could barely breathe. Throughout her childhood, she’d come to fear public events. All those eyes on her, the voices whispering, wrapping stories and lies around her. She wanted nothing more than to disappear, to run out those doors and never look back.
But, Ana thought, that had never been an option. Fail, or try—the choice had always been hers.
She swallowed, straightened, and held the Admiral’s gaze. “You must be mistaken, Admiral,” she said, her voice carrying across the hall, loud and clear. “For I am a girl, and I am standing in your halls. I only ask for an audience with the Bregonian government.” She turned, and this time spoke only to the King. “Your Royal Majesty. Please hear me out. I come seeking an alliance with you.”
“I think not,” the Admiral said, and stepped in front of the throne. His hand went to the hilt of the great sword at his hip. “You come into these halls requesting an audience—an alliance—yet you bring in unwelcome guests.” He turned suddenly, and that was when his gaze slid to Ramson for the first time. “A traitor and deserter kneels among us. Guards, arrest Ramson Farrald.”
* * *
—
It felt as though the ground were tilting beneath Ana.
The slice of metal sounded all throughout the hall as the Royal Guards lining Godhallem drew their swords in unison. By her side, Linn reached for her daggers.
Bewildered, Ana held up a hand. “Admiral—”
A hand closed over her shoulder, warm and steady. “Trust me,” Ramson murmured. He stepped forward, positioning himself between the dais and her, misericord drawn. “I didn’t expect this warm a welcome,” he said, his voice growing sharp, “Admiral.”
A shadow peeled off from the walls at the side of the hall. Sorsha drew her sword from its scabbard, flashing silver in the sunlight. “He’s mine,” she called out.
“Kolst Imperatorya.” Kaïs’s voice was low, urgent, his hands on his two swords.
“Ana,” whispered Linn. “We must fight.”
Ana’s mind raced. Fighting could mean the end of a potential alliance before she even asked. In none of her negotiation classes back at the Salskoff Palace, the trials she had studied with Luka, had the requesting party ever shown force—on the foreign party’s soil, no less.
And yet…Ana’s gaze darted to Ramson, standing before her, misericord raised. He’d barely gotten away from his last fight with Sorsha, and Ana doubted the Admiral would play fair.
He’s just like me, Ramson had said to her on the boat when she’d asked how she could win over his father. To win, you have to make him an offer he can’t resist.
The Ramson Quicktongue she’d met back at Ghost Falls, back when all of this had started, had seemed so different from the one she’d come to know. She thought back to their first meeting in that dacha, when she’d made her first Trade with him. What had he wanted, back then?
Revenge. And…
Something he wouldn’t find anywhere else.
The answer came to her, so painfully obvious. It would be a risky move, and it could jeopardize their entire mission—or save them.
Besides, if the Admiral wasn’t going to play by the rules, then why should she?
“Bring the traitor to me,” the Admiral said, and Ana’s decision clicked into place.
Sorsha’s sword flashed.
Ana flung her Affinity out.
Sorsha’s scream echoed in the hall as her body whipped back, slamming against several seats with court officials sitting in them. Her blade clattered to the ground, amid cries of panic and screeching metal as the officials overturned chairs to scramble out of the way.
Ana pulled Sorsha back as easily as though she were a doll, dragging her across the polished searock floor until she was at Ana’s feet. With a flick in her mind, Sorsha was in the air, limbs splayed like those of a martyr, head tilted back so that the flesh of her neck was exposed.
Red crept into the corners of Ana’s vision, and the familiar urge to hurt flickered beneath it all.
She turned her focus to the Admiral. He held up a hand. Instantly, the shouts and sounds of swords being drawn died down as all of Godhallem turned to watch him.
The Admiral was smiling. He looked at Ana, trailing his gaze up her body slowly, drinking her in as though she were a prized possession, an object in which he’d discovered renewed interest.
Before, she might have felt disgust, even anger, at the way he looked at her. But now, Ana felt only triumph. Her ploy had worked; the Admiral had caught on to her