Blood Heir

31

There was a pale-eyed ghost in the darkness with him.

Ramson moaned. It was the only sound he could make.

The ghost peered at him, candlelight shifting on its face. Ramson had seen the face somewhere, but he could not remember where.

“Stop. I’ll tell you anything,” he slurred. And then a new thought occurred to him. “Am I dead?”

Slowly, feeling was coming back to his body. His limbs were on fire. His head felt as though it had been used as a battering ram. And his chest—Deities, his chest…

“Not yet, Ramson Quicktongue,” the ghost said. He was hooded, and he was prodding at Ramson in the most painful, irksome way.

“I suppose not,” Ramson mused. “Death would feel better, and I’d be in the company of some honey-eyed girl instead of an ugly old hagbag.”

The ghost gave him what resembled a sullen expression. He was starting to look extremely familiar, but Ramson could not think beyond the aching of his head as to who this was.

“Where am I?” he asked instead. It was too dim to see.

“The Kerlan Estate. In the dungeons.”

The Kerlan Estate. Ramson pushed at his muggy consciousness, wincing at the effort. The memories came back to him in a slow, painful trickle. He looked at the man-ghost, suddenly wary. “Who are you?”

The man looked up at him from beneath the hood. Bulbous eyes, thin nose, bald head.

And then the name clicked.

“Tetsyev,” Ramson croaked. “What do you want? What are you doing to me?”

“I am healing you,” Tetsyev said calmly. “Though if you insult me again, I might change my mind.”

Ramson then noticed the strange smell of herbs and chemicals, and the feeling of cold gel all over his body. He looked down at his chest and winced.

His skin resembled a bloody slab of meat, sliced in a dozen different directions. And on his chest, almost where his heart would be, was a shiny patch of flesh, seared over his old brand. The insignia of the Order of the Lily.

He remembered the iron, white-hot before his eyes. The insurmountable fear as it was pressed to his chest. The unspeakable pain, and the welcomed darkness that followed.

His resolve wavered, and the feeling of helplessness that washed over him was nearly enough to drown him. “Why are you healing me?” he asked, and despite all of his efforts, his voice trembled. “Preparing me for another torture session?”

Tetsyev stepped back and squinted at Ramson’s chest. A bowl of translucent salve glistened in his hand. “No,” was all he said.

Ramson was shivering, and he struggled to keep his voice steady. Memories of cold black water poured down his throat and filling his lungs were enough to break his resolve. He could still taste bile on his tongue, feel the searing pain of iron burning his flesh. “Please,” he said hoarsely. “Just kill me.”

Tetsyev raised an eyebrow. “No,” he repeated, and shuffled away to the nearest shelf. When he returned, he was holding a roll of bandages. Slowly, the bald man began to wrap the gauze around Ramson, pausing only to tuck corners or adjust a strip slightly. He remained silent.

At last, Tetsyev leaned away, casting another critical eye upon Ramson. He nodded, and began fishing around in his robes. Ramson caught a flash of metal.

No, he wanted to beg. Please.

But Tetsyev reached toward his shackles. There were a few clicks, and then Ramson fell forward, no longer held up by the chains on the wall. His limbs flailed behind him uselessly. When he hit the ground, it felt as though his bones would shatter. He gave a choked sob.

“Get up,” Tetsyev said. “The Kolst Pryntsessa is waiting.”

His brain felt like mush, and it was difficult to grasp what the alchemist was saying. Ramson waited for the involuntary tremors in his muscles to stop, for the blood to recirculate, for the feeling of cold to drain away. Slowly, in fits and starts, he pushed himself into a sitting position. The wounds on his chest protested with a dull, throbbing pain. He had an inkling that he was meant to feel much weaker than he actually did.

“The salve facilitates the healing of the flesh,” Tetsyev said, as though he had heard Ramson’s thoughts. “I injected another serum in you that speeds recovery of the muscles.”

Ramson leaned against the wall, drawing deep, shaky breaths. He flexed his hands, turned over his arms. Before—minutes, hours, or days ago, he’d lost count—he had felt as though every inch of his flesh were on fire and peeling from his bones. The pain was still there, but dull and fading. “Why are you doing this?”

“I’m repenting. Perhaps it is too late to save my soul, but I must try. I must make my choice.”

“Wonderful,” Ramson wheezed. “The Deities will reward you handsomely for saving my life.”

“It isn’t your life I’m saving. It’s the Princess’s.”

“Even better,” Ramson wheezed. “A noble life bears more weight in the eyes of the Deities, I’m sure.”

Tetsyev sighed. “I lived an entire life of regrets,” he whispered, and his words struck an odd chord of resonance in Ramson. “And I am making the choice to amend my mistakes.” He cast a sorrowful eye upon Ramson. “Kolst Pryntsessa Anastacya needs us. She needs you. So, what choice will you make, Ramson Farrald?”

Choice. Ramson’s mind was still foggy with pain, but the word brought back memories of a girl. Our choices define us. “The Princess,” he repeated slowly, and just like that, his muggy world clicked into sharp focus.

Ana. Princess Anastacya.

Memories ignited like sparks before his eyes. The sense of familiarity he’d felt looking into her face back at the abandoned dacha near Ghost Falls. That same face had been painted in dozens of his childhood textbooks, by the side of the Emperor and Empress and Crown Prince of Cyrilia. And it had vanished from the public eye when she’d allegedly fallen sick and slowly faded from everyone’s memories over the years. He recalled the sweet noble’s lilt in her Cyrilian. The tilt of her chin, the command in her tone, the gravitas of her presence.

Ana was the Crown Princess of Cyrilia, the younger sister of Emperor Lukas Aleksander Mikhailov, and the heiress to the Cyrilian Empire and its sick, dying Emperor.

“I see you’ve finally pieced it all together.” Tetsyev looked amused.

Ramson’s head spun. But… no. “That’s impossible,” he said faintly. “She died a year ago. Executed for treason.”

“No. One year ago, I murdered the late Emperor Aleksander Mikhailov.” Tetsyev’s voice shook. “Princess Anastacya… was framed for it that night. She was accused of murder, but she tried to run and drowned before the trial. Or so the story goes.”

Ramson clutched his chest, his breaths coming short as he stared at Tetsyev. The alchemist. He heard Ana’s voice in his head, the urgency to her tone when she spoke of him. And when he’d asked—many times throughout their journey—she hadn’t relented a word as to why she was after him.

“You murdered her father and then framed her for it?” With sickening realization, he thought back to the number of times he had threatened her with her alchemist, dangling her quarry before her and forcing her to comply to his terms. And all along, this was the reason she sought him.

Tetsyev’s voice was raw with regret. “It is more complicated than that.”

Ramson thought of his own choices. The story was always more complicated. But that didn’t justify anything. Neither did it change anything.

“Please, listen to me. We haven’t much time.” Tetsyev’s tone was pleading. “Countess Morganya has been plotting to overthrow the Mikhailov line for years. The Princess is on her way to Salskoff now, to stop her.” Tetsyev knelt before Ramson. “I begged Kerlan to let me heal you. I convinced him to drag it out, to make you live longer and suffer more.

“I saved you for a reason. The Princess needs help. This empire needs help. And she cannot do it alone.” Tetsyev’s face had settled as he watched Ramson, and resolve flickered in his eyes. “Even if you won’t go, I will. For so many years, I have been robbed of the power to make a choice. I am making that choice now.” He stood, straightening his reedy frame and adjusting his white alchemist’s cloak. A silver Deys’krug circlet hung over his neck, half-hidden beneath his worship robes. “I’m going after the Princess. And I’m going to help her.”

Your choices, whispered a small voice. Jonah’s voice. Your heart is your compass.

He’d known for some time now, felt the irrepressible tug on his chest toward her. With each smile, each frown, each word, she’d drawn him in, slowly, irrevocably. And that slow, smoldering flame had roared to life beneath a winter sky of snow, glowing brighter than anything else in his life. She was the bearing to his compass, the dawn that his ship had been chasing for so long over an empty horizon.

My heart is my compass.

Ramson’s mind cleared. In the darkness of the dungeons, he could barely make out the retreating outline of the alchemist, the white flashes of his cloak as he hurried in the direction where the escape tunnel lay.

“Wait,” Ramson said.