The tall girl bowed. “Djel jerendem.” She mounted her horse.
“And we had better not see you out here again!” said Adrik in clumsy Fjerdan.
“No, sir. Of course not,” said the girl, but as she turned, Nina glimpsed the defiant spark in her copper eyes. The others might be cowed, but not this girl. She had a different kind of heart. She would ride. She would hunt. She would fight when she could. And that was how she would stay alive.
When the novitiates had gone from the clearing, Nina said, “They’re not going to talk.”
“No,” said Adrik. “They were clearly terrified that we’d be the ones to speak to the Wellmother. Let’s fill our canteens. We can take the samples back to the stables.”
But Nina wasn’t quite ready to leave the mountain. The whispering had started again, and she wasn’t going to ignore it this time. “I want to take another look at the factory.”
“Why?”
How to answer that? “I … I just think there might be more to see.” The chorus inside her sighed.
Adrik looked skeptical. “Go, but be careful. And do not engage on your own, understood?” Nina nodded, but apparently Adrik saw something he didn’t like in her expression. “Nina, do not engage. If you’re caught, it will put all of our operations here in Fjerda at risk. That is an order, not a request.”
“Yes, sir,” Nina said, and she managed it without a hint of the frustration she felt. Obedience had never been one of her strong points, and she’d been making her own decisions for far too long. But she wanted to be a soldier for Ravka, and that meant learning to do what she was told all over again.
Trassel didn’t like following my orders. I bribed him with bits of steak.
Really, Matthias? Should I just try biting Adrik the next time he annoys me? I am not a wolf. I am a gently bred lady … though steak does sound good.
“Leoni and I will take samples here and at the tributary closer to town,” Adrik said, and Nina was glad he couldn’t read her mind. “Be back before dark.”
Nina headed into the trees, taking her time cutting back to the factory on the off chance she was observed. She didn’t follow the road this time. Instead she listened to the whispers, and she didn’t think she was imagining their excitement as she scaled the mountain, letting them guide her farther east. Their anticipation drove her tired legs onward, the rustle growing louder, the sound of a crowd chattering its excitement before the start of a play. Or perhaps an execution.
It was almost sunset when she finally saw the fort come back into view. Why does adventure always involve so much hiking? she wondered. She’d somehow tracked behind the building so that she was on the far side of it, closest to the eastern wing. At this angle she could see there was a dirt road that led to another gate, two bored-looking guards bracketing it. This part of the factory seemed to have fallen into disrepair. Some of the windows were broken, and she saw no signs of occupation.
She also had a better view of the reservoir, its retaining wall carved into the shape of a giant ash tree, its branches and roots radiating in thick, twisting bulges of hewn stone. No doubt it had been blessed when the dam had been built. Wherever water was used or contained, the Fjerdans said prayers, at mills and in harbors, in the great northern mines where holy words were carved into the ice every season. A round sluice gate sat at the base of the dam, and Nina could see refuse in the mud that surrounded it. Soiling Djel’s waters was considered a crime punishable by death in Fjerda. Perhaps these soldiers weren’t particularly religious.
There was nothing to see here, but the whispering in Nina’s head had risen to a clamor, and now she could hear that the voices were not excited—they were anguished.
Nina reached out with her power, the thing that parem had created within her. She felt the flow of the invisible river that no man could contain. It was death, a cold and inevitable tide, and when she focused, she could sense where it rushed and where it eddied. She let her mind dive into that cold, seeking those voices.
Where are you? she asked the darkness. Who are you?
She gasped as the current seized her, as if to drag her along, to pull her into the deep. The wailing inside her rose like a terrible flood. Death wanted to claim her. She could feel it. And did some part of her want to let it have its way?
Nina, come back.
The water did not feel cold anymore.
It felt kind. Like a welcome.
Nina. Do not give in to the tide.
Nina’s eyes flashed open. The world of the living enveloped her again—birdsong, the wet scent of the soil beneath her boots, the sound of small creatures moving through the brush.
She looked at the hulking shape of the factory and felt a deep chill sink into her bones. The voices had receded, but she could still hear them crying. She knew who they were. Women and girls in the hundreds. All of them dead.
Here, on this mountaintop, Nina was surrounded by graves.
6
NIKOLAI
NIKOLAI AND TOLYA BROUGHT David and Nadia back to the capital by way of the underground tunnel that stretched from the Gilded Bog all the way to the grounds of the Grand Palace—fifteen miles of travel far beneath the surface of the earth. Poor Tolya muttered to himself the entire way. In verse.
Nikolai would have liked to spare Tolya and his own ears the trauma of the journey, but his head of security had insisted he was fine. Besides, Nikolai had received word that the crowd of pilgrims camped outside the city walls had grown in recent days and that some were demanding an audience with the king. All he needed was for an overzealous zealot to hurl himself beneath the hooves of one of the royal riders. Nikolai didn’t intend to make any martyrs today.
They emerged behind a noisy manmade waterfall not far from the royal stables, the path to it monitored by two of Nikolai’s most trusted palace guards. In their white-and-gold uniforms, dark hair parted neatly on the side, both of their faces cast in the solemn disinterest of soldiers at attention, the guards might have been brothers, but they couldn’t have been less alike in disposition. Trukhin was always laughing and full of bravado; Isaak was so shy he often struggled to make eye contact.
The guards registered no surprise as Nikolai’s party appeared from between the hedges.
“Trukhin,” Nikolai said. “What excitement did I miss on my travels?”
Trukhin’s stern expression gave way instantly to an easy smile. “Welcome back, Your Highness. Not much to report here, though an Inferni did set fire to the woods behind the lake.”
Sounds like Kuwei. Nikolai admired the Shu boy’s gift for mayhem. Especially because the young Inferni was Zoya’s problem to manage. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”
Trukhin’s grin turned rueful. “I believe the minister of defense was caught in the blaze. But he suffered no injuries.”
“As long as no one set fire to the minister of finance. Cav anenye?” Nikolai asked Isaak in Zemeni. He had discovered the guard’s gift for languages during his service at Halmhend and encouraged Isaak to foster those talents.
Isaak bowed slightly. “Your accent is coming along nicely, Your Majesty.”
“Don’t coddle me, Isaak.”
The guard cleared his throat. “Well, the Zemeni word for day is can, not cav. Unless you meant to ask how my donkey is going.”
“I wish your donkey well, but you should always feel free to correct me when I make mistakes.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” Isaak said uncomfortably.
“Don’t worry,” said Nikolai as they turned their backs on the gardens and headed toward the Grand Palace. “It doesn’t happen often.”
Easy words. Old words. Harder to prove true with every passing day.
Through the trees, Nikolai glimpsed the gilded terraces of the Grand Palace, stacked like the frosted layers of the world’s most expensive tea cake. His ancestors had enjoyed an excess of everything—except good taste. But he would not be stopping there just yet. He veered left toward the Little Palace instead, passing
through the woods and emerging to the sight of its golden domes, the gleaming blue lake with a tiny island at its center visible just beyond.
Nikolai had spent plenty of time here, and yet there was something about this place—the soaring towers, the ancient wooden walls inlaid with mother-of-pearl and carved with every manner of flower and beast. He always felt he was traveling into foreign territory, leaving the new world behind for someplace where dark bargains might be struck. He should probably stop reading novels.
Grisha were everywhere in their brightly colored kefta—uniforms Tolya and Tamar had resolutely refused to wear, opting for the olive drab of First Army soldiers instead. The twins kept their arms bare, their deep bronze skin tattooed with the markings of the Sun Saint.
Zoya and Genya were already waiting in the war room.
“You’re late,” said Zoya.
“I’m the king,” said Nikolai. “That means you’re early.”
For most state matters, the Grisha Triumvirate attended Nikolai at the Grand Palace, in the same room where he met with his ministers and governors. But when they needed to talk—really talk without fear of being overheard—they came here, to the chambers the Darkling had built. He was a man who had excelled at keeping secrets; the war room had no windows and only a single entrance that couldn’t be accessed without breaching the Little Palace itself. The walls were lined with maps of Ravka made in the old style. They would have enchanted Nikolai as a child—had he ever been allowed anywhere near the place.
“We’re in trouble,” Nikolai said without preamble, and settled himself in a chair at the head of the table with a cup of tea perched on his knee.
“Saying we’re in trouble is like saying Tolya is hungry,” replied Zoya, ignoring Tolya’s scowl and pouring herself tea from the samovar. “Am I supposed to be surprised?”
She had dressed in the blue wool kefta that most Etherealki wore in cold weather, silver embroidery at its cuffs and hem, gray fox fur at its collar. She showed little sign of fatigue despite the days and nights of travel that had brought them back to Os Alta. Zoya was always a general, and her impeccable appearance was part of her armor. Nikolai glanced at his perfectly shined boots. It was a trait he respected.
“But this is particularly delicious trouble,” he said.
“Oh no,” groaned Genya. “When you talk that way, things are always about to go horribly wrong.” Her kefta was Corporalki red, only a shade darker than her hair, its cuffs embroidered in dark blue—a combination worn only by Genya and her regiment of Tailors. But the cuffs and hem of Genya’s kefta were also detailed with golden thread to match the sun emblazoned over her eyepatch in remembrance of Alina Starkov. Nikolai had added the sun in ascendance to his own Lantsov heraldry, a gesture he could admit had been driven by the need to court public opinion as much as by personal sentiment. Still, it sometimes felt like Alina was trailing them from room to room, her presence as tangible as the heat of a summer sun, though the girl was long gone.
Nikolai tapped his spoon against his cup. “David and Nadia are close to perfecting the weapons system on the izmars’ya.”
David didn’t bother to look up from the reading he’d brought with him—a treatise on osmotic filters that Nikolai had found most helpful. “You’re right, Genya. This must be very serious trouble.”
Genya cocked her head to the side. “Why do you say that?”
“He’s starting with the good news.”
Nikolai and Zoya exchanged a glance, and Zoya said, “Hiram Schenck approached the king at the trade summit in Ivets. The Kerch Merchant Council knows about our underwater fleet.”
Tamar pushed back her chair in frustration. “Damn it. I knew we had a leak at the old facility. We should have moved to Lazlayon sooner.”
“They were going to find out eventually,” said Tolya.
David mumbled, “There are peaceable applications for the submersibles. Research, exploration.”
He’d never liked to think of himself as a maker of weapons. But they couldn’t afford to be so naive.
Tamar leaned against the wall and propped up her heel. “Let’s not pretend we don’t know what the Kerch intend to use our sharks for.”
Hiram Schenck and the merchants of the Kerch Council claimed they wanted the izmars’ya as a defensive measure against their Shu neighbors and the possibility of Fjerdan blockades. But Nikolai knew better. They all did. The Kerch already had a target in mind: Zemeni ships.
The Zemeni had been building up their navy and establishing their own trade routes. They no longer needed Kerch ports or Kerch vessels, and for the first time, the mighty Kerch, who had ruled the seas and the world’s trade undisputed for so long, had competition to worry about. Not only that, but the Zemeni had advantages the Kerch couldn’t match—extensive farmland, timber, and mines of their own. If Nikolai was honest, he was jealous of the way the young country had thrived. This was what a nation could do without enemies at their borders, unburdened by the constant threat of war.
But if the Kerch Merchant Council obtained the plans to Ravka’s fleet of sharks, there would be no quarter for Zemeni ships. They could be attacked anywhere, and the Kerch would regain their monopoly of the seas—a monopoly that had made them one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations in the world, despite their tiny size.
“The Zemeni have been strong allies,” said Tolya. “They’ve lent us aid, stood with us when no one else would.”
Tamar folded her arms. “But they can’t forgive our loans. The Kerch control Ravka’s debt. They could cripple us with the stroke of a pen.”
Nikolai contemplated the map before him. Shu Han to the south. Fjerda to the north. Ravka caught between them. If Ravka couldn’t maintain its borders, his nation would become little more than a battleground between two great powers—and Nikolai had promised his people peace, a chance to rebuild. Both the Fjerdans and the Shu possessed vast standing armies, while the Ravkan army was depleted from years of waging war on two fronts. When Nikolai had taken command of Ravka’s forces after the civil war, he had known they could not match their enemies’ numbers. Ravka could only survive by using innovation to stay one step ahead. His country did not want to be at war again. He did not want to be at war again. But to build flyers, ships, or weapons in any quantity that would matter, they needed money and access to resources that only Kerch loans could provide. The decision seemed simple—except no decision was ever simple, even if one was willing to put thoughts of honor and allies aside.
“You’re both right,” Nikolai said. “We need the Zemeni and we need the Kerch. But we can’t choose two partners in this dance.”
“All right,” said Zoya. “Who do we want to go home with when the music stops?”
Tamar tapped her heel against the wall. “It has to be the Kerch.”
“Let’s not make any rash decisions,” said Nikolai. “Pick the wrong partner and we could be in for a disappointing night.”
He removed a vial of cloudy green liquid from his pocket and set it on the table.
Zoya drew in a sharp breath and Genya leaned forward.
“Is that what I think it is?” asked Zoya.
Nikolai nodded. “Because of the information we gleaned from Kuwei Yul-Bo, our Alkemi are close to perfecting an antidote to parem.”
Genya pressed her hands together. There were tears in her single amber eye. “Then—”
Nikolai hated to quell her hope, but they all needed to understand the reality of the situation. “Unfortunately, the formula for the antidote requires huge amounts of jurda stalks. Ten times the number of plants it would take to create an ounce of jurda parem.”
Zoya picked up the vial, turned it over in her hands. “Jurda only grows in Novyi Zem. No other climate will sustain it.”
“We need an antidote,” said Tamar. “All of our intelligence points to the Shu and the Fjerdans being closer to developing a usable strain of parem.”
“More Grisha enslaved,” said Zoya. “More Grisha used as weapo
ns against Ravka. More Grisha dead.” She set the vial back on the table. “If we give the Kerch the plans to the izmars’ya, we’ll lose Novyi Zem as an ally and our chance to protect our Grisha—maybe the world’s Grisha—from parem.” With a tap of her finger, she set the vial spinning in a slow circle. “If we say no to the Kerch, then we won’t have the money to adequately arm and equip the First Army. Either way we lose.”
Genya turned to Nikolai. “You’ll make a diplomatic trip, then. Visit the Kerch, visit the Zemeni. Do that thing you do where you use too many words to say something simple and confuse the issue.”
“I’d like nothing better than another opportunity to talk,” said Nikolai. “But I’m afraid I have more bad news.”
Genya slumped in her chair. “There’s more?”
“This is Ravka,” said Zoya. “There’s always more.”
Nikolai had known this moment was coming, and yet he still wished he could make some kind of excuse and bring the meeting to a halt. So sorry, friends. I’m needed in the greenhouses on a matter of national security. No one else can prune the peonies. Though everyone here knew what had been happening to him, it still felt like a dirty secret. He did not want to let the demon into the room. But this had to be said.
“While Zoya and I were away, the monster took hold of me again. I broke free at the duke’s estate and made a delightful sojourn to a local goose farm.”
“But the sleeping tonic—” Genya began.
“The monster is getting stronger.” There, now. He’d said it. Not a bit of waver to his voice, not even the barest note of worry, though he wanted to choke on the words.
Genya shuddered. Better than anyone, she understood the darkness living inside Nikolai. It was tied to the nichevo’ya, to the very monsters that had terrorized her. The Darkling had set his shadow soldiers upon her when she betrayed him. She had lost an eye to his creatures, and their bites had left her body covered in scars that could not be tailored away. Nikolai still marveled at the particular cruelty of it. The Darkling had known that Genya valued beauty as her shield, so he had taken it from her. He had known that Nikolai relied on his mind, his talent for thinking his way out of any situation, so he’d let the demon steal Nikolai’s ability to speak and think rationally. The Darkling could have killed either of them, but he had wanted to punish them instead. He might have been an ancient power, but he certainly had a petty streak.
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