King of Scars

by Leigh Bardugo

  “What is this?” said the Wellmother, her hands clasped against her heart. She was shaking, her eyes wide as moons.

  Woman after woman, girl after girl, they spoke their names, and Nina called them on. Come to me. Up through the earth, clawing through the soil, they came, a mass of rotting limbs and broken bones. And some of them crawled.

  The doors to the ward slammed open, and the dead poured through. They moved with impossible speed, silent horrors, snatching the rifles from the Fjerdan soldiers even as they tried to open fire. Some were nearly whole. Others were nothing but bones and rags.

  The Wellmother backed away, her face a mask of terror. She stumbled on her pinafore and fell to the stone floor. An infant pulled itself toward her on all fours. Its chubby limbs were still intact despite its blue lips and vacant eyes.

  The dead had made quick work of the guards, who lay bleeding in silent heaps. Now they advanced on the Wellmother. Nina turned to go.

  “Don’t leave me,” the Wellmother begged as the baby seized hold of her skirts.

  “I told you I would pray for you,” said Nina as she closed the door and issued her final command to her soldiers: Give her the mercy she deserves.

  Nina turned her back on the Wellmother’s screams.

  * * *

  “Go!” commanded Nina as she clambered into the back of the wagon. The time for subtlety had passed. They burst through the eastern entrance and onto the road. When Nina turned to look, she expected to see the guards raising their rifles to fire at them. Instead, she saw two bloodied bodies in the snow and a trail of pawprints leading into the trees.

  Trassel. Her mind said she was a fool to think so, but her heart knew better. Now she understood why he’d never taken the food she’d left out. Matthias’ wolf liked to hunt his prey. From somewhere up the mountain, she heard a long, mournful howl, and then a chorus of replies echoing over the valley. The gray wolves he had saved? Maybe Trassel would have to stay alone no longer. Maybe he’d finally said his goodbyes too.

  Leoni was staring at Nina as they sped away from the factory. She had a baby clutched in her arms.

  “Remind me to never make you mad, Zenik,” she said over the rattling of the cart wheels.

  Nina shrugged. “Just don’t do it by a graveyard.”

  “What’s happening?” asked one of the girls drowsily.

  “Nothing,” said Nina. “Close your eyes. Rest. You’ll get another dose soon.”

  A moment later, the air filled with the clamor of bells. Someone at the factory had sounded the alarm. There was no way they were going to make it through the checkpoint, but they couldn’t stop now.

  They careened down the hill. Brum lay beneath a blanket, his body rolling this way and that as the cart jounced over a ditch.

  Nina leaned forward and pulled on Hanne’s jacket to get her attention.

  “Slow down!” she shouted. “We can’t look like we’re running.”

  Hanne pulled back on the reins and glanced over her shoulder at Nina. “What are you?” She didn’t sound scared, just angry.

  “Nothing good,” said Nina, and sank back to her seat in the wagon. Explanations and apologies would have to wait.

  The wagon slowed and she peered through the slats. They were coming up on the checkpoint. She had known the timing had to be right, and now—

  “Halt!”

  The wagon rolled to a stop. Through the slats, Nina saw a group of Fjerdan soldiers, rifles at the ready. Behind them, a little farther down the hill, a long line of men and boys were headed to the fishery to work. They carried their lunch pails and chatted in easy conversation, barely sparing a glance for the guards or the wagon.

  “We are operating under orders from Commander Brum,” said Hanne gruffly. “Let us through!”

  “You will stand down or you will be shot.”

  “We’re transporting—”

  “Commander Brum came through here nearly an hour ago. He said no one was to pass without his direct say-so.” He turned to another guard and said, “Send someone up to the factory to find out what’s going on.”

  Then he disappeared from view. A moment later, the doors to the cart swung open.

  “Djel in all his glory,” the soldier said as the early-morning light fell on the women packed into the wagon. “Seize the drivers! And get these prisoners back up the mountain.”

  The baby in Leoni’s arms began to wail.

  32

  ZOYA

  ZOYA DID NOT SCREAM. She stifled her panic as the sap rose over her rib cage and ceased her pounding on the golden sphere. She could not comprehend what she was seeing. Three years ago, she had watched the Darkling’s body burn to ash. She had whispered her aunt’s name as he had vanished in the heat of Inferni flames beside the body of Sankta Alina.

  But it had not been Alina Starkov who lay on that pyre, only a girl tailored to look like her. Had the Darkling’s supporters used the same trick?

  She did not understand the extent of what Elizaveta intended, only that Nikolai would not live through it. And that Yuri had betrayed them, the pious little wart. You always knew what he was, she scolded herself. You knew at which altar he chose to worship. But she had ignored him, dismissed him, because she had never truly seen him as a threat. And maybe because she hadn’t wanted to see her own foolish idealism reflected in his fervent eyes.

  She watched Yuri approach the shadow creature that hovered like a strange ghost in front of Nikolai. She had sensed the Darkling’s presence that night in the bell tower, but she hadn’t wanted to believe he could return.

  Blind. Naive. Selfish. Zoya held her breath as Yuri reached for the glowing thorn—but suddenly the monster was attacking the monk. She looked at Nikolai’s body splayed against the thorn wood like an insect pinned to a page. His eyes were closed. Could he be controlling the creature?

  There was no time to think on it. Zoya had tried to batter the sphere with the power of the storm to no avail. Now she focused on the sap that made up its walls, sensing the small parts that comprised it, the way its matter was formed. She was no Tidemaker. Before Juris this would have been beyond her. But now … Are we not all things? She concentrated on forcing those tiny particles to vibrate faster, raising the temperature of the sap, disrupting the structure of the sphere. Sweat poured from her brow as the heat rose and she feared she’d cook in her own skin.

  In a single moment, the sphere’s structure gave way. Zoya cast the scalding liquid away on a gust of air before it could burn her skin, and then she was running, letting the wind carry her over the sands to the palace.

  What are you running to, little witch? To Juris. To help. But what if the dragon already knew what Elizaveta intended? What if he was watching her from his black spire even now and laughing at her naiveté?

  The wind faltered. Zoya’s steps slowed. She gazed up at the black rock. How long could Nikolai use the monster’s form to keep Yuri and the Saint at bay? Was Zoya racing toward an ally or walking into a trap, squandering valuable time? Another betrayal. She wasn’t sure she could bear it. But she would have to. She wasn’t powerful enough to face Elizaveta on her own. She needed the dragon’s wrath.

  There was no time to trouble with the palace’s winding passages, and she doubted she could find her way. Instead she let the storm lob her up, high into the sky and the mouth of Juris’ cavern.

  The room was empty. The fire in the grate had gone out.

  That was when she saw the body. Juris lay on the floor in his human form, his broadsword discarded next to him. The gleam of his black scale armor seemed dull in the flat twilight.

  “Juris!” she cried. She slid to her knees beside him.

  He opened his eyes. They flickered silver, the pupils slitting.

  “That Elizaveta,” he said on a wheezing gasp. “Such an actress.”

  “What happened? What did she do to you?”

  He released a sound that might have been a laugh or a moan. “She offered me wine. After hundreds of years. Honey me
ad made from fruit born of her vines. She said she had been saving it. It was sweet, but it was not wine.”

  She looked at his charred lips, his blackened tongue, and understood. “It was fuel.”

  “Only our own power can destroy us. My flames burned me from the inside.”

  “No,” Zoya said. “No.” Her heart was too full of loss. “I’ll get Grigori. He can heal you.”

  “It’s too late.” Juris seized her wrist with surprising force. “Listen to me. We thought we had convinced Elizaveta to give up her power, but that was never her intent. If she breaks free of the bounds of the Fold, nothing will be able to control her. You must stop her.”

  “How?” Zoya pleaded.

  “You know what you must do, Zoya. Wear my bones.” She recoiled, but he did not release his grip. “Kill me. Take my scales.”

  Zoya shook her head. All she could think of was her aunt’s resolute face. Zoya had been responsible for her death. She could have stopped the Darkling, if she’d looked closer, if she’d understood, if she hadn’t been consumed by her own ambition. “He doesn’t get to take you from me too.”

  “I am not your aunt,” Juris growled. “I am your teacher. You were an able student. Prove to me that you are a great one.”

  She could not do it. “You said it was a corruption.”

  “Only if you give nothing of yourself in return.”

  The truth of that hit her, and Zoya knew she was afraid.

  “A little faith, Zoya. That is all this requires.”

  A bitter laugh escaped her. “I don’t have it.”

  “There is no end to the power you may obtain. The making at the heart of the world has no limit. It does not weaken. It does not tire. But you must go to meet it.”

  “What if I get it wrong all over again?” What if she failed Juris as she had failed the others? Her life was crowded with too many ghosts.

  “Stop punishing yourself for being someone with a heart. You cannot protect yourself from suffering. To live is to grieve. You are not protecting yourself by shutting yourself off from the world. You are limiting yourself, just as you did with your training.”

  “Please,” Zoya said. She was the thing she’d always feared becoming: a lost girl, helpless, being led up the aisle of the chapel in Pachina. “Don’t leave me. Not you too.”

  He nudged his broadsword with one hand. “Zoya of the lost city. Zoya of the garden. Zoya bleeding in the snow. You are strong enough to survive the fall.”

  Juris released a cry that began as a scream and became a roar as his body shifted from man to dragon, bones cracking, scales widening, until each was nearly the size of her palm.

  He enfolded her in his wings, so gently. “Now, Zoya. I can hold on no longer.”

  Zoya released a sob. To live is to grieve. She was a lost girl—and a general too. She hefted the broadsword in her hands and, with the power of the storm in her palms, drove the blade into his heart.

  At the same instant, Zoya felt the dragon’s claws pierce her chest. She cried out, the pain like the fork of a lightning bolt, splitting her open. She felt her blood soaking the silk against her body, a sacrifice. Juris released a heavy sigh and shut his glowing eyes. Zoya pressed her face to his scales, listening to the heavy thud of his heart, of her own. Was this death, then? She wept for them both as the rhythm began to slow.

  A moment passed. An age. Juris’ claws retracted. She could hear only one heartbeat now, and it was her own.

  Zoya felt no pain. When she looked down, she saw her kefta was torn, but the blood flowed no longer. She touched her fingers to her skin. The wounds Juris had made had already healed.

  There was no time for mourning, not if Juris’ sacrifice was to mean something, not if she had any hope of saving Nikolai and stopping Elizaveta. Zoya would have her revenge. She would save her king.

  She grabbed a dagger from the wall. Before her tears could begin anew, she scraped the scales from the ridge that ran over Juris’ back.

  But what was she to do now? She wasn’t a Fabrikator. That was Elizaveta’s gift.

  Are we not all things?

  Zoya had broken the boundaries within her order, but did she dare challenge the limits of the orders themselves?

  Anything worth doing always starts as a bad idea. Nikolai’s words. Terrible advice. But perhaps it was time to heed it. She focused on the scales in her hand, sensed their edges, the particles that comprised them. It felt alien and wrong, and she knew instantly that this work would never be natural to her, but in this moment her meager skill would have to be enough. Zoya let the scales guide her. She could feel the shape they wanted to take, could see it burning clearly in her mind like a black wheel—no, a crown. Juris. Pushy to the last. She shoved the image aside and forced the scales to form two cuffs around her wrists instead.

  As soon as the scales touched, sealing the bond, she felt Juris’ strength flow through her. But this was different than it had been with the tiger. Open the door. She could feel his past, the eons both he and the dragon had lived flooding through her, threatening to overwhelm the short speck of her life.

  Take it, then, she told him. I am strong enough to survive the fall.

  She felt Juris’ restraint, felt him draw back, protecting her and guiding her as he had done over the past weeks. As he always would.

  The dragon was with her. And they would fight.

  33

  NINA

  OVER THE GUARD’S SHOULDER, Nina saw the fishermen turn their heads toward the sound of a crying baby.

  Hurriedly, the guard tried to slam shut the doors.

  “Help!” cried Nina. “Help us!”

  “What’s going on over there?” said one of the men.

  Bless Fjerda and its belief in helpless girls. They were taught from a young age to protect the weak, particularly women. That kindness didn’t usually extend to Grisha, but the dead had spoken, and Nina intended to let them keep speaking.

  Another baby began to cry. “That’s it, kid,” Nina whispered. “Do your thing.”

  Now the fishermen were moving up the side of the hill toward the checkpoint.

  “This is none of your concern,” said the guard, finally succeeding in closing the wagon doors.

  “What do you have in there?” a voice asked.

  Nina peered through the slats. Hanne and Adrik had been yanked from the wagon and were flanked by armed men. The crowd of locals around the cart was growing.

  “Just a shipment for the factory,” said the guard.

  “So why is the wagon headed down the mountain?”

  “Get this wagon turned around and get going,” the guard growled to the soldiers now perched in the driver’s seat. The reins snapped and the horses took a few tentative steps forward, but the fishermen had moved into the road, blocking the wagon’s path.

  “Show us what’s in the wagon,” said a large man in a red cap.

  Another stepped forward, hands spread in an open, reasonable gesture. “We can hear babies crying. Why are you trying to take them to a munitions factory?”

  “I made it clear that it’s none of your concern. We do not answer to you, and if you insist on interfering with the business of the Fjerdan military, we are authorized to use force.”

  A new voice spoke from somewhere Nina couldn’t see. “Are you really going to open fire on these men?”

  Nina moved to the other side of the wagon and saw more of the townspeople had gathered, drawn by the commotion at the checkpoint.

  “Why wouldn’t they?” said a woman. “They already poisoned our river.”

  “Be silent,” hissed a soldier.

  “She’s right,” said the tavern owner Nina recognized from their first day in town. “Killed that girl up at the convent. Killed Gerit’s cattle.”

  “You want to shoot us, go ahead,” said someone. “I don’t think you have enough bullets for us all.”

  “Stay back!” cried the guard, but Nina heard no gunfire.

  A moment later, the wag
on doors were pried open once again.

  “What is this?” said the man in the red cap. “Who are these women? What’s wrong with them?”

  “They’re … they’re sick,” said the guard. “They’ve been quarantined for their own good.”

  “There’s no disease,” said Nina from the shadows of the cart. “The soldiers have been experimenting on these girls.”

  “But they’re all … Are they all pregnant?”

  Nina let the silence hang, felt the mood of the crowd shift from suspicion to outright anger.

  “You’re from the convent?” the man asked, and Nina nodded. Let this miserable pinafore and these awful blond braids lend her a bit of credibility.

  “These prisoners are not women,” sputtered the guard. “They’re Grisha. They are potential threats to Fjerda, and you have no right to interfere.”

  “Prisoners?” the man in the red cap repeated, his face troubled. “Grisha?”

  The crowd moved forward to stare at the women and girls. Nina knew the power of the prejudice they carried with them. She’d seen it in Matthias, felt the weight of it. But she’d also seen that burden shift, that seemingly immovable rock eroded by understanding. If that could happen for a drüskelle soldier who had been raised to hate her kind, she had to believe it could happen for these people too. The girls in this wagon were not powerful witches raining down destruction. These were not faceless enemy soldiers. They were Fjerdan girls plucked from their lives and tortured. If ordinary people could not see the difference, there was no hope for anyone.

  “Cille?” said a young fisherman pushing forward through the crowd. “Cille, is that you?”

  A frail, sallow-skinned girl opened her eyes. “Liv?” she said weakly.

  “Cille,” he said, tears filling his eyes as he climbed up into the wagon, his head banging the ceiling. “Cille, I thought you were dead.” He knelt, gathering her up in his arms.

  “Get down from there immediately,” commanded the guard.