Did monsters and men who made bad choices have the capability to love? And did they deserve love in return?
Ramson stood. “Ine verron tane aust Sommesreven,” he said. It was a Bregonian parting phrase for the dead, one murmured at funerals as they lit candles and set loved ones afloat on winding rivers or the great, weaving sea.
I will see you at Sommesreven.
Ramson was about to leave when something on the floor caught his eye. It was the remnants of his father’s gold ring, the key that Sorsha had used on her collar. She had completely melted it earlier; the gold clung to the floor, no more than a blob of metal. She’d destroyed the key, the symbol of control that Roran Farrald had held over her.
But Ramson wasn’t thinking of keys and symbols. His gaze traveled back to his father’s body, to where the blackstone band lay on the floor, cracked open like a lock.
An idea struck him: insurance should their plan go awry.
Ramson crossed the room and picked up the collar, unscathed from the intensity of Sorsha’s fire. It was colder than ice against his skin as he unbuckled his belt and looped it through. It weighed heavy against his hips.
Ramson turned and left the room, shutting the door behind him with a soft click.
Ana was waiting for him outside, her arms folded. She straightened at his appearance.
Ramson nodded. “It’s time.”
Ana kept her Affinity flared as they hurried through the Naval Headquarters, their footsteps echoing unnaturally loud in the otherwise silent halls. The building had emptied. Most courtiers would have gathered in Godhallem, waiting for her negotiation.
Which made them sitting ducks for Kerlan’s coup.
As they walked, Ramson filled her in on Admiral Farrald’s Affinite trafficking scheme with Morganya, on Sorsha’s betrayal of her father and her kingdom.
The impossibility of their task felt like a noose coiling tighter and tighter around their necks. “Linn and Kaïs are freeing the trafficked Affinites as we speak,” Ana said as they turned a corner. “But Sorsha has two siphons—one she is wearing, and another that she carries.”
Ramson’s eyes were narrowed in a way that told Ana he was coming up with a plan. “We need to launch the Bregonian Navy,” he said at last.
Ana nodded, their task settling deep into her belly. “We must ring the War Bells.”
They had reached the end of the Naval Headquarters. Beyond the ironore doors were the courtyards leading to Godhallem. Rain was lashing down full force upon the Blue Fort when they emerged, the wind whipping mercilessly against buildings and trees. Within seconds, Ana’s clothes were soaked.
Ana squinted through the night, doing a quick sweep of the courtyards around her for blood. By her side, Ramson cut a striking form through the rain: tall, lean, and long-limbed, Bregonian doublet all sharp lines and hard edges.
He turned to her then, rainwater carving tracks down his cheeks. The only light came from the lamps burning through the windows of the buildings across the courtyard.
Ramson grasped her arms. “Ana,” he said, his voice rough. “I don’t know how all this is going to end.”
She closed her eyes briefly, relishing the way his hands were at once firm and gentle on her, his touch searing heat through the soaked fabric of her shirt. Time trickled away from them, eddying into a distant future where the path of the world split between their success and failure. But right now, in this moment, it was just the two of them.
Lightning flashed overhead, and thunder rumbled as Ramson closed the gap between them. Rainwater dripped down the sharp planes of his face. There was something new to his gaze, something wild and untamed that sparked a fire inside her. His grip tightened. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for anything that I’ve done to hurt you.” His wet hair was plastered to his face, his expression open and vulnerable in a way she had rarely seen it. “I’m sorry that I lied to you; I’m sorry that I used you; I’m sorry if I ever made you feel unsafe, I—” His voice caught. “I’m sorry, all right?”
She shook her head. “Don’t say that. No matter how this ends, Ramson, I’ll be with you.”
He was looking at her in a way that left her breathless. And as another streak of lightning tore across the sky, Ana closed the last step between them. Their lips met with all the hunger and desperation of the winds that howled around them, and she dug her fingers into his hair, tasting the salt and heat of his mouth mixed with rainwater.
He made a sound deep in his throat and pulled her against him. The hard planes of his body pressed against hers through the fabric of their shirts and the burning of his skin ignited a fire deep in her soul. He was water and ocean and rain twining around her fierce flame of a heart, and as she kissed him, she had the sensation that she was falling into a bottomless abyss.
When Ramson drew back, he was panting, his hair tangled and dripping water down his face. Ana had never seen his eyes so clear and so bright, his face so open and so confused. His hands trailed heat across her skin as he held her.
In another life, in another story, Ana found herself thinking, they would have all the time in the world to spend with each other, to talk through the confusing tangle of desire and emotions that burned between them right now.
But such tales were for storybooks, and this was not one.
She took a step back. If she stayed with him any longer, she feared she would not have the strength to leave.
But Ramson leaned forward and, this time, pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. There was a clarity to the way his eyes came to rest on hers. “You ready, Witch?”
