newborn. May’s head lolled against Shamaïra’s shoulder, and Ana remembered the times she had carried May after a long day of travel. She hadn’t minded the weight back then.
Now that was all Ana had left: memories, and the ghost of May’s weight in her empty arms.
Shamaïra’s dacha had a garden covered in overgrown vines and potted plants of every species imaginable, some of which Ana hadn’t come across even in her studies at the Palace. She pushed past the ferns, venturing deeper into the silence. The scent of fresh, overturned mud and melted snow and the mysterious fragrance of plants lingered in the cool night air. Behind the yard loomed the vast outline of the Syvern Taiga.
Ana leaned against a wooden trellis, wrapping her arms around herself. The cold crept into her bones, but she might as well have been frozen—a girl carved of ice.
She felt as though if she let herself thaw, she would lose everything.
Someone moved behind her. Ana knew that presence like it was a part of her: warmth and light and flame, the smell of the kitchen hearth and freshly baked ptychy’moloko and hot tea served in a silver samovar. She turned, and it was like gazing at a stranger. The boy she had known had been soft, cheeks round and pale from the comforts of the Palace, hair shorn short. He’d laughed easily, his eyes had sparkled, and if she closed her eyes she could see him turning from the fire in the kitchen, sweat shimmering on his forehead and soot on his face.
Now, only twelve moons later, he towered over her, muscles replacing his thin freckled arms, chin chiseled and shadowed with scruff. His hair had grown to his shoulders, swept up in a ponytail that shone like a flame when it caught the light. There was a hardness to his coal-gray eyes that had never been there before.
They watched each other for a minute, Ana looking for traces of the boy she’d known. It was as though he had become a stranger. She reached out, tentatively, to touch a cut on his neck.
Something melted in Yuri’s expression. “It’s me, Kolst Pryntsessa,” he murmured as he caught her hands, his own rough and calloused. Ana choked down a sob as she looked at them, remembering how the creases of his fingers had always been stained white with flour.
As Yuri pulled her into his arms, she buried her face in his strong shoulders, searching for the scent of baked goods and sweat and kitchen soot. Instead, she smelled fire and smoke.
But he was still Yuri—her Yuri, the one who had sat outside her chambers during her worst nightmares. The one who’d brought trays of pirozhky pies to her just so he could crouch outside the crack of her door and whisper to her.
“Call me Ana,” she whispered when she finally drew away, swiping at her tears.
“I thought you were dead,” Yuri choked. He was crying, too. “The Court announced—”
“I didn’t kill Papa.” The words tumbled from Ana’s mouth brokenly, pleadingly. “I was trying to save him—but I couldn’t—”
“I know,” Yuri said. “I know you, Ana. You always shared your treats with me, no matter how much you liked them. You cried over your pet rabbit for moons on end. You would never do anything like that.”
His confirmation sent fresh tears to her eyes and made her feel weak and strong at the same time. “Papa was poisoned, Yuri.”
“Poisoned?”
Ana nodded. “I saw a man that night—it was the Palace alchemist who left many years ago. He fed my Papa something, and I watched him die.” She shuddered, and Yuri locked his arm around her firmly. “I was trying to draw the poison out.” Ana closed her eyes, leaning into her friend, and the words spilled from her. “It was a slow poison, Yuri—it smelled exactly like the bitter medicine Papa was taking all along. It was never helping him to get better—it was making his illness worse. That night was the final dose.”
Yuri stiffened by her side. “Deities,” he cursed softly.
Ana paused at Yuri’s terrified expression.
“Ana,” he said, his hand tightening on her shoulder. “There’s something you must know. The Kolst Imperator—your brother…he’s sick.”
Her head spun at the words. “What?”
“It’s exactly what your father had. The Palace thinks it’s a genetic condition passed down from him. Coughing, weakness, and confusion of mind.” Yuri shuddered. “But if what you’re saying is true, then he’s being poisoned as well.”
Coughing. Weakness. Confusion of mind. Ana grasped the trellis behind