the true worth of things.” Linn’s clothes rustled as she knelt before Ana and grasped her hands. “There is nothing we can do but go on, one day at a time. We live in their memory, taking the breaths they cannot draw again, catching the warmth of the sunlight that they were meant to feel.”
The knot in Ana’s chest loosened a little; she brushed the back of her hand against her cheek, wiping away her tears.
Linn held out her hands. “Come. There is something I want to show you.”
Linn opened the cabin door and disappeared. Ana followed, and when she reached the open doorway, the cold and the sight before her stole her breath.
Outside, the sky was aglow with currents of hazy blue lights that shifted and ebbed like gentle waves, their soft glow reflected on the dark tree lines of the Syvern Taiga. A smattering of stars glittered like silver dust caught in between. And, from time to time, a wave would break away and dip down, down, down, until it disappeared beyond the trees of the Syvern Taiga.
“The Deities’ Lights,” Ana whispered. She had read of these in her studies, had craned her neck at her bedroom window for a glimpse, but the walls of the Salskoff Palace had always stood too tall. “They’re…beautiful.”
Linn grasped her hand and pointed. “Look.”
A cold wind brushed past them, and the entire forest seemed to whisper in response. At the edge of the trees, snow swirled from the ground as though stirred by phantom fingers. Ana watched as one of the drifts of snow swept into the air, twirling faster and faster until it took the shape of a deer. Beneath the blue glow of the Deities’ Lights, the silver conjuration looked ghostly as it took a graceful step forward.
“Ice spirits,” Linn whispered, hushed excitement in her tone.
Another gust of wind scattered snow that took the shape of a running fox, and then there was a bounding rabbit, and a soaring eagle plunged into a weaving sky that looked alive.
Half-fascinated, half-afraid, Ana took a step back. “Linn, these spirits can be dangerous.”
Linn shook her head. “Only some. When I was with the brokers, they often made us sleep outside as punishment. The ice spirits kept me company.” She turned to Ana, and the lights and snow reflected silver in her dark eyes. “I wanted to show you because I think there is good and bad in everything, Ana. And it is the good of this world that makes it worth saving.”
Ana closed her eyes. The silence, the lights, and the snow made everything seem dreamlike, and she wanted for this night to never end. “When Ramson freed you, you could have taken your freedom without choosing the Trade. Why didn’t you?”
Linn placed her hands together and clasped her fingers to form an oval. “Action, and counteraction,” she said patiently. “My people believe that every action has a counteraction. Yin and yang; moon and sun; night and day. Ramson saved me, therefore I saved you.” She said this simply, confidently, as though it were as easy as differentiating between black and white.
Ana wrapped her arms around herself. In the absolute quiet, it felt like they were the only two beings alive, and the confession unfurled with a plume of her breath in the frosty air. “I’m afraid, Linn.”
“That’s good.” Linn gazed into the distance, where the ice spirits frolicked in their ever-shifting forms beneath the blue light of the Deities. “My mother told me that is when we can choose to be brave.”
“It doesn’t make it any easier.”
Linn cast her eyes down and smiled. “Want to know a secret?”
Ana found herself smiling back. “Sure.”
“I am afraid, too.” The words were a whisper in the wind. “But…there is something I want, a feeling stronger than my fear.”
“What is it?”
“Freedom.” Overhead, the shadow of a hawk soared beneath the shifting blue lights in the sky. Its screech pierced the night. “My traffickers stole my freedom and my voice. They led me to believe that there was nothing I could do. That there was no hope.” Linn’s eyes were closed. She drew a breath and turned her face to the shimmering lights outside. “I have waited so long to make a choice of my own. For every Affinite freed, like me, there are thousands of others still trapped in this system, invisible in the shadows. I choose to fight for them, for me. Which do you choose?”