drew away, swiping at her tears.
“I thought you were dead,” Yuri choked. He was crying, too. “The Court announced—”
“I didn’t kill Papa.” The words tumbled from Ana’s mouth brokenly, pleadingly. “I was trying to save him—but I couldn’t—”
“I know,” Yuri said. “I know you, Ana. You always shared your treats with me, no matter how much you liked them. You cried over your pet rabbit for moons on end. You would never do anything like that.”
His confirmation sent fresh tears to her eyes and made her feel weak and strong at the same time. “Papa was poisoned, Yuri.”
“Poisoned?”
Ana nodded. “I saw a man that night—it was the Palace alchemist who left many years ago. He fed my Papa something, and I watched him die.” She shuddered, and Yuri locked his arm around her firmly. “I was trying to draw the poison out.” Ana closed her eyes, leaning into her friend, and the words spilled from her. “It was a slow poison, Yuri—it smelled exactly like the bitter medicine Papa was taking all along. It was never helping him to get better—it was making his illness worse. That night was the final dose.”
Yuri stiffened by her side. “Deities,” he cursed softly.
Ana paused at Yuri’s terrified expression.
“Ana,” he said, his hand tightening on her shoulder. “There’s something you must know. The Kolst Imperator—your brother…he’s sick.”
Her head spun at the words. “What?”
“It’s exactly what your father had. The Palace thinks it’s a genetic condition passed down from him. Coughing, weakness, and confusion of mind.” Yuri shuddered. “But if what you’re saying is true, then he’s being poisoned as well.”
Coughing. Weakness. Confusion of mind. Ana grasped the trellis behind her to stop the world from spinning. The image of her father’s face came to her then, pale as a tomb, blood foaming from his mouth, the whites of his eyes showing as he contorted.
Nausea twisted her stomach. “That’s impossible,” she said, but the words sounded hollow even to her ears. It couldn’t be that Luka was being poisoned. Pyetr Tetsyev had not worked at the Palace for many years.
Unless Tetsyev had had inside help. Ana thought of that night, of how the alchemist had entered the Emperor’s bedchambers without raising a single alarm.
Yet all she had were wild guesses—until she found Tetsyev himself.
All the answers she sought lay with him.
Ana clasped her hands to stop their shaking. “I’m going back to Luka. One more day, and then I ride for Salskoff.” She would speak with Ramson about fulfilling her end of the Trade later. She had lost too much—she couldn’t afford to lose Luka, as well. “Is my brother…What is his condition?”
“I left the Palace almost ten moons ago.” Yuri bowed his head. “When I left…he still held Court sessions but spent the rest of his time in his chambers.”
Ana felt sick as she thought of Luka, alone in his chambers, the poison slowly consuming his body and mind. Desperation twisted a sharp, cruel blade in her, and for a moment she thought of leaping on a horse and riding to Salskoff.
Think, Ana.
If she returned empty-handed, without Pyetr Tetsyev, she would be treated as a murderer and a traitor.
The Cyrilian Imperial law granted a fair trial, and from the laws she had carefully studied under Papa’s guidance, new evidence was grounds for further investigation.
She needed Tetsyev to clear her name. Once she had her title and her innocence again, she would reveal everything and hunt down the conspirators.
“I’m going to get the alchemist, and then I’m going back,” Ana repeated, and this time, her voice was steady.
Something flickered in Yuri’s eyes. “You’re going back? Ana,” he said, and grasped her hands. “The future doesn’t lie in Luka or the Palace or Salskoff. Cyrilia’s rulers have stood by for centuries watching the oppression of our kind. If there’s a future, Ana, it isn’t there.”
It felt as though the small spark of hope in her heart was slowly withering to ash. “Why not?” Ana whispered. “Once I tell Luka all of this, he’ll fix it. We’ll fix it. Together. Just like…” Her voice broke. “Just like I promised May.”
But there was a sadness to Yuri’s eyes that she had never seen before; it descended on the traces of laughter and childhood like the fall of autumn upon summer. “I’ve seen too much and been through more in the months since I left the Palace, Ana. These cracks in our Empire…they can’t be fixed by one person alone. The time is past for us