like a living, breathing fog. Everything began to smell like blood.
Ana straightened. Her chest was a hollow hole. There was no grief there. Not yet. Once she let her sorrow in, she would be pulled under its waters and never surface again.
No…that empty space inside her flickered with rage. Smoldering. Churning.
The redness roiled, tendrils snaking toward the pulsing blood in the room. A delicious darkness spread within her. Ana leaned toward it.
Her world erupted in crimson. She staggered back, squeezing her eyes shut and gulping in ragged breaths. Slowly, like silhouettes in a fog, the world came into focus in her mind, mapped by blood. It grew stronger and sharper, and when it settled, she felt as though she had been looking at the world through a darkened window…until now.
Everything was vivid, visceral. Her Affinity was sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste, all combined into one. She could see each and every drop of blood spattered on the floor, glistening as bright as stars in the night sky. She smelled the liquor swirling in the veins of all the guests; tasted the adrenaline and fear churning within; heard the desperate pounding of their hearts.
A twisted sense of peace settled over her. She reached out, and her attention caught on a figure slowly backing away behind her. His blood was as cold as darkness; it smelled of rot and tasted like death.
Without moving, without even opening her eyes, she dragged him toward her as a child might drag a rag doll. She felt his scream in the vibrations of his veins.
He cowered before her, his Affinity crushed beneath her power. Ana opened her eyes. “Sadov,” she murmured.
He stared up at her, the dagger in his hand still coated in Luka’s blood.
A mere flick in her mind and he was dangling before her, limbs splayed out like a butterfly on a board. Where should I start? Where will it hurt the most?
Fear rippled across Sadov’s features. “N-no, Kolst Pryntsessa,” he whispered. “P-please…”
She smiled at him. “ ‘You little monster,’ ” she crooned, tightening her grip on him so that he cried out in pain. “Isn’t that what you always said to me?”
He screamed, his face turning red from her hold on his blood. Foam bubbled from his mouth. With his face contorted in pain, he truly looked like a creature from hell, a deimhov from a nightmare.
“You wanted a monster,” Ana hissed. With a crack, blood began to drip from Sadov’s nose. “Here I am.”
She’d never thought she would savor the utter terror that warped his face at this moment, that she’d feel a burst of delight at each drop of blood that fell to the floor.
Through the red haze of her Affinity, she felt someone else watching her. The gaze was familiar and unfamiliar at once. Morganya’s pale eyes were trained on her, and it suddenly felt as though she were a child again. There was a kind of approval shining from that gaze.
Approval. Something churned in Ana’s stomach. She stared back, Sadov dangling before her like a marionette, struggling for air. All the while, Morganya merely watched.
Morganya was not going to stop Ana if she killed Sadov. No—Morganya wanted her to kill Sadov.
An image flashed before her: a square of silver and snow, a crowd, and a crimson pool seeping into the cobblestones. Eight crumpled figures, limbs twisting in unnatural angles. They formed a circle around her, radiating like enormous petals of a gnarled flower.
Ana dropped to her knees and screamed. It stretched, long and thin, threatening to shatter her mind like glass.
It’s all right, sistrika. I’m here. Bratika’s here.
In her mind, she was back in her room, and Luka had wrapped his arms around her shoulders, murmuring soothing words.
The memory shifted, and he lay dying in her arms, crimson spreading across his tunic.
Promise me, he’d said.
He hadn’t only been asking her to promise to become Empress. No—Luka had always thought bigger than that. For her entire life, her brother had watched over her, saving her…saving her from what? Not from death. Not from the wrath of the world. Not even from Sadov, or from Morganya.
Luka had been protecting her from the darkness of her Affinity; from the version of herself she could have—and could still—become.
To kill Sadov, to take her revenge…that was the choice that would make her a monster.
Promise me.
The world dulled. The red receded. She released Sadov and he crumpled to the floor. The fury, the bloodlust, and the blinding rage that had consumed her withdrew like a receding