Palace, she had found it hard to fathom that she had the choice to fight any battles at all, let alone imagine that the Deities had marked her.
But perhaps her aunt had been right, Ana now realized as she sat beneath the cool, moonlit gaze of the same silent Deities. The Deities had never answered her prayers—but perhaps all those years of silence were a message. It is up to us to fight our battles in this world.
Her eyes landed on the carving of a young child sitting in a field. Petals whirled around her in a phantom wind, and her eyes were crinkled with laughter. The first time Ana had woken up in that empty barn, May had crouched in the snow outside, nursing a small flower back to life. Ana thought of when she had followed May back to her employer’s house; of the woman’s spiteful words and sharp hands.
She thought of the broker back at Kyrov, of his cold eyes and pale hair. Of the Imperial Patrols, cloaks billowing the bright whites and blues of Cyrilia, tiger insignia roaring proudly on their chests.
Of the yaeger crouched before her in defeat, hunter turned victim.
Of May staggering, eyes wide with surprise, as the arrow hit her. Of the blackstone wagon doors swinging shut.
How had the Empire fallen to this? The Cyrilian Empire Ana had always held so fiercely and faithfully in her heart was as proud and as strong as its white tiger sigil, its laws unimpeachable and its rulers benevolent. Yet what she had witnessed the past few days told her otherwise. Sinister shadows had sprung up in the spaces between laws, preying on those without the protection of status or wealth.
Or had it always been like this? Ice crawled up her veins, and Ana thought of how quickly mamika Morganya had been dismissed the time she had brought up Affinite indenturement. Of the way the Palace courtiers had whispered about Mama’s Southern Cyrilian origins. Of how Ana had been deemed a monster solely because of her Affinity.
Perhaps, Ana thought, the world had never been fair. She had only noticed too late.
But her mamika was right.
If there was to be fairness in this world, it wasn’t to be granted by the Deities. And it started one step at a time.
By the time Ramson’s footsteps sounded down the hallway, Ana had made up her mind. “We’re going after May,” she said quietly as he strolled into view, clutching two rolls of bread wrapped in a handkerchief.
Ramson sat down across from her and set the rolls on his lap. “You sound convinced.” He tilted his head back and waved at the wall carvings around them. “Let me guess: being the devout dama that you are, you probably prayed to the Deities—and of course, they advised you to do the right thing, and not the expedient, selfish thing.”
“The Deities don’t answer my prayers,” she replied.
Ramson gave her a crooked smile. “That makes two of us.”
Ana reached forward and snatched a roll. The bread was cold and hard, but she tore through it in several bites. “Why don’t the Deities like you? What’s wrong with you?” It felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from her chest; whereas before, she would have shied away from such a daring topic of conversation, now the words flowed easily from her.
Ramson snorted. “What’s wrong with me?” he repeated, ripping off a chunk of his bread. “Is that a rhetorical question? Let’s see.” Ramson scratched his chin, faking a look of concentration as he began to tick off his fingers. “Youngest crime lord of the Empire, selfish, calculating, backstabbing, oh, and let’s not forget, sinfully handsome—need I go on?”
“Do you ever answer anything seriously?”
“I answer everything seriously.”
Ana rolled her eyes and swallowed her last bite of bread. Her stomach gave a gurgle of hunger, but her thoughts turned to May. Had she eaten yet? Was she cold? “I want to leave as soon as the sun rises.”
Ramson nodded. “Good idea.” An unspoken, disconcerting thought flitted between them: The Syvern Taiga was where the most dangerous creatures in Cyrilia roamed at night. Ana had heard of ruskaly lights leading tired travelers astray, of giant moonbears thrice the height of a normal human, of icewolf spirits that sprang from nothing but the snow.
“It took us one full day to reach Kyrov from Ghost Falls,” she mused aloud. “Novo Mynsk is almost ten times as far.”
“We have a valkryf,” Ramson noted. “By my calculation, it’ll take us