Deities’ Lights were still fading from the sky, and the ghostly glimmers of ice spirits disappeared with the first cracks of the day.
At night, they ran through their plans. They would arrive just in time for the Coronation—so they would need to unveil Morganya’s conspiracy before Luka abdicated.
The Coronation would be the only time the Palace had a large enough number of people going in and out that they could enter without detection. Ana knew how these events worked; there would be a line of guest carriages for miles out. Guards would be posted at the Kateryanna Bridge, checking guests and tickets.
Their only chance was to intercept a carriage and swap places with the guests inside.
Ana would reveal herself once she was inside the palace and reunited with Luka. She would tell her brother and the Court everything, while Linn went to the apothecary’s wing to find the poison and the antidote, which would be evidence of her claims.
On the fourth and final day of their travels, there was a stillness in the air. The snow had stopped. The sun dusted the world in gold, and their horses’ steps were quiet in the soft layers of snow.
When Ana steered her horse between two tall pines, she found herself at a cliff’s edge. She gave a sharp tug on the reins, and when she looked up, a hundred emotions filled her.
The sun was rising over white-tipped mountains, transforming the snow-covered earth into a glittering canvas of corals and reds and pinks. Wisps of clouds streaked the waking sky, stained with the fiery orange rays of the sun. Tundra rolled out in every direction as far as the eye could see, interspersed with white pines and jagged mountains. And so far in the distance that it almost—almost—blended into the landscape were the shimmering white steeples and red-tiled roofs of Salskoff.
Home.
Winds—fresh and cold and scented like winter—caressed her cheeks, stroking her shoulders and the nape of her neck. Her hood tumbled from her head and her hair danced in the breeze.
Home. As she stared at the Palace in the distance—her Palace—a sense of doubt shadowed the longing that grasped her heart. There had been simpler times, when the halls rang with her and Luka’s laughter, when she would huddle by the door of her chambers at night and whisper to Yuri over a mug of hot chokolad. When Mama and mamika Morganya had sat together by her bed, stroking her hair until their murmurs faded into dreams.
But it was impossible to think of the Palace without thinking of the cracks that had spread over the years. Papa, turning away from her. Sadov, smiling at her pain. All this, built on the fabric of corruption that had allowed for the nobility to profit from the pain of Affinites.
Home would never again carry the same meaning for her, Ana realized. And as she straightened in her saddle, Shamaïra’s words whispered to her in the winter wind. No, Little Tigress—we take what we are given and we fight like hell to make it better.
Ana opened her eyes. She was the heiress of the Mikhailov line, the Little Tigress of Salskoff, and she was coming home.
In ten years, nothing and everything about her city had changed.
Walking through the moonlit and snow-dusted streets, hidden under her thick hood, Ana almost felt as though she were in a strange dream. The memories she had of Salskoff were all from her childhood, before she had been confined to the Palace. The dachas that she’d so fondly nicknamed “gingerbread houses” as a child were still there, smoke piping cheerfully from chimneys; the marketplaces that she and Luka had frequented (under Kapitan Markov’s sharp-eyed stare) sat festooned in decorative silver sashes; tall arches with marble statues of the Deities and the Cyrilian white tiger stood proud and regal over town squares and main streets.
At this time of year, the town was alight with festivities. Silver banners of the Cyrilian white tiger hung from every door, paper snowflakes fluttered between lampposts, and candles flickered softly on each doorstep as Salskoff welcomed their patron Deity of Winter. Most of the town had likely congregated at local pubs by the Tiger’s Tail river where they could see the Palace, awaiting news of the abdication and Coronation.
Ana and Linn had changed into modest, fur-lined woolen gowns to blend in at the Coronation, Ana’s a dark shade of green and Linn’s navy blue. Under the moonlight, the Kemeiran carved a slender figure, but Ana