when he’d been on the streets and hadn’t eaten for days. It felt like his muscles had atrophied and given out, as though all the strength had been drained from him.
He gasped and crumpled to the floor. Move, he commanded his body, but his arms were still as stone on the plush red carpet, as though they didn’t even belong to him.
Polished black shoes rounded the desk. Kerlan bent and slowly, deliberately, picked up the dagger Ramson had dropped. “Fine little blade,” he murmured, and then his gaze dropped back to Ramson. The expression on his face almost resembled pity, but Ramson knew better. Kerlan was savoring this moment.
From the hallway outside, a woman slipped in. Her hair, so black that it caught a blue sheen beneath the lamplight, and bronze skin marked her to be from one of the Aseatic Isles kingdoms. She leaned against the wall, tall and athletic, watching Ramson like a cougar watching its prey.
“How careless of me,” Kerlan sighed, tapping his temple and looking genuinely confused. “I forgot to introduce you. Meet Nita, our newest member, and Deputy to the Order of the Lily.”
Ramson’s head spun; it felt like his muscles had melted into water and his lungs were collapsing upon themselves. As though from a distance, he heard Kerlan continue. “I think she would be classified as a flesh Affinite, though her Affinity lies in manipulating strength. Strength in your muscles, in your organs, in your heart…”
Even as he spoke, pain throbbed through Ramson’s chest, sending spasms of nausea shooting through him. He choked a gasp.
Kerlan chuckled. Nita smiled. And then there was the cold, hard drag of a blade on his cheeks as Kerlan held Ramson’s dagger to his face.
Terror locked its grip across Ramson’s throat. He’d seen Kerlan torture men; he’d stood there and handed Kerlan the scalpels.
“As I said, dear boy, I like to play with my food, so don’t worry. I’m keeping you for later.” Kerlan stood, brushing off his immaculate indigo suit and pocketing Ramson’s dagger. His shadow fell over Ramson, blotting out the world. “I’ll have to beg your pardon and take my leave for now. I do hope I’ve been a good enough host. But after all, I have a ball to get to—there are some rather important guests tonight, I’d say.” Kerlan’s teeth flashed. “And, it seems, I have a very special girl to find.”
No. But Ramson’s scream was trapped in his throat, his body paralyzed as he watched Kerlan’s retreating back disappear into the hallway outside. And then Nita stepped forward and the pressure on his chest increased, his throat constricting, his body growing numb.
Black spots dotted his vision, and soon he was drowning in darkness.
The snow fell thicker now, whirling in flurries beneath each swinging lamp that lit the veranda. Their shadows swayed unsteadily as Ana hurried past them. The few guests who had been outside had retreated inside. Laughter and music and light spilled from the tall windows and open doors of the banquet hall, cloaking Ana’s footsteps as she ran. Down the marble steps, past the balustrades of the veranda—and then she was on the ground floor, behind a pillar that supported the balconies.
Her heart pounded an uneven beat in her chest as she hid in the shadows, watching. It was him—it was undoubtedly him, Ana thought, taking in the white of the man’s cloak, the smooth skin of his head, and the paleness of his fingers as he raised them to the skies. A silver Deys’krug flashed around his neck, and she recalled with sudden sickness that he’d worn almost the same outfit exactly one year ago, when he’d murdered Papa.
Tetsyev made a circular motion across his chest, the sign of respect to the Cyrilian Deities, and tilted his face to the sky.
Ramson had coached her on how to construct the perfect ruse—her as a messenger from Kerlan, asking Tetsyev to examine the Deys’voshk in Kerlan’s basement before the newest shipment of Affinites arrived.
But lies and trickery were how Ramson would conduct his scheme. They were not, Ana realized now, how she did things.
Ana flared her Affinity. The garden lit up in shades of dark and light—and the flaming body of blood that was Tetsyev a dozen steps in front of her.
Ana strode forward. Tetsyev’s back was to her, and the snow muffled her footsteps. Her entire body shook. Something dangerous had coiled tightly in her stomach.