“I know your mother,” Ana said. “She saved my life. She sent me, Kaïs. She sent me here. To save the world. To save you.”
Linn had the sensation of fate rushing by her, of the meeting of two threads of life, piecing together jagged fragments of the same story. “You know Shamaïra,” Linn breathed, a part question, part statement in wonder.
Ana’s gaze never left Kaïs’s. “She was an ally to me and to the Redcloaks, a figure of the rebellion. She told me she lost her son to the Affinite trade many years ago, and she’s been searching for him since.” Her voice cracked. “She crossed the Aramabi Desert for you. She survived for years in the Cyrilian Empire, because she has been looking for you, Kaïs.”
Kaïs dropped to his knees, his swords clanging on the floor. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, slowly shaking his head. “No,” he moaned. “I can’t. I don’t have a choice.”
Linn lowered her daggers. “You do,” she said, taking a step toward him. “I know how it feels, to be trapped. But if there is anything I have learned, it is that you can always make a choice.”
“I think,” Ana continued, “that if your mother were here, she would tell you that we will not find fairness in this world. But it is up to us to take what we are given and to fight like hell to make it better.”
Kaïs buried his face in his hands. When he looked back up, a sheen of tears glistened in his eyes.
Linn knelt. Gently, she placed her knives on the floor between them. Met his gaze. Slowly, she brought her hands together, cupping one over the other.
Action, counteraction.
“Please,” she whispered, and the word trembled in the silence between them. “The choice is yours.”
The wind had whipped into a screaming gale by the time Ramson reached the top of the Crown’s Cut. He pounded at the heavy ironore gates, and every excruciating second it took for the guards to emerge from the keep felt like agony.
“Ramson Farrald,” he panted. The Royal Guard held his torch to Ramson’s face. Satisfied, he waved it once, twice, three times—a signal to open the gates. “Tell me, have two wagons gone through this evening?”
The guard gave him a disinterested look. “Yes, over a bellago.”
Shit.Shit.
The first drops of rain hit his face as he sprinted through the courtyards. The buildings and trees of the Naval Academy flew by in blurred shadows, and at last,at last,the steps leading to the Naval Headquarters appeared.
Ramson vaulted up the steps three at a time. The corridors were strangely empty—the absence of guards worrying him more. When he reached his father’s chambers, though, he was relieved to find a squad of Royal Guards standing sentry.
“Announce me,” he gasped. “And do not letanyoneelse in.”
One of the Royal Guards opened the door to step inside. With a violent step forward, Ramson shoved his way past the guard and burst into his father’s chambers.
Admiral Farrald was sitting at his desk, penning something onto parchment. Relief flooded through Ramson. “Admiral—”
“I hope you’ve persuaded your Blood Empress.” His father spoke without looking up from his writing. “It would be highly inconvenient for the deal to fall through tonight.”
Ramson paused, the torrent of thoughts in his mind coming to a standstill. “What?”
“The Three Courts are gathering at Godhallem as we speak.” The Admiral’s gaze flicked up momentarily. “We meet with the Blood Empress at eight bells.”
Cold slipped through his veins.The biggest party of all in the Blue Fort,Kerlan had said. “No,” Ramson said, stepping forward. “You need to call off the meeting—”
“I thought this would happen,” the Admiral interrupted. He set down his pen and stood, the scrape of his chair rattling against Ramson’s skull. “So I’ve already sent Sorsha to escort her to Godhallem. They should be on their way. It is all simply a show, to convince the insipid little King and the Three Courts that I’m adhering to the proper procedures. I’ll have your little Blood Empress’s magek whether she agrees to it or not.”
The nonchalance in his father’s voice unleashed something hot and wild within him. Suddenly, they were back on that night seven years ago, pieces of his shattered cup strewn across the floor, hot chocolate dripping down the walls like blood. Jonah’s body limp and helpless on the cold searock floor.
For a moment, he considered letting the attack on Bregon happen. He owed nothing to his father, to this wretched kingdom run by a wretched government. Perhaps, then, his father would finally know how it tasted to have all that you had loved and cared for destroyed before your very eyes.
But he thought of Jonah. Of his mother, standing in that cottage by the sea. They had believed in the good part of him. They had loved him and, in return, told him that he was capable of loving and being loved.
And that was what made him different from Roran Farrald.
So Ramson forged his fury into something cool, sharp, and harder than steel. He crossed the room to his father’s desk and spread his hands across it. “Tell you what,” he said. “Let’s make a Trade. You take me to where she is, and I tell you why I’m here. About information I learned of an imminent attack on Bregon.” He bared his teeth in a smile. “How does that sound,Father?”
The Admiral’s eyes bore through him. Father and son gazed at each other in a deadlock, and in that moment, an entire lifetime might have passed.
