When the morning of their departure finally arrived, she packed a small trunk. Unlike the luggage the servants had prepared for her kefta and traveling clothes, this one would be locked. It held Nikolai’s shackles, reinforced twice over and with a new locking mechanism it had taken her hours to master. The weight of them was reassuring in her hands, but she still breathed easier when Genya and David arrived in her chambers.
Zoya peered at the tiny bottle Genya handed her. It was fitted with a glass stopper. “Is this enough?”
“More than enough,” said Genya. “Give him one drop immediately before sleep, a second if you have any trouble. Any more than that and there’s a good chance you’ll kill him.”
“Good to know. Regicide isn’t on my list of preferred crimes.”
Genya’s lips twitched in a smile. “You’re saying you’ve never wanted to kill Nikolai?”
“Oh, I have. I just don’t want him to sleep through it.”
Genya gave her another bottle, this one round and red. “Use this to wake him in the morning. Just uncork it and place it beneath his nose.”
“What is it exactly?”
“A distillation of jurda and ammonia. Basically a very fast-acting stimulant.”
“That isn’t exact at all,” said David. “It utilizes—”
Zoya held up a hand. “Exact enough.”
Genya ran her fingers over the carved surface of the trunk. “The process won’t be easy on him. It will be a bit like drowning every night and being revived every morning.”
Zoya wrapped the bottles in cotton and placed them gently in the trunk, but as she moved to lock the lid, Genya laid a hand over hers.
“We’ve made the sedative as strong as possible,” she said. “But we don’t really understand what we’re trying to control. Zoya, you may not be safe with him.”
Zoya knew that better than anyone. She’d seen the horror that lurked inside Nikolai too closely to deny it. “What would you suggest I do?”
To Zoya’s surprise, Genya said, “I could go.”
David pressed his lips into a hard line, and Zoya knew that they’d discussed it, that Genya meant it. An unwelcome lump rose in her throat, but all she did was raise a brow. “Because you’re so good in a fight? Nikolai needs warriors with him.”
“The nichevo’ya left their mark on me too, Zoya. I understand the pull of this darkness.”
Zoya shook her head and drew her hand away, pocketing the key. “You aren’t prepared for this kind of fight.”
A knock came and they turned to see Tolya’s massive frame filling the doorway to the common room. “The coach is ready.” He called back over his shoulder, “And Tamar is late!”
“I am not late,” said Tamar from behind him. “My wife is just in a sulk.”
Zoya peered past Tolya’s shoulder and saw Tamar holding Nadia’s hand, clearly trying to coax her out of her gloom.
“I have every right to a sulk,” Nadia said. “You’re leaving. My brother is somewhere in Fjerda, and I’m being asked to build a prototype of a submersible that doesn’t work for a party I don’t want to attend.”
“I’ll be back before you know it,” said Tamar. “And I’ll bring you a present.”
“It had better be new goggles,” said Nadia.
“I was thinking of something more romantic.”
David frowned. “What’s more romantic than goggles?”
“We’re ready,” said Zoya. She handed Tolya the trunk. “Genya, report to me frequently on the replies we receive from the hopefuls and the preparations for security. I’ll send messages through our network on the road.” She hesitated. She had the awful urge to hug Genya … and for once she indulged it.
She felt Tolya’s disbelieving stare, felt Genya stiffen in surprise, then hug her back.
“Be safe,” Zoya whispered. Be safe. As if those words could cast some kind of spell.
“The only danger to me will be an overabundance of menu planning,” said Genya with a laugh. She drew back, and Zoya was both horrified and touched to see tears in Genya’s amber eye. “Do you really believe a cure is possible?”
“I have to. Ravka can’t endure another power grab, another coup, another war. Nikolai is insufferable, but he’s the only option we have.”
“He’s a good king,” Genya said. “I know the difference. Bring him back to us whole.”
“I will,” Zoya promised, though she didn’t know if it was a promise she could keep.
“And be careful, Zoya. Ravka needs you too.”
Zoya felt a suspicious prickling behind her eyes and hurried out the door before the situation became more maudlin than she could abide.
* * *
They traveled in luxury, surrounded by outriders and soldiers who carried the double-eagle flag. Yuri was kept in the coach, sequestered with Tolya as they scoured old scrolls and religious texts for information on the obisbaya. Another coach had been devoted to the books they’d gathered from the libraries at the Grand Palace and the Little Palace—and a few Tamar had obtained by stealth from the catacombs of the Priestguard—scholarly treatises bound in leather, crumbling hymnals, even old children’s books, illustrations of what might have been a thorn wood curling at the borders of their yellowing pages.
Though Yuri had wrung his hands and protested in querulous tones, he had been convinced to set aside his black robes for the brown roughspun of an ordinary monk so he could travel with them anonymously. He’d given in readily enough. Yuri believed that the secret agenda of this trip—the visits to the miracle sites and the Fold—was to determine whether the Starless One should be made a Saint and a church built on the site of his martyrdom.
“But for that to happen,” Nikolai had warned, “I need to know everything you can determine about the obisbaya—the ritual, the location of the thorn wood, this whole notion of purification.”
Yuri’s eyes had lit at that last word. “Purification,” he’d repeated. “A return to true belief. The faith of the people restored.”
Zoya knew Nikolai hoped the monk’s research would lead them to a ritual that might purge him of the monster, but even if they were somehow successful, she had to wonder where all of it would end.
“What are you going to do with him when this is over?” she’d asked Nikolai. “The people will revolt outright if you actually try to make the Darkling a Saint. You could start a holy war and give the Apparat the perfect chance to challenge you outright—and he’ll do it beneath Alina’s banner.”
“We’ll find a way to compromise,” Nikolai had said. “We’ll set Yuri up in a nice snug hermitage to prepare a treatise on the Darkling’s good works with all the books he wants. We’ll tell him the matter has to be put before the people. We’ll send him to the Wandering Isle to spread the gospel of the Starless One.”
“That sounds suspiciously like exile.”
“You say exile, I say extended holiday.”
“We should send him to Ketterdam to preach to Kaz Brekker and the rest of those reprobates,” suggested Zoya.
Nikolai winced. “He’d certainly get his martyrdom.”
The king hadn’t toured the country since immediately after the Darkling had been vanquished, when he’d stepped into the gap left by his exiled parents and onto the throne. Instead of remaining in the capital as the aristocracy had expected, Nikolai had taken to the roads and the skies, traveling without rest. Zoya had barely known the king then, and she certainly hadn’t trusted him. She’d understood that he was their fractured country’s best hope of survival, and she could admit that he’d shown ingenuity during the civil war, but he was also a Lantsov, and his father had brought nothing but misery to Ravka. For all Zoya knew at the time, the new king might be little more than a handsome, fast-talking catastrophe in the making.
But Nikolai had done what so many men had failed to do: He’d surprised her. He had shored up Ravka’s borders, negotiated new loans with Kerch, reestablished their military outposts, and used the fleet he’d built in hi
s secret life as the privateer Sturmhond to keep the Fjerdans stymied at sea. He had visited cities and towns, distributing food, talking to local leaders and nobility, marshaling every ounce of his appeal to win their support and cement public opinion in his favor after the destruction of the Fold. When he had finally returned to Os Alta, he had created a new flag with the sun in ascendance behind the Lantsov double eagle and been crowned by the Apparat in the newly built royal chapel. Zoya had felt the stirrings of what might have been hope.
She had been hard at work with the Triumvirate, trying to reassemble the Second Army and make a plan for its future. Some days Zoya had felt proud and full of excitement, but on others she’d felt like a child masquerading as a leader. It had been harrowing, thrilling to know that they were all standing at the precipice of something new.
But now, as they traveled from town to town, Zoya understood that the task of unifying Ravka and building a new foundation for the Second Army had been the easy part. Dragging the country into the future was proving harder. Nikolai had spent his life waiting to govern and learning how to do it, but while Nikolai craved change, Ravka fought it. His reforms to the tithing and land ownership laws had led to grumbling among the nobility. Of course the serfs should have rights, they protested, eventually. The king went too far and moved too fast.
Zoya knew Nikolai was aware of the resistance that had grown up against him, and he intended to use this trip to help defeat it. The days were given to travel and winning the commoners through spectacle and gifts of coin or food. In the evenings, their party took up lodging in the homes of noblemen and local governors and joined grand dinners that went late into the night. After the meals, Nikolai would sequester himself with the head of the house, talking through reforms, requesting aid, smoothing feathers ruffled by the peril of change. Sometimes Nikolai would ask Zoya to join them when all she wanted was to fall into bed.
“Why should I bother?” she grumbled at Baron Levkin’s dacha in Kelink. “Your charm is enough to carry the day.”
“They need to see my general,” he said.
It was true enough. The nobles still thrilled to tales of warfare and the strength of the Second Army. But Zoya also knew that her presence—tart-tongued and sour as it might be—changed the atmosphere in the room, made the conversation seem less a negotiation than a friendly exchange. It was another reason Nikolai desperately needed a queen. So she did her best to paste a smile on her face and be pleasant, and occasionally offered a word regarding the Grisha forces if anyone thought to ask. It exhausted her.
“How do you do it?” she spat at Nikolai one night as they left a particularly productive session with a duke in Grevyakin. He’d begun the conversation determined to reject Nikolai’s suggestion to use his fields for cotton farming, calling for a return to the old ways. His entire home was full of peasant woodcrafts and handwoven textiles, the props of a simpler time in which a serf might be counted upon to create pretty objects for his master and politely starve in silence. But two hours and several glasses of strong spirits later, the old duke was roaring with laughter at Nikolai’s jokes and had agreed to convert two more of his farms to cotton. Another hour gone and he promised to allow a new mill and cotton gin to be built on his property. “How do you change their minds and make them thank you for the experience?”
Nikolai shrugged. “He has a noble’s disdain for commerce but likes the idea of himself as a great benefactor. So I simply pointed out that, with all of the time and money his workers will save, they’ll have more hours to devote to the ornament he loves so much. His estate might become a beacon for artists and craftsmen—the new world sustaining the old instead of replacing it.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Not at all. His serfs will get a taste of money and education and start thinking about building lives and businesses of their own instead of praying for their master’s patronage. But by then it will be too late. Progress is a river. It cannot be called back once it leaps its banks.”
“That wasn’t what I meant anyway,” Zoya said as Tolya led them to the chambers where Nikolai would be lodging. “How do you do this?” She waved a hand from the crown of his golden head to his perfectly polished boots. “Days on the road, bare hours of sleep.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Being drugged every night and playing host to some kind of immortal evil inside you. But still you manage to look fresh and contented. I bet, if the duke had asked, you could have spent another hour playing cards and telling war stories.”
“That’s what the job requires, Zoya. Ruling is not just about military victories. It’s not even about setting fair laws and seeing them enforced. It’s about these moments, the men and women who choose to put their lives and livelihoods in our hands.”
“Just admit that you need to be loved as much as they need to love you.”
“Luckily, I’m very lovable.”
“Less so by the moment. You don’t look remotely fatigued. It’s not normal.”
“I think fatigue suits you, Zoya. The pallor. The shadows beneath your eyes. You look like a heroine in a novel.”
“I look like a woman about to step on your foot.”
“Now, now. You’re managing remarkably well. And the smiling hasn’t killed you yet.”
“Yet.”
Tamar was waiting at the door to Nikolai’s rooms. “Any trouble tonight?” Nikolai asked her. At their previous stop, Tamar had caught a servant skulking about the king’s chambers and digging through his belongings, presumably on his master’s orders.
“Nothing,” she said. “But I’ll do another search of the house just in case and have a look inside the duke’s study later tonight.”
The old duke seemed to have been won over, but if he’d had contact with Nikolai’s opponents in West Ravka or with one of the Lantsov pretenders, they needed to know.
Once Nikolai had removed his boots and settled on the bed beneath a grotesque painting of Sankta Anastasia curing the wasting plague, Zoya pulled the tiny bottle from her pocket.
Nikolai shuddered. “Whatever David and Genya concocted, it feels less like sleep than being punched in the jaw.”
Zoya said nothing. The sedatives they’d given him in the past had been simple potions that had made him softly blurry and often left him snoring before Zoya had departed the room. But with this new brew, Nikolai dropped into unconsciousness in the space of a breath—and he did not look like he was sleeping. His stillness was so complete she found herself pressing her fingers to the hollow beneath his jaw, seeking out the molasses-slow beat of his pulse. Dosing him was like watching him die every night.
“All I know is it’s strong enough to shut you up,” she said. She raised the bottle but kept it just out of reach. “Tell me how you manage it. How do you survive all of this glad-handing and unending performance?”
“You manage it every day at the Little Palace, Zoya. For all your bluster, I know you don’t always feel clever or strong, but you make a good show of it.”
Zoya tossed her hair over one shoulder. “Maybe. But I’m always me. You change like light over water. These moments, these interactions, they only seem to feed you. What’s your secret?”
“The secret…” Nikolai mused. He held out his hand, and she dropped the silver vial into his palm. “I suppose the secret is that I cannot stand being alone.” He uncorked the concoction. “But there are some places no one can go with us.”
He touched the bottle to his tongue, and Zoya snatched it from his hand as he fell backward, plummeting into the dark before his head reached the pillow.
* * *
Zoya traveled with the outriders. Sometimes Nikolai rode in the coach with Tolya and Yuri, but mostly he stayed astride one of his white horses, bracketed by his guards, Tamar following a discreet distance away. He did not wear the full military regalia and sash that his father had favored but instead the olive drab coat that was standard-issue for soldiers of the First Army. He’d earned the respect of the military by servin
g in the infantry before becoming an officer, and the medals he wore pinned to his chest were not ceremonial but battle-won.
In every village and town, Zoya watched as the king worked his particular kind of magic. Even the way he sat his horse changed depending on the crowd he greeted. Sometimes he was relaxed, at ease in the saddle, the sun gilding his hair and gleaming off his perfectly polished boots as he smiled and waved to his beloved subjects. Sometimes he was somber and heroic, standing atop stages and on balconies to address crowds as they prayed in their churches and gathered in their town squares. Though he and Zoya took pains to hide the urgency of their mission, they rode hard each day and never spent more than a single night in any location. They had allotted three weeks for this journey. Whatever they did or didn’t discover on the Fold, they’d be back in the capital to prepare for the festival with time to spare.
In Ryevost, where the great earthquake had struck, Nikolai stripped down to his shirtsleeves to work side by side with the men of the town, moving rubble and raising beams. He stood on the site where the great stone seal of Sankt Lubov had split, spewing forth a tide of tiny silver hummingbirds that had circled the town square in a whirring cloud for a fortnight before dispersing. He vowed to build a new church there, paid for with Lantsov gold.
“And where will all the money actually come from?” Zoya asked that night.
“The Kerch? My wealthy new bride? Maybe the Apparat can sell off a fancy altarpiece.”
But she now saw what he had intended when he conceded to the Apparat’s request for new churches. The Apparat would get these houses of worship, more places to lodge his spies and loyalists, but the people would not think of the priest when they said their prayers and heard the church bells chime. They would think of their golden king and whisper of the day he’d come to their village.
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