No…he was no longer simply Ramson “Quicktongue,” crime lord and Deputy to Alaric Kerlan. He was Ramson Farrald, now, too—captain of his own Navy squad and the son of an admiral fallen from grace. Perhaps there would always be a little bit of both in him, just as the two halves of his life had been carved out from under the shadows of Alaric Kerlan and Roran Farrald. He had sworn to undo their legacy, but more importantly, he needed to unravel the paths they’d set him on—and to forge his own.
And this time, he was no longer going to run.
Ramson dressed and fastened his cloak over his shoulders. The day was a bitingly cold one, the sun a colorless haze on the horizon beyond the stretch of the Syvern Taiga. He made for the stables, where he swung himself onto a valkryf and urged it into a canter away from camp.
He didn’t look back.
“By the Goddess Amara, you want towhat?”
Ana held up her hands as Daya spat out a mouthful of kashya. The two of them were sitting around a makeshift table in Daya’s dacha, taking their breakfast and discussing the plans and strategy of their campaign. Globefires hung from the ceilings, and lamps had been lit along the walls, lending the place warmth.
After what had happened earlier, Ana needed the company of a friend and some semblance of normalcy to pull herself together again. She’d known loss, known to shut the memories and feelings into a chest in the back of her mind and to bury herself in the motions of the day-to-day.
She had an army to raise, and a war to win.
Daya had, Ana learned, organized the camp so that the soldiers took various shifts to keep everyone fed and safe. Today’s breakfast, apparently, had been brought to them by a young soldier named Parren whose family ran a restaurant in Bregon.
“I’m considering a government reform,” Ana replied evenly, “and wanted to learn from you.” She drew a breath, digging through her brain into the meat of all the tomes she hadconsumed, the textbooks she had studied throughout her time at the Palace. “I understand the Crown of Kusutri was a chiefdom before the Kusutrian Revolution.”
Daya chewed on a pancake—a Bregonian bliny, Ana had learned. “We’re a republic now,” she said. “When we were a chiefdom, my people were segregated into social classes chosen by the stars, I suppose. If you were born into the elite class, you ruled. If you were born a peasant, you served. People were hungry, and tired, and so…” She shrugged. “They revolted.”
Ana took a sip of tea, Daya’s words roiling in her mind.If you were born into the elite class, you ruled.
“A republic,” she said softly. “A government by the people, for the people.”
Yuri had first raised this idea to her over two moons ago, beneath the dark stretch of the night sky in the midst of the Syvern Taiga.The future lies here, with us. In the hands of the people.
The concept had seemed so foreign to her back when she had studied it, briefly, with her tutors at the Salskoff Palace. With a good and just emperor to uphold the rule of law, surely there was more peace and affairs were processed more efficiently?
She listened to Daya speak of the Kusutrian government structure, nodding and assessing her own knowledge.Checks and balances,she thought. Bregon had the Three Courts, and every decision the King made had a vetting process. The Salskoff Courts had their Imperial Councilmembers, yet they were merely advisors to discuss policies with the ruler, never to contradict the ruler’s wishes. This was how, Ana reflected with a twinge of nausea at the pit of her stomach, her father had been sick and under Morganya’s influence for so long without anyonedaring to defy him. This was how Affinite trafficking had spun out of control: with emperors—her ancestors—turning away, caring only about the prosperity of an empire and seeing only the light.
This was the danger of appointing a single person to be in charge.
The era for the monarchy has come to an end,Yuri had said.
Perhaps it had, Ana thought, tracing the curve of the siphon over her flesh. Her skin looked pale, almost translucent, the veins in her left arm running dark as though they held poison.
“Daya,” she said, and looked into her friend’s steady brown gaze. “If I am to reform an entire government, I’d like to appoint ambassadors, advisors from all walks of life and backgrounds. Do you have thoughts as to what you’d like to do, after all this is over?”
If,said a small voice in her head.
Daya set down her spoon with a clink. Through the frosted window of their dacha came movement in flashes of navy-blue livery and gray steel. Laughter drifted past the panes; soldiers stood in clusters, running errands or on patrol.
“This,” Daya said quietly. “I want this. I’ve had more opportunity with your campaign than I’ve had in a long time in this empire, Ana. Captain of my own ship…and now, commander of an army. I’m an immigrant, and I know how most stories of people like me go—Affinite immigrants end up indentured, and the rest of us, we’re left working from the bottom up in a system that’s stacked against us.”
Ana let her gaze drift outside, to the soldiers clamoring, the entire movement they had built. Together. “You’ve commandedan entire army by yourself while I was gone,” she said. “Don’t ever believe you are worth less than that.”
Daya wet her lips, fiddling with her spoon. “I’m mostly good at sailing, but…if there is the chance, I’d love to be able to do that while making a difference.” She gave a light laugh. “Of course, I don’t expect you to just create a job for me, but—”
“You are a leader of this movement,” Ana said, cutting her gaze to her friend. “When this is all over, one would be a fool to not recognize that this empire owes its future to you. And…” She smiled. “I am certain we’ll need to rebuild a navy to rival Bregon’s.”
Daya beamed, her eyes brightening like the sun. “Good thing we already have the son of their former admiral on our side, eh?”
The words struck Ana like a bolt of lightning. She hadn’t let herself think of what had happened with Ramson earlier, but now the conversation came back with a sharp, piercing pain in her chest that had nothing to do with her sickness. Last night had been a glimpse of a sliver of the boy Ramson had once been, the man he might have become. Happy and whole, with none of the scars or shadows the past eight years of his life had carved in him. She needed him to stay in the light, long after she was gone.
She needed to break him away from her before it was too late. Slowly, systematically, over the course of the next moon, Ana would need to remove the casualties that she might leave behind in this life.
Daya must have heard her sharp intake of breath. “Did something happen?” she asked, her smile slipping.
