A better future.
The night was cold and starless as they began their journey in silence, the snow muffling the steps of soldiers and the hoofbeats of steeds. Flags were raised, rippling silver in a cutting wind and bearing the sigil of a red tiger.
Red Tigress.
It was time for her to bring her people together.
Together, they would make the revolution.
Together, they would break the system.
At last, Anastacya Mikhailov decided, she knew what kind of a legacy she wished to leave behind.
The Cyrilian Empire, Northern Region Four weeks later
The winter had plunged into its coldest weeks yet as Ana and her soldiers made their way across Northern Cyrilia, the world blanketed by the gray silence of snow.
Ana woke to a fit of coughing. It was a feeling that had grown familiar over the course of the past few weeks: a gut-wrenching hacking that made her entire body lurch. She leaned over the side of her bed to retch into the bucket she kept there at all times.
The deserted dacha was cold; she drew her furs over her shoulders and went to the hearth to light a fire and draw a bath. Even in the warmth of the water, her shivers would not stop.
Her body was beginning to fail her. It was something she felt in the strength it took for her to do tasks as simple as scrub her hair, towel off, and lift her fur cloak around her shoulders. The way her hands shook when she held a brush to her face for too long so that she had to powder her face in sections, then apply salves to the dark circles beneath her eyes, rouge to her cracked, colorless lips.
Ana leaned back and examined herself in the looking glass: fawn skin powdered back to fullness, blush swept across herjutting cheekbones, dark hair toweled off and twisted in a bun. None but those closest to her knew of her deteriorating condition; she needed to present a strong front to her allies and her soldiers.
She’d unlocked the blackstone band at her throat since the Redcloak attack, spending her spare time in training with her siphon, testing out the Affinities it held and learning to control them. Tetsyev had asked to observe on several occasions, recording her thoughts and experiences in wielding the siphon for his research. Ardonn, a bespectacled man with sunken cheeks and a rattling voice, had left his dacha to watch her from the shadows on several occasions. Ramson had mentioned that the former scholar had supervised the siphon experiments on Affinites while he worked for Kerlan.
Each Affinity, Ana had learned, bore its own characteristics. Her blood Affinity fit her like a well-used glove, but the others—fire, ice, wood, earth, and a few others—were difficult to wrangle.
And shifting between them was the hardest of all—a technique she’d only practiced with the most powerful Affinities her siphon possessed.
It hadn’t escaped her that each of these Affinities had come from somewhere, from someone—a fact she was acutely aware of during every second of her training. Using them had felt like intruding on a private part of someone else’s soul; none but her own blood Affinity felt right to her, and even so, it felt distant. The Affinities in her siphon gave no tells, no distorted bulging of veins on her hands, no reddening of her irises. Ardonn had called the siphons unnatural, an unbalancing of the world, and it certainly felt that way.
Leaning forward to the looking glass in her dacha, Anatouched her fingers to her reflection’s eyes, and thought of the days when they would bleed crimson as she wielded her Affinity.
But this girl staring back at her from the looking glass was no longer Anastacya Mikhailov. She was the Red Tigress, leader of the rebellion, whose only purpose was to find the third relic and defeat Morganya. Whatever happened to the girl she had once been no longer mattered.
She simply had to live long enough to win the war.
Not long, now.
The chill of a true Cyrilian winter wrapped itself around her as she stepped outside, boots plunging into the thick snow. The sunrises up north were bleaker, and she found herself thinking of the picturesque ones in the Kingdom of Bregon that had seemed to set sky and sea on fire. Here, the sky held a monochrome duality of gray and white, watery light sludging across the horizon.
It was the fourth week of her campaign as the Red Tigress, and they were drawing close to the end of the journey. They had arrived just last night at Osengrad, a town close to the western border of Salskoff. It was the last planned stop on their campaign.
The camp was awake already, borscht and kashya bubbling over a fire. Soldiers clustered around: those from the Bregonian Navy, as well as new recruits without uniform. The sound of conversation and laughter lent Ana a sliver of warmth as she took her own bowl of rations. They were to march through town by dawn, knocking on doors and handing out posters for the Red Tigress, persuading people to gather in the town square. There, Ana would give her rallying speech.
Her soldiers were ready and waiting in formation, and as Ana surveyed their ranks, she couldn’t help but feel a surge of hope coursing through her tired body. Their efforts over the past moonhadn’t been for nothing: Their army had tripled in size. Between journeying, Daya and Ramson and the other Bregonian captains spent time teaching the new recruits, most of whom were civilians with no previous swordfighting skills.
For the Affinites who joined them, Ana supervised their training, along with Yuri and his team of Redcloak Affinites. Between writing speeches and making copies of posters and organizing the movement, however, they were all stretched thin—and though their army was growing in numbers, they would be woefully unprepared to face trained soldiers of Morganya’s Imperial Inquisition.
“Morning.” Daya drew up by her side, leading two valkryfs. “Sleep well?”
Ana took the reins of her steed. “As well as I can,” she replied, studying her friend’s face. “You?” There were dark circles under Daya’s eyes, and she held a canteen of hot koffee. Daya was responsible for the units they had sent out to the rest of Cyrilia; she’d remained in contact with them, frequently penning letters deep into the night.
Daya’s grin was laced with fatigue. “As well as I can,” she echoed, and swung herself onto her steed. “Last run of the show. Let’s do this.”
Ana followed, ignoring the cramp in her side and the way her arms and legs shook with the effort. She steadied herself on the saddle and, drawing a deep breath, lifted a hand in signal to her army.
