the blue carpet beneath him; blood dripped onto her hands and legs; blood seeped into the soft fabric of her dress.
Blood. Her Affinity, her gift and her curse.
“Luka.” Ana’s voice broke. His eyes found hers, misted with pain but clear as a field of grass beneath the sun. He exhaled with a horrible rattling sound. Ana placed a hand over the wound in his chest, willing the blood back, back, back into his body. “Shhh,” she whispered. “I’m here, bratika. Shhh.”
Luka opened his mouth. She lowered her head to his lips. “Brat,” he whispered, his voice faint. “I’ve…missed you.”
She was crying. “There’s so much I have to tell you. We’ll…we’ll fix this. And everything else. We’ll fix it together, Luka.”
“You…came back,” he rasped.
“I’m back,” she sobbed, cradling him in her arms and touching her forehead to his. And then she raised her head, screaming. “Healer! We need a healer—now!”
“Ana,” Luka wheezed. “Sistrika. I’m…tired.”
“Hold on,” Ana begged. “Help is coming— Healer!” Her voice cracked. “Please!” She turned back to Luka. “Hold on. I’m here. Sistrika’s here.”
His eyes fluttered; he struggled to keep them open. He made a small motion as though to shake his head. “Not sistrika,” he whispered, and his eyes suddenly widened, burning with intensity. He drew a deep breath, straining. “Empress.”
“Luka,” she wept.
“Promise…me.”
The words cut through her heart. “I promise.”
A smile warmed Luka’s face, like the sun coming out after the rain. His body seemed to relax. He gazed at her with that fondness, that light in his eyes, and for a moment they were children again, grinning at each other with a silent promise. “I’ll tell Papa and Mama…”
He never finished the sentence. A serene look passed over his face, and just like that, he fell still, his spring-grass eyes trained on her as though he’d just been about to tell her a secret.
Ana held her brother tightly, burying her head in the soft crook of his neck the way she used to when she was a child. Her tears wet the fabric of his white silk doublet. She thought she would stay like this forever; she thought she would never get up again.
“She killed the Emperor!” Morganya’s scream pierced the air.
Slowly, bit by bit, the world seeped back in. The bloody carpet beneath her feet. The shrieks of the panicked and the dying. The crimson soaking her dress.
Ana set Luka’s head onto the carpet, smoothing his hair and closing his eyes. A ghost of a smile was etched on his face.
A strange redness crept into the world; it swirled at the edges of her vision like a living, breathing fog. Everything began to smell like blood.
Ana straightened. Her chest was a hollow hole. There was no grief there. Not yet. Once she let her sorrow in, she would be pulled under its waters and never surface again.
No…that empty space inside her flickered with rage. Smoldering. Churning.
The redness roiled, tendrils snaking toward the pulsing blood in the room. A delicious darkness spread within her. Ana leaned toward it.
Her world erupted in crimson. She staggered back, squeezing her eyes shut and gulping in ragged breaths. Slowly, like silhouettes in a fog, the world came into focus in her mind, mapped by blood. It grew stronger and sharper, and when it settled, she felt as though she had been looking at the world through a darkened window…until now.
Everything was vivid, visceral. Her Affinity was sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste, all combined into one. She could see each and every drop of blood spattered on the floor, glistening as bright as stars in the night sky. She smelled the liquor swirling in the veins of all the guests; tasted the adrenaline and fear churning within; heard the desperate pounding of their hearts.
A twisted sense of peace settled over her. She reached out, and her attention caught on a figure slowly backing away behind her. His blood was as cold as darkness; it smelled of rot and tasted like death.
Without moving, without even opening her eyes, she dragged him toward her as a child might drag a rag doll. She felt his scream in the vibrations of his veins.
He cowered before her, his Affinity crushed beneath her power. Ana opened her eyes. “Sadov,” she murmured.
He stared up at her, the dagger in his hand still coated in Luka’s blood.
A mere flick in her mind and he was dangling before her, limbs splayed out like a butterfly on a board. Where should I start? Where will it hurt the