King of Scars

by Leigh Bardugo

  “We all died at one time or another and were reborn,” said Elizaveta. “Sometimes not quite as we were. You can call us what you like, Grisha, Saints—”

  “Relics,” said Juris.

  Elizaveta pursed her lips. “I don’t care for that term at all.”

  Yuri released a small, ecstatic sob. “All is as was promised,” he babbled. “All I was told to hope for—”

  Elizaveta sent a vine curling over his shoulder like a comforting arm. “That’s enough,” she said gently. “You’re here now and must calm yourself.”

  Yuri grasped the vine, pressing his face into the leaves, weeping. So much for the great scholar.

  “Where are we exactly?” Nikolai asked.

  “In the Shadow Fold,” said one of the mouths of the grotesque who had introduced himself as Grigori. Sankt Grigori. If Nikolai recalled correctly, he’d been torn apart by bears, though that hardly explained his current condition. “A version of it. One we cannot escape.”

  “Does any of this matter?” Zoya said dully. “Why bring us here? What do you want?”

  Juris turned his slitted eyes on her, his tail moving in a long sinuous rasp over the floor. “Look how the little witch mourns. As if she knew what she had lost or what she stands to gain.”

  Nikolai expected to see Zoya’s eyes light with anger, but she just continued to stare listlessly at the sky. Seeing her this way, devoid of the spiky, dangerous energy that always animated her, was more disturbing than any of the bizarre sights they’d encountered. What was wrong with her? Had the amplifier meant so much? She was still strong without it. She’d be strong with both arms tied behind her back and a satchel of lead ball bearings weighing her down.

  “I wish we could have brought you elsewhere, young Zoya,” said Elizaveta. “We had power before the word Grisha was ever whispered, when the extraordinary was still called miracle and magic. We have lived lives so long they would dwarf the history of Ravka. But this place, this particular spot on the Fold, has always been holy, a sacred site where our power was at its greatest and where we were most deeply connected to the making at the heart of the world. Here, anything was possible. And here we were bound when the Darkling created the Fold.”

  “What?” Zoya asked, a spark of interest at last entering her eyes.

  “We are woven into the fabric of the world in a way that no other Grisha are, the threads tightened by years and the use of our power. When the Darkling tampered with the natural order of the world, we were drawn here, and when his experiment with merzost failed, we were trapped within the boundaries of the Fold.”

  “We cannot leave this place,” said Grigori. “We cannot assume physical form anywhere but here.”

  “Physical form,” Juris sneered, and thumped his tail. “We don’t eat. We don’t sleep. I don’t remember what it is to sweat or hunger or dream. I’d chop off my left wing just to hear my stomach growl or taste wine again or take a piss out a window.”

  “Must you be so vulgar?” Elizaveta said wearily.

  “I must,” said Juris. “Making you miserable is my sole entertainment.”

  Grigori settled into the shape of what looked like three bear heads topping the body of a single enormous man and folded two sets of arms. “We endured this endless twilight because we believed our purgatory would end with the Darkling’s death. He had many enemies, and we hoped he might have a short life. But he lived on.”

  “And on,” grumbled Juris.

  “He survived and became nearly as powerful as one of us,” said Grigori.

  The dragon snorted. “Don’t flatter him.”

  “Well, as one of us in our youth,” amended Elizaveta. “Then at last the time came when the Fold was destroyed and the Darkling was slain. And yet our bonds did not break. We remained prisoners. Because the Darkling’s power lives on. In you.”

  Nikolai’s brows rose. “So naturally I must die. This is all very civilized, but if you wanted to murder me, why not get on with it during the battle?”

  Juris snorted again, steam billowing from his huge nostrils. “That was hardly a battle.”

  “Then during that delightful cocktail party where you chased us down and tried to set fire to my hair.”

  “We cannot kill you, boy king. For one thing, we know the unrest it would cause your country, and we do not wish to see more people die if it is not necessary. Besides, even in your death, the power might well survive. No, the Darkling’s curse must be burned out of you.”

  “Obisbaya,” said Nikolai. “The Burning Thorn.”

  Elizaveta nodded. “Then you know the old ritual.”

  “It is true, then,” cried Yuri. “All of it. This is the site of the thorn wood where the first Priestguard came.”

  “Congratulations, Yuri,” Nikolai said. “Looks like you do get to put me on a pyre.”

  “Pyre?” asked Grigori.

  “No pyre,” said Elizaveta. “The thorn wood is older than all of us, older than the first magic. It is the wood from which the first altars were made and from which the walls of the Little Palace were constructed. I can raise it from the roots that survive beneath the Fold to begin the ritual, but then it will be up to you to summon the monster from inside and slay it.”

  “You created those miracles,” said Zoya. “The bridge, the roses, the earthquake, the bleeding statues, the black disk, all of them, to bring us here.”

  “The Age of Saints,” Yuri declared. “Just as he promised.”

  Elizaveta’s vine curled a bit more tightly around the monk’s shoulders. “Our power can still reach beyond the limits of the Fold, but only in the places where we are still worshipped.”

  “A Grisha’s power doesn’t rely on faith,” Zoya said angrily.

  “Are you so sure, little witch?” asked Juris.

  Zoya looked directly at him, her gaze unflinching, and Nikolai knew she was planning a thousand punishments for the dragon. He felt a rush of relief at the promise of retribution in her eyes.

  But he couldn’t afford to get caught up in the mechanics of Grisha power. “You say you want me to summon the monster, but the thing inside me doesn’t follow orders.”

  “Then you must teach it to,” said Juris.

  Elizaveta clasped her hands and roses bloomed over her wrists, enveloping her fingers. “Once the thorns rise, they will pierce your body. If you don’t vanquish the shadow inside you, they will burn you from the inside out.”

  Quite a bit like Sankt Feliks of the Apple Boughs after all. Suddenly, the pyre didn’t sound so bad. “Thank goodness I’m not ticklish.”

  “What are the chances he’ll survive?” Zoya asked.

  Roses flowered over Elizaveta’s shoulders. “As Juris said, we have no wish to destabilize Ravka.”

  “That isn’t an answer.”

  “It is … perilous,” Elizaveta conceded. “There are means we can use to prepare you for the trial, but I cannot promise you will emerge unscathed.”

  “Or that you will emerge at all,” said Juris.

  Elizaveta sighed. “Is it necessary to cast this in the least favorable light?”

  “It’s best they know.”

  Nikolai shifted on the stone chair. It had not been made for comfort. “So after you skewer and roast me and I wrestle with my actual demons, what happens?”

  “The Darkling’s power will be eradicated once and for all. The boundaries of the Unsea will break. Life will return to the Fold, and we will be free.”

  “Free to do what exactly?” Zoya asked. It was the right question. She might be mourning her lost amplifier, but she was always a general. And perhaps Nikolai was too desperate for a cure to think like a king. Maybe power of the kind they’d just witnessed should be contained.

  “Don’t you know, little witch?” said Juris. “Great power always has a price.”

  Elizaveta gave a single nod of her head. “When we leave the bounds of the Fold, we will be mortal once more.”

  “Mortal?” Zoya asked.

  �
��Otkazat’sya, you would say. Without Grisha power. Humans who will live brief lives and die permanent deaths.”

  Zoya’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you give up such power?”

  “Do not think it is an easy choice,” said Elizaveta, some bitterness in her voice. “We have spent hundreds of years in debate over it. But we cannot go on in such a way. This is what the universe demands for freedom from this half life.”

  “One eternity is enough,” said Juris. “I want to walk the world once more. Return to the shores of my homeland. Maybe fall in love again. I want to swim in the sea and lie in the sun. I want to age and die and pass into realms I have never explored.”

  “You should understand,” said Grigori. “It is not just your life at risk, but your country as well. If we fail, if you cannot endure the ritual, we might create another tear in the world and cause this blighted place to overspill its shores.”

  “But that may happen anyway,” said Elizaveta. “Everything is connected, tied to the making at the heart of the world. As the power within you grows stronger, there’s no way to tell what kind of chain reaction it might trigger.”

  “You will want to discuss it,” said Grigori. “But make your choices quickly. Merzost is unpredictable, and every day the monster inside you takes firmer hold.”

  “There’s nothing to discuss,” Nikolai said. They had their answers, and time was short. “When do we begin?”

  18

  NINA

  THAT NIGHT, NINA STAYED AWAKE as Leoni’s breathing turned deep and even. Sleep tugged at her, but she plaited her hair in the dark and waited, hoping to hear sounds of activity drift through the narrow window above her bed. Sure enough, just after midnight, she heard low voices and a cart being loaded. Nina stood on tiptoe and saw lanterns lit in the laundry and the Springmaidens carrying stacks of what she assumed was clothing wrapped in paper and string.

  Nina hurried to the convent dining hall—a place with a strict schedule that she knew Hanne could always count upon to be empty at specific times. If an unhappy novitiate was looking for a safe spot to stash clothing, this would be an obvious place for it. She got on her knees and made her way around the perimeter of the hall, lightly rapping her knuckles against the slate tiles of the floor. She’d nearly given up hope when her knock returned an odd, echoing thunk. Hollow.

  She wedged her fingers under the tile and pulled it up. Boots, military-issue trousers, two hats, a gun belt, and—thank the Saints—a long pale blue pinafore and white blouse. Nina yanked them over her clothes, pinned her braids into a messy crown, and slipped into the kitchens, where a long search revealed the cook’s key beneath a flour tin. By the time she’d unlocked the kitchen door and made it out to the yard, the Springmaidens were shutting the doors to the wagon and on their way.

  Nina knew where they were headed, so she didn’t bother with the road, cutting through the trees and taking a more direct route to the main entrance of the old fort instead. She also knew she was being reckless. She should have included Adrik and Leoni in her plans. She should have waited to perform more reconnaissance. But here was the reality: They couldn’t stay in Gäfvalle much longer without drawing suspicion. The Women of the Well could lose their access to the fort at any time. And, if Nina was honest with herself, she needed to act. She needed to know why those whispers had brought her to this place and what had happened up on that hill. The dead hadn’t spoken to Adrik or Leoni. They had called to Nina—and she intended to answer.

  She set a fast pace, picking her way through the trees, checking her direction against the lights of the factory in the distance.

  Despite the sadness and anger she’d carried with her to Fjerda, she could admit that she liked traveling in this country. She liked seeing the ordinary business of Fjerdan lives, remembering that they were people and not monsters, that most of them longed for prosperity and peace, a good meal, a warm bed to sleep in at night. But she also knew the prejudices so many of them carried, that they still believed Grisha deserved to be burned on a pyre. And she could never forget what the Fjerdan government was capable of, the suffering she’d endured at the hands of the drüskelle who had starved her in the hold of a ship, the nightmare of the Grisha cells at the Ice Court, where Jarl Brum had tried to turn her kind into weapons against themselves.

  Nina reached the rocks overlooking the main entrance in time to see the convent cart arrive and the gates open. She stumbled down the slope to the road, sliding on her heels and nearly losing her balance completely. The shape of the body Genya had given her still felt strange, and she’d never had a talent for stealth.

  Moving through the shadows of the trees that lined the road, she saw the last of the Springmaidens pass through the doors, burdened with their stacks of clothing. Only then did she step onto the road and scurry up to the doors, breathless.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I fell behind.”

  “That’s your problem,” said the guard. “Do you know how heavy these doors are? You can wait out here for your sisters.”

  “But … but … you don’t understand … I had to … I had to use the necessary,” Nina whispered in tones of great agony.

  “The what?”

  “I had to … to relieve myself.” The guard looked instantly distressed. Bless the Fjerdans and their peculiar prudishness. “I had to urinate.” Nina lingered on the word. “In the trees.”

  “That … that’s no concern of mine,” he sputtered.

  Nina forced tears to her eyes. “But I had to gooooo,” she wailed. “And they’re going to be so muh-mad.”

  “Oh, in Djel’s good name, don’t cry!”

  “I’m so so-sorry,” Nina sobbed. “I just don’t want to get yuh-yuh-yelled at again.”

  “In, in!” said the guard hurriedly, unlocking the bolts and dragging the door open to usher her inside. “Just stop that!”

  “Thank you, thank you,” Nina said, bowing and sniveling until the door shut behind her. She wiped her nose and took a good look around. The factory was quiet, already closed down for the night. Somewhere, she knew men would be playing cards or settling in to sleep. Others would be keeping the watch.

  Nina hurried through the entryway that led to a vast central chamber full of heavy machinery, hulking and silent in the watery moonlight from the windows. The next room revealed massive vats, but it was impossible to tell what they might contain. She laid her hand against the side of one of them. Still warm. Were they smelting metals here? Mixing dyes?

  The next room held the answer: tidy, endless stacks of stubby, bullet-shaped cylinders the size of pumpkins—row after row of ammunition for tanks. Were they really just making munitions up here? Were the poisons in the river some corrosive by-product from the assembly lines? But if so, why had the wolf’s bite sent a bolt of lightning through her blood? It didn’t add up.

  Nina wasn’t sure where to go next. The factory felt much larger now that she was inside it. She wished she had Inej’s gift for spywork or Kaz’s gift for scheming, but she only seemed to have Jesper’s gift for bad decisions. She knew the eastern wing was unoccupied and in disrepair, so the Springmaidens had probably headed toward the western wing, the domestic heart of the fort, where the soldiers would eat, be billeted, and train when they were not operating the factory. If she were Inej, she could climb into the eaves and probably glean some excellent intelligence. But she was not a tiny soundless shadow with a gift for knifework.

  It wasn’t too late to go back. She’d confirmed this was a munitions factory, a military target for Ravka’s bombers if war came. But the whispers had not ceased their rustling, and they did not want her to leave. She closed her eyes and listened, letting them guide her footsteps to the right, into the dark quiet of the abandoned eastern wing.

  Every part of her protested that she was wasting her time as she made her way down the corridor. This wing of the factory was deserted. She’d seen no lanterns lit in the windows at dusk, and the roof of the far corner was slumped in where it had giv
en way to snow or time and never been repaired. But the voices drew her on. Closer, they whispered, young voices and old. They had a different quality now—clearer, louder, the memory of their pain vibrating through every word.

  The dark was so complete she had to edge along the walls, fingers trailing over uneven brick, hoping she wouldn’t stumble into some neglected piece of machinery and land on her rump. She thought of that ruined roof. Had there been some kind of accident at the factory that had led to the wing being abandoned? Were those the graves she’d sensed? Had women worked the line here and been buried on the mountain? If so, she’d find nothing but old misery in this place.

  Then she heard it—a high, thin wail that raised the hair on her arms. For a moment, she wasn’t sure if the sound was in her head or had come from somewhere deeper in the eastern wing. She was too well acquainted with the dead to believe in ghosts.

  Does it matter where it’s coming from? she thought, heart racing. What would an infant be doing in the ruined wing of an old factory? She forced herself to continue moving along the wall, listening, ignoring the ragged sound of her own breathing.

  At last she saw a dim slice of light beneath a door up ahead. She paused. If there were soldiers on the other side of the door, she had no way to justify her presence there. She was too far from the main body of the building to pretend she’d simply gotten lost.

  She heard a noise behind her and saw the swaying circle of a lantern approaching. Nina pressed herself against the wall, expecting to see a uniformed soldier. Instead, the lamplight caught the profile of a woman dressed in a Springmaiden’s pinafore, braids piled atop her head. What was she doing so far from the others?

  As the Springmaiden pushed through the door, Nina glimpsed another dark hallway, the gloom of it heavy between lanterns set at distant intervals. Nina gathered her courage and trailed the Springmaiden inside. She followed as closely as she dared, her heart thumping hard in her chest as sounds began to float back to her from the darkness ahead—the low murmurs of women’s voices, someone singing what sounded like a lullaby, and then a sweet, high-pitched sound of delight. A baby laughing.