“A human.” Why did it feel so good to see that light of interest in her eyes? “Things were… different when I was younger. There were no border soldiers. Barely any raids. The humans up there, they had more in common with us than they do with you southerners.”

She’d been just a witchling then, only five years into living with the Skra, not understanding why Vivna, with her pale nails and barest shred of witchery, hated it so. Before her blood-magic had risen, Ongrum had always expected Ranka to become a hunter.

And to be a hunter, in those days, meant to trade.

“The town was called Orvist.” She could see it even now, a small outpost town so close to the border, it was more Witchik than Isodal. A few witches had lived there openly, working alongside townsfolk during long winters and longer nights to fend off wandering fangwolves or bandits that came to terrorize a village too far north to depend on the protection of the palace. Without the influence of the nobles, they’d made their own kind of treaty. Their own peace.

It had felt normal. And it had felt right.

In those days, the differences between humans and witches had felt as arbitrary as the border itself. It was hard to ignore the question everyone knew not to ask: What if witchery really was just a kind of human magic, one that manifested in strange nails and strength and a sharpening of a particular sense, the same way Galen’s magic manifested into wind? Witches were born from humans, after all, and witches could birth humans in turn.

Ranka cleared her throat. “On one of the trips, I fell through the ice and twisted my ankle. One of the men we traded with was married to a healer.”

If Ranka closed her eyes, she could still see the snow clinging to the man’s pale eyelashes, his breath fogging in the cool air as he showed Ranka how to wrap the bandage.

“We?” Aramis asked lightly. She was prying, Ranka knew that, yet still the truth slipped free.

“Vivna,” she said, the name barely audible. “My sister. She was always the one who wanted to head to the villages—I tagged along after her because I couldn’t bear for Vivna to be anywhere I wasn’t.”

Aramis softened. “Galen used to be like that. We were inseparable. Mother used to tease us for it—called us each other’s little shadows. But I liked it. We were a team. I never felt alone, not if I had him.”

“You still do.”

Ranka pictured Vivna’s annoyed face, the way she puckered her lips whenever she realized Ranka had followed her again. And later, Yeva and Asyil—a perfect pair, until Ranka intruded. Guilt bloomed in her chest. Yeva had welcomed Ranka and paid with her life.