Ana almost took it. But in the darkness, she saw the eerie veins still pulsing from her flesh. She thought of the blood red of her eyes. The bodies of the two brokers, blood pooling around them. And Ramson, lying unconscious on the floor.
She took a step back. “It’s best that I don’t,” she whispered.
Sorrow clouded Yuri’s eyes. “I stand by what I said earlier,” he said quietly. “The future lies here, with us. In the hands of the people.”
“I’ll fix it,” Ana found herself whispering. Yet the meaning of the sentence had blurred. What, exactly, was she going to fix when she went back to her Palace? She thought of Luka and his words that had defined her entire life; of Papa, turning away from her bedside that day, and then convulsing beneath her bloodstained hands. Of red blood and white snow at the Salskoff Vyntr’makt; of the broker’s skin stained crimson.
Monster.
Deimhov.
She was going to fix herself, Ana realized, guilt seeping into her stomach. For so long, she had held on to the idea that if she could find the alchemist and avenge the murder of her papa, then somehow she would be redeemed, too.
Redemption was something Ana had to earn; she needed to learn to forgive herself before she could fight for others.
Yet the Affinites of her empire could not wait for the equality that they deserved. And there already was a person who could lead them to it.
Ana took Yuri’s hands. “You will make a great leader, Yuri,” she said. “I pledge my heart to you, and my service to fighting for all Affinites. But first I need to fix the mistakes I’ve made.”
Yuri pressed her knuckles to his lips. “When you’re ready,” he said, “send a snowhawk to Goldwater Port. I plan to establish a stronghold there, in the south. Our revolution will begin there.” He drew her into his arms. “And remember that I love you, no matter what you choose.”
“I love you too, my friend.”
She clutched him tightly, breathing in the scent of his smoke and fire, closing her eyes and wishing she could stay like this forever.
She felt Yuri slip something around her neck; it tinkled, warm against her skin. Ana lifted it into her palm. The pendant winked at her: a small silver circle divided evenly into quarters, one for each season.
“A Deys’krug,” Yuri said, taking her hand. “We will come full circle again.”
“We will find each other again,” Ana reaffirmed, because the possibility that this was the last time they would see each other was something she couldn’t bear to voice. “Will you ask Shamaïra to take care of Ramson? Tell him I’m sorry, and that…I’ll come find him after it’s all over, to honor our Trade.”
Somewhere along the way, between Shamaïra’s dacha and the endless stretch of night, she’d made up her mind. Ramson’s body hurtling across the room, curled up against the wall bloodied—that had been her doing.
She could not let anyone else get hurt because of her. She would find him again—or he would find her—after this was all over, and she would pay him for his help. But now she would go and find her alchemist alone.
If Yuri had questions, he didn’t ask them. Instead, he only said, “I will.”
Ana gently dropped his hands and stepped back. “Deys blesya ty, Yuri.” Deities bless you. It was a phrase said not in farewell but in hope and well-wishing; a phrase reserved for the ones closest to your heart.
“Deys blesya ty, Kolst Pryntsessa.” His voice was faint in the silence of the night as she turned from him and began to make her way back to Novo Mynsk. Back to the inn, where her rucksack and outfits and parchments of plans and maps lay, waiting for her. Waiting for Kerlan’s Fyrva’snezh.
She sensed the spark of Yuri’s blood growing farther and smaller, alone against the Syvern Taiga, watching her until her feet hit the cobblestone streets of the city and dachas sprang up all around her again. And when she looked back toward the forest, Yuri and Shamaïra’s dacha had disappeared, swallowed by the infinite night as though they’d never existed in the first place.
It was dawn by the time she found her way back to the inn where she and Ramson had set up camp. Her belongings and room lay untouched beneath a faint dusting of gold light