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“I sent them a raven. You know that.”
“In your entire life, Ana? Have youeverbeen to them, to ask about yourself? Your people? Have you ever bothered to learn anything beyond what the scholars teach in the village about the Vjestik?”
“Why...” Ana scrunched her face, which was burning hotter by the second. “Why would I when I already know our history?”
“Why do we have archivists if you can learn everything you need to know from scholars?”
“I—”
“Why have you never asked your father? Your grandparents?”
“Asked themwhat?”
“Who you are!” Ludya’s voice thundered loud enough to send Ana scrambling back a few steps.
Ana’s nose flared, her eyes dilating in a defense that didn’t quite make it to her lips. Her heart vibrated in her chest like an explosive ready to detonate. And she thought it might, if she didn’t leave the tiny, oppressive room, which smelled like mildew and felt like a prison.
She blinked hard, swallowed, and stepped forward. “I will be back by midnight. I don’t expect you to stay with me. You’ve done enough, and this mess—this problem—is mine to solve. It’s always been mine to solve.” She moved beside Ludya and rested her face against hers. “Volemthe, Ludya, but I release you of this burden.”
Ana ripped the door open and ran before Ludya could see her crying.
Tyreste wandered down to the festival just before midnight. Nessa hadn’t shown up, and between the bittersweet memories attached to the Cider Festival, his fallout with Addy, the stolen letters, Pern and Evert leaving, and the strange matter of Magda, none of it felt right. Even Rikard the Mouser had stayed in the cabin.
But a part of Tyrdidwant to see the men stomping apples in a vat with perverse delight. To smell and taste the creative ways bakers turned the fruit into sweet and savory dishes. The poetry contest, the games, and the mummer’s show. It was all so bizarre and yet curiously appealing.
As he meandered the rows of tents, assaulted by scent and sound, his heart relaxed.
Tyr dropped coin to a merchant selling apples dipped in honey. It was mounted on a stick, but the viscous, sweet trail ran down over his hands, and soon he was licking his fingers like a savage. He remembered Ana licking honey off of another appendage of his, and the memory sent him stumbling into a nearby tent pole, dizzy with grief.
He dropped the apple on the ground, and a couple of rats rushed to devour the remnants.
Tyr closed his eyes, ignoring the whispers from passersby. He didn’t care what they thought. He was finding it hard to care aboutanythinganymore.
Shrieks of indignation and laughter filled the air as the sudden storm hammered the fairway. Celebrants exchanged befuddled looks, frozen in indecision, but it wasn’t long before everyone was back to their activities, the rain a mild nuisance to the guilty pleasures they’d been waiting seasons for.
Tyr started to duck back into the main row of tents, but something looped around his waist from the sides, startling him into a yelp.
He turned and saw Nessa, her dark hair soaked and falling in waves around her smiling, flushed face.
“Hi,” he said weakly, as she pulled him into a narrow alleyway between the tents.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to come help. There was nothing I could do.” Her words came out in such a rush, he had to replay them in his mind to understand them. “I swear to you, I wanted to be there. I really did, Tyreste.”
“It’s all right,” he said, thinking again of the way she called him Tyreste, but his words trailed when the air around Nessa changed,shimmered.She became Ana. His heart stuttered. “Ana?”
Her face seized in alarm, but then she was Nessa again. The change was jarring, his eyes struggling to adapt to what no longer felt like his imagination at all. But how could that be? She wasn’t Ana. She was her cousin, sharing enough blood to trick his mind and heart into believing what he wanted. It wasn’t the first time he’d made the mistake.
“What... did you call me?” Nessa asked.
“Forgive me, I—” Tyr buried his face in his hands. He clenched to keep the sadness down. “It’s been a long day, Nessa. Not my best one.”
Soft fingers plied his away from his face, one by one. He saw her through a haze of tears, and she was again Ana, because that’s what his heart most desired. Who his soul needed, to be whole again.
So when Nessa kissed him, planting her pliant, gentle lips against his, he decided to let it happen, to allow the rest of the world to fall away—all his troubles, his pain—and embrace the joy that had been his, if only for such a short, tortured time.
“Ana.” He moaned, wrapping her wet hair in his hands to pull her closer. This time, Nessa didn’t correct him. She pressed her body as close to his as she could, held apart by their layers of furs that he neededoffbefore he exploded. “I’ve missed you so cursed much.”
“I can be her, if it helps,” Nessa said between breathless kisses. “Tell me what you loved about her, and I can be all those things. Tell me what you hated about her, and I’ll never be any of those things. I can be everything you wished she could have been. I can be so much more.”
