Page 112 of The Belle and the Blackbird

Arkhady and Elyria nodded. Tyreste fixed his gaze on the fire.

“Tyreste, Ludya, and Grigor found me after. Saved me. Tyreste and I visited the kyschun, who told us about the wards, and we then split up, he to Books of All Things, and me to the library here at Fanghelm. I found nothing useful, but Tyreste and Adeline...” She turned toward Tyreste to give him a chance to speak.

He watched her, uncertain, before he started. “It was Adeline who found it. Using a cipher Ana sent, she translated a letter from Zofia Wynter, addressed to descendants searching for answers. She outlined the way she and her grandmother Imryll had joined together to place a ward over Witchwood Cross to keep...himout. And it worked. It’s still working, because if it wasn’t, he’d never have needed Magda. We can be sure he will send another in her place if...whenAna fails to deliver on his revolting ask. And our plan is to create a new ward, stronger than the last. More intentional than the last.”

“We’ve tried wards,” Elyria said with a dismissive scoff. “He’s impervious to them. How can you be certain that’s what has kept him from your village?”

“He is impervious to wards created by you,” Tyreste replied. “He has Ravenwood blood, but you do not have Meduwyn blood.Anadoes. All Wynter heirs do.”

“He cannot hurt me, nor my family. Not directly,” Ana said. “And unfortunately, this means we cannot harm him either. But we can keep his influence from our gates. From yours, High Priestess. We propose for the ward to surround the Rookery itself, protecting you from not only him butus. A ward that expels mal-intent, whether it comes from a Wynter or a Meduwyn or anyone doing the creature’s bidding. An armistice isn’t enough. There must be an assurance that future generations cannot choose to go backward. The sorcerer is already barred from these lands. So ifwecannot fly to you, then no one can.”

Arkhady shook his head. “How would that work, if you cannot...” He screwed his face into a wince. “If your flight was taken from you, Pjika?”

Elyria nodded to herself with a distant look. “I may be able to help with that.”

The debate stretched for hours. The four of them traded ideas, objections, suggestions, and arguments. Supper came and went, food delivered but hardly touched, and by nightfall they had a plan.

When Elyria left to check on the other Ravenwoods, Ana leaned toward Tyreste and whispered, “Can I speak to my father alone for a few minutes?”

Tyreste nodded. He stretched and blinked his bleary eyes. “I should check on Addy anyway. But I’d like to speak with him when you’re done.”

Ana perked. “Speak with my father?”

He kissed her and stood. “Send for me when you’re ready.”

She listened to his footsteps fade down the hall. Already she missed him, felt less anchored in the absence of his soothing presence.

“Ana—” Arkhady said, but the screech of her chair cut him off. She raced down the length of the table and collapsed at his feet.

“Ota, say nothing. Pros.” Ana rested her head sideways across his knees. His touch was tentative, his hands trembling as they brushed across her cheek and swept into her hair, as though he wasn’t sure if she was real. “I know you tried to keep us safe.”

“My darling.” Arkhady’s firm voice dissolved into a pained whimper. “How can so much hurt ever be healed? Your mother. Stepan. All those Ravenwoods. What you...youhave had to endure. Alone.”

“The past isn’t our concern,” Ana said, channeling Tyreste’s message from earlier. “All we can do is look to the future and refuse to let others take it from us.” She wiped her eyes on his trousers and looked up from the floor. “Volemthe, Ota. Volemthe. I need you strong, not defeated. Will you try, for me?”

Arkhady’s crestfallen face flushed with emotion, tears streaming down his cheeks. He stared down at her in wordless examination, his bloodshot eyes full of regret and devastation. “I owe you. I owe you the years she stole, the wounds that may never close. But since I cannot give those to you, I will never refuse you anything again, Pjika. I will never hold you from what you are meant to do. How could I? But must you really go up that mountain to solve this? What about your child... my grandchild...”

“The Ancestors are with me, Father. Imryll. Zofia. Ifeelthem. Their love. Their wisdom. They will not leave me in my hour of need.” She looked down again. “I thought I had to die to atone for my part in what happened to the Ravenwoods. But I see now there is no greater sacrifice I can make than the risk I must bear to protect them from the future Wynters. There will always be a Magda, a willing tool of a too-powerful creature. He will always find a way to infiltrate our family. But if we cut ourselves off from Midnight Crest forever, then no amount of temptation or control will provide him another way into the skies. We’ll effectively be useless to him.”

“I’ve never harbored the illusion anything I say will keep you from stubbornly doing what you want anyway,” Arkhady said slowly. “But it doesn’t mean I’m abiding losing my daughter either. I’ve only just got her back.”

“You won’t lose her,” Ana said, even though it wasn’t a promise she could reliably make. She and her child might die on the mountain. But if she couldn’t gather the courage to go, she would eventually succumb to Mortain’s torment, leaving her father and Niko vulnerable to his influence. And though she had always looked up to them in the past, she saw them so much differently after all she’d shouldered to keep them safe—after watching them easily succumb to the koldyna’s thrall when she’d been strong enough to fight back, to not lose herself. If they were the ones tapped to travel up the mountain, they would crumble under the same pressure that had turned Ana’s flesh to stone.

“A child...” Arkhady sighed with a soft laugh. “A husband should come first, Pjika. Have I taught you nothing?”

“I had my own lessons to learn, Ota.” Ana stirred to her feet and bowed over him, gathering him in her arms. “And I love him. I’ve loved him for years. I should have told you before.”

“How could you have, lost as I was?” Arkhady turned his sad face toward hers. “There is no recompense adequate for the neglect I’ve shown you. I thought by keeping Magda sated I was keeping you and Niko safe, but once she had her hold in me, there was nothing left to offer to you. That ismyfault, not hers. I may be the patriarch of this family, but I have not acted like one.”

“We’re all getting a chance to set matters back to rights, Ota.” Ana kissed him and pulled away, sensing that to stay, to linger in their shared remorse, would only delay the inevitable. “I’m going to find High Priestess Elyria and begin preparations. There’s just one more thing I need to ask you first.”

“Niko,” Arkhady replied, guessing correctly. “Grigor found him. He’s already on his way home to us, Pjika. And he’ll be the first face you see when you come down from the mountain.”

Tyr left Ana and Elyria to their plotting and made his way back to the dining hall. Arkhady was still at the table, quaking through another attempt to stand on his own. Tyr rushed over and helped the steward to his feet before the proud man could swat him away like he had Lenik earlier.

“Hvala. My veduhn says it will take time,” Arkhady said with an abrupt, sour laugh. “It took years to make me this way. Would be stranger if I was back to my spry self overnight.” He offered Tyr a quick smile and returned to his seat. “You wanted to speak with me, Penhallow?”

Tyr warily chose the seat beside Ana’s father. It was hard to look at him. He’d deteriorated so much from the last time Tyr had seen him in town that he wouldn’t have recognized him at all. But unwell or not, Arkhady was the man whose daughter he’d impregnated, and nothing he’d ever done before had prepared him for how nervous he was. “Ana...” He reached for his throat and tried to grin. “She’s... very dear to me, sir.”

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