.
He shut his eyes and shook his head to clear the memories. He was no longer the boy of seven years past.
He’d washed and dressed in the crisp white shirt and pants that had been laid out for him on his bed. As he fastened brass buttons and straightened his ironed cuffs, Ramson felt more like his old self than he had in a while.
Yes, he thought as he caught his reflection in the window glass, sharp-cut and sleek-haired,thiswas the man he’d been made to be. The type of person he’d been trying to become: smooth and polished with a heart carved of stone and secrets.
When the door to his room slid soundlessly open, he turned and realized that a lifetime of preparation could not have readied him for this moment.
His father had aged in the years Ramson had been gone. Yet time wore well on Roran Farrald in the way it did with leather or fine wine. His jawline had broadened, his entire frame thickened so that he looked even larger and more powerful than he had when Ramson had been a boy. He was still clean-shaven, his hair short and now threaded with silver that gleamed in the torchlight.
They stood, staring at each other for several moments, and Ramson realized that he’d grown to be the same height as his father.
The Admiral’s face broke into a smile. That unsettled Ramson more than any dagger or poison. “Well,” Roran Farrald said, spreading his arms and swaggering in. “I have been waiting for this moment for seven years.”
“You’ve a funny way of showing it,” Ramson replied drily. He felt shaken in a way he’d never felt when he’d made Trades for the Order of the Lily. Dealing with his father felt akin to trying to understand the motives of a wild animal. “Were you truly going to arrest me?”
