Yuri and Daya had reached Ana first, on the scaffold earlier that day; he’d only watched as a team of soldiers lifted her onto a stretcher and carried her away to be examined by healers.
Ramson had followed at a distance. He’d gone about his daily duties, training new recruits and taking reports from the scouts Daya had sent to Southern Cyrilia to help them recruit in regions where they could not reach.
It had been dusk when he’d finally returned to this dacha, where Tetsyev and Ardonn had settled to continue their research. Ramson had assigned his squad to monitor the two scholars fulltime, and to help carry the books they collected from libraries in the towns they passed. Ramson could hear the rumble of his men’s conversation outside; he imagined Tetsyev and Ardonn would be hunched over their desk, a single candle lit between them as they browsed through tome after tome of lore, legend,and alchemical theory. He’d spent many a night sitting by their sides, attempting to make sense of the theories they’d posited.
Daya had been grateful when he’d offered to relieve her of her duty of watching over Ana in the late afternoon. He’d spent the evening attempting to get through the book Ardonn had assigned him, but he’d found himself distracted, glancing outside the cracked glass window every so often, hoping against hope to see the outline of a Bregonian seadove appear in the cloud-ridden skies. He’d yet to receive a response from King Darias since his last letter. It was one he hadn’t consulted Ana on, and he hadn’t needed to: It concerned a private Trade that King Darias had offered him.
Finally, as his thoughts were anywhere but on the pages before him, Ramson slammed his book shut and turned to Ana. Even in her sleep, she looked tense, her brows creased in a permanent frown.
He nearly smiled. Almost against his own volition, he reached his hand out. Ramson hesitated only a moment before he pressed his thumb to her brow. Gently, he traced out her frown line, remembering that the last time he’d done this, she’d leaned into his touch, smiled up at him. It had been dawn, her face had been streaked in sunlight, and everything had seemed dusted in a layer of tentative hope. “I know what Ardonn told me about the core, about reversing the siphon’s effects,” he said. “I’m going to find it, Ana. I’m just as stubborn as you, and I don’t like to lose.”
She shifted, and her lips moved in a murmur so faint, he might have missed it.
Ramson.
He sat there, numbness seeping into him, every inch of his skin buzzing with what he’d just heard.
Ana’s eyes fluttered open, her gaze landing straight on him. It was soft, open, without a trace of hostility—the way she’d looked at him that night, lying in his arms. “Ramson?”
He leapt to his feet and stumbled back as though burned.
Someone knocked on the door, several sharp raps. “Captain,” came Narron’s voice, “Alchemist Tetsyev and Scholar Ardonn request your immediate presence.”
“Coming,” Ramson called. He thought he heard Ana mumble something, but he was already pushing through the door.
Tetsyev and Ardonn had stacked piles of books around their worktable, along with scrolls of notes they’d accumulated over their visits to any available library in the towns they’d passed. He was surprised to see Olyusha leaning over Ardonn’s desk, tinkering with several glass vials. In the back of the room, three others from Ramson’s squad were in the midst of a game of Crib the King. They straightened and saluted as he entered behind Narron.
Ramson pulled out a chair and sat. Ardonn’s complexion had improved drastically over the past moon under Olyusha’s care; his cheeks had filled out, his skin was back to its healthy tan, and the effects of his poisoning were but a shadow across his face.
“Ah, Captain Farrald,” he said slowly, mockingly, leaning back in his chair and regarding him with that sly smile. “An honor, itis.”
The several times Ardonn had been wont to give Ramson attitude, Ramson had been all too happy to help him understand what exactly happened if the scholar did not uphold his end of the bargain. All it had required was an isolated basement and some of their former master Alaric Kerlan’s most persuasive techniques.
Ramson ignored him and turned to Tetsyev. The Cyrilian alchemist’s face was lined, rings under his eyes from the little sleep they had all been getting. Ramson had never thought there would be a situation where Pyetr Tetsyev was his preferred choice, but here they were.
“Captain Farrald,” Tetsyev said, jotting down a last note on a piece of parchment before setting down his pen. The way he spoke Ramson’s title held none of the mockery that Ardonn used.
Ramson pulled a piece of parchment toward himself, casting a cursory glance at the notes. There were diagrams, too, and formulas he could only imagine would take years of studies in the field of alchemy to understand. “Well?” He spread his arms in a shrug. “You called.”
“First things first,” Olyusha interjected. She lifted a hand; between her fingers, a small glass vial shimmered. She shook it, and the liquid inside sloshed. “It’s been a hells of a pain working withhim,but…I’ve done it.” She threw a glare at Ardonn. “Well, Bregonian arse? Won’t you explain?”
“The woman is a gods-damned demon from the fieriest pits,” Ardonn muttered in Bregonian. At Ramson’s look, however, he straightened and flicked a finger at the vial Olyusha held. “One aspect of our Trade, fulfilled. This is the elixir you asked for, Ramson Farrald.”
The room suddenly narrowed to the small glass vial, its reflections lancing light crystals on the ceiling. Ramson stepped forward; Olyusha handed it to him. It felt so small, so frail between his fingers.
“She is exhibiting the same symptoms as our magen near the end,” Ardonn said quietly. “Should she choose to take the elixir, it is now or never.”
The room pulsed, and from the swirls of innocuously clear liquid in the vial, a memory found Ramson.Should you wish to claw back a life that belonged to the gods, that life will be a cursed one. One that drove many of our subjects to the brink of madness, to the depths of despair.
He thought of Ana, the blaze in her eyes and the fierce yearning for life she had always held.
Madness. Despair. He wanted to hurl the concoction across the room.
Ramson looked up. “And the core?” he asked in Cyrilian this time, gaze pinning Ardonn and Tetsyev in turn. “Have you results yet?”
Tetsyev drew a long breath, pinched the bridge of his nose, and let it out again. Slowly, he nodded. “Scholar Ardonn and I have combined his existing knowledge with new research over the past moon,” he began. “The records are few and far between, often steeped in mythology and folklore, but…they exist. Some were even taken from foreign lands; the Aseatic kingdoms possess a much deeper and fuller knowledge of our origins and the magic in this world than we do.”
“I honestly couldn’t care less about the process of your research. No offense,” Ramson added. “Not the scholarly type. Your findings?”
