King of Scars

by Leigh Bardugo

  But she wasn’t prepared for the storm awaiting her in the classroom.

  “What was that?” Hanne railed. Kori was nowhere to be found, and Hanne paced back and forth, her pinafore billowing behind her. “Quivering like a leaf in a storm. Crying like some kind of frightened child. That wasn’t you.”

  Nina felt a sudden surge of anger. What she’d seen at the fort, the shock of meeting Brum again, the crimes of the Wellmother, it was all too much. “You barely know me,” she snapped.

  “I know you’re brave enough to want to help your sister and reckless enough to break into a military stronghold to do it. I know you’re clever enough to dupe a roomful of drunk hunters and generous enough to help a desperate friend. Or is that all an act too?”

  Nina clenched her fists. “I’m trying to make sure I survive, that both of us survive. Your father … I know his reputation. He’s a ruthless man.”

  “He’s had to be.”

  Nina wanted to scream. How could fierce, spirited Hanne be Brum’s daughter? And why couldn’t she see what he was? “If he knew you were Grisha, what would he do?”

  Hanne turned toward the window. “I don’t know.”

  “What if he knew I was trying to help you?”

  Hanne shrugged. “I don’t know,” she repeated.

  You know, Nina thought. You know what that bigoted bastard would do, but you’re too afraid to admit it.

  Nina wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her. She wanted to pull Hanne onto a horse and ride until they reached the shore. But she couldn’t think about any of that, not if they were going to free the girls in the fort. Adawesi. We fight. And Nina knew fighting meant using all the tools at her disposal—even Hanne’s guilt.

  “You owe it to your father to keep this secret.” Nina felt sick saying those words, aware of the effect they would have. Hanne owed Brum nothing, but Nina forced herself to continue. “If he knew you were Grisha, it would put him in an impossible position. His reputation and his career would be at tremendous risk.”

  Hanne slumped at the desk and put her head in her hands. “You think I don’t realize that?”

  Nina crouched down before her. “Hanne, look at me.” Nina waited, and at last Hanne looked up. Her vibrant eyes were dry but anguished, and Nina knew that pain was not for herself but for the embarrassment she’d cause her father. “This country … this country does terrible things to its women and to its men. Your father thinks the way he does because he was raised to. But I can’t help him. I can’t fix him. I can help my sister. I can help you. And I’ll do what I have to in order to make that possible. If that means batting my lashes at your father and convincing him I’m a model of Fjerdan womanhood, I’ll do it.”

  “It’s disgusting. You looked at my father as if he were an incarnation of Djel.”

  “I looked at your father the way he wants to be looked at—like a hero.”

  Hanne ran her calloused thumb down the length of the old wooden desk. “Is that what you do with me?”

  “No,” said Nina, and that, at least, was the truth. She had told Hanne countless lies, but she’d never flattered, never manipulated her in that way. “When I said you were talented, I meant it. When I said you were glorious, I meant that too.” Hanne met her gaze, and for a moment, Nina felt as if they weren’t stuck in this classroom or even this country. They were someplace better. They were someplace free. “Our first job is always to survive,” she said. “I won’t apologize for it.”

  Hanne’s lips twitched. “Have you always been this sure of yourself?”

  Nina shrugged. “Yes.”

  “And your husband didn’t complain?”

  “He complained,” Nina said—and suddenly she had to look away, because it was not some fictional merchant who had come to mind but Matthias with his strict propriety and his disapproving glower and his loving, generous heart. “He complained all the time.”

  “Was he quick to anger?” Hanne asked.

  Nina shook her head and pressed her palms to her eyes, unable to stop the tears that came, not wanting to. Saints, she was tired. “No. We didn’t always agree.” She smiled, tasting salt on her lips. “In fact, we almost never agreed. But he loved me. And I loved him.”

  Hanne reached across the desk and let her fingers brush Nina’s hand. “I had no right to ask.”

  “It’s okay,” said Nina. “The hurt just still catches me by surprise. It’s a sneaky little podge.”

  Hanne leaned back, studying her. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

  Nina knew she should lower her head, make some comment about reining in her boldness of spirit, demonstrate that she gave a damn about Fjerdan ways. Instead, she sniffled and said, “Of course you haven’t. I’m spectacular.”

  Hanne laughed. “I would cut off a thumb for a thimbleful of your confidence.”

  Nina brushed her tears away and squeezed Hanne’s hand, felt the warm press of her palm, the calluses of her fingers. Hands that could sew. String a bow. Soothe a sick child. It felt good to take this small bit of comfort—even if it also felt like she was stealing.

  “I’m glad I met you, Hanne,” Nina said.

  “Do you mean that?”

  She nodded, surprised at how much she did. Hanne might not be loud or reckless with her words, she might bow her head to her father and the Wellmother, but she had never let Fjerda break her. Despite her curtsies and her talk of family honor, she had remained defiant.

  Hanne sighed. “Good. Because my father wants you to join us for dinner tonight after he tours the factory.”

  “When does he return to the capital?”

  “Tomorrow morning.” Hanne’s gaze was steady, knowing. “You’re planning something.”

  “Yes,” said Nina. “You knew I would. I won’t act until he’s gone. But I’m going to need your help.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  A great deal. And none of it will be easy. “I want you to become who your father always hoped you’d be.”

  25

  ZOYA

  NIKOLAI WAS GETTING BETTER AT calling the monster, but his mood seemed to be growing darker. He was quieter and more distant at the end of each visit with Elizaveta, though it was Zoya who had to face drowning. By now they didn’t think Elizaveta had any real intention of killing her, but the monster still seemed to believe the threat was real—a fact that didn’t sit well with Zoya. Thanks to her lessons with Juris, she suspected she could break through the amber walls the Saint erected around her, and when the sap began to rise around her legs, it was hard not to try. But she wasn’t there to prove her strength, only to help Nikolai make the monster rise.

  From general of the Grisha army to bait for a monster. It was not a position she enjoyed, and only the progress she’d made in Juris’ lair kept her temper from getting the best of her.

  Today, she’d arrived at Elizaveta’s spire early. Yuri and Nikolai hadn’t yet shown up, and the Saint herself was nowhere to be found. Or was she? The great golden chamber hummed with the sound of insects. If Juris was to be believed, they were all her.

  Six sides to the chamber. Six sides to each amber panel that comprised its soaring walls. Was this why the Little Palace had been built on a hexagonal plan? Zoya had seen the shape repeated in Grisha buildings, their tombs, their training places. Had it all begun with Elizaveta’s hive? There were tunnels leading from each of the six walls. Zoya wondered where they led.

  “You were one of his students, weren’t you?”

  Zoya jumped at the sound of Elizaveta’s voice. The Saint stood by the table where the thorn tree she’d grown still sprawled over the surface.

  Zoya knew Elizaveta meant the Darkling, though student was not the right word. Worshipper or acolyte would have been more accurate. “I was a soldier in the Second Army and under his command.”

  Elizaveta slanted her a glance. “You needn’t play coy with me, Zoya. I knew him too.” Zoya’s surprise must have shown, because Elizaveta said, “Oh yes, all of
us crossed paths with him at one time or another. I met him when he had only just begun his service to the Ravkan kings. When I was still in my youth.”

  Zoya felt a shiver at the thought of just how ancient Elizaveta must be. Her connection to the making at the heart of the world had granted her eternity. Was she really ready to reject it?

  “Did he know what you were?” Zoya asked instead. “What you could do?”

  “No,” said Elizaveta. “I barely did. But he knew I had great power, and he was drawn to that.”

  He always was. The Darkling prized power above every other trait. Zoya sometimes worried if she might be very much the same.

  “Count yourself lucky,” she said. “If he had known the extent of your gifts, he would have pursued you until he could use them for himself.”

  Elizaveta laughed. “You underestimate me, young Zoya.”

  “Or you underestimated him.”

  The Saint gave a skeptical bob of her head. “Perhaps.”

  “What was he like then?” Zoya could not resist asking.

  “Arrogant. Idealistic. Beautiful.” Elizaveta smiled ruefully, her fingers trailing the spine of the thorn tree. It curled to meet her like a cat arching its back. “I met him many times throughout the years, and he adopted many guises to hide his true self. But the faces he chose were always lovely. He was vain.”

  “Or smart. People value beauty. They can’t help but respond to it.”

  “You would know,” said Elizaveta. “The fairy stories really aren’t true, are they? They promise that goodness or kindness will make you lovely, but you are neither good nor kind.”

  Zoya shrugged. “Should I aspire to be?”

  “Your king values such things.”

  And should Zoya seek his approval? Pretend to be something other than she was? “My king values my loyalty and my ability to lead an army. He will have his wife to smile and simper and cuddle orphans.”

  “You’d give him up so readily?”

  Now Zoya’s brows rose in surprise. “He isn’t mine to keep.”

  “There is a reason I use you and not the monk to provoke his demon.”

  “The king would fight to save anyone—princess or peasant in the field.”

  “And that’s all there is to it? I see the way his eyes follow you.”

  Was something in Zoya pleased at that? Something foolish and proud? “Men have been watching me my whole life. It’s not worth taking note of.”

  “Careful, young Zoya. It is one thing to be looked at by a mere man, quite another thing to garner the attention of a king.”

  Attention was easy to come by. Men looked at her and wanted to believe they saw goodness beneath her armor, a kind girl, a gentle girl who would emerge if only given the chance. But the world was cruel to kind girls, and she’d always appreciated that Nikolai didn’t ask that of her. Why would he? Nikolai spoke of partnerships and allies, but he was a romantic. He wanted love of a kind Zoya could not give and would never receive. Maybe the thought stung, but that prick of pain, the uneasy sense that something had been lost, belonged to a girl, not a soldier.

  Zoya glanced down one of the tunnels. It seemed darker than the others. The smell of honey and sap that emanated from it was not quite right, sweetness punctured by the taint of rot. It might have been her imagination, but the bees even sounded different here, less the buzz of busy insects than the lazy, glutted hum of battlefield flies sated on the dead.

  “What’s down there?” Zoya asked. “What’s wrong with them?”

  “The bees are every part of me,” said Elizaveta. “Every triumph, every sadness. This part of the hive is weary. It is tired of life. That bitterness will spread to the rest of the hive until all existence will lose its savor. That is why I must leave the Fold, why I will take on a mortal life.”

  “Are you really ready to give up your power?” Zoya asked. She couldn’t quite fathom it.

  Elizaveta nodded at the dark chamber. “Most of us can hide our greatest hurts and longings. It’s how we survive each day. We pretend the pain isn’t there, that we are made of scars instead of wounds. The hive does not grant me the luxury of that lie. I cannot go on this way. None of us can.”

  The thorny vine curling beneath Elizaveta’s hand suddenly sprouted with white blossoms that turned pink and then blood red before Zoya’s eyes.

  “Quince?” she asked, thinking of the tales of beasts and maidens she had heard as a child, of Sankt Feliks and his apple boughs. What had Juris said? Sometimes the stories are rough on the details.

  Elizaveta nodded. “Most women suffer thorns for the sake of the flowers. But we who would wield power adorn ourselves in flowers to hide the sting of our thorns.”

  Be sweeter. Be gentler. Smile when you are suffering. Zoya had ignored these lessons, often to her detriment. She was all thorns.

  “Your king is late,” said Elizaveta.

  Zoya found she wasn’t sorry. She did not want to drown today.

  * * *

  Juris sensed Zoya’s mood when she entered the cavern.

  “You’ve been to see Elizaveta,” he said, setting aside the tiny obsidian horse he had been carving to add to his herd. “I can smell it on you.”

  Zoya nodded, reaching for the axes she had come to favor. She liked the weight and balance of them, and they reminded her of Tamar. Was she homesick? She’d lost track of time here. No food. No rest. Hours bled into days. “Everyone is so concerned with the naming of their wounds and the tending of them,” she said. “It’s tiresome.”

  Juris gave a noncommittal grunt. “No weapons today.”

  Zoya scowled. She’d been looking forward to working through her melancholy with a little combat. “Then what?”

  “I had hoped by now you would be further along.”

  Zoya planted her fists on her hips. “I’m doing brilliantly.”

  “You can still only summon wind. Water and fire should also be at your command.”

  “Grisha power doesn’t work that way.”

  “You think a dragon cannot control fire?”

  So Juris was claiming to be an Inferni as well as a Squaller? “And I suppose you are a Tidemaker too?”

  “Water is my weakest element, I confess. I come from a very wet island. I’ve never been fond of rain.”

  “You’re saying I could summon from all orders?”

  “What have we been playing at, if that is not our aim?”

  It didn’t seem possible, but in only a short time, Juris had shown her that the boundaries of Grisha power were more flexible than she’d ever have believed. Are we not all things? They were words she remembered from long ago, from the writings of Ilya Morozova, one of the most powerful Grisha ever known. He had theorized that there should be no Grisha orders, no divisions between powers—if the science was small enough. If all matter could be broken down to the same small parts, then a talented enough Grisha should be able to manipulate those parts. Morozova had hoped that creating and combining amplifiers was the way to greater Grisha power. But what if there was another way?

  “Show me.”

  Juris shifted, his bones cracking and re-forming as he took on his dragon form. “Climb on.” Zoya hesitated, staring up at the massive beast before her. “It is not an offer I make to just anyone, storm witch.”

  “And if a foul mood strikes you and you decide to cast me from your back?” Zoya asked as she laid her hands on the scales at his neck. They were sharp and cool to the touch.

  “Then I have made you strong enough to survive the fall.”

  “Reassuring.” She pressed her boot into his flank and hitched herself onto the ridge of his neck. It wasn’t comfortable. Dragons had not been made for riding.

  “Hold on,” he said.

  “Oh, is that what I’m supposed to—” Zoya gasped and clung tight as Juris’ wings flapped once, twice, and he launched himself into the colorless sky.

  The wind rushed against her face, lifting her hair, making her eyes water. She had flown before,
had traveled on Nikolai’s flying contraptions. This was nothing like that. She could feel every shift Juris made with the currents as he rode the wind, the movement of the muscles beneath his scales, even the way his lungs expanded with each breath. She could feel the force of a stampede in the body beneath her, the heaving power of a storm-tossed sea.

  There was nothing to see in the Saints’ Fold. It was all barren earth and flat horizon. Maybe that was maddening for Juris—to fly for miles and yet go nowhere. But Zoya didn’t care. She could stay this way forever with nothing but sky and sand surrounding her. She laughed, her heart leaping. This was the magic she’d been promised as a child, the dream that all those fairy stories had offered and never delivered. She wished the girl she’d been could have lived this.

  “Open the door, Zoya.” The dragon’s words rumbled through his body. “Open your eyes.”

  “There’s nothing to see!” But that wasn’t entirely true. Up ahead, she glimpsed a jagged blot on the landscape. She knew instantly what it was. “Turn around,” she demanded. “I want to go back.”

  “You know you cannot.”

  “Turn around.” The strength of the storm filled her bones, and she tried to move the dragon’s head.

  “Zoya of the lost city,” he said. “Open the door.”

  The dragon swooped and dove for the ruins of Novokribirsk.

  It felt like falling. Zoya was the stone, and there was no bottom to the well, no end to the emptiness inside her. Do not look back at me.

  The past came rushing at her. Why now? Because of Elizaveta’s talk of wounds? Juris’ taunts? The torment of being drowned each day as Nikolai grew more distant? She did not want to think of Liliyana or all that she’d lost. There was only the wind and the darkness before her, the dead gray sky above her, the ruins of a lost city below.

  And yet it was the memory of her mother’s face that filled Zoya’s mind.

  Sabina’s beauty had been astonishing, the kind that stopped men and women alike on the street. But she had made a bad bargain. She had married for love—a handsome Suli boy with broad shoulders and few prospects. For a time, they were poor but happy, and then they were just poor. As they starved and scraped by, the affection between them wasted away too. Long days of work and long months of winter wore at Sabina’s beauty and her spirit. She had little love to give to the daughter she bore.