Ramson’s eyes crinkled.I always win,he mouthed.
Through the stinging in her eyes, Ana smiled back at him. Then she turned back to Linn, Kaïs, and Daya. “Ready?” she said, looking to the gates, yawning wide.
“Ready,” they chorused.
“Together, then,” Ana said.
With Kaïs’s and Daya’s help, they hoisted Yuri’s body onto her valkryf, and Ana cradled her friend’s head in her arms as shetook the reins. Daya, Linn, and Kaïs followed close behind. Ana never looked away from the familiar walls of the Salskoff Palace. Cracks ran along the once-smooth marble; soot licked up the walls, turning them black; the flicker of still-burning fires rendered it all crimson. Here it was, the truth of what her empire had become, exposed for all to see.
Ana laced her fingers between Yuri’s. Like this, he might have been asleep, his pale lashes curving against his freckled cheeks, and she remembered opening her bedroom doors a crack to find him curled against the wall next to her chambers, head tucked against his knees, a tray of hot chokolad and ptychy’moloko grown cold by his side throughout the night.
She squeezed his hands and pressed them to her lips. “We’re home,” she whispered, and turned to the army behind her. Torchlight stained their armor crimson, winding all the way to the streets of Salskoff and beyond.
Ana pumped a fist into the air. “Citizens of Cyrilia,” she shouted, as loudly as her voice would carry. “Today, we destroy the past to pave the way for a better future!”
Cheers and cries of triumph spread down the lines of her army like wildfire, like a song of hope. Ana threw back her shoulders, lifted her chin, and entered the gates of her childhood home.
This time, for the last time.
—
Whereas the mood only moments earlier had been one of jubilation and triumph, there was only silence as Ana rode through the gates of the Palace. She was aware of all eyes on her: Affinites and non-Affinites, soldiers and civilians alike, gazes following her as she passed.
Ramson’s battalion had infiltrated the walls, a crucial step to their victory—yet the courtyard was strangely empty as Ana and her army entered the Palace gardens. The snow hadn’t been cleared from the paths, as was custom when Ana had lived here; instead, it had been trampled and flattened by hundreds of footprints. Everything was coated in a layer of ice, from the evergreens to the garden sculptures to the lampposts. It was beginning to snow, the flakes twirling silently from the skies like ashes.
It all felt off. The silence was too loud. The spaces hollow where Morganya’s Imperial Patrols and guards should have been.
Ana turned to Kaïs, Daya, Ramson, and the other commanders within her vicinity. “Search the entire Palace. I want our men stationed in every hallway and every chamber, from the living quarters to the dungeons. I want every single Imperial Patrol brought to the Grand Throneroom and accounted for.” She paused. “And if you happen to run into Morganya, do not engage—send for me. All Affinites, follow me. Morganya has a siphon; she has the ability to take away anyone’s Affinity.”
Orders and commands were passed along, and Ana tugged her valkryf forward as her Affinite squad, the Redcloaks, and the Affinites from Salskoff fell in behind her. As she fastened the reins of her steed to a pillar near the front steps of the Palace, she couldn’t help but glance up, searching past the cupolas and twisting spires until she found the window that used to belong to her. Now it was mullioned and sealed shut, but how many days had she sat at the seat by the sill, looking out into the rose gardens and walkways, to the carriages and horses and people that passedby?
Ana pressed her bare hands against the heavy silver knockers, carved in the shape of white, roaring tigers, and pushed the frontdoors open. She stepped into old hallways that materialized from her memories. She kept her blood Affinity flared, searching for signs of movement as her army fanned out, moving deeper into different sections of the Palace. Ana made for the Grand Throneroom. The floors rang with the echoes of their footsteps, marble balustrades sweeping toward gilded ceilings engraved with symbols of the Deities. Chandeliers twirled gently, scattering golden light from above as the group moved through the corridors.
They progressed at a slow pace, Linn supporting a limping Kaïs by Ana’s side. Linn’s grip shifted on her daggers and Kaïs kept his double swords out.
“It’s empty,” Kaïs said quietly.
Ana pressed her lips together. With each step, a string seemed to tighten inside her. The Palace had once been filled with guards patrolling up and down. And as the group turned the last corridor to the Grand Throneroom, she felt her heart drop like a stone. Up ahead were the grand mahogany doors with the white-gold tiger handles. The entrance was completely deserted, without a single guard stationed in front.
Beyond was the faintest flicker of blood: several signatures that felt vaguely familiar to Ana. One that she knew—indelibly.
She began to walk faster and faster until she broke into a run, ignoring the calls of Linn and Daya and Kaïs. She didn’t stop until she was at the doors, her hands ice-cold against the handles. Again, Ana pushed.
The doors slid open, and Ana looked into the site of a massacre.
On the floor of the Throneroom were the bodies of the Imperial Councilmembers, blood blooming out from underneath them. They had been dead for hours, perhaps even longer—theirblood had frozen to the marble floors. Ana walked into the room, her heart lurching each time she passed someone she recognized from her childhood. Here, lying faceup, was Councilman Dagyslav Taras, once Papa’s closest friend and councilor, with his gray-flecked hair and those eyes that had always held infinite wisdom. And there, the ex–military commander, Councilman Maksym Zolotov, the scar on his nose covered in blood. He’d stood up for her the last time they’d met; it felt like a physical blow to see his expression vacant of the fierceness it had always held.
Morganya had killed them all.
In the center of the Throneroom, a single heartbeat pulsed through Ana’s Affinity. Faint, flickering, the composition of the blood utterly familiar to her.
Ana was barely aware of herself stumbling forward, dropping to her knees. Lieutenant Henryk lay at the foot of the dais. She cupped her hands to his face. Someone—Ana had a very good idea who—had sliced his skin with ribbons of iron, the strips of metal red with blood.
But he was alive.
A roaring sound, like the rush of water, filled her ears as people rushed to help her free the lieutenant, several metal Affinites unwinding the sickening ribbons of iron. Tetsyev was already by Henryk’s side, salves and vials out.
The lieutenant’s breathing was shallow; his lashes fluttered as he looked at her, bleeding from hundreds of razor-thin cuts all over his body. His lips moved, but over the din and chaos, Ana couldn’t catch his words.
