Blood Heir

11

As a small child, Ana had stood by Papa’s side on the snow-covered streets of Salskoff, looking up at the Cyrilian Imperial Patrols with awe. She’d admired the way their blackstone-infused armor glittered in the sunlight and their pure white cloaks flapped against the brilliant blue sky. Even their horses had been a sight to behold: the tall valkryfs of the north, eyes the blue of ice, bred for speed and endurance and prized for their rare ability to scale snowy mountains using their split-toed hooves. She’d learned horsemanship on the backs of these creatures, and she’d dreamt of the day she would have an army of valkryfs and their masters under her command.

Imperial Patrols—heroic, majestic, and honorable.

She stared up at them now, standing in the wreckage of the pastry stall, their dark figures looming over her. Gone were their noble gazes and benevolent words. The kapitan, his white tiger’s badge gleaming on his chest, snarled down, his weathered skin wrinkling like leather. Two others in his squad flanked a large blackstone-enforced prison wagon, a dozen or so paces behind.

A third man followed the kapitan like a shadow. Unlike the cloaks of the Patrols, his tunic and cloak were black, lined with gold; his hair was bleached like wheat left too long in the sun, his eyes the ice of glaciers in the Silent Sea of the North. There was something hard about his expression that made Ana clutch May’s hand tighter.

“What is the disturbance?” demanded the kapitan. His cold eyes raked past Ana and May, lingered on the pastry vendor, and settled at last on the nobleman. “Mesyr?”

Ana took one slow step backward, and then another, May’s hand tight in hers. If she inched back far enough, she would blend into the crowd of onlookers. There was a stall of kechyans several steps to her right that she could duck behind. The Whitecloaks would never find her. Not unless they had a yaeger—which was exceedingly rare.

“A-Affinite,” wheezed the nobleman, who had pushed himself to his feet and was shakily brushing wooden splinters off his fine furs. “Filthy witches!”

Three, four steps. The kechyan stall was within reach—

“Where are you going?”

Ana’s blood turned to ice. The kapitan’s eyes, as emotionless as his voice, gazed straight at her.

“Stay where you are,” he continued. “This is a routine check.”

By her side, May was shaking, sucking in fast, shallow breaths.

Slowly, deliberately, the kapitan held out a black-gloved hand to the pastry vendor. “Your employment and identification papers.”

“Ana.” May was beginning to hyperventilate, her words rushing out quickly, unevenly. “We gotta go—they’re bad men—”

Cold sweat slicked the nape of her neck as Ana watched the pastry vendor fumble for scrolls in her tunic and then hold them out.

“A grain Affinite,” the kapitan remarked with disinterest. He ran a cursory glance over the scrolls before tossing them to the ground.

“Ana,” May pleaded. She was shrinking back, her eyes wide, her face drained of blood. “We don’t have papers—”

Dread sank in Ana’s stomach as the kapitan turned his lifeless gaze to her and May. She found herself rooted to the spot, her mind blank with fear and scattering any rational thoughts she might have had.

The kapitan’s black gloves extended toward them. “Your employment or identification papers.”

No, a part of Ana’s brain screamed. No, no, no, no, no—

She cut herself off, drawing in a deep breath to steady her heartbeat. These were Imperial Patrols—defenders of the law, watchers of her empire. They could not mean harm.

Yet… she had never known them to check for employment and identification papers.

Sucking in another gulp of air, Ana fought to keep her voice level as she replied, “We don’t have papers.”

The kapitan’s eyes narrowed, and he cut a glance to the blackstone wagon. It wasn’t until then that Ana noticed the feeling of being watched, the hairs on her arms and neck prickling.

One of the Patrols gazed at her from beside the prison wagon. Clad in the same whites as his kapitan, he stood in the shadows, his eyes as piercing as daggers. A strange sensation crept through her: a subtle tugging, as though someone were pulling at invisible bonds in the same way she called on others’ blood.

Yaeger, her senses screamed at her. He’s a yaeger.

A hunter, in Old Cyrilian: a type of Affinite with the power to sense and control other Affinities. Kapitan Markov had told her these were recognized as the most powerful and rarest of Affinites, often scouted by Imperial Patrols to keep peace between Affinites and non-Affinites.

The yaeger’s gaze sliced to his kapitan and the strange man dressed in black; he gave a curt nod.

The kapitan turned back to Ana. “It is unlawful for anyone to be found without proper identification documents—especially Affinites. We’ll need to take you in for questioning. Our contractor can explain this to you.” He cast a nod at the black-cloaked man.

“No.” The sob was barely a breath from May’s lips, loud enough for only Ana to hear. “Don’t listen to them, Ana. He’s a bad man. A broker.”

A broker. Ana stared, her mind careening. The Whitecloaks, specifically, were meant to find and stop the brokers.

How had two figures on opposing sides of the law ended up working together?

Who do you think pays them more? The Empire? Or the profitable businesses that rely on them to employ Affinites? Ramson had asked.

It suddenly all clicked with the weight of a broken world: the picture she had been searching for in the dark, now blindingly bright.

Ana staggered back.

This was wrong—this was all wrong. The bad men were the Affinite traffickers and brokers that her mamika Morganya had described to her as crooked storybook villains. Not the Imperial soldiers who served her father and brother, who pledged to protect the Empire.

What kind of an empire had her father ruled?

“We are not—” Her voice shook, and whatever denial she’d been about to voice dissipated on her lips. The pastry vendor had retreated to her now-appeased employer’s side, her eyes downcast, her face in the shadows, the employment contract trembling in her hands.

I am Anastacya Kateryanna Mikhailov, Ana wanted to scream, tears burning her eyes. I am the Crown Princess of Cyrilia.

Yet the tricky thing about truth, Ana realized, standing beneath the shadow of the Imperial Patrols with empty hands and a threadbare cloak, was that it meant nothing if it couldn’t be proven.

And it struck her, in this very moment, that there was nothing at all different between her and the grain Affinite.

Dimly, she heard the kapitan issuing orders to the rest of his squad. “Prepare for lawful arrest by force should the subjects not comply.”

The yaeger moved forward.

May screamed.

And Ana snapped.

She scooped May into her arms, swallowing a scream as she barreled through the crowd. She could sense the Whitecloaks behind them, the yaeger’s control on her Affinity flowing and ebbing like waves. With his manipulation, her awareness of the blood around her flickered, throwing off her sense of balance. He was gaining on them—fast. And May was heavy.

She made a split-second decision. Ana set May down on the ground and gave the girl a hard push. May staggered. “Run,” Ana ordered. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“No!” May screamed. “Ana—”

At that moment, the yaeger’s control over her slipped. Her Affinity flared; she used that moment to latch on to May’s blood. I love you, Ana meant to say, but she only managed, “I’m sorry.”

She seized the blood in May’s small body and flung the child as far back as she could.

Ana turned to face the yaeger. She was shaking, desperately grasping at her Affinity as it slid in and out of her command. The crowd around her parted in panic as the yaeger advanced on her. He’d slowed to a walk, his footsteps falling on the cobblestones like the beat of an execution drum.

Panic whitened her mind as she continued to back away.

Stop. She wanted to plead. I am your princess. I am the Princess of Cyrilia.

But being Princess had only meant a crown on her head and the walls of a palace to protect her from this fate.

The fate of being born an Affinite.

The yaeger was barely a dozen steps away now. She could see the chiseled lines of his face, the hard edges of his muscles like cut marble, trained to be lethal. His Affinity clamped over hers like an indomitable mental wall, and her Affinity vanished.

Still, Ana raised a trembling hand—

The ground exploded. The yaeger’s face barely registered surprise before he was thrown backward, skidding across the street, cobblestones tumbling around him. A crack had split the road between Ana and the yaeger. Her confusion was mirrored on his face as they stared at the rocks and dirt that seeped out from the fissure, rising slowly into the air.

From a row of stalls behind them, a small figure stepped into the middle of the street.

May’s fists were clenched, her brow furrowed in concentration. In the dead silence, her voice rang out sharp and clear across the street: “You will not hurt her.”

She tilted her head. Without warning, the suspended rocks shot toward the yaeger. He grunted as a dozen fist-sized rocks slammed into him, pounding him backward.

His hold on Ana’s Affinity wavered.

Ana acted. She smashed her Affinity down on the yaeger’s bonds, seized him, and hurled him farther down the cobbled streets, away from May, away from any possibility of even reaching May. He’d have to kill Ana first.

She felt a flash of triumph as he slammed onto the ground and lay there, motionless.

She didn’t see the other Whitecloak until it was too late.

A shadow fell between the stalls behind May: a Whitecloak with a bow and arrow, aimed and ready.

Ana was already screaming, and even as she tore toward May, a part of her was telling herself that this was not real, not real, not real. Time seemed to slow as she ran with all the strength her body would give.

The arrow shot forward. May staggered. And then, slowly, she fell, soft and graceful as an autumn leaf.

Time had stopped. Ana was in one of those dreams where, no matter how hard she tried to run, she was moving too slowly.

Twelve paces.

Not. Enough.

From the shadows of the stalls, the black-cloaked broker emerged, the gold lining of his collar glinting in the setting sun as he bent down. May’s head lolled like a rag doll’s in his arms as he turned and sprinted for the prison wagon.

Fury exploded in Ana. “No!” she screamed, raising a hand and summoning her Affinity.

But there was nothing. Instead, she found that unfamiliar wall against her power again, unyielding and absolute.

Several paces from her, the yaeger pushed himself to his knees. Mud and blood ruined his perfect white cloak; already, bruises were beginning to blossom on his exposed skin. But Ana felt no satisfaction, only blind fury, as he lifted his eyes to meet her gaze. Her steps slowed.

A distance behind him, the broker had almost reached the wagon. May’s limp form was slung across his shoulders, and Ana could make out the shine of her hair.

She glanced at the yaeger. Glanced back at May’s disappearing head. And put a burst of speed into her steps.

The yaeger shot forward. His fingers latched on to her ankles and yanked. Ana flung her hands out, catching herself before she slammed into the cobblestones.

She twisted, spitting hair from her mouth and grappling for purchase on the ground. “Let me go!” she screamed, kicking at the yaeger, but his grip was steel against her legs.

Beyond the vast stretch of road, the prison wagon loomed, its doors open like the mouth of a hungry beast. The broker leaned into its shadow as he deposited a small, limp form into the wagon. May’s head lolled once, and then disappeared behind the wagon’s blackstone walls.

The other Whitecloak locked the doors.

Desperation as she’d never felt before twined around Ana, squeezing the air from her throat and wringing tears from her eyes. “May!” she bellowed, her voice cracking. “MAY!”

At her scream, someone looked back—but it wasn’t May.

The broker with the sun-bleached hair turned to her. His pale eyes locked with hers. They narrowed for a moment, and then he turned and was gone.

Ana’s hand closed around something hard—a piece of cobblestone, displaced by May earlier.

Picturing the broker’s hateful blue eyes, Ana smashed the stone into the yaeger’s face.

He let out a low groan, his grip on her legs slackening. His hold on her Affinity wavered again.

Ana was on her feet even before the yaeger rolled over, clutching his dripping nose. Dimly, she heard him shouting something at his squad, saw looks of panic flit across the Whitecloaks’ faces as they mounted their horses.

She threw her Affinity out and ran, fighting the yaeger’s block, her legs pumping desperately as she tried to close the gap between her and that black wagon.

The remaining Whitecloak spurred his horse, and the wagon jolted into movement, picking up speed. Only the kapitan circled toward them, bow and arrow out and cloak billowing behind him. “Kaïs!” he shouted.

The yaeger’s answering call was cut short as Ana hurled her Affinity against his power. For a moment, his wall splintered; she sensed a glimmer of the bonds in the kapitan’s body and grasped them—

The kapitan’s eyes widened and his horse careened sharply to one side as his body seized beneath her control. “What in the Deities—” His arrow tumbled from his grasp, and a glass vial shattered against the ground. Even from several dozen paces away, Ana could make out the green liquid oozing between the cracks of the road.

“Kapitan!” Behind her, the yaeger let out a choked cry. “You must retreat! She’s dangerous!”

The kapitan hesitated, his eyes darting between Ana and his fallen soldier. Ana seized the opportunity. “Come get me, you sick bastard!” she shouted. Make him angry. Goad him. Anything to stop that blackstone wagon from leaving this square.

Yet as Ana flung her Affinity at the kapitan again, he seemed to arrive at a decision. With a last glance back, he turned his horse and galloped after his squad.

“No!” Ana choked. But the wagon and its flanking riders sped off through the stalls, growing smaller and smaller.

Hopelessness tightened around her throat.

She had no idea how long she ran, chasing the wagon even after it disappeared between the red-bricked dachas of Kyrov. It was only when she tripped over a loose cobblestone and fell to the ground, splitting the fabric of her gloves and cutting her palms, that she realized she was crying. And a different voice filled her head.

Don’t go where I can’t follow, May had asked of her.

She’d let happen what she’d sworn she’d never let happen to May. May had saved her in the moment she’d most desperately needed saving. And she had failed May.

And… it was her fault. Ana bit into her hand to stop herself from screaming, her tears mingling with blood and dust. In another life where she might have been born differently, normally, she would still be the Kolst Pryntsessa Anastacya Mikhailov, second heir to the throne of Cyrilia. And in that life, a kinder life, the laws would be just and the people in power would be good and the good people would win.

She pounded the cobblestones once, crimson smearing on the dusty ground. She could sense, through her Affinity, people milling around her and slowing down to look, but none stopped to help.

This was not that world, Ana thought. This world was neither just nor kind nor good, and you chose to keep fighting or to surrender.

Ana climbed to her feet, dusting off her tattered cloak as she turned to face the Vyntr’makt. Her Affinity flared with each step, the world thrumming with blood as she ran.

She found the yaeger where she’d left him. A small crowd had gathered, and several people knelt at his side with handkerchiefs and strips of gauze. How eager they were to help the monster draped in a cloak of white.

Ana focused her Affinity and flung several onlookers back, her hands raised for dramatic effect. “Leave,” she snarled, her voice cutting through the shrieks of the crowd. “Leave, or I’ll kill you all.”

She turned to face the yaeger. Blood ran in rivulets from where she’d smashed the rock into his head, streaming down his cheeks. He glanced up at her from a bruising eye and tensed.

He was Nandjian, Ana realized with dull surprise, taking in his olive skin and dark hair. She thought of the ambassadors who had graced the Palace’s Grand Throneroom during court sessions with Papa.

Had he traversed into Cyrilia of his own volition?

She felt his power descending over hers, but instead of the iron hold from before, it was softer. Weaker.

She shrugged him off easily and seized his blood, pulling him into a sitting position. He coughed, and crimson trickled from his lips. “That broker. Where is he taking her?”

The yaeger only looked at her, his mouth tightening.

Ana snapped his head back, tilting it so he could just barely breathe. For some reason, Ramson Quicktongue’s face flashed before her. He wouldn’t blindly threaten—he would find his opponent’s weak point, find some kind of leverage… and push.

She knew next to nothing about this bastard, yet it was irreconcilable to her that he wore the Cyrilian tiger’s badge of honor on his chest… and that he had let his comrade shoot an arrow at a ten-year-old. Ana wanted to rip the insignia from his armor.

“I won’t ask again,” she said.

His next words surprised her. “You’re the Blood Witch of Salskoff,” he rasped.

Ana’s breath caught. In the legend, the Blood Witch had shown up in Salskoff’s Winter Market on Fyrva’snezh and murdered dozens of innocent people. Vaporized them, so that there was nothing left of them afterward but blood running red rivers on the cobblestones, staining the snow. She had red eyes that gleamed with her blood magic, and teeth sharper than a tiger’s. A deimhov from hell; a monster among humans.

Nobody had connected the Blood Witch to the sick princess who had been locked away in the Salskoff Palace since her childhood.

Ana tightened her grip on the yaeger’s blood. “Then you know what I can do,” she said quietly.

“I know you killed eight innocent people.”

It was an accident. I was seven years old. The words almost—almost—left her lips. Instead, she said, “And I’ll do it again, unless you give me what I want.”

He hesitated.

Ana tilted her head to the bloodred glow of the setting sun, so that the crimson of her eyes caught the light. “Look at where we are. Look at all of these people around you—mothers, fathers, and children. They could all be dead within seconds, and it’ll be because of you. You call yourself a soldier? Then protect your civilians.” She tightened her grip on his blood, just to prove her point. “Tell me where he’s taking the child.”

A muscle twitched in the yaeger’s jaw, and his eyes seemed to burn into hers for an eternity. Then he coughed once, and the fire went out. “Novo Mynsk,” he said quietly.

“Where in Novo Mynsk?” she pressed. When he was silent, she lifted her chin to scrutinize the few vendors and spectators who still lingered behind their stalls. “Shall I prove the veracity of my promise? Whom shall I pick first? A child? Or her mother? And how shall I torture them so that their screams—”

“The Playpen. He’s one of the Lilies. He’ll employ her there as a performer.”

She let go of him at once, turning away so he wouldn’t see her shaking. It felt like someone else had been speaking through her lips, murmuring those cruel, barbaric words. As if Sadov’s influence remained and she’d spoken his twisted thoughts.

As she drew her hood over her head, she wondered something darker—whether it was that Sadov’s voice had become her own.

“Don’t hurt them,” the yaeger said. “Please.”

The plea was soft, and she wished she hadn’t heard it. Ana looked back. The yaeger was still sitting in the same spot, but something in his expression had shifted. He was begging her. And he was afraid.

Ana thought of the helplessness of the grain Affinite, of the sadness she’d seen in May’s eyes when she’d first met her. And she saw an echo of that in this soldier’s eyes.

Her anger dissipated like steam in the cold. “Why do you do this?” she asked instead. “You’re one of them.” A pause. “One of us.”

“Do you think I have a choice?” His voice was raw. “In this empire, if I am not the hunter, then I become the hunted.”

She would never forget the way he gazed up at her, yaeger and Affinite in one. Trapped in a corrupt system.

Your choices, Luka’s voice whispered, but something in her brother’s words was broken now, changed with the year she had spent away from the Palace. Choices were for those with privilege and power. When you had none, all you could do was survive.

She left before he could see how much her encounter with him had shaken her. She’d threatened to kill innocent people. She’d tortured a man.

I did it to save May, she told herself.

But perhaps all monsters were heroes in their own eyes.