AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Why her absence bothered him, he couldn’t say. She was an enigma, a passel of half-truths he didn’t know how to address, if he even should. From the signing, to the weirdness about the Westerlands, and reallyalltheir interactions, if he was being honest, he couldn’t shake the sense something was off. Even the way she called him Tyreste. Yet there was something about her that stirred the same passion Ana had ignited. It came and went, like the tides of the Howling Sea, often so fast, he wasn’t sure he’d felt anything at all. And while heshouldfeel something for the beautiful, kindhearted girl who had taken a fancy to him, of all people, everything he felt was what he’d convinced himself to feel.
Maybe it wasn’t the worst thing that she’d stood him up again.
He closed the door and returned to the tavern to finish last-minute preparations for the night ahead.
“Are you sure you’re willing to take such a risk?” Ludya chided Ana as they dressed her in so many layers of dilapidated, frayed fur, it would have been a miracle if her own family recognized her.
Ana stared straight ahead into the dying hearth and the empty kettle hanging from the center hook. She was starving, but even the thought of food turned her stomach. They’d slept in an inn right in the center of the village. Hiding, Ludya had said, wasn’t about pockets and corners but stealth. No one would expect the steward’s little bird to be holed up in a cheap room, so they’d see what their mind expected them to see.
“Icouldread your thoughts,” Ludya said pleasantly, tugging at the hooded layers to stack them around Ana’s face. “But I do not deal in violations. Thus, I would appreciate your openness.”
“She’sdead,Ludya. Or will be.” Ana swished her jaw back and forth. It was painfully stiff, like the rest of her. She’d insisted on sleeping in the chair with one broken leg, and Ludya hadn’t argued. “I fear only her influence on the people of the Cross until that time. When she’s gone, I’ll tend to the mess she left us at the keep. But it could take days before she’s gone. Maybe longer. What if she has a stash of food and drink down there? And why am I... How can I speak so casually of her starving to death? Ofmestarving her to death? If I’m not there to wield the dagger, itisstill murder, right? Oh, Ancestors, it’s not too late to go back up there, to just quietly slide the bolt and pray she won’t murder the entire village to spite me.”
“You’re rambling.”
“I’m...” Ana had only just risen and already she was exhausted again. “No, I made a choice. She knows I made a choice. If I let her go, she’ll... She’ll follow through on every terrible threat she’s ever made. I have to wait... is all. Stay the course I’ve chosen.”
“Can you not wait untilthento see your beau?
“He’s not my—” She refused to finish. “I promised him I would spend the evening with him at the festival.”
“A promise that hardly seems prudent to keep, given the turn of events. Does it truly matter now?”
Ana turned her head upward, to look at Ludya. “When I have failed to keep all others, keeping this one feels like theonlything that matters.” She straightened with a shiver, rolling her head. “And unless Magda has taken over the entire village with her witchery, I’m still safe walking our roads and shopping our markets, aren’t I?”
Ludya backed up and sat in a nearby chair. “She’s not that powerful. Not even her master is, or he’d be here doing his own bidding. But to assume she’s gotten tononeof them is an ignorance beneath you, Anastazja. If she can speak through your father—”
“Maybe I imagined it,” Ana retorted.
“Maybe you did,” Ludya said evenly. “But I did not. I saw and heard every painful moment. You must assume she can do the same with anyone she’s taken hold of.”
Ana snorted and tucked her long braid into her furs. “As though she has an entire network of spies. Sounds even more foolish whenIsay it.”
Ludya went silent.
Ana spun on the stool. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”
Ludya rose and returned to her side. She placed a soft hand on the side of Ana’s face. “I believe you are only pretending to be impenetrable right now. You’re in shock. I feel your unspoken fear, and something even worse.”
Ana tensed in annoyance. “What?”
“Guilt.” Ludya lowered into a crouch. “The fear you carry for your soul, after locking the koldynaaway.”
Ana started to rebut but turned her mouth into a tight, tense line instead, knowing anything she said would just be torn apart by Ludya.
“You know the world will be safer without her, but you toil. Your soul toils. You suffer for what you’ve done but also for her crimes, a burden too heavy for even the strongest to carry.”
“If I could have, I’d have stopped heryearsago,” Ana hissed through her teeth.
“And that’s where you and I differ even more,” Ludya said calmly. She stood and moved to the door. “For you always had the power to stop her.”
Enraged, Ana leaped from the stool. “You say such things to me, after all that’s happened! Do you not think I’d have doneanythingto keep her hands off my family? Off the Ravenwoods? I accepted the fate she set for me,my own death, andstillpulled myself out of bed every day, doing whatever she asked to keep as many people safe as I could. How dare you accuse me of being idle while the monster stormed the village!”
Ludya shook her head, unruffled. She wore a sad, placid look, angering Ana more. “You haven’t been idle. But youhavebeen negligent. Blind. You call upon the Ancestors like you’re entitled to their wisdom, but like any ‘gods,’ they expect you to come to some conclusions on your own.”
“What doesthatmean?”
“Have you been to see the kyschun?”
