“You’re getting rusty, Quicktongue.” Shetsked. “All right, you bastard. I’ll administer the antidote. And then you’ll tell me where my husband is.”
Ramson crawled to his hands and knees, rubbing his throat.His head spun. His limbs were weak. “Bring Ardonn forward,” he managed.
There was a scuffle from the back, and Narron and three others hauled the scholar’s stretcher to the front of the squad. Olyusha pursed her lips as she ran her gaze over Ardonn. The scholar looked as though he was clinging to life, his breath barely misting before his chapped lips, frost clinging to skin that had turned a disturbing shade of white.
“Deities,” the poison Affinite grumbled as she hoisted her sack open and began to rummage inside. “How did he get to this state?”
She drew out a delicate bundle of a plant with bulbs covered in scarlet spikes, bright as blood. Ramson and the entire squad of Navy soldiers watched as she leaned over the plant, splitting one of the bulbs to reveal three koffee-colored, patterned seeds inside. With deft fingers, she plucked them out and closed her eyes.
A translucent liquid began to seep out from the pods, pooling against her skin. It was the first time Ramson had seen Olyusha at work, and he couldn’t help but share the inhale of astonishment from his squad.
Olyusha deposited the liquid into a small glass vial from her bag and set it aside. Then, she rubbed her hands against the snowand began to draw out liquid from the stalk. “The antidote rests in the stem of the ricyn plant,” she said. “But one must first draw out the poison in the pods first, or it contaminates the antidote.”
Ramson watched as she lifted a hand to Ardonn. Without waiting for permission, she pressed her finger to his mouth. The flicker of the firelight stained the droplets of antidote orange as they slid down Ardonn’s chapped lips.
Olyusha straightened, swiping her hand against her handkerchief again. “I’ll need to administer the antidote on a daily basis to revive him, until the poison is cleared from his system.” She wheeled to Ramson, the little vial of ricyn poison she’d extracted flashing between her fingers. “Now. Where were we?”
A weight fell on Ramson. He remembered the scene so clearly: the hull of a ship, the lantern swaying, the damp smell of wood…and the bar of gold that spun above Bogdan, its light refracting on him and spreading on his skin like fissures, as though he were splitting apart from the inside.
Bogdan was dead. And Olyusha…
Ramson pushed himself to his feet, careful to keep his expression blank. “Let’s talk inside, Olyusha.”
—
The hideout was generously sized: a sprawling dacha with room enough to fit them all. Olyusha had spruced up the inside, Ramson noticed as he and his squad trailed her through the doors. There was an entire pack of globefires and candles, a good supply of firewood sitting by the fireplace, and even some dry crackers and deer jerky that they happily distributed.
Within moments, his men had unfurled their packs and were drying their boots by the fire that Torron had lit, taking turns to use the wash closet. Ramson installed Ardonn in one of the separate bedrooms on a wooden cot with a lantern for light and fire. When he turned around, Olyusha leaned against the doorframe, waiting for him.
In spite of her attempts at nonchalance, Ramson caught the tightness to the edges of her eyes, the way she worried her lips asshe studied his face. “Well, Ramson,” she said quietly. “You owe me an answer.”
“Olyusha.” Ramson drew a deep breath, exhaled. “Bogdan’s dead.”
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected—for her face to fall, for her to crumple to the floor—but it wasn’t this. Olyusha’s eyes narrowed and she nodded, pursing her lips. Through the pain lining her gaze, she threw her hair back and jerked her head at Ardonn. “And that’s the bastard responsible?”
“Kerlan was responsible,” Ramson said. “He needed to test out a type of weapon. It transfers Affinities, taking them from Affinites and storing them so that the bearer of the weapon can wield them. Bogdan was a test subject. And this man here was a scholar on Kerlan’s team conducting the research. He was there the night Bogdan died.”
Olyusha kept looking at Ardonn, her jaw clenched. There might have been the shimmer of tears in her eyes, or it might have been the reflection of the torchlight. “So he knows what happened to my husband,” she said.
The scholar’s chest rose and fell steadily, his face hollowed out to a frightening degree—yet there was finally some semblance of peace to his expression, his brows smoothed out and the edges of his lips relaxed. For a brief moment, Ramson thought of how terrifying it was that a single human being held the keys that could alter the course of thousands of lives—of the entire world.
“He doesn’t know everything, but he’s the closest we’ve got to what Kerlan was orchestrating,” Ramson said. “Look, Olyusha, I’m sorry. About…about Bogdan. And thank you for everything you’ve done and, well, for not murdering me up until now.”
“I was close,” the poison Affinite snapped. “And I still could, so don’t bother thanking me yet, Quicktongue. I’m not done with you, or with him.” Olyusha propped her hands on her hips. “What’s with that expression? You thought I’d just let my husband’s murderer dance off into the sunset? Do you even know me?”
There was a moment during which Ramson was stunned into silence at this unexpected new development. And then the gears in his mind were turning again, this time recasting his plans with Olyusha—a former Order of the Lily member and a powerful Affinite—in them. He gave a rueful sigh. “Olyusha, I don’t know what to say.”
“Deities, could it be?” Olyusha rolled her eyes and pretended to wipe a tear from her cheeks. “Ramson Quicktongue, getting all sappy on me? Nay, I recognize that scheming look, you cretin.” At this, Ramson chuckled. “I’m not making a Trade with you this time. I’m going to find the answers from that bastard if it’s the last thing we do.” A pause, and her expression softened. “Bogdan deserved it.”
Ramson hadn’t exactly been friends with Bogdan—more like uneasy acquaintances, as was commonly the case when working with a gang. You could only afford to look out for yourself. The man had been greedy, pompous, stingy, but Ramson had known worse men, crueler men. The love between Bogdan and Olyusha, it seemed, had been real.
Olyusha drummed her fingers against the doorframe, lifting a fine eyebrow. “So, what’s the plan?”
For the first time, Ramson realized the full impact of what he was doing and what he might accomplish. The siphons were a part of Morganya’s plan to turn the tides of the world, and as he stood there looking at Olyusha, the consequences were no longerfar away. He was looking into a mirror of his own pain: another human being who’d lost someone they loved to this war, to a mad monarch’s wild lunge for power.
Who knew, perhaps he’d actually do something good for once in his life.
“We cure Ardonn day by day,” he said, “which provides us leverage to force the answers from him.”
