The Cyrilian Empire
The moon was red tonight and the ocean looked like blood, glistening a deep, clear crimson. Anastacya Mikhailov leaned over the railing of her ship and breathed in the sharp, ice-tinted scent of her empire.
Throughout their journey over the past fortnight, she had watched the waters shift from the lovely cobalt blue of Bregon’s coastal shore to the pale, vicious waves of Cyrilia. The humid ocean air of the south had turned stark and dry as they traveled north, the wind whipping at their sails.
The Cyrilian Empire was carved of ice and snow, and she its daughter, born and raised.
“An hour till we make land,” came a voice.
Ana turned. Daya of Kusutri strode toward her. She’d donned a thick fur cloak over her Bregonian tunic and leather shoes as they journeyed north and the weather grew colder. Her captain’s pin flashed, and tonight, even Daya’s easy grin was absent in the place of sobriety as she sidled up and leaned against the railing by Ana’s side.
“Crew’s up and ready for…well, whatever we find out there,” Daya finished, tipping her head forward in a grim gesture.
Whatever we find out there.Ana gripped the railing, her jaw tightening as she gazed unflinchingly ahead.
It had been over a moon since she’d been forced to flee her empire, abandoning her people to a scene of slaughter—all insearch of a deadly weapon that, if obtained by Morganya, would cause the demise of not only Cyrilia but the entire world. Siphons enabled their bearers to steal powers from Affinites and had been part of a larger, decades-long plan by Alaric Kerlan andthe Bregonian government to further exploit Affinites. Morganya, of course, had sought out the two existing functional siphons to gain power for herself.
“There’s only one person we’re searching for,” Ana said quietly.
“You think she’s out there?” Daya murmured, nodding in the direction of the shores.
Their quarry: Sorsha Farrald, Ramson’s half sister and former Lieutenant of the Blue Fort. The girl who had betrayed her own army and kingdom from the inside on a quest for revenge and destruction.
The girl who had stolen both siphons.
Sorsha had used one siphon to steal Ana’s blood Affinity for herself, storing it and channeling it at will in the searock band that she wore on her wrist. The other, she’d sworn to bring to Morganya before she’d disappeared.
It sickened Ana to know that her power would be used by a girl obsessed with wrath and ruin—and it was only the first example of the devastation the siphons would unleash upon the world. The exploitation of Affinites would continue at the hands of humanity. The wheel of power and powerless, oppressor and oppressed, would continue to spin.
Unless Ana found the siphons and overthrew Morganya’s reign of terror.
Her eyes narrowed a fraction. “I know she’s out there,” Ana replied. “We just have to find her before Morganya—”
A fit of coughs overtook her and she lurched over the railing, feeling, not for the first time, that there was something inside her that was wrong, an emptiness that was scraping her raw.
She felt Daya’s hands on her shoulders, steadying her. “Feeling all right?” A pause, then: “Have you eaten today?”
Over the past two weeks aboard Daya’sStormbringer,Ana’s appetite had diminished—something she had blamed on seasickness. But the insomnia, the bouts of dizziness, and the coughing fits—it was clear to anybody who paid attention that those were side effects of something much deeper.
The effect of having one’s Affinity torn from them.
She’d heard stories from her friend and ally, Linn, who’d witnessed it firsthand in the Bregonian research dungeons they’d broken into. A girl, Linn had told her, looking more like skin and bones than human. Gold hair thinned and falling out in clumps. Face sunken to the point of being skeletal.
Ana had examined her own reflection in the looking glass Daya kept in her captain’s cabin, imagining her cheeks hollowing out, her thick dark hair that she’d inherited from her mother thinning to strands.
Every day, she told herself that King Darias of Bregon was spearheading research on destroying siphons and reversing their effects. That he would send word to her immediately should he find anything new.
Ana straightened. “It’s nothing,” she said, avoiding Daya’s eyes.
Her friend patted her back. “Probably seasickness. You’ll feel much better once we’re on land.” Daya smiled and gestured. “It’s a Blood Moon tonight. You know what that means?”
Ana followed her gaze. “I believe Cyrilian legends call it the Winter’s Fire,” she said. “But I do rather like ‘Blood Moon.’ ”
“According to my gods, it heralds war and bloodshed,” Daya said, leaning her head to mirror Ana’s pose. She brushed a coil of braided black hair out of her face. Her teeth flashed white in the dark. “With a thousand Bregonian troops behind us, I’d say I rather like our chances.”
At the thought, Ana turned from the prow. Behind her, phantomlike in the moonlight and lunging to the skies like daggers, were the sails of her warfleet, one thousand strong, lent to her as an alliance between her and King Darias. They flew silver sails with the Bregonian seadragon entwined with the Cyrilian roaring tiger insignia—only, instead of stark white, this one was bloodred.
Red Tigress.
