They needed to stop Sorsha before she reached the bridge.
Ana drew her dagger and stood. An explosion of light stopped her in her tracks, so bright that she threw her arms up to cover her face. Squinting between the cracks of her fingers, she found its source: Yuri. The flames that had previously been spiraling over his arms now engulfed his entire body, burning so hot it was blinding.
Hewas burning, Ana realized with horror. The scene felt utterly familiar; just as she had lost control of her blood Affinity many times before she’d learned to harness it.
If she didn’t stop him, Yuri was going to burn himself alive with his own Affinity.
Ana broke into a sprint toward him.
Yuri swept his arms in an arc and pushed. Flames shot out at Sorsha, pulsing higher than the dachas across the streets, engulfing Sorsha in searing white heat. When it faded, Ana saw two silhouettes outlined against a blood-colored dawn. Yuri swayed where he stood. His cloak had burned off. Parts of his clothes were singed, revealing painful red flesh beneath.
A dozen steps from him, Sorsha lowered her iron plates. She was giggling, her eyes bulging and her mouth parted with utterdelight as she beheld Yuri. “Oh, that wasmarvelous! I could do this forever,” she crowed. Then her lips stretched into a smile that sent a chill down Ana’s spine. “Unfortunately, playtime has to come to an end. I have business to attend to.” An iron plate she had been using as a shield began to morph, lengthening into a spike, stretching over her shoulder.
Yuri fell to his knees. Blood dripped from his lips, splashing the pavement.
“Fare thee well,” Sorsha sang, angling the iron spike at Yuri.
Ana didn’t think; she acted on instinct. She ran. Time seemed to slow as she closed in the last few steps, sliding in front of Yuri, shield raised, eyes closed.
Sorsha’s spike smashed against her shield, ramming the breath from her lungs. Ana skidded backward, colliding painfully with Yuri.
It took her a moment to haul herself back to her feet. Her ribs ached. Her head spun as she swallowed lungfuls of cold, wintry air. She tasted copper in her mouth—a bittersweet reminder of everything that had once represented her.
Ana wiped the blood from her lips and raised her shield and dagger against the most powerful Affinite in existence. It was foolishness.
But it was get the siphons, or die trying.
She looked to the statues of the Deities lining the Kateryanna Bridge. She’d gazed at them from high up, behind the glass of her window, her entire life. The bridge had been named after her mother, and she’d once clung to the faintest hope that the spirit of her mama lingered there, watching over her. Faintly, she wondered whether Seyin and the rescue team had made it across,and into the tunnel that had saved her life not once, not twice, but thrice over.
Protect them, Mama,she thought now.And give me the strength to protect the land our family has forsaken.
There it was, the thought that had been growing at the back of her mind since she’d left the Palace and understood the truth to the corruption of her empire. It was a wound that continued to bleed with the death of May, the discovery of Kerlan’s Affinite trafficking scheme, the knowledge that Papa and her predecessors had had the chance to do something about it all, but hadn’t.
Mama had come from the South of Cyrilia, raised in the Salskoff Palace yet remaining a perpetual outsider due to her birth. Had she, too, seen the darkness of an empire that had, for so long, basked in its own light? The history of empires and kingdoms was of conquest and bloodshed, of oppression and silence masked in unity and grandeur.
Ana had always believed that to love her people was to protect her reign.
In this moment, she understood that, to serve her people, she had todestroyher family’s legacy.
Across the cobblestone pavement, Sorsha’s eyes widened in delight. “Oh, the Blood Witch wants to play, too!” she exclaimed. “What are you going to do with that dagger, my pretty, wave it at me? Here, let me wave back!”
Sorsha lifted her arms, and the water in the Tiger’s Tailmovedlike a sentient thing, rearing its head. The water crested, then plunged, surging beneath Sorsha’s feet and freezing into ice even as it propelled her forward. In the blink of an eye, Sorsha leapt off only paces before Ana.
Ana broke into a run. Lifted her blade. And swung.
It was a hopeless attempt, and they both knew it. Her blade clattered onto cobblestone; she stumbled, caught off-balance by her own momentum and unaccustomed to the weight of her shield.
Sorsha shrieked with laughter as she seized a fistful of Ana’s hair. Cold, ruthless fingers closed around Ana’s throat; she was lifted bodily into the air. An iron spike brushed against the skin of Ana’s cheek, almost like a caress.
“How would you like to die?” Sorsha whispered, her breath in Ana’s ear. “Shall I give you a taste of iron? Or would it be more poetic to kill you with your own Affinity?” She drew back, tilting her head. “It would be lovelier if I used my own magek. ForIam the most powerful magen, and I’ll have you remember that iron is harder than blood.” She raised her iron spike. “And now, the Iron Maiden vanquishes the Red Tigress.”
A far-off whistling, and then the sound of metal slicing through flesh.
Sorsha jerked, her eyes widening, this time in surprise. She stumbled and let go of Ana, her hand going to the spot on her abdomen where a streak of blood appeared. The arrow that had grazed her clattered on the cobblestones several steps away.
A voice called out from behind Sorsha, “You didn’t think I’d miss all the fun, did you, Sister Dearest?”
From behind the statues of the Deities lining the Kateryanna Bridge stepped a familiar figure.
