Amélie Zhao - Blood Heir

And that left him with… only one task.

Groaning, Ramson forced himself to his knees, to his feet. He bent down and, with back-popping effort, lifted the witch into his arms. He was shaking as he crossed the room in several strides, nudging open the door to the small washroom. A lone candle burned inside, illuminating the damp wooden tub.

Gently, he lowered the girl inside. She murmured something and shivered when he moved away. He frowned as he brushed aside a lock of her dark hair, casting a suspicious glance at the sharp lines of her cheekbones and the bold dash of her mouth against her skin. She resembled the tawny-skinned Southern Cyrilians who dwelled in the Dzhyvekha Mountains on the borders of the Cyrilian Empire and the Nandjian Crown. A minority among the predominantly fair Northern Cyrilians that held most of the power and privilege across the Empire.

And… he had the strangest feeling that he’d… seen her somewhere before.

He shook his head. The cold was getting to him.

He left her with the Aseatic child and five pails of lukewarm water. He leaned against the locked door, listening to the sounds of splashing and silence. Like water, his thoughts swirled in.

Why had he saved her from the moonbear, even when she was half-frozen and useless and a deadweight to him? The Ramson Quicktongue he knew—the one the entire criminal network was wary of—kept only the strong and the useful by his side; the weak were quickly discarded or sacrificed. Yet in the darkness and loneliness of the snow-covered Cyrilian forest, the cold had changed him, squeezing all logical calculation from him until he was nothing but raw instinct.

And instinct had guided his actions tonight.

He squeezed his eyes shut. He thought he had snuffed out that small sliver of goodness within him seven years ago. He’d sworn to himself that he would never be one of the weak again, that he would never give more than he took.

He drew in a deep breath. Opened his eyes. The room came back in crystal-clear view.

He had helped the witch this far. He had given. Now it was his time to take.

Ana had almost drowned twice in her life.

The first time was ten years ago, on the cusp of winter. The snow had painted the world a glittering sprawl of white, sprinkled with the ruby reds and emerald greens and sapphire blues of the Salskoff Winter Market. Ornaments winked silver and gold like small ice spirits as the Imperial family passed by on their annual city Parade to welcome the arrival of their Patron Deity. Tambourines jingled, music played, people whirled around outside in flurries of white gauze and silver sash.

The excitement had even diminished the headache that had kept Ana in bed for the past few days. She held Luka’s hand as they waited for their carriage to stop, for the walk through the near-fairy-tale town, heralded and beloved and showered with gifts by the citizens of their empire.

Yet as the doors opened and the smells of roast meats and spiced vegetables and baked fish rolled in, Ana felt a wave of nausea. There was something writhing beneath all the noise from the crowds, the colored ornaments and furs and jewels clasped around people’s throats, the scents and sights. It pounded at her head, throbbed at her temples.

She distinctly remembered the pot of beet soup, thick and bubbling and so vividly red.

And then that thrumming energy within her exploded, a sharp crimson that drenched every corner of her vision, rushing through her veins. The hot, pulsing beat of blood swept into her world, drowning out all else.

She only remembered the aftermath. The bodies in front of her carriage, twisted on the cobblestones; the red, blooming like poppy blossoms on a canvas of colorless snow.

Ana had killed eight people that day.

The Palace alchemist, a strange bald man with overly large eyes and a quiet demeanor, had diagnosed her that very evening. She remembered the cold glint of his silver Deys’krug as he raised a trembling hand to whisper in the Emperor’s ear.

An Affinite, he’d told Papa. A blood Affinite.

Papa had bowed his head, and Ana’s world had crumbled.

In a window across her room, she’d seen her reflection. Face still streaked with blood and tears from the market, her hair crusted with sweat and half-covering her eyes—her monstrous red eyes. Her arms had been heavy, the skin stretched taut over swollen, jagged veins.

That day, Ana had looked in the mirror and seen a monster.

She’d tried to run after that. Past the maids who screamed at her approach; past the guards who stepped aside, bewildered and at a loss for what to do. She hadn’t known where she was going; all she’d known was that she had to get away, away from the Palace, away from Mama and Papa and Luka and mamika Morganya, so that she couldn’t hurt them.

The Kateryanna Bridge had loomed out of the blur of her tears, statues of Deities watching over her like sentient guardians. The bridge was named after Mama, and Ana watched it every day from the windows of her chambers, roping over the icy Tiger’s Tail river that wound around the Palace.

It was a sign. It had to be.

Tears streaked Ana’s face as she lifted her gaze to the sky. I love you, Mama, she thought. Carry me somewhere safe.

Ana climbed over the stone handrail and hurled herself into the river.

The cold jarred her bones as soon as she hit the water, and the ruthless current pulled her under. Immediately, she realized that any hopes she had of being borne to distant lands by the river’s waters had been foolish. The water frothed around her, pummeling her in a way that aroused a different type of terror within her: uncontrollable and tumultuous. Instinctively, she opened her mouth to scream—but water rushed in, squeezing the air from her lungs.

Panic whitened her mind, and spots bloomed before her eyes even as she fought against the water.

She hadn’t wanted to die. But perhaps the Deities meant to claim her today after all.

Something gripped her across her midriff—something different from the pressure on her chest and the cold in her lungs. The world spun in a whirl of white-ice currents and mute chaos, but she realized that the current was no longer carrying her. She was being dragged up, up, and into the light.

She burst through the surface, her lungs gasping in sweet, precious breaths of air. Her limbs drifted weakly in the violent waters, but there was a firm arm around her chest and someone was pulling her toward shore with fluid, practiced strokes.

Her savior struggled at the bank and, at last, deposited her on the ice-covered ground that stretched for miles around.

Ana’s blood froze as she found herself looking into her brother’s eyes—eyes that burned with rage. All traces of earlier mirth had disappeared from Luka’s face—and she thought she saw a trace of the prince, the future Emperor Lukas Aleksander Mikhailov.

Her brother was panting, his hair plastered to his forehead and curling at the nape of his neck. Breath plumed from his lips, pale with cold. “Brat,” he snarled, and slammed his fist into the frozen ground so hard that it cracked. “What the hell were you thinking?”

His tone lashed across her sharper than the bite of a whip, and she flinched. Her brother—kind, gentle Luka—had never yelled at her like this.

She thought of the eight dead bodies blooming red in the Vyntr’makt and lowered her gaze. “I’m a monster,” she mumbled, her lips numb.

Luka hunched over her, his weight propped up by his elbows. His shoulders shook, and when he lifted his gaze to hers, he was crying. In a sudden motion, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her tight. “Don’t ever scare me like that again. You could’ve died.”