Ruin and Rising

CHAPTER 14

AT DAWN the next morning, while the others damped the fire and gnawed at pieces of hardtack, I drew on my coat and walked back a little ways to look at the falls. The mist was dense in the valley. From here, the bones at the base of the falls just looked like trees. No ghosts. No fire. It felt like a quiet place, somewhere to rest.

We were packing up the ash-covered tents when we heard it—a cry, high and piercing, echoing through the dawn. We halted, silent, waiting to see if it would sound again.

“Could just be a hawk,” warned Tolya.

Mal said nothing. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and plunged into the woods. We had to scurry to keep pace with him.

The climb up the back of the falls took us the better part of the day. It was steep and brutal, and though my feet had toughened and my legs were used to hard travel, I still felt the strain of it. My muscles ached beneath my pack, and despite the chill in the air, sweat beaded on my forehead.

“When we catch this thing,” panted Zoya, “I’m going to turn it into a stew.”

I could feel the excitement rippling through all of us, the sense that we were close now, and we drove each other to push harder up the mountain. In some places, the rise was nearly vertical. We had to pull ourselves higher by grabbing tight to the roots of scraggly trees or wedging our fingers into the rock. At one point, Tolya brought out iron spikes and hammered them directly into the mountain so we could use them as a makeshift ladder.

Finally, late in the afternoon, we hauled our bodies over a ragged stone lip and found ourselves on the flat top of the cliff wall, a smooth expanse of rock and moss, slick with mist and split by the frothing tide of the river.

Looking north, beyond the abrupt drop of the falls, we could see back the way we’d come—the far ridge of the valley, the gray field that led to the ashwood, the indentation of the old road, and beyond it, storms moving over the grass-covered foothills. And they were just foothills. That was clear now. Because if we turned south, we had our first real view of the mountains, the vast, white-capped Sikurzoi, the source of the snowmelt that fed the Cera Huo.

“They just go on and on,” said Harshaw wearily.

We made our way to the side of the rapids. It would be tricky fording them, and I wasn’t sure there was a point. We could see across to the other side, where the cliff simply ended. There was nothing there. The plateau was clearly and disappointingly empty.

The wind picked up, whipping through my hair and sending a fine mist stinging against my cheek. I glanced south at the white mountains. Autumn was here and winter was on its way. We’d been gone over a week. What if something had happened to the others back in Dva Stolba?

“Well,” said Zoya angrily, “where is it?”

Mal walked to the edge of the falls and looked out at the valley.

“I thought you were supposed to be the best tracker in all of Ravka,” she said. “Just where do we go now?”

Mal rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Down one mountain, up the next. That’s the way it works, Zoya.”

“For how long?” she said. “We can’t just keep on this way.”

“Zoya,” Tolya cautioned.

“How do we even know this thing exists?”

“What were you expecting?” asked Tolya. “A nest?”

“Why not? A nest, a feather, a steaming pile of dung. Something. Anything.”

Zoya was the one saying it, but I sensed the fatigue and disappointment in the others. Tolya would keep going until he collapsed. I wasn’t sure Harshaw and Zoya could take much more.

“It’s too wet to make camp here,” I said. I pointed toward the woods behind the plateau where the trees were reassuringly ordinary, their leaves lit with red and gold. “Head that way until you find a dry spot. Make a fire. We’ll figure out what to do after dinner. Maybe it’s time to split up.”

“You can’t go farther into the Shu Han without protection,” Tolya objected.

Harshaw said nothing, just nuzzled Oncat and failed to meet my eyes.

“We don’t have to decide right now. Just go make camp.”

Carefully, I crossed to the edge of the plateau to join Mal. The drop was dizzying, so I looked into the distance instead. If I squinted, I thought I could just make out the burned field where we’d chased off the thieves, but it might have been imagination.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last.

“Don’t apologize. For all we know, there is no firebird.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“No, but maybe we weren’t meant to find it.”

“You don’t believe that either.” He sighed. “So much for the good soldier.”

I winced. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You once put goose droppings in my shoes, Alina. A bad mood I can handle.” He glanced at me and said, “We all know the burden you’re carrying. You don’t have to bear it alone.”

I shook my head. “You don’t understand. You can’t.”

“Maybe not. But I saw this with soldiers in my unit. You keep storing up all that anger and grief. Eventually it spills over. Or you drown in it.”

He’d been telling me the same thing when we’d first arrived at the mine, when he’d said the others needed to grieve with me. I’d needed it too, even if I hadn’t wanted to admit it. I’d needed to not be alone. And he was right. I did feel like I was drowning, fear closing in over me like an icy sea.

“It’s not that easy,” I said. “I’m not like them. I’m not like anyone.” I hesitated then added, “Except him.”

“You’re nothing like the Darkling.”

“I am, even if you don’t want to see it.”

Mal raised a brow. “Because he’s powerful and dangerous and eternal?” He gave a rueful laugh. “Tell me something. Would the Darkling ever have forgiven Genya? Or Tolya and Tamar? Or Zoya? Or me?”

“It’s different for us,” I said. “Harder to trust.”

“I have news for you, Alina. That’s tough for everyone.”

“You don’t—”

“I know, I know. I don’t get it. I just know there’s no way to live without pain—no matter how long or short your life is. People let you down. You get hurt and do damage in return. But what the Darkling did to Genya? To Baghra? What he tried to do to you with that collar? That’s weakness. That’s a man afraid.” He peered out at the valley. “I may never be able to understand what it is to live with your power, but I know you’re better than that. And they all know it too,” he said with a nod back to where the others had gone to make camp. “That’s why we’re here, fighting beside you. That’s why Zoya and Harshaw will whine all night, but tomorrow they’ll stay.”

“Think so?”

He nodded. “We’ll eat, we’ll sleep, and then we see what happens next.”

I sighed. “Just keep going.”

He laid a hand on my shoulder. “You move forward, and when you falter, you get up. And when you can’t, you let us carry you. You let me carry you.” He dropped his hand. “Don’t stay out here too long,” he said, then turned and strode back over the plateau.

I won’t fail you again.

The night before Mal and I had first entered the Fold, he’d promised that we would survive. We’re going to be fine, he’d told me. We always are. In the year since, we’d been tortured and terrorized, broken and rebuilt. We would probably never feel fine again, but I’d needed that lie then, and I needed it now. It kept us standing, kept us fighting another day. It was what we’d been doing our whole lives.

The sun was just starting to set. I stood at the edge of the falls, listening to the rush of the water. As the sun dipped, the falls caught fire, and I watched the pools in the valley turn gold. I leaned over the drop, glimpsing the pile of bones below. Whatever Mal had been hunting, it was big. I peered into the mist rising off the rocks at the base of the falls. The way it billowed and shifted, it almost looked like it was alive, as if—

Something came rushing up at me. I stumbled backward and hit the ground with a jarring thud to my tailbone. A cry cut through the silence.

My eyes searched the sky. A huge winged shape soared above me in a widening arc.

“Mal!” I shouted. My pack was at the edge of the plateau, along with my rifle and bow. I made a dash for them, and the firebird came straight at me.

It was huge, white like the stag and the sea whip, its vast wings tinged with golden flame. They beat the air, the gust driving me backward. Its call echoed through the valley as it opened its massive beak. It was big enough to take my arm off in one bite, maybe my head. Its talons gleamed, long and sharp.

I raised my hands to use the Cut, but I couldn’t keep my footing. I slipped and felt myself tumbling toward the cliff’s edge—hip, then head, striking damp rock. The bones, I thought. Oh, Saints, the bones at the bottom of the falls. This was how it killed.

I clawed at the slick stone, trying to find purchase—and then I was falling.

My scream caught on my lips as my arm was nearly wrenched from its socket. Mal had hold of me just below my elbow. He was on his stomach, hanging over the cliff face, the firebird circling above him in the fading light.

“I’ve got you!” he shouted, but his grip was slipping up the damp skin of my forearm.

My feet dangled over nothing, my heart pounding in my chest. “Mal…” I said desperately.

He leaned out farther. We were both going over.

“I’ve got you,” he repeated, his blue eyes blazing. His fingertips closed around my wrist.

The jolt slammed through us at the same time, the same crackling shock we’d felt that night in the woods near the banya. He flinched. This time we had no choice but to hold tight. Our eyes met, and power surged between us, bright and inevitable. I had the sense of a door swinging open, and all I wanted was to step through—this taste of perfect, gleaming elation was nothing compared to what lay on the other side. I forgot where I was, forgot everything but the need to cross that threshold, to claim that power.

And with that hunger came horrible understanding. No, I thought desperately. Not this.

But it was too late. I knew.

Mal gritted his teeth. I felt his grip go even tighter. My bones rubbed together. The burn of power was almost unendurable, a dull whine that filled my head. My heart beat so hard I thought I might not survive it. I needed to walk through that door.

Then, miraculously, he was pulling me higher, inch by inch. I pawed at the rock with my other hand, searching for the top of the cliff, and finally made contact. Mal took hold of both my arms, and I wriggled onto the safety of the plateau.

As soon as his hand released my wrist, the shuddering rush of power relented. We dragged ourselves away from the edge, muscles trembling, panting for breath.

That echoing call sounded again. The firebird hurtled toward us. We shoved up to our knees. Mal had no time to draw his bow. He threw himself in front of me, arms spread wide as the firebird shrieked and dove, its talons extended directly toward him.

The impact never came. The firebird drew up short, its claws bare inches from Mal’s chest. Its wings beat once, twice, driving us back. Time seemed to slow. I could see us both reflected in its great golden eyes. Its beak was razor sharp, and its feathers seemed to blaze with a light of their own. Even through my fear, I felt awe. The firebird was Ravka. It was right that we should kneel.

It gave another piercing cry, then whirled and flapped its wings, soaring into the gathering dusk.

We sank to the ground, breathing hard.

“Why did it stop?” I gasped.

A long moment passed. Then Mal said, “We’re not hunting it anymore.”

He knew. Just as I did. He knew.

“We need to get out of here,” he said. “It still might come back.”

Dimly, I was aware of the others running toward us over the slippery rock as we got to our feet. They must have heard my screams.

“That was it!” shouted Zoya, pointing at the disappearing shape of the firebird. She lifted her hands to try to bring it back in a downdraft.

“Zoya, stop,” said Mal. “Let it go.”

“Why? What happened? Why didn’t you kill it?”

“It’s not the amplifier.”

“How can you know that?”

Neither of us answered.

“What is going on?” she shouted.

“It’s Mal,” I said finally.

“What’s Mal?” asked Harshaw.

“Mal is the third amplifier.” The words came out in a rasp, but solid, so much more even and strong than I ever would have anticipated.

“What are you talking about?” Zoya’s fists were clenched, and there were hectic spots of color on her cheeks.

“We should find cover,” said Tolya.

We limped across the plateau and followed the others a short distance up the next hill to the camp they’d made near a tall poplar.

Mal dropped his rifle and unslung his bow. “I’m going to go catch dinner,” he said, and melted into the woods before I could think to form a protest.

I slumped down on the ground. Harshaw started the fire, and I sat before it, staring at the flames, barely feeling their warmth. Tolya handed me a flask, then dropped into a crouch, and after waiting for a nod from me, slammed my shoulder back into its socket. The pain wasn’t enough to stop the images pouring through my head, the connections my mind wouldn’t stop making.

A girl in a field, standing over her slain sister, the black wisps of the Cut rising from her body, a father kneeling beside her.

He was a great Healer. Baghra had gotten it wrong. It had taken more than the Small Science to save Morozova’s other daughter. It had taken merzost, resurrection. I’d been wrong too. Baghra’s sister hadn’t been Grisha. She’d been otkazat’sya after all.

“You must have known,” said Zoya, sitting down on the other side of the fire. Her gaze was accusatory.

Had I? The jolt that night by the banya, I’d assumed it was something in me.

And yet, when I looked back, the pattern seemed clear. The first time I’d used my power had been when Mal lay dying in my arms. We’d searched for the stag for weeks, but we’d found it after our first kiss. When the sea whip had revealed itself, I’d been standing in the circle of his arms, close to him for the first time since we’d been forced aboard the Darkling’s ship. The amplifiers wanted to be brought together.

And hadn’t our lives been bound from the first? By war. By abandonment. Maybe by something more. It couldn’t be chance that we’d been born into neighboring villages, that we’d survived the war that had taken both of our families, that we’d both ended up at Keramzin.

Was this the truth behind Mal’s gift for tracking, that he was somehow tied to everything, to the making at the heart of the world? Not a Grisha, and no ordinary amplifier, but something else entirely?

I am become a blade. A weapon to be used. How right he’d been.

I covered my face with my hands. I wanted to blot out this knowledge, carve it from my skull. Because I hungered for the power that lay beyond that golden door, desired it with a kind of pure and aching fever that made me want to tear at my skin. The price for that power would be Mal’s life.

What had Baghra said? You may not be able to survive the sacrifice that merzost requires.

Mal returned a little while later. He’d brought back two fat rabbits. I heard the sounds of him and Tolya working as they cleaned and spitted the animals, and soon I smelled cooking meat. I had no appetite.

We sat there, listening to the branches pop and hiss in the heat of the flame, until finally Harshaw spoke. “If someone doesn’t talk soon, I’m going to set fire to the woods.”

So I took a sip from Zoya’s flask, and I talked. The words came more easily than I expected. I told them Baghra’s story, the horrible tale of a man obsessed, of the daughter he neglected, of the other daughter who had nearly died because of it.

“No,” I corrected myself. “She did die that day. Baghra killed her. And Morozova brought her back.”

“No one can—”

“He could. It wasn’t healing. It was resurrection, the same process he used to create the other amplifiers. It’s all in his journals.” The means of keeping oxygen in the blood, the method for preventing decay. The power of the Healer and the Fabrikator pushed to their limits and well beyond, taken to a place they were never meant to go.

“Merzost,” Tolya whispered. “Power over life and death.”

I nodded. Magic. Abomination. The power of creation. That was why the journals were incomplete. In the end, there had been no reason for Morozova to hunt for a creature to make into the third amplifier. The cycle had already been completed. He’d endowed his daughter with the power he’d meant for the firebird. The circle had closed.

Morozova had achieved his grand design, but not the way he had expected. To dabble in merzost, well, the results are never quite what one would hope. When the Darkling had tampered with the making at the heart of the world, the punishment for his arrogance was the Fold, a place where his power was meaningless. Morozova had created three amplifiers that could never be brought together without his daughter forfeiting her life, without his descendants paying in flesh and blood.

“But the stag and the sea whip… they were ancient,” said Zoya.

“Morozova chose them deliberately. They were sacred creatures—rare, fierce. His child was just an ordinary otkazat’sya girl.” Was that why the Darkling and Baghra had discounted her so readily? They’d assumed she’d died that day, but the resurrection must have made her stronger—her fragile, mortal life, a life bound by the rules of this world, had been replaced by something else. But in the moment when Morozova gave his daughter a second life, a life that didn’t rightly belong to her, would he have cared if it was abomination that made it possible?

“She survived the plunge into the river,” I said. “And Morozova brought her south to the settlements.” To live and die in the shadow of the arch that would someday give Dva Stolba its name.

I looked at Mal. “She must have passed her power on to her descendants, built into their bones.” A bitter laugh escaped me. “I thought it was me,” I said. “I was so desperate to believe there was some great purpose to all this, that I didn’t just… happen. I thought I was the other branch of Morozova’s line. But it was you, Mal. It was always you.”

Mal watched me through the flames. He hadn’t said a word through the whole conversation, through all of a dinner that only Tolya and Oncat had managed to eat.

He said nothing now. Instead he rose and walked to me. He held out his hand. I hesitated the briefest moment, almost afraid to touch him, then placed my palm in his and let him pull me to my feet. Silently, he led me to one of the tents.

Behind me, I heard Zoya grumble, “Oh, Saints, now I have to listen to Tolya snore all night?”

“You snore too,” said Harshaw. “And it isn’t ladylike.”

“I do not…”

Their voices faded as we bent to enter the dim confines of the tent. Firelight filtered through the canvas walls and sent shadows swaying. Without a word, we lay down in the furs. Mal curled around me, his chest pressed to my back, his arms a tight circle, his breath soft against the crook of my neck. It was the way we’d slept with the insects buzzing around us by the shores of Trivka’s Pond, in the belly of a ship bound for Novyi Zem, on a narrow cot in the run-down boardinghouse in Cofton.

His hand slid down my forearm. Gently, he clasped the bare skin of my wrist, letting his fingers touch, testing. When they met, that jolting force moved through both of us, even that brief taste of power nearly unbearable in its force.

My throat constricted—with misery, with confusion, and with shameful, undeniable longing. To want this from him was too much, too cruel. It’s not fair. Stupid words, childish. Senseless.

“We’ll find another way,” I whispered.

Mal’s fingers separated, but he kept my wrist in a loose hold as he drew me closer. I felt as I always had in his arms—complete, like I was home. But now I had to question even that. Was what I felt real or some product of a destiny Morozova had set into motion hundreds of years ago?

Mal brushed the hair from my neck. He pressed a single brief kiss to the skin above the collar.

“No, Alina,” he said softly. “We won’t.”

THE RETURN JOURNEY to Dva Stolba seemed shorter. We kept to the high country, to the narrow spines of the hills, as distance and days faded beneath our feet. We moved more quickly because the terrain was familiar and Mal wasn’t seeking signs of the firebird, but I also just felt as if time were contracting. I dreaded the reality that awaited us back in the valley, the decisions we would have to make, the explanations I would have to give.

We traveled in near silence, Harshaw humming occasionally or murmuring to Oncat, the rest of us locked in our own thoughts. After that first night, Mal kept his distance. I hadn’t approached him. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to say. His mood had changed—that calm was still there, but now I had the eerie sense that he was drinking in the world, memorizing it. He would turn his face up to the sun and let his eyes close, or break a stalk of bur marigold and press it to his nose. He hunted for us every night that we had enough cover for a fire. He pointed out larks’ nests and wild geranium, and caught a field mouse for Oncat, who seemed too spoiled to do any hunting of her own.

“For a doomed man,” said Zoya, “you’re remarkably chipper.”

“He isn’t doomed,” I snapped.

Mal nocked an arrow, drew back, and released. It twanged into what looked like a cloudless and empty sky, but a second later, we heard a distant caw and a shape plummeted to the earth nearly a mile ahead of us. He shouldered his bow. “We all die,” he said as he jogged off to retrieve his kill. “Not everyone dies for a reason.”

“Are we philosophizing?” asked Harshaw. “Or were those song lyrics?”

As Harshaw started humming, I ran to catch up with Mal.

“Don’t say that,” I said as I came level with him. “Don’t talk that way.”

“All right.”

“And don’t think that way either.”

He actually grinned.

“Mal, please,” I said desperately, not even sure what I was asking for. I grabbed his hand. He turned to me, and I didn’t stop to think. I went up on my toes and kissed him. It took him the barest second to react, then he dropped his bow and kissed me back, arms winding tight around me, the hard planes of his body pressed against mine.

“Alina—” he began.

I grabbed the lapels of his coat, tears filling my eyes. “Don’t tell me this is all happening for a reason,” I said fiercely. “Or that it’s going to be okay. Don’t tell me you’re ready to die.”

We stood in the tall grass, wind singing through the reeds. He met my gaze, his blue eyes steady. “It’s not going to be okay.” He brushed the hair back from my cheeks and cupped my face in his rough hands. “None of this is happening for a reason.” He skimmed his lips over mine. “And Saints help me, Alina, I want to live forever.”

He kissed me again, and this time, he didn’t stop—not until my cheeks were flushed and my heart was racing, not until I could barely remember my own name, let alone anyone else’s, not until we heard Harshaw singing, and Tolya grumbling, and Zoya cheerfully promising to murder us all.

THAT NIGHT, I slept in Mal’s arms, wrapped in furs beneath the stars. We whispered in the dark, stealing kisses, conscious of the others lying only a few feet away. Some part of me wished that a Shu raiding party would come and put a bullet through both of our hearts, leave us there forever, two bodies that would turn to dust and be forgotten. I thought about just leaving, abandoning the others, abandoning Ravka as we’d once intended, striking out through the mountains and making our way to the coast.

I thought of all these things. But I rose the next morning, and the morning after that. I ate dry biscuits, drank bitter tea. Too soon, the mountains faded, and we began our final descent into Dva Stolba. We’d arrived back sooner than expected, in time to retrieve the Bittern and still meet any forces the Apparat might send to Caryeva. When I saw the two stone spindles of the ruins, I wanted to level them, let the Cut do what time and weather had failed to, and turn them to rubble.

It took a little while to locate the boardinghouse where Tamar and the others had found lodging. It was two stories high and painted a cheerful blue, its porch hung with prayer bells, its pointed roof covered in Shu inscriptions that glittered with gold pigment.

We found Tamar and Nadia seated at a low table in one of the public rooms, Adrik beside them, his empty coat sleeve neatly pinned, a book perched awkwardly on his knees. They sprang to their feet when they saw us.

Tolya enveloped his sister in an enormous hug, while Zoya gave Nadia and Adrik a grudging embrace. Tamar hugged me close as Oncat sprang from Harshaw’s shoulders to forage through the leavings of their meal.

“What happened?” she asked, taking in my troubled expression.

“Later.”

Misha came pelting down the stairs and hurled himself at Mal. “You came back!” he shouted.

“Of course we did,” said Mal, sweeping him into a hug. “Did you keep to your duties?”

Misha nodded solemnly.

“Good. I expect a full report later.”

“Come on,” Adrik said eagerly. “Did you find it? David’s upstairs with Genya. Should I go get him?”

“Adrik,” chastised Nadia, “they’re exhausted and probably starving.”

“Is there tea?” asked Tolya.

Adrik nodded and went off to order.

“We have news,” said Tamar, “and it isn’t good.”

I didn’t think it could possibly be worse than our news, so I waved her on. “Tell me.”

“The Darkling attacked West Ravka.”

I sat down hard. “When?”

“Almost immediately after you left.”

I nodded. It was some comfort in knowing there was nothing I could have done. “How bad?”

“He used the Fold to take a big chunk out of the south, but from what we’ve heard, most of the people had already evacuated.”

“Any word of Nikolai’s forces?”

“There are rumors of cells cropping up fighting under the Lantsov banner, but without Nikolai to lead them, I’m not sure how long they’ll hold out.”

“All right.” At least now I knew what we were dealing with.

“There’s more.”

I glanced at Tamar questioningly, and the look on her face sent a chill slithering over my skin.

“The Darkling marched on Keramzin.”