current state. Besides, there could be more of them.
Yet she couldn’t afford to lose Ramson Quicktongue, either.
She couldn’t beat them by brute force. She’d have to play it smart. Attack from behind.
Deities, she thought. One night with Quicktongue and she was already thinking like him. The Ana of a year ago would have valued honor and faced her enemies head-on. But then, she supposed, in a world of con men, crime lords, and cutthroats, there was no honor and there were no rules to the game. You only played to win.
Ana watched the two mercenaries round the corner and held her breath, counting to ten. When she stepped out onto the street, only the bartender remained, cradling his pouch of coins.
He turned when she was several paces behind him, but by then it was too late. Ana’s hand went up and he froze, pain and shock flashing across his face as he inevitably felt her control on his blood. Ana gave a tug, just for emphasis, and the pouch of gold tumbled from his hands. Goldleaves spilled onto the ground.
“You move, and I’ll kill you before you can raise a pinky,” Ana said. The bartender looked at her with renewed fear. “Now I’m going to let you go, because I need you to talk.”
A fresh wave of fatigue washed over her when she dropped her hold on him. She needed to conserve what little strength she had left.
The bartender stood statue-still.
Ana tilted her head. “Tell me. Who were those men?”
His eyes slid to the streets around them, as though fearing the mercenaries would emerge from the shadows. Fear was good, though. Fear was a weapon, as Sadov had taught her so very well.
“Bounty hunters,” the bartender said, his words slurring with a lowborn Cyrilian accent.
“And where are they taking him?”
“Kerlan,” the bartender whispered, growing paler still. The name seemed to cast a shadow over him, cinching fear tight around his neck.
“Who?”
“Kerlan. Lord Kerlan.”
“Who is that? And where is he?”
“The Head of the Order, in Novo Mynsk.”
She’d meant to ask him what Order he spoke of, but her heart caught at the words Novo Mynsk. May was headed there.
All other thoughts scattered. Her direction was clear. “I need a horse,” Ana said, taking a wager.
The bartender nodded frantically. “The stables. Choose whichever you’d like.”
She rewarded him with a flat smile like the one she’d so often seen on Sadov’s face. “One more thing. I’ll be taking this.” She scooped up the pouch of goldleaves that had been abandoned on the dirt road. She didn’t feel bad for that, Ana realized, as she turned on her heels and strode toward the stables in the back. After all, the bounty hunters had paid that gold for Quicktongue, and since Quicktongue was her prisoner, it stood to reason that she should take the gold.
“Stay there until you can’t hear my horse anymore,” she called over her shoulder. “You move, and I’ll bleed you dry.”
The stables were surprisingly well kept. Ana selected a valkryf with a coat the color of milk, already saddled, as though the owner had expected a short stop. When she rode out of the stables at a brisk trot, the bartender was still standing where she’d left him. She kept her Affinity honed on him until she was far enough away that the glow of his blood had faded to a flicker, and then to nothing.
* * *
—
The sun had almost set, its light bleeding out over the expanse of the Syvern Taiga like a last breath. Storm clouds gathered over the horizon, and the air thickened with the promise of rain.
Ana stretched her Affinity out, sweeping the vicinity for the bounty hunters’ trail. The Gray Bear’s Keep was close enough to the edge of town that she didn’t have to wade through a thick crowd of bodies before she closed in on the bounty hunters. There was no mistaking it; she sensed, blurred and distant, three figures: two with blood fast-flowing, and one sluggish, several hundred paces ahead of her.
As she steered her horse around the last dacha, she caught sight of two horsemen in the distance, speeding into the shadows of the Syvern Taiga. She suddenly wished she had some sort of weapon on her. She’d never learned to spar—or to even handle a sword—and coming into a fight with a weakened Affinity and empty hands made her feel extremely vulnerable.
But she didn’t have a choice. May was gone, her alchemist still missing, and her only