“The palace is Dasha’s home.” Valko tightened his grip on his sister’s quivering shoulder. Her fear, anger, and panic trembled through me, rushing to the surface, ready to burst. “She’s an Ozerov princess. She belongs with me. Who can understand her more than family?”
“I’m the one who understands you, Dasha. Don’t listen to him. I’m the one who is truly like you—the only one.” I reached for her, but she squirmed back.
“You’re not like me,” she blurted. “Something has happened to you.”
“What do you mean?” Valko confronted her, his brows drawing low.
She wrapped her arms around herself and ducked her head. “Sonya’s aura is different. She isn’t strong like me anymore.”
My stomach dropped. Valko’s gray eyes riveted to me and slit into gleams of silver. “Your power is gone?”
I tried to look formidable, but my cheeks flooded with heat.
Valko’s teeth glinted with his slowly spreading smile.
He knows he can kill me now.
I whirled and bolted for the house.
The calm current of Valko’s aura snapped into a riptide.
He growled and chased after me, his footfalls fast. The horses whinnied. “Stand your ground, men!” he shouted.
I stole a glance behind me. Valko was only five feet away. He’d withdrawn a knife.
Feya, help me. I wasn’t a fighter. I wasn’t trained for this.
“Dasha, stop her!” Valko commanded his sister.
Panic gripped me in a chokehold. Blood pounded through my ears. I couldn’t keep my fear at bay. Dasha would be able to seize it, use it.
I tripped and fell on a broken beam under the snow.
Valko made a noise of exertion and sprang to stab me.
I rolled to the side. His blade struck the ground. Just as quickly, his knife rose again and arced for me.
I kicked his leg to throw off his aim. As he stumbled back, I jumped to my feet. He spun to face me. A vein throbbed in his forehead.
Panting, I swiped my dagger at his torso. He thrust his knife toward my neck.
“No, don’t!” Dasha screamed and raced to catch up to us.
My muscles locked. My franticness heightened to paralysis. I stared into Valko’s eyes, mere inches from mine. He stood just as rigidly, just as conflicted. Our heavy breaths crystallized on the air between us.
“Why do you hate each other?” Dasha cried. “Why can’t you be friends?”
Why can’t I? Her words took root inside me. Compassion sent a rush of warmth through my limbs. Memories flooded to mind. Valko confessing his vulnerabilities. Crying in my arms. Smiling like a lost boy who’d found one true friend.
He pitied me, too. I felt it in the oddest mind-prickling sensation, like gazing into a fractured reflection. What was he recalling about me? Did he remember how awestruck I was when we’d first met? How flattered I’d been by his gifts and attention? How reckless, passionate, and impulsive I once was, just like him? Hadn’t he helped me feel free and special? Until I’d met Valko, all my life I’d felt trapped and strange.
Why was I so ready to end his life?
The tension inside me unraveled. My arm fell. The dagger thudded softly in the snow.
Dasha stared up at her brother, her large gray eyes the mirror of his. “Please give me your knife. Sonya doesn’t want to hurt you anymore. Be nice to her.” She opened her hand and waited.
Valko looked from her to me, his brows twitching. He slowly lowered his knife. Seven inches from her palm. Five inches. Two.
Thoughts chafed at the back of my mind and clashed with my sympathy for him.
This is your chance, Sonya. Kill him.
No, I couldn’t.
If he dies, Free Riaznin wins this war, no matter what happens in Torchev. The empire can’t triumph with no emperor to take the throne.
No, Valko was only a misguided soul. I could help him see reason. He deserved a second chance.
He’ll kill you. And when he finds Anton, he will kill him, too. You’ve given Valko a hundred chances. His heart will never change.
Dasha took her brother’s knife away. She picked mine up from the ground.
Grab your dagger, Sonya!
No, I couldn’t hurt Valko.
Dasha walked a few paces from us and threw both blades out of reach, a little over fifteen feet away. They sunk into the ankle-deep snow.
You can still run, still reach your weapon.
No, I needed to leave it alone.
Dasha is changing your emotions. You have to fight back. You have to break her hold.
I closed my eyes. Tried to sever the strings of my anxiety. Sought a shelter within myself where Dasha couldn’t reach me.
Beads of sweat rolled down the back of my neck. I restrained a shiver as they met the cold air. I couldn’t let myself feel anything. It didn’t matter that my heart raced. It didn’t matter that my lungs pinched off my breath. I imagined myself a blank space. A sea with no waves. A desert with no water. A glacier in an endless winter.
I opened my eyes and forced myself to look away from Valko. I pushed out my compassion for him, as well as my desire to kill. I turned to Dasha. She was my priority. But I couldn’t let my desperation to save her overwhelm me or she could bend those emotions, as well.
I stepped toward her. Inhaled a steadying breath. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. “Dasha, I need you to listen to me.”
She startled to see me moving and speaking and freed from her influence. “Stay back!”
“Your Majesty?” one of the soldiers called, disturbed to see Valko languidly standing by while Dasha shouted at me.
I ignored him and focused on her. “I love you,” I said, speaking the words genuinely, but not letting them burn through my chest. “So many people do. I wish you would let me show you. Do you remember how Anton taught you to release your pain? He lifted you in his arms and told you to cast stones over the palace balcony. One for your worries, one for your heartache, and one for your anger.”
“Be quiet!” She clapped her hands over her ears. “Anton was tricking me so I would like him. Valko says—”
“Nothing Valko says matters. He’s the one who has tricked you. He’s using you, just like he once used me. What about Sestra Mirna? She loved you like a mother.”
Dasha blinked and her lip quivered against a sudden stab of pain. I realized too late I’d released the feeling, and she’d absorbed it. “Why are you so sad when you say her name?” she asked, her bell-tone wavering.
My shoulders fell. I strived to compose myself. “Sestra Mirna became very sick, Dasha. She passed away a few weeks ago. I’m so sorry.”
Her head twitched twice in a shake of denial, and she pressed her hands over her mouth. A ragged whine escaped her.
“She thought of you every day. We tried so hard to find you. We marked maps where you’d been. Sestra Mirna wanted you safe and back home—away from him.” I threw a sharp glance at Valko. A shudder ran through his arm, and a spark lit through his aura.
“Your Majesty,” the soldier called again, this time with more urgency.
“What about Kira?” I walked closer to Dasha and spoke faster, louder, fighting to keep her attention. “She loves you like a sister. Don’t you want to be with her again?”
Longing pulsed through Dasha. She snuck a glance at the manor house.
She knows Kira is inside. Can she sense she isn’t safe?
The soldier lifted his musket. Aimed it at one of the windows. The other soldiers did the same. Every window was targeted. They were going to blindly shoot inside. I prayed Kira was lying flat on the floor. “Shall we fire, My Lord Emperor?”
Valko’s mouth tensed to open just as Dasha screamed, “No!”
My heart thundered erratically. I couldn’t take another step. I was too afraid. The soldiers’ auras trickled inside of me as my awareness broadened. I could finally sense each man. They were just as fearful and halted, scarcely drawing breath.
/> “No one does anything unless I say so!” Dasha warned. “I’m in charge now.”
The tendons in my neck cramped. I struggled to speak. A few feet away, Valko radiated a different energy. His apprehension waned, replaced by a growing confidence. I latched on to his steadiness. I found my beating heart, my flowing blood, my own feelings. We turned to each other. And broke Dasha’s hold at the same time.
“Kill her!” Valko shouted to his men and pointed at me.
I jolted a step backward, but none of his soldiers obeyed him.
He trained a vicious gaze on his sister. “Dasha,” he said, feigning patience, “let them go.”
She shrank away and stubbornly shook her head.
His calm fractured. “Dasha—!”
She gasped. Her hand flew to the base of her throat. She looked past us to the field beyond the estate grounds. “Other people are coming,” she said.
My heart drummed faster. I cast my awareness in that direction, but I couldn’t sense as far as she did—or see anyone.
Valko scrutinized her. “Are you telling the truth?” I wondered the same thing. Maybe this was a ploy to distract him.
Before she could answer, a horse whinnied in the distance, and a crack of musket fire split the air. One of Valko’s soldiers cried out and clutched his arm. Dasha and I jerked as his pain ricocheted through us. The shock severed her hold on the others.
The remaining soldiers stirred, one by one, and turned their horses toward the field.
Valko broadened his shoulders. His eyes darkened with resolve. “Charge!” he commanded. His shout cut through the muffling snowfall.
The soldiers galloped out of the estate grounds. At the same moment, Dasha flinched and tore off running for the house. “Kira!” she screamed.
A beat slower than her, I finally felt the strains of Kira’s aura. It surged with terror and chased fire through my veins. I bolted for the door with Dasha.
Before we made it there, the little girl darted outside. “Dasha!” Kira’s eyes flared. “I knew I felt you! Help me! There’s a—”
The bounty hunter emerged and caught the back of Kira’s shirt. She shrieked and flailed as he raised his knife.
“Don’t hurt my friend!” Dasha released a mangled cry. “Let her go!”
Like a fist to the gut, the bounty hunter’s aura struck my awareness. His trembling fury vanished, replaced by a harrowing remorse. Without a word, he dropped Kira.
“You’re a bad man!” Dasha shouted. “You should hurt yourself, not her!”
In the flutter of an instant, deadly self-hatred seized him. He threw back his head, his eyes filled with anguish, and plunged his knife into his own chest.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I FELL TO MY KNEES. KIRA WRENCHED INTO A TIGHT BALL. Dasha’s body jerked.
The bounty hunter’s fatal pain bounced between the three of us like an echo chamber.
His face twisted in agony as he careened to the ground and landed on top of his knife. The blade drove in deeper, and we all lurched. He convulsed once, then fell still.
Aura gone. Pain gone.
Relief overwhelmed my horror—a terrible reaction to watching someone die. Kira is safe, was all I could think of. The man who hunted Genevie and killed her friends is gone. But as the bounty hunter’s blood soaked the snow and Kira whimpered and Dasha clamped a hand over her mouth, both girls’ shock pummeled me with dizziness and remorse.
“Dasha,” Kira croaked. She pushed to her feet, though she could barely keep her balance.
Dasha burst into sobs and ran over to her. Kira took her into her arms, and Dasha wept so hard she choked for breath. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. But he was hurting you. I thought he would kill you.” She rattled like a leaf in a windstorm. “You felt it, too, didn’t you? He was bad. He was . . .” Her voice went hoarse. She looked between Kira and me and clutched her braided crown at her scalp. “What did I do?”
My heart broke for her. I knew this pain. Profoundly. I had also killed unintentionally. A convent full of Auraseers. Nadia’s mother. I carried each death like stones on my back. “I understand how this feels, Dasha. I’m so, so sorry.”
She looked at me—really looked at me, like she’d never truly seen me before. Her aura reverberated a deep, unsettling awe. “I’m sorry,” I said again, because I wouldn’t wish my suffering on anyone.
Valko stirred a few feet away from us. As he approached the dead bounty hunter, his own aura stoked with growing comprehension, bitter humor, and scathing anger. Each building sensation scorched my skin like hot ashes. “Dasha”—Valko’s gaze thinned on her—“where is Anton?”
She gulped and swiped away her tears. “I—I don’t feel him anymore. He must have run off.”
The corners of Valko’s mouth twitched as he struggled to maintain his grin. “You never tracked our brother here, did you, Princess? You only tracked your little friend.”
She pressed her lips together and glanced at Kira, lowering her head.
Valko chuckled darkly and rubbed a hand over his face. “Oh, Dasha, you’re full of surprises. An Ozerov to the bone.”
Her aura squeezed my ribs with humiliation, but then she set her jaw and grabbed Kira’s hand. “I missed her. You promised I could see her when—”
“—the war is over,” Valko replied. “We can’t take Kira to Torchev now.”
Dasha’s mouth fell open. “But you said we were winning.”
“I said we had almost won. I needed to defeat Anton to do that. And since you have lied to me, you’ve delayed our return.”
“But Kira—”
“Kira is no one!” Valko snapped. “We need Anton dead, do you understand? We need Sonya dead. You can’t be with your friend again until that happens.”
The wet snow seeped into my boots as I stared at Dasha. She felt so conflicted inside, so unsteady, like the earth might crack beneath her feet at any moment. I feared she might break, and I made ready to run, ready to cast up another block to defend myself from her. More guns blasted in the distance. The noises of battle grew louder. Dasha shivered, her nose pink, her heavy breaths fogging the air. Her hands gripped the fabric of the beautiful red cape Valko had given her.
He scoffed, his patience at its end. “If you’re not going to help me, then stay out of my way.”
“Wait!” she said, but her wavering energy wasn’t strong enough to grasp his.
He launched for our fallen weapons, his knife and my dagger. They were closer to him—less than eight feet away—I wouldn’t make it there first.
I tensed to race away—the only option left to me—when a glint of brass caught my eye. On the dead bounty hunter. Tucked in the back waist of his trousers. A handle, mostly covered by an excess fold of his shirt. But now the cloth was saturated in his blood and clung around the defined shape of a gun beneath.
My pistol.
I bounded for it, slipping on the snow-slick earth. In a matter of seconds, it was in my grip. I didn’t need to load and prime the weapon. I’d done that already, just as Anton had taught me. The bounty hunter had never fired it.
I whirled to face Valko. His back was to me as he bent to grab the two blades. I drew a quick breath. Took aim. Cocked the hammer. And pulled the trigger.
I braced myself for a loud crack of gunfire. For Valko to cry out with fatal pain.
Nothing sounded.
I frowned. Pulled the hammer and trigger again.
Silence.
I frantically opened the pistol’s frizzen to check the flash pan, then gasped. The gunpowder was wet with the bounty hunter’s blood. I glanced back up at Valko. He grinned from only a few feet away, my dagger and his knife in his hands.
I cursed and dropped the gun, then sprinted toward the collapsed gates and open field.
“Sonya, watch out!” Kira cried.
My stomach tightened with a sudden surge of hatred—Valko’s. I dropped low as his knife slashed through the air, just missing my head. The blade clang
ed onto the gate bars and thunked on the ground. Adrenaline shot through my veins. I didn’t think. I jumped back up and ran for the knife. Valko tore after me. He still had my dagger.
“Dasha, help!” I shouted. Valko was too close. I wouldn’t be able to dodge him again.
“I can’t!” she yelled. “He’s too strong.”
Strong? I struggled to think as I spied his half-buried knife. Could strength break past Dasha’s hold, as well as a focused mind? Is that how Valko had overcome my power when he’d shot me at the convent? By a stronger will?
I dived for the blade. Wrapped my fingers around the hilt.
The black serpent of Valko’s aura bared its full fury, sharp with fangs. All his energy channeled together, preparing once and for all to kill me.
I scrambled to my feet. Couldn’t raise the knife. I was too late. Valko’s dagger pointed directly over my heart.
Perspiration flushed his face, at odds with the snow collecting in his dark hair. He kept walking, forcing me backward. My heel snagged on the fallen gate rails, but I caught the brick post for support. Valko grinned, teasing me now, waiting for me to fall, drawing out the moment of my death.
Noises siphoned away. I heard only the blood crashing through my ears, the primal thumping of my own heart. My bones ached with fear, but I locked my knees in resistance. I couldn’t be afraid. I labored to ground myself to the space of my body, the breadth of my aura, to every organ and pulse of energy that made me me. Sestra Mirna’s words flooded to remembrance, her answer to the question I’d once asked her:
How will I know when I’ve come to my last open door?
She’d taken my face in one of her careworn hands. You will know, Sonya. Trust me. Crossing that threshold will take every last measure of your courage and your fierce desire to fight.
Deeply inhaling, I found the steel to support my voice. “Dasha, together we’re stronger than Valko! Borrow my strength! Help me!”
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