She turned her Affinity on the two remaining Whitecloaks and focused on where their bodies were unprotected by their blackstone armor. With a flick of her will they dropped to the ground, blood pooling warm and sticky beneath them.
The world grew still.
Exhaustion washed over her. The world wove in and out of focus as she sank into a crouch and squeezed her eyes shut.
Something tugged at her cloak.
Willing herself not to throw up, Ana opened her eyes.
For a moment, in the blur of her vision, she saw someone impossible. A slip of a girl, eyes the warm blue of the sea.
The face swam into view: watery green eyes and scattered gold locks. It was the young girl, the cobbler’s daughter. Their eyes met; Ana saw the shock in the girl’s face, and recalled, a moment too late, the unnatural crimson of her own eyes that came with using her Affinity.
Ana recoiled, instinctively snapping her head down and grasping for her hood to cover her face. She was all too aware of the bulge of her veins against the skin of her gloved hands—a mark of when she used her Affinity.
But from the darkness came a whisper. “Thank you.”
Ana slowly looked up. For a moment, a heartbeat, they looked at each other, the child’s gaze uncertain yet unwavering.
“Dorotya!” The cobbler had pulled himself to his feet. The group of civilians watched, faces pinched with fear as they took in the scene around them.
The little girl let go and ran to them. As the cobbler gathered her into his arms, he cast Ana another frightened glance. They regarded each other for several moments from opposite sides of the street.
And then, to Ana’s astonishment, the father raised a tentative hand and dipped his head. He turned quickly and, with an arm around his child, began to walk away. The others in the group followed suit, several inclining their heads toward Ana as, one by one, they stole away into the night.
Ana stayed where she was, kneeling in the snow. She could feel it now, the ache in her hands and fingers with her veins swollen against her flesh. Her Affinity was still warm with the blood of the four lives she had taken, bodies cooling all aroundher.
One moon ago, she might have shrunk back at what she had done. Now, she heard, again, the whispered thank-you from the little girl; saw the father nod his head in tentative gratitude.
They were her people. And, instead of balking in disgust and fear at the sight of her, they had thanked her for saving them.
A spark of hope blazed into resolve in her heart. Her people had signaled to her, through those small acts of gratitude, that they needed her. That she was utterly different from Morganya, and that she was not the monster Seyin had made her out to be.
Somehow, she hoisted herself to her feet. Somehow, she slid her hand from the wall and lifted her chin. Raised her gaze to the blood-soaked streets before her, and the flickering orange glow reflecting on the clouds ahead like flames from the depths of hell.
Red seeped back into her vision. The veins on her hands rose again.
She was Anastacya Mikhailov, blood Affinite and rightful Empress of Cyrilia.
And she would fight for her people.
Ramson lay stretched out on the cot in his room in the Broken Arrow. Moonlight filtered through the cracked window on one side of the wall, but he preferred to remain swathed in the shadows.
It was nearing midnight now, an entire hour past the time when he and Ana had agreed to rendezvous back here. Even ashe flicked a silverleaf to the ceiling, watching its belly flash pale, he couldn’t help the pricklings of panic.
Where was she?
He’d grown so used to her presence in the past moon that her absence had begun to make him uneasy. Traveling together, he’d whiled his days away bickering with her, delighting in the moments when his comments elicited a fierce glare or an irritated snarl.
And then there were the nights, when he graciously left her the bed and she accepted as though it were her right. Ramson hadn’t minded. He’d looked up at her from his vantage point on the floor, taking in the delicate curve of her neck, the soft flutter of her lashes, the stern curve to her mouth even as she dreamt.
He shook those thoughts loose. The silver timepiece at his chest ticked away the minutes. It had been too long.
Ramson had just stood, when a noise gave him pause. It was faint, so faint that it might have been the groan of the old inn beneath the brush of the wind outside.
But Ramson’s senses tightened. He moved to the door and flattened himself to the wall behind it, the moonlight cutting just beyond the tips of his boots. Slowly, so as to not make a sound, he drew his misericord.
Another muffled footstep, and this time, a loud creak from the trick stair at the base of the second-floor landing. Ramson had chosen this room specifically for this reason: He would hear any intruders coming his way.
