sick and slowly faded from everyone’s memories over the years. He recalled the sweet noble’s lilt in her Cyrilian. The tilt of her chin, the command in her tone, the gravitas of her presence.
Ana was the Crown Princess of Cyrilia, the younger sister of Emperor Lukas Aleksander Mikhailov, and the heiress to the Cyrilian Empire and its sick, dying Emperor.
“I see you’ve finally pieced it all together.” Tetsyev looked amused.
Ramson’s head spun. But…no. “That’s impossible,” he said faintly. “She died a year ago. Executed for treason.”
“No. One year ago, I murdered the late Emperor Aleksander Mikhailov.” Tetsyev’s voice shook. “Princess Anastacya…was framed for it that night. She was accused of murder, but she tried to run and drowned before the trial. Or so the story goes.”
Ramson clutched his chest, his breaths coming short as he stared at Tetsyev. The alchemist. He heard Ana’s voice in his head, the urgency to her tone when she spoke of him. And when he’d asked—many times throughout their journey—she hadn’t relented a word as to why she was after him.
“You murdered her father and then framed her for it?” With sickening realization, he thought back to the number of times he had threatened her with her alchemist, dangling her quarry before her and forcing her to comply to his terms. And all along, this was the reason she sought him.
Tetsyev’s voice was raw with regret. “It is more complicated than that.”
Ramson thought of his own choices. The story was always more complicated. But that didn’t justify anything. Neither did it change anything.
“Please, listen to me. We haven’t much time.” Tetsyev’s tone was pleading. “Countess Morganya has been plotting to overthrow the Mikhailov line for years. The Princess is on her way to Salskoff now, to stop her.” Tetsyev knelt before Ramson. “I begged Kerlan to let me heal you. I convinced him to drag it out, to make you live longer and suffer more.
“I saved you for a reason. The Princess needs help. This empire needs help. And she cannot do it alone.” Tetsyev’s face had settled as he watched Ramson, and resolve flickered in his eyes. “Even if you won’t go, I will. For so many years, I have been robbed of the power to make a choice. I am making that choice now.” He stood, straightening his reedy frame and adjusting his white alchemist’s cloak. A silver Deys’krug circlet hung over his neck, half-hidden beneath his worship robes. “I’m going after the Princess. And I’m going to help her.”
Your choices, whispered a small voice. Jonah’s voice. Your heart is your compass.
He’d known for some time now, felt the irrepressible tug on his chest toward her. With each smile, each frown, each word, she’d drawn him in, slowly, irrevocably. And that slow, smoldering flame had roared to life beneath a winter sky of snow, glowing brighter than anything else in his life. She was the bearing to his compass, the dawn that his ship had been chasing for so long over an empty horizon.
My heart is my compass.
Ramson’s mind cleared. In the darkness of the dungeons, he could barely make out the retreating outline of the alchemist, the white flashes of his cloak as he hurried in the direction where the escape tunnel lay.
“Wait,” Ramson said.
Ana awoke to silence, snow, and stars. A cold draft stirred through the broken windowpanes of the dacha she and Linn had found. The fire in the hearth had gone out. From the soft, silver-blue glow of light beyond the tattered curtains, she could tell that it was still night. Dawn lingered, just out of reach.
Yet something had shifted in her senses. It took her a moment to realize that her Affinity was back.
Relief flooded her, and she sat up in the rugs and furs she and Linn had piled together for a makeshift bed. The girl was nowhere to be seen, but the soft whickering of their horses near the door told Ana that her companion would not be gone for long.
Ana clutched her head in her hands. She always felt off balance when her Affinity returned; it was like being able to see again, darkness slowly giving way to patches of light and blurred movement.
It had been a day since they’d ridden from the Kerlan Estate and escaped Sadov in the Syvern Taiga. In the semidarkness, she could still taste the nauseating fear that had coated her tongue, the hiss of Sadov’s voice from the shadows.
In five days’ time, your brother will announce his abdication due