Blood Heir. Amelie Wen Zhao

      She only remembered the aftermath. The bodies in front of her carriage, twisted on the cobblestones; the red, blooming like poppy blossoms on a canvas of colorless snow.

      Ana had killed eight people that day.

      The Palace alchemist, a strange bald man with overly large eyes and a quiet demeanor, had diagnosed her that very evening. She remembered the cold glint of his silver Deys’krug as he raised a trembling hand to whisper in the Emperor’s ear.

      An Affinite, he’d told Papa. A blood Affinite.

      Papa had bowed his head, and Ana’s world had crumbled.

      In a window across her room, she’d seen her reflection. Face still streaked with blood and tears from the market, her hair crusted with sweat and half-covering her eyes—her monstrous red eyes. Her arms had been heavy, the skin stretched taut over swollen, jagged veins.

      That day, Ana had looked in the mirror and seen a monster.

      She’d tried to run after that. Past the maids who screamed at her approach; past the guards who stepped aside, bewildered and at a loss for what to do. She hadn’t known where she was going; all she’d known was that she had to get away, away from the Palace, away from Mama and Papa and Luka and mamika Morganya, so that she couldn’t hurt them.

      The Kateryanna Bridge had loomed out of the blur of her tears, statues of Deities watching over her like sentient guardians. The bridge was named after Mama, and Ana watched it every day from the windows of her chambers, roping over the icy Tiger’s Tail river that wound around the Palace.

      It was a sign. It had to be.

      Tears streaked Ana’s face as she lifted her gaze to the sky. I love you, Mama, she thought. Carry me somewhere safe.

      Ana climbed over the stone handrail and hurled herself into the river.

      The cold jarred her bones as soon as she hit the water, and the ruthless current pulled her under. Immediately, she realized that any hopes she had of being borne to distant lands by the river’s waters had been foolish. The water frothed around her, pummeling her in a way that aroused a different type of terror within her: uncontrollable and tumultuous. Instinctively, she opened her mouth to scream—but water rushed in, squeezing the air from her lungs.

      Panic whitened her mind, and spots bloomed before her eyes even as she fought against the water.

      She hadn’t wanted to die. But perhaps the Deities meant to claim her today after all.

      Something gripped her across her midriff—something different from the pressure on her chest and the cold in her lungs. The world spun in a whirl of white-ice currents and mute chaos, but she realized that the current was no longer carrying her. She was being dragged up, up, and into the light.

      She burst through the surface, her lungs gasping in sweet, precious breaths of air. Her limbs drifted weakly in the violent waters, but there was a firm arm around her chest and someone was pulling her toward shore with fluid, practiced strokes.

      Her savior struggled at the bank and, at last, deposited her on the ice-covered ground that stretched for miles around.

      Ana’s blood froze as she found herself looking into her brother’s eyes—eyes that burned with rage. All traces of earlier mirth had disappeared from Luka’s face—and she thought she saw a trace of the prince, the future Emperor Lukas Aleksander Mikhailov.

      Her brother was panting, his hair plastered to his forehead and curling at the nape of his neck. Breath plumed from his lips, pale with cold. “Brat,” he snarled, and slammed his fist into the frozen ground so hard that it cracked. “What the hell were you thinking?”

      His tone lashed across her sharper than the bite of a whip, and she flinched. Her brother—kind, gentle Luka—had never yelled at her like this.

      She thought of the eight dead bodies blooming red in the Vyntr’makt and lowered her gaze. “I’m a monster,” she mumbled, her lips numb.

      Luka hunched over her, his weight propped up by his elbows. His shoulders shook, and when he lifted his gaze to hers, he was crying. In a sudden motion, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her tight. “Don’t ever scare me like that again. You could’ve died.”

      The maelstrom of her thoughts cleared, leaving only one: the realization that Luka was afraid she’d almost died. He hadn’t … he hadn’t wanted her to die.

      “I’m sorry.” Her voice was high and broken. “I—The Vyntr’makt—”

      “Hush,” Luka whispered, cradling her. “It’s not your fault.”

       It’s not your fault.

      She let herself go then, the torrent of grief and guilt and helplessness, and for a few moments, his arms held her together and his words were her salvation.

      When he pulled back, his eyes—she’d always thought of them as the grasses that bloomed in the Palace gardens each spring—had hardened with resolve, a burning fire, as he cupped her face with his hands. “You are not a monster, sistrika.”

      A flash of the alchemist’s silver Deys’krug. Papa’s bowed head.

      The response sprang to her lips. An Affinite. The alchemist whispered. A blood Affinite.

      “My Affinity—”

      “Your Affinity does not define you.” His gaze seared into hers; his words cut like metal striking stone. “What defines you is how you choose to wield it. You just need someone to teach you to control it.”

      She loved the way he said those things—you are not a monster; you just need someone to teach you to control it—as though they were simple truths. It was as though he believed them, and she could start to as well. “Like Yuri?” she asked, thinking of her friend, a fire Affinite several years older than she, who worked in the Palace kitchens as an apprentice to the master chef. His Affinity made him valuable.

      “Right. Like Yuri.” Luka pushed himself to his feet and hauled her up. They were on the bank of the river right beneath the walls of the Palace, an abandoned stretch of land. The river had borne them to the back of the Salskoff Palace; straight across from them, the Syvern Taiga began in a line of winter-colored pines.

      Luka took her hand and turned away from the direction of the bridge.

      “What should we do?” Dread bloomed in her as she thought of returning to the Palace, of facing her father and the reality of what she had done.

      But her brother’s grip tightened and he brought her fingers to his lips, kissing her bloodstained nails. His brows were creased, his eyes stormy yet gentle at once. “We’ll go back through a secret passageway Markov showed me. You’ll wash off in your chambers. The truth of the incident at the Vyntr’makt was lost in the crowds and the confusion. No one has to know.” His jaw set and he lifted his chin slightly, in that stubborn way she knew so well. “I’ll speak to Papa. I’ll tell him that you need a tutor, like the ones that teach the Affinites employed at the Palace to hone their Affinities.”

      Yet that night, Papa had come to her chambers, his brows creased. He oftentimes came with Mama to tuck her into bed, but this time, he’d stood at the foot of her bed, the distance between them stretching an ocean.

      Quietly, he’d told her that she would have to stay indoors for a while—at least until her “condition” was gone. The official story to the outside world was that the Princess was sick, and her frail health had to be preserved within the walls of the Palace.

      Ana had fallen to her knees, reaching for him—and he had remained where he was, his face carved of ice. It had broken her a little more. “Please,” she’d whispered. “It won’t happen again. I’ll never use my … my Affinity. I’ll be your good daughter.”

      Papa’s eyes had clouded. “It … isn’t acceptable for you to be an Affinite,” he’d