They drew closer, and Ana’s Affinity sensed blood flowing warm through two bodies.
She and Ramson paused around the corner. The entrance to the main section of the Palace was right in front of them.
The two men guarding the door barely had a moment to react as she fixed her Affinity upon them, holding them in place. Ramson proceeded to calmly take the cuffs on each guard’s belt and chain the men to cell doors, gagging them with their own shirts.
“That was easy,” he whispered, joining her at the door.
“There used to be more prisoners and guards down here,” Ana said. Praying that there was nothing on the other side of the door, she opened it a crack.
A spiral of stairs led up to the ground floor of the Palace, letting out in a hallway next to the servants’ living area. There would be a doorway into their rooms right next to the dungeon entrance. She’d seen Yuri emerge from it dozens of times, peering at her as Sadov led her down. The sight had given her comfort back then.
Ana and Ramson shut the door behind them and stole up the twisting staircase.
They emerged into an empty hallway. The dungeons were at the back of the Palace, and on a night like this, most Palace occupants had no reason to be there. They hurried down the familiar marble floors and silver-lined walls of her childhood until they reached a pedestal with a Kemeiran vase. Next to it, the thinnest of crevices ran up along the wall. A secret door—one of the many around the Palace—that led to the hidden servants’ hallways.
Ana threw her weight against it and pushed. The door gave way, and she slipped inside, just as she’d seen Yuri do so many times.
They were in a narrow hallway lined with shelves that were stacked with white linens and clean tablecloths, ready to be transported to their destinations.
They found a rack of guest gowns and tunics and shivered as they shed their wet clothes. Ana sighed as she dried herself with a soft cotton towel. She slipped on a gown that fit her—crimson, in a neat, simple cut. She dried her hair as best as she could, running her fingers through the snarls to smooth them so she wouldn’t look too out of place. And, as she waited for Ramson to finish changing, Ana finally let herself touch a hand to the cream-colored walls. This was real. She was home again.
Ana drew a deep breath. When she reopened her eyes, it felt as though she had shed the skin of the lost girl who hated herself and feared the world. She stood straighter, squared her shoulders, and lifted her chin.
She was the Crown Princess of Cyrilia and the Blood Witch of Salskoff in one, and tonight, she would take back her empire.
“Kolst Pryntsessa.” Ramson stood by the door in a fresh navy-blue doublet, his hair still wet and tousled, curling at the nape of his neck. “Are you ready?”
The halls were blessedly empty when they stepped out, yet with each twist and turn of the path, Ana reached out farther with her Affinity, expecting at any moment to happen upon guards or servants or other guests.
As they turned to the corridor that led to the Grand Throneroom, Ana gave a soft gasp. She’d been so tense that she hadn’t paid attention to where they were going.
A grand hallway materialized before her as though from a dream, with sweeping marble balustrades and crystal chandeliers that cast the whole place in golden light. Pillars rose as high as the arched ceilings, statues of Deities and angels poised atop as though they had just alighted from the heavens. The Hall of Deities.
“Hello again, old friends.”
Ana and Ramson spun around. The voice had made Ana’s blood freeze even before she caught sight of the speaker.
Dressed in an immaculate suit of deep violet, a gold fountain pen glinting at his breast, a man stood beaming at them from ten paces away. It wasn’t until she heard Ramson’s sharp intake of breath and caught sight of the plant with the small bell-shaped flowers pinned to his lapel that she realized who it was.
Alaric Kerlan, the Head of the Order of the Lily, spread his hands in a magnanimous gesture.
“Ah, what spectacular company we have. The Princess and the con man.” Alaric Kerlan stood ten paces away from them, his smile stretching from ear to ear. “I’ve been waiting for you.”