“Can you help me get back to the White Island?” she asked.
“Why do you not wait for Brum if he is your … if you are his…”
A dark bubble of mirth rose in Nina. How easily these men played with bloodshed and suffering, but at the mere thought of pleasure, their minds went slack.
Nina grasped Joran’s arm. “I will tell him I was never here tonight, that I could not raise the courage to come. If he knows that I wandered away from his rooms, that I dared to speak to you, I would … I would have to tell him what I found.”
Joran stiffened. “I would be put to death.”
“I am a woman alone in a powerful man’s house. I have no true allies. I will do what I must to survive.”
Joran looked almost startled. “You did not want to be his whore?”
The word made Nina bristle. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“Commander Brum … he would never. He would not force—”
“He has no need to resort to force. He prefers a different kind of submission.” At that, Joran’s expression changed. He knows it’s true. He’s seen Brum’s love of power. “A woman in my position has no language for refusal. Without Commander Brum’s generosity, I would be lost. And if a man like Jarl Brum chose to impugn my reputation…”
Joran’s eyes darted left and right. She could see a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He was at the crossroads. He didn’t know what was true or right anymore; the altar behind him made that perfectly clear. He nodded once as if in debate with himself, then again.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll help you.”
Nina felt an ache in her throat. There was honor in Joran, the honor she’d hoped to see in Prince Rasmus. He didn’t want to be a killer. He didn’t want to be cruel. Brum’s hatred hadn’t twisted him completely yet. Save some mercy for my people. For this boy, still striving for some kind of goodness, she could.
“We have to go now,” said Joran. He hesitated, noticing her attire for the first time. “Why are you wearing riding clothes?”
“He told me to. He wished to chastise me.”
Joran’s face went crimson at the possibilities. Nina almost blushed at that one herself. She could hear Hanne whisper in her ear, Shameless.
“Where did you enter the sector?” he asked.
“The secret door,” she lied.
Joran shook his head, disgusted that Brum would give up the mysteries of the drüskelle for a tawdry affair. “I can get you back there.”
He tidied up his altar, locking everything away inside the trunk, and disappeared into the hallway. A moment later, she heard voices, Joran saying something to whoever was there. For a moment Nina was certain he would sound the alarm and give her up to his brothers, that his sympathy had all been a ruse. Then he pushed the door open and waved her along.
At the end of the hall, he lifted a tapestry of a white wolf with an eagle in its bloody jaws and pressed one of the stones. The wall slid back, revealing a narrow, winding staircase carved into the rock. Nina hid her surprise. She was supposed to have come this way.
At the base of the dark stairs, she heard scraping sounds. The door opened, bringing with it a gust of cold air. From here, it looked as if the ice moat was nothing but a sheer skin of frost and freezing water lurking below it. But Nina knew there was a transparent glass bridge beneath it. She glanced up in time to see Hanne’s startled face disappear high above, and the rope rapidly vanishing up onto the roof.
“I will go on my own from here,” Nina said.
“You’ll be all right?”
“I would not ask you to risk capture for my sake.”
Joran’s face was pained. “He’ll punish you for not waiting. For not doing as he bid.”
“I know,” she said, lowering her eyes.
“You must find a way out of his household.”
She would. When her work was done and not before. “I will, but I cannot leave Hanne.” As she said the words, she knew they were true.
Joran hesitated. “It would be better if you kept her away from the prince. He’s not … he’s weak.”
“He grows stronger every day.”
Joran gave a sharp shake of his head. “I’ve known plenty of wounded men, people who have lost limbs, who live with pain or sickness. They bear their suffering without ever playing the games that Rasmus does. The flaw is not in his body. It’s in his soul.”
“He’s been nothing but good to Hanne.” Flimsy words after what she’d seen Rasmus do to Joran. “At the hunt, he was humiliated—”
“That wasn’t the first time he lashed out. I saw him knock a boy from his horse and claim it was a joke. The child split his skull on the cobblestones, but no one said a word, because Rasmus is a prince.”
Could it have been an accident? A bit of fun gone wrong? Nina couldn’t quite make herself believe it.
“He’s changing,” she said with more hope than she felt. “The stronger he feels, the less he’ll need to prove his strength.”
“He was testing his new strength,” said Joran, “waiting to see who will stop him. And you know no one will.”
Nina set her foot on the invisible path, feeling the cold of the water through her boots. She made herself go slowly, carefully, when all she wanted was to run from the drüskelle sector and the truth in Joran’s words.
She clutched her coat tight against the chill in the air. There was nothing else to do but keep moving forward. You chose your path. You walked it. You hoped to find a way home again.
26
THE MONK
ALEKSANDER STOLE CLOTHES and shoes from the back of a wagon on his way into Polvost. Finding the Starless had been more difficult than he’d anticipated, and he was growing weary of the march. He bent beside a stream to drink, but he didn’t need to waste time hunting. He wasn’t hungry. He remembered how Elizaveta had craved sensation—the taste of wine, the touch of skin, the feel of soft earth beneath her feet. Aleksander cared for none of this. He only wished that it wasn’t winter. He wanted to turn his face to the sun and feel it warm him. The cold frightened him now. It felt like death, like the long silence of not being, without sense of time or place, only the understanding that he must hold on, that someday, there would be an end to the terrible stillness. He’d been a long time in the dark.
But eventually he realized that he was growing weak. Yuri’s body needed sustenance, and so he made his way to a beer hall in Shura. Aleksander had no money, but he offered to chop wood and fix the roof in exchange for a meal. The young men of the town were already gone, back in uniform, readying to face the Fjerdans.
“And what do you think of the king’s war?” he asked a group of old men gathered on the porch.
The gray grandfather who answered was so wizened he looked more walnut than man. “Our Nikolai didn’t ask for a war, but if it’s what them cold northern bastards want, he’ll give it to them.”
His wrinkled companion spat onto the wooden slats. “You’ll be kissing the icy asses of those northern bastards when they march through. We don’t have the tanks and guns the Fjerdans have, and sending our children to die won’t change that.”
“You saying we should just let them drop bombs on our cities?”
On and on it went, the same old story. But they did love their king.
“You’ll see, he’ll find a way out of this trap, same as the last. The too-clever fox always does.”
Aleksander wondered if they’d actually read that particular story. He seemed to recall it had a very bloody end. The fox had lost his hide to the hunter’s knife. Or maybe he’d been rescued? Aleksander couldn’t recall.
He sat at the end of a table in the beer hall, ate tough rye bread and strips of lamb stewed so long they tasted like they’d already been chewed. This was what it meant to be alive. Elizaveta should count herself lucky. To think Zoya had been the one to kill her. He supposed it saved him the trouble of doing it himself. And if Zoya ever learned to harness the power she’d been given? She was still vulnerable,
still malleable. Her anger made her easy to control. When this war was done and the casualties counted, she might once more be in need of a shepherd. She had been one of his best students and soldiers, her envy and her rage driving her to train and fight harder than any of her peers. And then she’d turned on him. Like Genya. Like Alina. Like his own mother. Like all of Ravka.
She will return to you.
He didn’t want Yuri’s sympathy. He drank sour beer and listened to the customers gossip. All the talk was of the war, the bombing of Os Alta, and of course, the blight that had vexed the king and his general so.
“Pilgrims camped in Gayena. They tried to set up their blasted black tents here, but we drove them out. We’ll have none of that unholy talk.”
“They say the blight’s a punishment for not making the Darkling a Saint.”
“Well, I say make him a Saint if it will bring that pasture back to life. Where am I supposed to graze my cattle?”
“If he can get my lazy husband out of bed, I’ll make a pilgrimage to the Fold myself.”
Gayena. At last he had word of the Starless. He finished his awful meal and ducked out of the beer hall, but not before he’d used his shadows to help him snatch a pair of spectacles from one of the tables. As he walked, he let Yuri’s features return to the fore, the long face, the weak chin. No beard, of course. He was no Tailor. And the weak body would remain in exile too. Aleksander would need every bit of his strength. He placed the spectacles on his nose. He would have to look over the lenses. Yuri’s faulty eyesight from all those years bent over books was another thing he didn’t care to restore.
He could feel the boy’s elation at the prospect of rejoining the faithful. This is my purpose. This is the reason for all of it.
Yuri wasn’t wrong. Everyone had a part to play.
Aleksander found the Starless camped under a bridge like a gathering of trolls, their black banners raised over their tents. He took quick stock of their defenses and assets. It was a surprisingly young group, and almost all men, all of them dressed in black, many in tunics clumsily embroidered with his symbol—the sun in eclipse. He spotted a mule, a few scrawny horses, a box covered with a tarp in a wagon—a weapons cache, he assumed. This was what he had to work with? He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. If not an army, then the makings of one, but not this pathetic gathering.
I shouldn’t have left them. Yuri again. His presence was more insistent now, as if allowing the little monk’s features to emerge had made Yuri’s voice stronger—less a single gnat than a swarm of them.
“Yuri?” A barrel-chested man with a salt-and-pepper beard approached.
Aleksander searched for his name and Yuri’s memories provided it. “Chernov!”
He was swept up in a musty, muscular embrace that nearly lifted him off his toes. It was like being hugged by a bearskin rug badly in need of cleaning.
“We feared you were dead!” Chernov cried. “We’d heard you were traveling with the apostate king and then, not a word from you.”
“I have returned.”
Chernov frowned. “You sound different. You look different.”
Aleksander knew better than to try to make excuses. Instead he grabbed Chernov’s arm and met his gaze. “I am different, Chernov. How many are gathered here?”
“At last count, we had thirty-two of the faithful. But we’re feeding a few travelers who have not yet found the Starless path.”
“We are?” Valuable resources squandered.
“We are,” said Chernov. “Just as you preached. All are equal in the dark.”
He had to stop himself from laughing. Instead he nodded and repeated the words with fervor. “All are equal in the dark.”
Chernov led him through camp, and Aleksander greeted those who seemed to recognize him as an old friend. If they only knew. As they walked, he inquired casually about the other places the Cult of the Starless Saint had taken hold. By Chernov’s count, the cult’s following had swelled to nearly one thousand pilgrims. A meager number, but it was a start.
“We’ve decided to head south to warmer climes, get away from the northern border. We don’t want to get caught in the crossfire when the fighting breaks out.”
“And then?”
Chernov smiled. “And then we continue the good work of spreading the Darkling’s name and championing his Sainthood. Once King Nikolai is deposed, Vadik Demidov will be crowned and we will petition—”
“Demidov will be a Fjerdan puppet.”
“What do we care for politics of that kind?”
“You’ll care when they stack Grisha on the pyre.”
“Grisha?”
Aleksander had to work to hide his anger. “Was not the Darkling a Grisha?”
“He was a Saint. There is a difference. What has come over you, Yuri?”
Aleksander smiled, regrouping. “Forgive me. I only meant that we may still find new followers among the Grisha.”
Chernov clapped him on the back. “A worthy goal once the war is over.”
He contemplated tearing Chernov’s arm from its socket. Instead he shifted his approach. “But what of the Apparat? The priest will return to Ravka with Demidov, will he not? He’s fought the Darkling’s Sainthood at every turn.”
“We believe we can win him to our cause in time.”
This is all wrong. On that, Yuri and Aleksander could agree. Yuri had been a member of the Apparat’s Priestguard for a time. He’d watched the Apparat side first with the Sun Saint and then with no one at all, waiting for Alina and the Darkling to wage their battles as he and his followers stayed safely underground. The Starless shouldn’t be content to plead for scraps from the priest’s hand, no matter what sway he held with Ravka’s people.
“The sun will be setting soon,” Chernov said as the Starless gathered, facing to the west. “You’re just in time for services. Brother Azarov will be speaking.”
“No,” said Aleksander. “I will speak.”
Chernov blinked. “I … well … Perhaps it would be best to take some time to settle in, to reacquaint yourself with—”
Aleksander didn’t wait to hear the rest. He strode to the front of the congregation and heard a few murmurs of “Yuri!” and “Brother Vedenen!” from those who had not yet seen him in the camp. Others were strangers, people who had joined the Starless after Yuri had left their ranks.
“Brother Azarov,” Aleksander said, approaching the young man with yellow hair who was preparing to speak. He had the pallor and charisma of a glass of milk.
“Brother Vedenen! I’m so pleased to see you again. Your preaching was sorely missed, but I’ve been trying my hand at it.”
“Chernov has an urgent matter he wants you to attend to.”
“He does?”
“Indeed. Extremely urgent. Go on now.” He strode past Brother Azarov and took his place where he belonged, in front of the crowd.
Aleksander looked out over their faces, confused but eager, waiting for someone to give them something to believe in, a spark of the divine. I will give you a conflagration. I will give you a new name for fire.
Yuri’s joy coursed through him. The boy had been a preacher himself. He understood this exultation.
“Some of you know me,” he said, his voice carrying over the crowd as the light from the setting sun turned golden and washed over their faces. He heard them react to his unfamiliar voice with whispers and gasps. “I am not the man I was. I traveled to the Fold, and there I was visited by the Starless One himself.”
“A vision?” asked Chernov, amid the startled exclamations of the crowd. “What did you see?”
“I saw the future. I saw how we are best meant to serve the cause of the Starless One. And it is not to live as cowards.” Troubled murmurs rose from the pilgrims. “We will not march south. We will not hide from this war.”
Chernov took a step forward. “Yuri, you cannot mean that. We have never troubled ourselves with politicians and their games.”
“This is no game.
The Apparat betrayed the Darkling. He fought against naming him a Saint. He allies himself with Ravka’s enemies. But you would go to ground, trembling like animals without teeth or claws.”
“So that we may survive!”
“So that we can run back to a corrupt priest when he joins Demidov’s court? So that we can return to begging for his notice by chanting outside the city gates? We were meant for more.” He met the eyes of those watching him, exchanging angry whispers. “No doubt some of you joined this group for the very purpose of avoiding battle. You didn’t want to pick up a gun, so you put on a robe and carried the Starless banner. I will tell you right now, we do not want you here.”
“Yuri!” cried Chernov. “This is not our way.”
Aleksander wanted to cut him down where he stood, but it was not yet time to show his true power. He’d endured lifetimes of hiding just how strong he was. He could wait a little longer.
He spread his hands wide. “You are afraid. I understand that. You are not soldiers. Neither am I. And yet the Darkling spoke to me. He promised that he would return. But only if we make a stand in his name.”
“What are you suggesting?” Brother Azarov asked, his face fearful.
“We march north. Toward the border.”
“Toward the war?” he sputtered.
Aleksander nodded. He didn’t intend to waste his time traveling from village to village, winning over tiny congregations with parlor tricks. No, he required a moment of spectacle, something grand with plenty of witnesses. He would stage his return on the field of battle with thousands of Ravkan and Fjerdan soldiers as his audience. There, Yuri’s transformation from humble monk to chosen savior would be completed. There, Aleksander would teach them awe.
The Fjerdans were better armed and better provisioned, and when young King Nikolai faltered, as he inevitably would, then and only then would the Darkling return, and show Ravka what strength really looked like. He would save them. He would offer them a miracle. And he would become Saint, father, protector, king.
“Yuri,” said Chernov. “You ask too much.”
Rule of Wolves Page 31