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“Sorry? But...” He didn’t know how to finish.Butshe was doing it because she loved him?Butshe was doing the right thing?Butshe was telling him the truth now?
“We mustgo,” Ludya barked and gathered Ana from the side. But Ana didn’t move. “You’ll get him killed if you continue telling him things he has no reason to know!”
“I’ve almost gotten him killed anyway, haven’t I? And Addy...” Ana’s chin quivered and she spun away from them both, pressing her hands to the cluster of stone rocks. “Magda is a dangerous, dangerous creature, Tyreste. Even if I told you everything—”
“Do not dare say another word!”
“Ludya...” Ana’s sigh was laden with exhaustion. “It wouldn’t matter if I did tell you, Tyr, because there’s nothing to be done. I thought, perhaps, the archivists... but they won’t see me now. Their counsel is no longer an option.”
“I really fucked up. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head at the rockface. Her wet hair hung around her face, clinging to her jaw. “This is what happens when we hold our secrets too close. You care about me, and you did as I would have done. I should have seen it. Perhaps... perhaps Nessa was the true miscalculation, but I was greedy. I wasweak.I couldn’t say good-bye, even though I knew there was no other way. And now, I’ve kept you from moving on and put you in even more danger.”
A single stitch closed on the wound rent through Tyr’s heart. “I wish you had known you could tell me anything.”
“It wasn’t that.” Ana half turned with a sorrowful smile. “She would have come for you. Shewillcome for you. And now I have no fathomable idea how to protect you.”
Ludya groaned through her nose and stepped between them. “Grigor and I will ward the tavern.”
Tyr and Ana both looked at her. “Wardthe tavern?” Ana asked. “This is something you can do? And what has Grigor to do with it?”
“Grigor has Vjestik magic, like many of us. Like you.”
Ana flung her arms out. “Why did we not do this sooner, then?”
“Warding is not without limitation, Anastazja,” Ludya said through strained patience. She squinted through the rain. “It thins with distance. When I am at Fanghelm, it will be far less potent than if I was nearby. When Grigor leaves the Cross, it may fade altogether.”
“No,” Ana said slowly, eyes darting right and left in thought. “Magda is stronger than our weakest magic. She’d sniff it out and know we’re protecting something very, very dear to me. She already has her eyes on Tyreste.”
Tyr desperately wanted to ask more questions, but Ana’s unhindered speech revealed more than she ever had in all their private moments put together.
“Then there is only one way,” Ludya said gently. “But you already know that.”
Tyreste watched them both, his blood racing with fear he couldn’t ascribe to anything specific.
“Go home,” Ludya said, when Ana just stared into the distance. “Show your defeat. Let her see it, so she thinks she has won. Grovel if you can bear it, but youmustdisarm her, and your only weapon now is to play the part she’s written for you.”
Tyr had to turn his hands into fists to keep from roaring. “No. No, like fuckinghellis Ana going back and offering herself to someone you both are so clearly terrified of. What if the... koldynahurtsher? She’s already scared her half to death. No, I’m sorry, but it’s not happening. We’re not leaving her. There’s no fucking way.”
Ana looked up at him, her eyes sparkling above the flushing high apples of her cheeks. She seemed on the verge of laughing, but tears came instead, blending with the raindrops streaming down her cheeks. She tucked her lower lip inside her mouth and turned her head downward, but he caught her in his arms before she could shut down completely.
“You are not alone. You arenotalone, ever.” He tilted her chin up and kissed her. “Ever.”
“I don’t care what she does to me,” Ana answered. She let him kiss her again and then squeezed her eyes shut, expelling more tears. “But I am utterlyterrifiedof what she will do to you if I don’t obey her.”
“I’m not afraid of her either, Ana.” A lie, but how he wished it were the truth.
“You should be. She poisoned this village to hurtme.”
Tyr’s arms slackened.
“Yes. I’ll say it again, so it really sinks in with you, so youreallyunderstand. Magdapoisoned the apples,and now fifteen lives are lost, and more are forever changed.Addyalmost died tonight. Because I could not—” Ana’s voice choked. “Because I could not bear to lose those dearest to me, she sent a message that others will lose dearly instead.”
“All right,” Ludya said, in the placating tone of a long-suffering mother. “Tyreste, Anastazja has shared with you things she should never, ever have shared. But the price is your trust in her. Trust she knows what must be done, for you do not.”
“But—”
“You will go home. If you want to protect your family, you’ll stay in your cabin. Take a leave from work, and keep away from them.”
