And then she began to plummet.
Joy dissipated beneath the shadows of fear like the sun sliding behind clouds as she fell, dream shifting to nightmare.
Her Wind Masters had always told her: The higher one flew, the harder one fell. All it took was the smallest slip of concentration. The tiniest mistake.
Linn thrashed, a scream trapped in her chest. She pulled on the wind, but it had gone all wrong, the tune to a song lost in discord. The downforce was too strong—her arms were pinned against her body and her chi flattened, her winds whistling past. She was dropping like a stone. Her stomach emptied with the uncontrollable feeling of free fall.
Through watering eyes and a blur of sky and sea and trees, Linnpulled.
The wind beneath her gave way. It slipped into a slanted stream, catching her and slowing her fall. Another tug, and she managed to propel herself sideways. Only now—
The trees loomed out from the mist, so suddenly that she didn’t have time to react.
Linn crashed into the forest of Kemeiran pines.
The world went black.
Ana was awoken by a whisper in the dark.
She pushed herself up, heart thumping as a key turned in the lock and the hinges to her door squeaked. A light cracked across her vision, so bright that she threw her hands over her eyes. Bile rose in her throat, and through the blurred mist of fear from her earlier session with Sadov, one thought cut through: that they had come back for her, that they would torture her until she was broken and her mind shattered.
But the boots that scuffed across the floor were different, hushed as though their wearer were deliberately trying to quiet them.
“Kolst Imperatorya.”
Her breath caught. She knew that voice; it was there, buried in the recesses of her memories. The last she’d heard it was in the dungeons of the Salskoff Palace, the lowlight of a torch flickering like her last hope.
“Lieutenant Henryk?” she whispered.
The world came into focus: the flare of a globefire illuminating the rough-hewn walls around her, the figure that stood in the doorway.
Lieutenant Henryk had aged since she’d last seen him. Stubble grew on his chin and cheeks, and his once-youthful blue eyes were now sunken and somber. She remembered him mostly from how he’d followed Kapitan Markov around in Salskoff Palace, boyish-looking with a snubbed nose and freckles peppered across his cheeks. Now, it was as though she looked at an entirely different person.
Something twisted in her heart at the memories. Somewhere out there, Kapitan Markov’s body lay cooling.
“Your dinner,” Lieutenant Henryk said stiffly, and deposited the tray he held onto the floor with a clatter. Ana’s chest clenched. What if Morganya had done the same thing to Lieutenant Henryk as she had to Kapitan Markov?
But Henryk did not draw back. Instead, he leaned forward, lowering his voice so that only she could hear. “Kolst Imperatorya,” he murmured, and there was a tremor to his tone.
Nausea stirred in her stomach and she pulled away. “What do you want?” she whispered.
“I’m not under Morganya’s control,” he whispered, holding up a placating hand. “Look at me—please, I don’t have much time. Markov and I made sure to distance ourselves, in case something happened to one of us.” His voice grew thick; he looked away sharply for a moment, hands fisting.
It was this subtle motion that broke her. Ana leaned forward; Henryk reached for her at the same time, and then she was in his arms, clinging as tightly as though he were her anchor in a storm, silent sobs racking her body, nails digging into his shoulders.
Holding on to the only piece of her past that she still had, in this moment.
His voice was thick with tears. “I’m going to get you out, Kolst Imperatorya. I have to go now, but I promise I’ll be back.”
Don’t go,she wanted to beg. It took every ounce of her self-restraint to pull back, to gather her thoughts and drag herself from the fog of fear that was closing in again. “When?”
“Tonight,” he whispered. “When they order you to be taken to the interrogation chamber. There’s someone who wants to see you. There are other Affinites imprisoned here, did you know that?” From the corridor outside came the sharp clang of blackstone doors, the clicks of footsteps echoing.
“Who?” Ana asked. “Why?”
“I must leave.” He was still holding her hand; gently, he squeezed it before letting go, the cold swarming in to take the warmth of his touch. Ana wrapped her arms around herself, hugging her knees to her chest, already beginning to shiver. “Wait for my word, Kolst Imperatorya. I won’t be long.”
“Lieutenant,” she whispered. He paused before the door. “Call me Ana.”
