Blood Heir

21

Backstage, the air was musty and the scent of sweat lingered. They stumbled through the sets of drapes and down the stage into a chamber, dimly lit by several torches in sconces. Dark corridors stretched out toward their left and right. The screams of the crowd seemed to come from a distant world, as though the thick drapes had partitioned them from the chaos and granted them this temporary sanctuary.

In the semidarkness, a small voice found her. “Ana?”

A sob welled up in Ana’s throat. “May,” she croaked. They both moved for each other at the same time, colliding with cries of relief. Ana held on tightly. “Your hair.” Tears burned her eyes. “It’s all sooty.”

May laughed and clasped Ana’s cheeks in her hands, tracing tears away with her small fingers. “It’s you. It’s really you.”

More tears spilled down Ana’s face. She chuckled, a wet, gargling sound, and pressed her forehead to May’s. “Of course it’s me. I would never leave you.”

Ahead, Yuri cleared his throat. A small flame danced in his palm, illuminating the corridor ahead. “This way.”

Ana clasped May’s hand, and they hurried after him. “Where are we going?”

“It’s the Revolution, Ana,” said May. Her eyes were bright. “Yuri’s a Redcloak—a rebel, for the Affinites. I met the other Redcloaks when I was brought here. We’re going to rescue them right now.”

Behind them, Ramson coughed loudly and stumbled to a sharp stop by the stone walls. Ana’s stomach clenched as he braced himself, one hand at his side where the arrow had grazed him. She could sense the blood seeping into the cloth of his tunic. “Ramson!”

“I’ll be fine,” he rasped. “Just our luck. Damn… Revolution.”

“The Whitecloaks have stood by for too long and done nothing, watching us as we suffer.” Yuri’s fists were clenched, and he spat the words. “It’s time we take matters into our own hands. We’re a reminder that their cloaks are not white, but red—stained with the blood of Affinites. We represent the flame of hope—”

“Man, now is not the time for poetics,” Ramson gritted out. “If we don’t get out of here, the only thing red will be your blood on a Whitecloak’s sword.”

“We need to leave,” Ana agreed, gripping May’s hand tightly. “Now.”

Yuri looked slightly put out, but it was May who spoke. “No,” she said, pulling her hand from Ana’s. “I won’t leave without the others.”

It was as though, in a week’s time, May had aged years.

May’s mouth was a firm line as she gazed back at Ana, but her eyes were pleading. “Yuri and Dyanna planned this, and they saved me. They’ve saved a lot of other Affinites. And I want to… I want to help, too.” May reached out again, taking Ana’s hands between her own. “Remember the girl who gave me a ptychy’moloko at the Vyntr’makt? I thought of her every day I was here.” Her voice trembled, but Ana heard a hint of steely determination beneath. “You saved me, Ana. And I wanted to help her, and others like her. I want…” May drew a deep breath, and her eyes were shining as she looked up. “I want the whole Empire, every single Affinite, to know how it feels to… to have hope.”

The spark in May’s eyes and the strength in her words stirred something in Ana’s chest.

Before she could say anything, a noise sounded down the corridor to their right. A rhythmic clacking that grew louder by the second.

Ramson swore. “Guards,” he whispered, heaving himself up. “You, Poet. Where are the Affinites?”

“Corridor on the left,” Yuri said quickly. “The room at the very end.” He reached into his pocket and took out a set of keys.

“I can get them.” May stepped forward and took the keys from Yuri. She turned to Ana, her eyes bright, the torches carving her small, solid shadow against a world of flickering flames. “Wait here, Ana.” And then she was gone, a slip of light swallowed by the darkness.

Ana gestured at Ramson. “Go with her. Yuri and I will stay here and fend off the guards.”

Ramson hesitated. “Don’t die,” he said.

“Don’t get kidnapped,” she replied.

She heard his raspy chuckle and hid a smile even as she turned to face the approaching footsteps.

She felt Yuri’s gaze burning into her back. “You’re alive,” he breathed, and she finally let herself look at him. His eyes were wide, as though he were drinking in the sight of her. “I… I don’t believe this.”

“And you,” Ana said. “You’re a… a rebel.”

The footsteps thundered, just around the corner. “Later?” Yuri said, tilting his head.

“Later,” she agreed, and raised her hands.

Six guards appeared, just as Ramson had predicted. Their eyes widened as the torchlight exploded at them in two columns of flames. Ana hung back, watching in awe as the once-scrawny boy advanced on the guards, flames erupting from his palms and curling on the narrow stone walls of the corridor.

A shadow flashed to her left, on the steps leading down from the heavy velvet curtains.

Ana turned, sensing the powerful thrum of blood even before she saw the woman. Steel blades flashed as the newcomer stepped into the light, her black cat mask glittering in the torchlight.

“You,” Ana said hollowly.

The woman had changed from her skimpy courtesan’s outfit into tight-fitting black breeches and a shirt, but it was the same steel Affinite who guarded the doors of the Playpen every night, the one who had tried to stop Ana from entering. There was no sign of her companion, the Yaeger, as she stepped in front of Ana, blocking the path. Countless small blades lined the belt at her hips, gleaming like teeth.

Instinct screamed at Ana to hurl her Affinity at the woman, to fight with every fiber in her body.

But May’s words held her back. They were the same, Ana and this steel Affinite: feared for the qualities that marked them different, and persecuted by those with power.

Ana raised her hand. “Please, don’t do this.”

The woman’s eyes glinted. “If you’re not dead by the end of the night, it’ll be my life he takes.”

“Who?” Ana asked, though she suspected she knew the answer.

“Lord Kerlan.” The steel Affinite raised her blade. “I’m sorry.”

Ana didn’t give her another chance to speak. She seized the Affinite’s blood and slammed her against the back wall. The Affinite’s eyes widened in surprise, but she twisted, and a blade shot from her belt.

Ana dove to one side; the throwing knife lodged into the wall behind her with a plink. She rolled and pounced to her feet, but in that second, she lost her hold on the steel Affinite.

The second blade sliced Ana’s arm; she cried out and crashed against the wall, her Affinity diverted by the warmth leaking down her arm and the sharp pain of her flesh cut open.

A third knife flashed, but Ana was quicker. She grasped the steel Affinite’s blood and squeezed. The woman gave an agonized scream, which quickly cut off into a choking noise as blood began to fill her lungs.

“You don’t have to do this,” Ana rasped. “Come with us. Fight with us.”

The steel Affinite shuddered. Her head was bent, and a puddle of blood had gathered on the floor beneath her. When she lifted her face, her eyes were bloodshot, red dripping from her nose and lips. “I…”

Pressure clamped down on Ana’s mind, so absolute that she cried out. The world dulled as her Affinity vanished; her head throbbed against a familiar, cold wall.

A shadow parted from the velvet curtains. The yaeger stepped into the torchlight. For the first time since Ana had seen her, though, she looked afraid.

Ana didn’t know why until a silky voice caressed her like the night. “Kill her, Nuryasha.”

A figure stepped partially into the torchlight, lurking behind the yaeger and the steel Affinite. But even from there, Ana could see the glint of the broker’s pale, icy eyes as he regarded her.

The steel Affinite—Nuryasha—coughed blood and palmed her blade. She hesitated.

“Kill her,” the broker ordered again. The yaeger’s eyes narrowed. The pressure on Ana’s head increased. She sank to her knees, dizzy with pain, grasping for something—anything—that would save her. One thought comforted her: that May was safe with Ramson.

Nuryasha flung the blade.

A small blur shot out from the corridor to Ana’s left, crashing into her middle and knocking her aside. Ana collided with the wall, pain erupting in her back and her injured arm.

Blinking through the dark spots in her vision, she looked up.

May stood where Ana had been moments before, the sheath of a throwing knife protruding from her abdomen. A dark patch was rapidly spreading across her dress, crimson seeping into her fingers as she tried to stanch its flow with her bare hands. Her eyes were wide with surprise as she met Ana’s gaze, her mouth puckered in a slight O.

She staggered and fell lightly to the ground.

Time seemed to stop, and the rest of the world dissipated until there was only the image of May’s small figure slumped on the reddening floor, seared indelibly into Ana’s mind. Her ears filled with a strange ringing silence as she clawed her way to the child’s side; she thought she heard screaming, but nothing made sense anymore.

Ana lifted May into her arms. Had she always been this light?

“May,” Ana whispered. Her hands came away sticky and dark.

The world crashed back in a whirl of smoke and blood. It took Ana a moment to realize that the yaeger’s barrier on her mind had lifted.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ramson shove the yaeger aside, his dagger protruding from her back. Nuryasha lay at his feet, motionless in a pool of her own blood. The broker was gone.

Ramson’s eyes latched on to May, and he swore softly.

“Ana,” whispered May.

“Hush.” Ana clasped her shaking hands over May’s, pressing against the wound. “I’ll stop the bleeding, and we’ll get you bandaged up.”

May’s chest hitched in short, shallow breaths. A dizzying amount of blood hit Ana’s senses; her Affinity shuddered, and she bit back her nausea.

“My ma-ma said,” May murmured, and drew another rattling breath, “ ‘We are but dust and stars.’ She told me… before we separated… to look for her in the earth and in the stars.”

A sob choked Ana’s throat. “No,” she gasped. “We’re going to find her, May—May!” She cradled her friend’s head as her eyes fluttered. “Listen to me. Your ma-ma is waiting for you out there. Waiting to see you. We’re going to find her together, all right?”

“I don’t… I don’t want to go.” May fought for breath, tears drowning her eyes. “I want… to live.”

Ana scrabbled at May’s wound, desperately grasping at the blood and pushing it back. It leaked through her fingers and her Affinity. She’d never learned to use her power this way. For her entire life, she’d learned only to hurt and torture. She had never learned to heal.

A gut-wrenching scream tore from her throat. “I can’t,” she gasped. “Ramson—Yuri—someone! Help!”

“The Revolution.” May’s small fingers curled around Ana’s, tugging gently, insistently. “Promise me, Ana, you’ll make it better. For my ma-ma. For all the Affinites. And promise… you’ll find her.”

“I will, I will,” Ana sobbed. She would have promised anything in that moment to keep May talking for a little while longer. “I’ll do it, May, but I need you—”

The world spun, and May’s blood poured out like sand in an hourglass, time careening in a relentless blur toward that inevitable end.

“Dust and stars,” May whispered. She had started to shiver. “We are but dust and stars.”

“Please, May.” Ana couldn’t breathe. “Please. Don’t go where I can’t follow.”

May drew a long breath. “I’m always here, Ana,” she whispered, and closed her ocean eyes, her words fading like a whisper of wind. “You’ll find me in the stars.”