First Snow, a night that marked the beginning of winter and the awakening of their patron deity.
Kyrov’s Vyntr’makt rivaled Salskoff’s with the richness of its food wafting from the stalls, the opulence of iridescent jewels and silks splayed across display stands, the intricacy of sacred Cyrilian figurines carved on white gold. Fish-baked bread lined bakery windows, and the outdoor stalls boasted cold cabbage soups, beef potato pies, and lamb skewers roasting with olives.
Inevitably, in the midst of all the joy, her gaze was drawn to a single pot of beet soup boiling at the side of a wooden stall. Hot vapor rose from its crimson surface, filling the air with a pungent smell.
Nausea twisted in her stomach as a familiar image flashed through her mind. Eight bodies, splayed like twisted works of art. Blood, dark and red in the snow.
Deimhov.
Monster.
“… Ana!”
She jerked out of the memory, the crimson pools and screams fading as Kyrov’s Vyntr’makt returned. May was tugging on her hand. Her eyes were fixed on a stall ahead, filled with rows of honey apple tarts, caramel fried dough, and a variety of other treats.
Ana ran through the meager sum she’d saved up. They had enough for at least two more nights’ lodging and meals, and she was reluctant to spend a single copperstone over their budget … and yet. She thought of the first time she’d seen May, her shock at how scrawny the girl had looked. Even then, May had split her paltry rations from her employer with Ana, walking a mile in the snow each day to the barn where she’d hidden Ana and kept her alive.
She deserved all she wanted in the world.
“Let’s go get one,” she said, pulling May forward, but the child shook her head.
“No, look,” she whispered, her gaze darting between Ana and the stall. “The girl.”
It took Ana a moment to realize that May was referring to the pastry vendor, a young girl barely into her adolescent years. She wore a ragged hood, her pale face and sand-colored hair peeking out from beneath.
“She’s like me,” May said softly, the words falling from her lips like snow, too-soon gone. She stood still, her eyes an ocean of silent memories. “Like us.”
Ana looked. Harder. And it hit her all at once. The pastry vendor’s slouch, curling in on herself as though she wanted to disappear from this world; the air of diffidence, bordering on fear, that emanated from her. And her eyes—eyes that were wells of sadness, like May’s in the dead of winter.
Except May’s had always borne hope.
Before Ana could reply, May pulled away and slipped through the crowd. Ana hurried after her, just in time to see the child reach into the folds of her gray fur cloak and dig out a single copperstone. It was one of the coins Ana had told her to keep, promising they would use it to buy a treat.
Gently, May took the pastry vendor’s hands and folded the coin into them. “Keep it,” May whispered, pressing a small finger to her lips. She chanced a glance at Ana, and for a moment, her eyes said it all: flashes of rage and crashing waves of grief tossing and turning within. And Ana realized with gut-wrenching pain that May had seen her ma-ma in this Affinite, that she’d been looking for her ma-ma when she’d spotted this pastry vendor.
Suddenly, the pastries looked too bright, too false, and the rest of the world faded to a blur of noises and dim colors.
It was as though the world she had seen for the past eighteen years was slowly peeling away to reveal the truth of what it was. How many times had she purchased something from someone who might have been forced into a bad contract? How many overworked and exploited Affinites had she waved at in the crowds when she had traveled with her father to see her empire as a child?
Cyrilian law stated that employment under contract was fair employment … but it never dug into actual terms of that agreement. How an employer was to treat an employee. The terms of payment. Whether that contract had been signed willingly … or through coercion.
“Here,” the pastry vendor said quietly. Her hands darted over the rows of pastries on display, and she plucked one up and held it out to May. “It’s a ptychy’moloko. Bird’s milk cake. You can have it.”
Ana recognized the hush in the girl’s voice, the furtive way her eyes darted around to check that nobody else caught this transaction.
May smiled as she took her first bite, and Ana would have paid all the goldleaves in the world to see her friend smile like that again. “It’s good,” May said, and held it out to Ana.
It was difficult to manage a smile over the cold realization that had just seeded in her chest. “It was my favorite as a child,” Ana said. She thought of Yuri, his coal-gray eyes bright as he handed treats to her and Luka, steaming hot from the kitchens. “Go ahead, finish it.”
May’s face was radiant. “I like the hard brown layer,” she said between bites.
“That’s chokolad.” The pastry vendor watched May with a hint of a smile warming her eyes. “It’s made of cocoa from Nandji.”
“Oi!”
A man in lush furs shoved through the crowd, his gaze locked on May. The pastry vendor’s face had gone paler than flour.
“Did she pay?” the nobleman snarled, storming over and making as though to snatch the pastry from May’s hands.
Something snapped in Ana. “Don’t touch her,” she growled.
Rage flickered in the man’s eyes, but he turned to the pastry vendor, who was watching him with a terrified expression. “I’m going to count my books tonight, and if I find that you’ve been stealing …” He lowered his voice to a hiss. “You’ll get what’s coming to you, witch.”
“Ana.” May’s voice trembled as she tugged insistently at Ana’s hand, pulling her away from the stall. “We gotta go. There’s nothing we can do here. Please.”
Even as she followed May, Ana’s step faltered. It felt wrong, in her heart, to turn and leave someone in need of help. Someone whose Affinity made them different, ostracized. Someone like her.
A cry rang out; Ana and May froze as they turned to look. And, with the rest of the crowd, they gasped as the nobleman backhanded the young pastry vendor with all his strength.
The slap resonated in the square like the crack of a whip. The pastry vendor staggered back and crashed into the stall of neatly arranged pastries.
Anger coiled around Ana, white-hot. She was the Princess of Cyrilia. There was a time when scum like him would have bowed to her, when she could have ordered his demise with a single word.
That time was past, but she could still do the right thing.
“Please, mesyr,” the Affinite girl begged.
The nobleman raised his hand again.
Ana wrapped her Affinity around him. She’d only ever learned how to push or pull, but now she commanded for the blood in his body to remain still with every ounce of her strength.
