They had reached the Hall of Deities. At the other end, the great doors were still closed, but through the mullioned windows, Ana could see the stage that had been set up in the courtyard. It was a clear day, the skies an unbroken stretch of pure halcyon blue.
The world had settled. The Deities’ Lights had danced in the night skies every night since Ana had woken, healed by the Kemeiran wielder, on the shores of the Silent Sea.
Word was out that both siphons had been destroyed, and envoys were bringing the news across the world to Bregon and Kemeira. But as to what had happened to the Deities’ Heart, only Ana and a handful of people—including the Kemeiran Temple Masters that had fought with them in this war—knew. Ana had ordered an immediate ban on blackstone mining in the Krazyast Triangle, receiving word from King Darias that the same would happen in Bregon, with searock.
The knowledge of the Heart and the other elements of alchemical power, then, would die with Ana and the handful of people close to her who had known of them.
The past was behind them, and it was a time for change. At noon, Ana would announce her own abdication.
At the thought, she ran a hand over her outfit: a simple silvergown, sleek and smooth, spilling to her feet like a fall of snow. On top of that, she wore her old crimson cloak, mended and made to look new by tailors. With their nation healing from the effects of Morganya’s regime and a civil war, extravagance was a thing of the past.
“How do I look?” she asked.
“Beautiful,” Daya said, giving Ana a once-over. “But not like a princess. Like…arevolutionary.”
Ana grinned back. She’d woken with each day to find color returning to her skin, the hollows to her cheeks filling out, and the dark circles disappearing from her eyes. She’d discarded the powders and blushes she’d carried with her for her former campaigns—she didn’t need them anymore.
Kaïs checked his pocketwatch. “A half hour left,” he said.
Ana had a sudden thought. “Would you wait here for me?” she asked. “I’ll be back before the ceremony begins.”
The grounds leading to the prayer temple at the back of the former Palace sat in silence, shrouded in a fresh blanket of white. The snow here lay undisturbed, just like the souls resting beneath.
They had buried the fallen soldiers of the war out here. Ana walked past their graves, her lips moving in silent prayer, pausing every so often to look at a gravestone and a name she recognized. Soon, this place would be open to the public—but in this moment, Ana wished to pay a last visit.
Lieutenant Henryk had been buried near the front; by his side, an empty grave with a headstone had been erected for Kapitan Markov. Ana knelt by each, inclining her head to pay them respect.
Next, she found Yuri’s tomb at the very front, near the steps of the prayer temple. Ana stopped before it and toucheda hand to the cold stone surface, tracing the etchings of his name.YURI KOSTOV,said the headstone.COMMANDER OF REDCLOAKS, KILLED IN BATTLE.
Ana drew the shape of a circle over her chest before continuing on. Snow crunched beneath her boots as she ascended the stairs to the prayer temple. She felt as though she had stepped back in time, into a distant dream. Inside, the marble-and-stone casings had rendered her family in a timeless eternity, their expressions tranquil and unmoving as the world outside spun forward.
Ana recalled a time when she had frequented her mother’s tomb, tracing the carving and wishing that, if she just closed her eyes, she could return to a life where Mama was still alive and herfamily still whole.
There was a part of her that would never stop longing for this—but, Ana thought as she moved to her father’s tomb, taking in the sternness to his features, her yearning for the past was born only out of a romantic notion for nostalgia. The dead and their deeds remained in the past; the future was out there, in the city, across the republic, with her people.
Lastly, there was Luka.
Ana turned to her brother’s tomb. A knot formed in her chest as she stared down at the stone face that at once was and wasn’t his. The stonemason had rendered Luka’s face almost perfectly, down to the bow of his lips and the curls of his hair.
But they would never capture the way his eyes lit up when he smiled, the expression he’d worn when they’d conspired together. The way his words had shaped her entire world.
Your Affinity does not define you,he’d said to her once.What defines you is how you choose to wield it.
Ana turned to leave, the marble where her brother’s soul rested newly damp.
Someone waited for her outside.
Ramson watched her with an inscrutable expression as she approached him. He was dressed in a fresh shirt and tunic, the hilt of his misericord strapped to his hips and glinting beneath his navy-blue cloak. His eyes never left hers as she stopped in front of him.
They looked at each other for a moment, and then Ramson reached up. His fingers were warm and rough and gentle as he brushed away the tears on her cheeks. Ana closed her eyes as he drew her to him, his hand falling against the small of her back, the other cradling the back of her head. She leaned against him, breathing in his familiar scent, and felt him rest his chin against the top of her head.
“Did you finish the reports I asked for?” she murmured.
She felt him nod. “I went through all of Kerlan’s files, but I’ve been doing my own research as well.” His voice was pleasant, a deep thrum in his chest, and she smiled against it. “Most traffickers have fled Cyrilia and seem to be intent on creating new networks across other kingdoms, just like Kerlan. I sent the funding request to King Darias—” He stopped himself, then drew back and tilted his head, his eyes narrowing a fraction. “But I didn’t come here to tell you this.” He took her hand. “I have something to show you.”
She followed him as he led her toward the back of the prayer temple. When they rounded a corner near the high walls, Ana’s breath caught.
There, bright and shining in the sunlight, was a trellis of winterbells. They shifted in the breezes that stirred every so often,their heads nodding as Ana approached. She touched a hand to the pale wood—an exact replica of the one in Shamaïra’s back garden—and pressed her forehead against it.
