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Anastazja wasn’t afraid of dying. She’d claimed it as her truth for years, never understanding that sometimes words were just words. They had tomeansomething. It wasn’t until the message streamed across her mind in a swift, bold stroke—death no longer scares me—when she understood the monumental shift that had occurred within her after the horrors at the festival.
Her once-fear of death wasn’t without value. It had kept her alive. It had pushed her blood through her veins, filling her heart, beating as swiftly and strongly as it ever had. But fear came with dread, and dread had stayed her hand many times over. Had eclipsed her creativity, demolishing any confidence she’d had in her own abilities.
Magda had to be stopped, and if Ana died trying, was there a better cause to surrender her life to?
Words were just words, until they weren’t.
For the bitter truth was, she thought as she flew to Fanghelm, building her offense with every wing stroke, she was never going to save Niko, her father, or Tyreste unless she was no longer around for them to be dangled as motivation for her compliance. Magda would use Niko next and then her father, but accepting those were already foregone conclusions was freeing, in a way. It freed her to storm into Magda’s room without a plan and go wherever her instincts guided her.
But Ludya flagging her down on the road, just before the Fanghelm gates, made the fear return.
“Anastazja!” The vedhma wrapped her robe tight and raced down the road to where Ana had landed. “You’re safe.” She sagged, sighing. “Glory to the Ancestors.”
“I am,” Ana said, her fire returning and eyes on the keep, “but many others are not. Shepoisoned—”
“I know.” Ludya’s hand clamped over Ana’s arm. “The word is all over the village now. We’ve sent the other vedhmas and veduhn down to the market to help save as many as we can. The situation is stable, as much as it can be.”
“How many?”
Ludya looked at her.
“Dead.How many did the koldyna murder?” Ana seethed the words through clenched teeth.
“Fifteen,” Ludya said. Her eyes fluttered closed in a brief moment of reverence for the dead. “The rest will recover, we believe, but only time will reveal their fates.”
“Fifteen Vjestik dead.” Ana’s mouth fell wide, her head shaking as she pieced things together. “Fifteen hearts in the cellar.”
Ludya didn’t seem impressed by the connection. She squeezed Ana’s arm impatiently. “The kyschun have answeredyour request, Anastazja. They want to see you.”
“So why do you look as though someone shat in your porridge?”
“Now,” Ludya said with a nervous look. “They’ve summoned you to come now.”
“Summoned me?” Ana balked. “I don’t answer to them.”
“You do if you want an audience. They meet on their own terms or not at all.”
Ana crossed her arms and angled away. The keep was half-hidden by the descending fog. Magda was no doubt inside, relishing in her destruction. Ana’s blood ran hot. She wasreadyfor a showdown.
But she needed the archivists. Why or how much, she couldn’t know until she’d spoken to them.
And what if I can stop Magda with whatever they tell me? What if it doesn’t have to end with me dying at all?
Even the idea was dangerous. She was either resolved to die or she wasn’t. Hope was the last thing she needed.
“All right,” she said. She squinted against the hard wind. “Where are they?”
“Somewhere you cannot fly.” Ludya turned her and then released her arm. “You’ve been to the Shrine of the Ancestors before.”
“Enough times I know I canflythere,” Ana replied.
“That is not where we are going.” Ludya pointed toward the mountain path she used to climb on foot as a girl, before Stepan had died and she’d inherited his wings. It was a long trek, one she didn’t miss. She wasn’t even sure shecouldwalk it, in her present state of exhaustion. “I can feel your angst. We are not going up. We’re goingdown.”
Ana turned toward her. “What?”
“The kyschun are underground. Far, far beneath the shrine.”
“How have I never known this?”
