Ruin and Rising

CHAPTER 7

I SHOT TO MY FEET. “What happened?”

“Sergei let her real name slip. He seems to be taking to heights about as well as he took to caves.”

I released a growl of frustration. Genya had played a key role in the Darkling’s plot to depose the King. I’d tried to be patient with Sergei, but now he’d put her in danger and jeopardized our position with Nikolai.

Baghra reached out and snagged the fabric of my trousers, gesturing to Mal. “Who is that?”

“The captain of my guard.”

“Grisha?”

I frowned. “No, otkazat’sya.”

“He sounds—”

“Alina,” Mal said. “They’re coming to take her right now.”

I pried Baghra’s fingers away. “I have to go. I’ll send Misha back to you.”

I hurried from the room, closing the door behind me, and Mal and I raced for the stairs, taking them two at a time.

The sun had long since set, and the lanterns of the Spinning Wheel had been lit. Outside, I glimpsed stars emerging above the cloud bank. A group of soldiers with blue armbands had gathered by the training area and looked about two seconds from drawing their guns on Tolya and Tamar. I felt a surge of pride to see my Etherealki arrayed behind the twins, shielding Genya and David. Sergei was nowhere to be found. Probably a good thing, since I didn’t have time to give him the pummeling he deserved.

“She’s here!” called Nadia when she caught sight of us. I went straight to Genya.

“The King is waiting,” said one of the guards. I was surprised to hear Zoya snap back, “Let him wait.”

I put my arm around Genya’s shoulders, leading her a little way off. She was shaking.

“Listen to me,” I said, smoothing her hair back. “No one will hurt you. Do you understand?”

“He’s the King, Alina.” I heard the terror in her voice.

“He’s not the king of anything anymore,” I reminded her. I spoke with a confidence I didn’t feel. This could get very bad, very fast, but there was no way around it. “You must face him.”

“For him to see me… brought low like this—”

I made her meet my gaze. “You are not low. You defied the Darkling to give me freedom. I won’t let yours be taken.”

Mal approached us. “The guards are getting antsy.”

“I can’t do this,” said Genya.

“You can.”

Gently, Mal laid a hand on her shoulder. “We’ve got you.”

A tear rolled down her cheek. “Why? Back at the Little Palace, I reported on Alina. I burned her letters to you. I let her believe—”

“You stood between us and the Darkling on Sturmhond’s ship,” Mal said in that same steady voice I recognized from the cave-in. “I don’t reserve my friendship for perfect people. And, thank the Saints, neither does Alina.”

“Can you trust us?” I asked.

Genya swallowed, then took a breath, mustering the poise that had once come so easily to her. She pulled up her shawl. “All right,” she said.

We returned to the group. David looked questioningly at her, and she reached out to take his hand.

“We’re ready,” I said to the soldiers.

Mal and the twins fell into step beside us, but I held up a warning hand to the other Grisha. “Stay here,” I said, then added quietly, “and keep alert.” On the Darkling’s orders, Genya had come close to committing regicide, and Nikolai knew it. If it came to a fight, I had no idea how we would get off this mountaintop.

We followed the guards across the observatory and through a corridor that led down a short set of stairs. As we rounded a bend, I heard the King’s voice. I couldn’t make out everything he was saying, but I didn’t miss the word treason.

We paused in a doorway formed by the spear arms of two bronze statues—Alyosha and Arkady, the Horsemen of Ivets, their armor studded with iron stars. Whatever the chamber had once been, it was now Nikolai’s war room. The walls were covered in maps and blueprints, and a huge drafting table was littered with clutter. Nikolai leaned against his desk, arms and ankles crossed, his expression troubled.

I almost didn’t recognize the King and Queen of Ravka. The last time I’d seen the Queen, she’d been swathed in rose silk and dripping with diamonds. Now she wore a wool sarafan over a simple peasant blouse. Her blond hair, dull and strawlike without the polish of Genya’s skill, had been twisted into a messy bun. The King was apparently still partial to military attire. The gold braid and satin sash of his dress uniform were gone, replaced by First Army drab that seemed incongruous with his weak build and graying mustache. He looked frail leaning on his wife’s chair, the damning evidence of whatever Genya had done to him clear in his stooped shoulders and loose skin.

As I entered, the King’s eyes bugged out almost comically. “I didn’t ask to see this witch.”

I forced myself to bow, hoping some of the diplomacy I’d learned from Nikolai might serve me. “Moi tsar.”

“Where is the traitor?” he bayed, spittle flying from his lower lip.

So much for diplomacy.

Genya took a small step forward. Her hands shook as she lowered her shawl. The King gasped. The Queen covered her mouth.

The silence in the room was the quiet after a cannon blast. I saw realization strike Nikolai. He glanced at me, his jaw set. I hadn’t exactly lied to him, but I might as well have.

“What is this?” muttered the King.

“This is the price she paid for saving me,” I said, “for defying the Darkling.”

The King scowled. “She is a traitor to the crown. I want her head.”

To my surprise, Genya said to Nikolai, “I will take my punishment if he takes his.”

The King’s face flushed purple. Maybe he’d have a heart attack and save us all a lot of bother. “You will stay silent among your betters!”

Genya lifted her chin. “I have no betters here.” She wasn’t making this any easier, but I still wanted to cheer.

The Queen sputtered. “If you think that—”

Genya was trembling, but her voice stayed strong as she said, “If he cannot be tried for his failures as a king, let him be tried for his failures as a man.”

“You ungrateful whore,” sneered the King.

“That’s enough,” Nikolai said. “Both of you.”

“I am Ravka’s King. I will not—”

“You are a King without a throne,” said Nikolai quietly. “And I respectfully ask that you hold your tongue.”

The King shut his mouth, a vein pulsing at his temple.

Nikolai tucked his hands behind his back. “Genya Safin, you are accused of treason and attempted murder.”

“If I’d wanted him dead, he’d be dead.”

Nikolai gave her a warning look.

“I didn’t try to kill him,” she said.

“But you did something to the King, something from which the court doctors said he’d never recover. What was it?”

“Poison.”

“Surely it could have been traced.”

“Not this. I designed it myself. If given in small enough doses over a long enough time, the symptoms are mild.”

“A vegetable alkaloid?” asked David.

She nodded. “Once it builds up in the victim’s system, a threshold is reached, the organs begin to fail, and the degeneration is irreversible. It’s not a killer. It’s a thief. It steals years. And he will never get them back.”

I felt a little chill at the satisfaction in her voice. What she described was no mundane poison, but the craft of a girl somewhere between Corporalnik and Fabrikator. A girl who had spent plenty of time in the Materialki workshops.

The Queen was shaking her head. “Small amounts over time? She didn’t have that kind of access to our meals—”

“I poisoned my skin,” Genya said harshly, “my lips. So that every time he touched me—” She shuddered slightly and glanced at David. “Every time he kissed me, he took sickness into his body.” She clenched her fists. “He brought this on himself.”

“But the poison would have affected you too,” Nikolai said.

“I had to purge it from my skin, then heal the burns the lye would leave. Every single time.” Her fists clenched. “It was well worth it.”

Nikolai rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Did he force you?”

Genya nodded once. A muscle in Nikolai’s jaw ticked.

“Father?” he asked. “Did you?”

“She is a servant, Nikolai. I didn’t have to force her.”

After a long moment, Nikolai said, “Genya Safin, when this war is over, you will stand trial for high treason against this kingdom and for colluding with the Darkling against the crown.”

The King broke into a smug grin. But Nikolai wasn’t done.

“Father, you are ill. You have served the crown and the people of Ravka, and now it is time for you to take the rest you deserve. Tonight, you will write out a letter of abdication.”

The King blinked in confusion, eyelids stuttering as if he couldn’t quite comprehend what he was hearing. “I will do no such—”

“You will write the letter, and tomorrow you will leave on the Kingfisher. It will take you to Os Kervo, where you’ll be seen safely aboard the Volkvolny and across the True Sea. You can go someplace warm, maybe the Southern Colonies.”

“The Colonies?” the Queen gasped.

“You will have every luxury. You will be far from the fighting and the reach of the Darkling. You will be safe.”

“I am the King of Ravka! This… this traitor, this—”

“If you remain, I will see you tried for rape.”

The Queen clutched a hand to her heart. “Nikolai, you cannot mean to do this.”

“She was under your protection, Mother.”

“She is a servant!”

“And you are a queen. Your subjects are your children. All of them.”

The King advanced on Nikolai. “You would send me from my own country on so slight a charge—”

At this Tamar broke her silence. “Slight? Would it be slight if she had been born noble?”

Mal crossed his arms. “If she’d been born noble, he never would have dared.”

“This is the best solution,” said Nikolai.

“It is not a solution at all!” barked the King. “It is cowardice!”

“I cannot put this crime aside.”

“You have no right, no authority. Who are you to sit in judgment on your King?”

Nikolai stood up straighter. “These are Ravka’s laws, not mine. They should not bow to rank or status.” He tempered his tone. “You know this is for the best. Your health is failing. You need rest, and you’re too weak to lead our forces against the Darkling.”

“Watch me!” the King roared.

“Father,” Nikolai said gently, “the men will not follow you.”

The King’s eyes narrowed. “Vasily was twice the man you are. You are a weakling and a fool, full of common sentiment and common blood.”

Nikolai flinched. “Maybe so,” he said. “But you will write that letter, and you will board the Kingfisher without protest. You will leave this place, or you will face trial, and if you are found guilty, then I will see you hang.”

The Queen let out a small sob.

“It is my word against hers,” the King said, waving his finger at Genya. “I am a King—”

I stepped between them. “And I am a Saint. Shall we see whose word carries more weight?”

“You shut your mouth, you grotesque little witch. I should have had you killed when I had the chance.”

“That is enough,” Nikolai snapped, his patience fraying. He gestured to the guards at the door. “Escort my father and mother to their rooms. Keep them under watch and ensure that they speak to no one. I will have your abdication by morning, Father, or I will have you in irons.”

The King looked from Nikolai to the guards who now flanked him. The Queen clutched at his arm, her blue eyes panicked.

“You are no Lantsov,” snarled the King.

Nikolai merely bowed. “I find I can live with that fact.”

He signaled the guards. They took hold of the King, but he pulled free of their grip. He walked to the door, bristling with rage, trying to summon the scraps of his dignity.

He paused before Genya, his eyes roving over her face. “At least now you look like what you truly are,” he said. “Ruined.”

I could see the word hit her like a slap. Razrusha’ya. The Ruined. The name the pilgrims had whispered when she’d first come among them. Mal moved forward. Tamar’s hands went to her axes, and I heard Tolya growl. But Genya halted them with a hand. Her spine stiffened, and her remaining eye blazed with conviction.

“Remember me when you board that ship, moi tsar. Remember me when you take your last look at Ravka as it slips beneath the horizon.” She leaned in and whispered something to him. The King paled, and I saw real fear in his eyes. Genya drew back and said, “I hope the taste of me was worth it.”

The King and Queen were hustled from the room by the guards. Genya held her chin high until they were gone. Then her shoulders sagged.

David put his arm around her, but she shook him off. “Don’t,” she snarled, brushing away the tears that threatened.

Tamar started forward at the same moment that I said, “Genya—”

She held up her hands, warding us off. “I don’t want your pity,” she said ferociously. Her voice was raw, wild. We stood there helplessly. “You don’t understand.” She covered her face with her hands. “None of you do.”

“Genya—” David tried.

“Don’t you dare,” she said roughly, tears welling up again. “You never looked at me twice before I was like this, before I was broken. Now I’m just something for you to fix.”

I was desperate for words to soothe her, but before I could find any, David bunched up his shoulders and said, “I know metal.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Genya cried.

David furrowed his brow. “I… I don’t understand half of what goes on around me. I don’t get jokes or sunsets or poetry, but I know metal.” His fingers flexed unconsciously as if he were physically grasping for words. “Beauty was your armor. Fragile stuff, all show. But what’s inside you? That’s steel. It’s brave and unbreakable. And it doesn’t need fixing.” He drew in a deep breath then awkwardly stepped forward. He took her face in his hands and kissed her.

Genya went rigid. I thought she’d push him away. But then she threw her arms around him and kissed him back. Emphatically.

Mal cleared his throat, and Tamar gave a low whistle. I had to bite my lip to stifle a nervous laugh.

They broke apart. David was blushing furiously. Genya’s grin was so dazzling it made my heart twist in my chest. “We should get you out of the workshop more often,” she said.

This time I did laugh. I stopped short when Nikolai said, “Do not think to rest easy, Genya Safin.” His voice was cold and deeply weary. “When this war is over, you will face charges, and I will decide whether or not you are to be pardoned.”

Genya bowed gracefully. “I don’t fear your justice, moi tsar.”

“I’m not the King yet.”

“Moi tsarevich,” she amended.

“Go,” he said, waving us away. When I hesitated, he simply said, “All of you.”

As the doors closed, I saw him slump at his drafting table, his head in his hands.

I trailed the others back down the hall. David was murmuring to Genya about the properties of vegetable alkaloids and beryllium dust. I wasn’t sure how wise it was for them to be colluding over poisons, but I supposed this was their version of a romantic moment.

My feet dragged at the prospect of returning to the Spinning Wheel. It had been one of the longest days of my life, and though I’d held exhaustion at bay, now it settled over my shoulders like a sodden coat. I decided that Genya or Tamar could update the rest of the Grisha on what had happened, and I would deal with Sergei tomorrow. But before I could find my bed and sink into it, there was something I needed to know.

At the stairs, I grabbed Genya’s hand. “What did you whisper?” I asked quietly. “To the King.”

She watched the others move up the steps, then said, “Na razrusha’ya. E’ya razrushost.” I am not ruined. I am ruination.

My brows rose. “Remind me to stay on your good side.”

“Darling,” she said, turning one scarred cheek to me, then the other, “I don’t have a good side anymore.” Her tone was merry, but I heard sadness there too. She winked at me with her remaining eye and disappeared up the stairs.

MAL HAD WORKED with Nevsky to see to our sleeping arrangements, so he was left to show me to my quarters, a set of rooms on the eastern side of the mountain. The door frame was formed by the clasped hands of two bronze maidens I thought might be meant to embody the Morning and Evening Stars. Inside, the far wall was entirely taken up by a round window, ringed in riveted brass like a sidescuttle on a ship. The lanterns were lit, and though the view would most likely be spectacular in the daytime, right now, there was nothing to see but darkness and my own tired face looking back at me.

“The twins and I will be right next door,” Mal said. “And one of us will be posted while you sleep.”

A pitcher of hot water was waiting for me by the basin, and I rinsed my face as Mal reported on the accommodations he’d secured for the rest of the Grisha, how long it would take to outfit our expedition into the Sikurzoi, and how he wanted to divide the group. I tried to listen, but at some point, my mind shut down.

I sat on the stone bench of the window seat. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just can’t.”

He stood there, and I could almost see him wrestling with whether or not to sit down beside me. In the end, he stayed where he was.

“You saved my life today,” he said.

I shrugged. “And you saved mine. It’s kind of what we do.”

“I know it isn’t easy, making your first kill.”

“I’ve been responsible for a lot of deaths. This shouldn’t be any different.”

“But it is.”

“He was a soldier like us. He probably has a family somewhere, a girl he loves, maybe even a child. He was there and then he was just… gone.” I knew I should leave it at that, but I needed to let the words out. “And you know the really scary part? It was easy.”

Mal was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “I’m not sure who my first kill was. We were hunting the stag when we ran into a Fjerdan patrol on the northern border. I don’t think the fight lasted more than a few minutes, but I killed three men. They were doing a job, same as I was, trying to get through one day to the next, then they were bleeding in the snow. No way to tell who was the first to fall, and I’m not sure it matters. You keep them at a distance. The faces start to blur.”

“Really?”

“No.”

I hesitated. I couldn’t look at him when I whispered, “It felt good.” He didn’t say anything, so I plunged on. “It doesn’t matter why I’m using the Cut, what I’m doing with the power. It always feels good.”

I was afraid to look at him, afraid of the disgust I’d see on his face or, worse, the fear. But when I forced myself to glance up, Mal’s expression was thoughtful.

“You could have struck down the Apparat and all his Priestguards, but you didn’t.”

“I wanted to.”

“But you didn’t. You’ve had plenty of opportunities to be brutal, to be cruel. You’ve never taken them.”

“Not yet. The firebird—”

He shook his head. “The firebird won’t change who you are. You’ll still be the girl who took a beating for me when I was the one who broke Ana Kuya’s ormolu clock.”

I groaned, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “And you let me.”

He laughed. “Of course I did. That woman is terrifying.” Then his expression sobered. “You’ll still be the girl who was willing to sacrifice her life to save us at the Little Palace, the same girl I just saw back a servant over a king.”

“She’s not a servant. She’s—”

“A friend. I know.” He hesitated. “The thing is, Alina, Luchenko was right.”

It took me a moment to place the militia leader’s name. “About what?”

“There’s something wrong with this country. No land. No life. Just a uniform and a gun. That’s how I used to think too.”

He had. He’d been willing to walk away from Ravka without a second glance. “What changed?”

“You. I saw it that night in the chapel. If I hadn’t been so scared, I could have seen it before.”

I thought of the militiaman’s body falling in pieces. “Maybe you were right to be scared of me.”

“I wasn’t afraid of you, Alina. I was afraid of losing you. The girl you were becoming didn’t need me anymore, but she’s who you were always meant to be.”

“Power hungry? Ruthless?”

“Strong.” He looked away. “Luminous. And maybe a little ruthless too. That’s what it takes to rule. Ravka is broken, Alina. I think it always has been. The girl I saw in the chapel could change that.”

“Nikolai—”

“Nikolai’s a born leader. He knows how to fight. Knows how to politic. But he doesn’t know what it is to live without hope. He’s never been nothing. Not like you or Genya. Not like me.”

“He’s a good man,” I protested.

“And he’ll be a good king. But he needs you to be a great one.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I pressed a finger to the window glass, then wiped the smudge away with my sleeve. “I’m going to ask him if I can bring the students here from Keramzin. The orphans too.”

“Take him with you when you go,” Mal said. “He should see where you come from.” He laughed. “You can introduce him to Ana Kuya.”

“I already unleashed Baghra on Nikolai. He’s going to think I stockpile vicious old women.” I made another fingerprint on the glass. Without looking at him, I said, “Mal, tell me about the tattoo.”

He was silent for a time. Finally, he scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck and said, “It’s an oath in old Ravkan.”

“But why take on that mark?”

This time he didn’t blush or turn away. “It’s a promise to be better than I was,” he said. “It’s a vow that if I can’t be anything else to you, at least I can be a weapon in your hand.” He shrugged. “And I guess it’s a reminder that wanting and deserving aren’t the same thing.”

“What do you want, Mal?” The room seemed very quiet.

“Don’t ask me that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it can’t be.”

“I want to hear it anyway.”

He blew out a long breath. “Say goodnight. Tell me to leave, Alina.”

“No.”

“You need an army. You need a crown.”

“I do.”

He laughed then. “I know I’m supposed to say something noble—I want a united Ravka free from the Fold. I want the Darkling in the ground, where he can never hurt you or anyone else again.” He gave a rueful shake of his head. “But I guess I’m the same selfish ass I’ve always been. For all my talk of vows and honor, what I really want is to put you up against that wall and kiss you until you forget you ever knew another man’s name. So tell me to go, Alina. Because I can’t give you a title or an army or any of the things you need.”

He was right. I knew that. Whatever fragile, lovely thing had existed between us belonged to two other people—people who weren’t bound by duty and responsibility—and I wasn’t sure what remained. And still I wanted him to put his arms around me, I wanted to hear him whisper my name in the dark, I wanted to ask him to stay.

“Goodnight, Mal.”

He touched the space over his heart where he wore the golden sunburst I’d given him long ago in a darkened garden.

“Moi soverenyi,” he said softly. He bowed and was gone.

The door closed behind him. I doused the lanterns and lay down on the bed, pulling the blankets around me. The window wall was like a great round eye, and now that the room was dark, I could see the stars.

I brushed my thumb over the scar on my palm, made years ago by the edge of a broken blue cup, a reminder of the moment when my whole world had shifted, when I’d given up a part of my heart that I would never get back.

We’d made the wise choice, done the right thing. I had to believe that logic would bring comfort in time. Tonight, there was just this too-quiet room, the ache of loss, knowledge deep and final as the tolling of a bell: Something good has gone.

THE NEXT MORNING, I woke to Tolya at my bedside.

“I found Sergei,” he said.

“Was he missing?”

“All last night.”

I dressed in the clean clothes that had been left for me: tunic, trousers, new boots, and a thick wool kefta in Summoner blue, lined with red fox, its cuffs embroidered with gold. Nikolai always came prepared.

I let Tolya lead me down the stairs to the boiler level and to one of the darkened water rooms. Instantly, I regretted my choice of clothing; it was miserably hot. I cast a glow of light inside. Sergei was seated up against the wall near one of the big metal tanks, his knees pressed to his chest.

“Sergei?”

He squinted and turned his head away. Tolya and I exchanged a glance.

I patted his big arm. “Go find your breakfast,” I said, my own stomach growling. When Tolya had gone, I dimmed the light and went to sit beside Sergei. “What are you doing down here?”

“Too big up there,” he mumbled. “Too high.”

There was more to it than that, more to him letting Genya’s name slip, and I couldn’t ignore it anymore. We’d never had a chance to talk about the disaster at the Little Palace. Or maybe there’d been opportunities and I’d avoided them. I wanted to apologize for Marie’s death, for putting her in danger, for not being there to save her. But what words were there for that kind of failure? What words could fill the hole where a living girl with chestnut curls and a lilting giggle had been?

“I miss Marie too,” I said finally. “And the others.”

He buried his face in his arms. “I was never afraid before, not really. Now I’m scared all the time. I can’t make it stop.”

I put my arm around him. “We’re all scared. It’s not something to be ashamed of.”

“I just want to feel safe again.”

His shoulders were shaking. I wished I had Nikolai’s gift for finding the right words. “Sergei,” I said, not sure if I was about to make matters better or worse, “Nikolai has camps on the ground, some in Tsibeya and a little farther south. There are way stations for the smugglers, away from most of the fighting. If he agrees to it, would you prefer to be assigned there? You could work as a Healer. Or maybe just rest for a while?”

He didn’t even hesitate. “Yes,” he gasped out.

I felt guilty for the rush of relief that came over me. Sergei had slowed us during our fight with the militia. He was unstable. I could apologize, offer useless words, but I didn’t know how to help him, and it didn’t change the fact that we were at war. Sergei had become a liability.

“I’ll see to the arrangements. If there’s anything else you need…” I trailed off, unsure of how to finish. Awkwardly, I patted his shoulder, then rose and turned to go.

“Alina?”

I paused in the doorway. I could just make him out in the dark, the light from the hallway glinting off his damp cheeks. “I’m sorry about Genya. About everything.”

I remembered the way Marie and Sergei used to jab at each other, thought of them sitting arm in arm, laughing over a shared cup of tea. “Me too,” I whispered.

When I emerged into the hall, I was startled to see Baghra waiting with Misha.

“What are you doing out here?”

“We came to find you. What’s the matter with that boy?”

“He’s had a hard time of it,” I said, leading them away from the tank room.

“Who hasn’t?”

“He saw the girl he loved gutted by your son and held her while she died.”

“Suffering is cheap as clay and twice as common. What matters is what each man makes of it. Now,” she said with a rap of her stick, “lessons.”

I was so stunned that it took me a moment to understand her meaning. Lessons? Baghra had refused to teach me since I’d returned to the Little Palace with the second amplifier. I gathered my wits and followed her down the hall. I was probably a fool for asking, but I couldn’t stop myself. “What changed your mind?”

“I had a chat with our new King.”

“Nikolai?”

She grunted.

My steps slowed when I saw where Misha was leading her. “You ride in the iron box?”

“Of course,” she snapped. “I should drag my body up all those stairs?”

I glanced at Misha, who looked placidly back at me, hand resting on the wooden practice sword at his hip. I edged into the horrible contraption.

Misha slammed the grate closed and pulled the lever. I shut my eyes as we hurtled upward, then jolted to a stop.

“What did Nikolai say?” I asked shakily as we stepped out into the Spinning Wheel.

Baghra gave a wave of her hand. “I warned him that once you had the power of the amplifiers, you might be as dangerous as my son.”

“Thanks,” I said drily. She was right and I knew it, but it didn’t mean I wanted Nikolai worrying about it.

“I made him swear that if that happened, he’d put a bullet in you.”

“And?” I asked, even as I dreaded hearing it.

“He gave me his word. Whatever that’s worth.”

I happened to know Nikolai’s word was good. He might mourn me. He might never forgive himself. But Nikolai’s first love was Ravka. He would never tolerate a threat to his country.

“Why don’t you do it now and save him the trouble?” I muttered.

“I think about it daily,” she snapped back. “Especially when you run your mouth.”

Baghra murmured instructions to Misha, and he led us to the southern terrace. The door was hidden in the hem of the Shorn Maiden’s brass skirts, and there were coats and hats hung on hooks along her boot. Baghra was already so bundled up I could barely see her face, but I grabbed a fur hat for myself and buttoned Misha into a thick wool coat before we stepped out into the biting cold.

The end of the long terrace ended in a point, almost like the prow of a ship, and the cloud bank lay like a frozen sea before us. Occasionally the mist parted, offering glimpses of the snow-covered peaks and gray rock far below. I shuddered. Too big. Too high. Sergei wasn’t wrong. Only the tallest peaks of the Elbjen were visible above the clouds, and again I was reminded of an island chain stretching south.

“Tell me what you see,” said Baghra.

“Mostly clouds,” I said, “sky, a few mountain peaks.”

“How far to the closest one?”

I tried to gauge the distance. “At least a mile, maybe two?”

“Good,” she said. “Take its head off.”

“What?”

“You’ve used the Cut before.”

“It’s a mountain,” I said. “A really big mountain.”

“And you’re the first Grisha to wear two amplifiers. Do it.”

“It’s miles away!”

“Are you hoping I’ll grow old and die while you complain?”

“What if someone sees—”

“The range is uninhabited this far north. Stop making excuses.”

I heaved a frustrated sigh. I’d worn the amplifiers for months. I had a good sense of the limits of my power.

I held up my gloved hands, and the light came to me in a welcome rush, shimmering over the cloud bank. I focused it, narrowing it to a blade. Then, feeling like an idiot, I struck out in the direction of the nearest peak.

Not even close. The light burned through the clouds at least a few hundred yards short of the mountain, briefly revealing the peaks below and leaving shreds of mist in its wake.

“How did she do?” Baghra asked Misha.

“Badly.”

I scowled at him. Little traitor. Someone snickered behind me.

I turned. We’d drawn a crowd of soldiers and Grisha. It was easy to pick out the red crest of Harshaw’s hair. He had Oncat curled round his neck like an orange scarf, and Zoya was smirking beside him. Perfect. Nothing like a little humiliation on an empty stomach.

“Again,” said Baghra.

“It’s too far,” I grumbled. “And it’s huge.” Couldn’t we have started smaller? Say, with a house?

“It is not too far,” she sneered. “You are as much there as you are here. The same things that make the mountain make you. It has no lungs, so let it breathe with you. It has no pulse, so give it your heartbeat. That is the essence of the Small Science.” She thumped me with her stick. “Stop huffing like a wild boar. Breathe the way I taught you—contained, even.”

I felt my cheeks redden, and I slowed my breathing.

Snippets of Grisha theory filled my head. Odinakovost. Thisness. Etovost. Thatness. It was all a muddle. But the words that came back to me most strongly were Morozova’s fevered scrawl: Are we not all things?

I closed my eyes. This time, instead of drawing the light to me, I went to it. I felt myself scatter, reflecting off the terrace, the snow, the glass behind me.

I lashed out with the Cut. It struck the side of the mountain, sending a sheet of ice and rock tumbling with a dull roar.

A cheer went up from the crowd at my back.

“Hmph,” said Baghra. “They’d clap for a dancing monkey.”

“All depends on the monkey,” said Nikolai from the edge of the terrace. “And the dance.”

Great. More company.

“Better?” Baghra asked Misha.

“A little,” he said grudgingly.

“A lot!” I protested. “I hit it, didn’t I?”

“I didn’t ask you to hit it,” said Baghra. “I told you to take its head off. Again.”

“Ten coins says she doesn’t make it,” called one of Nikolai’s rogue Grisha.

“Twenty says she does,” shouted Adrik loyally.

I could have hugged him, though I knew for a fact he didn’t have the money.

“Thirty says she can hit the one behind it.”

I whirled. Mal was leaning against the archway, his arms crossed.

“That peak is over five miles away,” I protested.

“More like six,” he said breezily, a challenge in his eyes. It was as if we were back at Keramzin, and he was daring me to steal a bag of sweet almonds or luring me out onto Trivka’s pond before the ice had set. I can’t, I’d say. Of course you can, he’d reply, gliding away from me on borrowed skates, the toes stuffed with paper, never turning his back, making sure I would follow.

As the crowd hooted and placed wagers, Baghra spoke to me in a low voice. “We say like calls to like, girl. But if the science is small enough, then we are like all things. The light lives in the spaces between. It is there in the soil of that mountain, in the rock and in the snow. The Cut is already made.”

I stared at her. She’d as good as quoted Morozova’s journals that time. She’d said the Darkling had been obsessed with them. Was she telling me something more now?

I pushed up my sleeves and raised my hands. The crowd went silent. I focused on the peak in the distance, so far away I couldn’t make out its details.

I called the light to me and then released it, letting myself go with it. I was in the clouds, above them, and for a brief moment, I was in the dark of the mountain, feeling myself compressed and breathless. I was the spaces between, where light lived even if it could not be seen. When I brought my arm down, the arc I made was infinite, a shining sword that existed in a moment and in every moment beyond it.

There was an echoing crack, like thunder from a distance. The sky seemed to vibrate.

Silently, slowly, the top of the far mountain began to move. It didn’t tip, just slid inexorably to the side, snow and rock cascading down its face, leaving a perfect diagonal line where a peak had once been, a ledge of exposed gray rock, jutting just above the cloud bank.

Behind me, I heard shrieking and whooping. Misha was jumping up and down, crowing, “She did it! She did it!”

I glanced over my shoulder. Mal gave me the barest nod, then started rounding everyone up and back into the Spinning Wheel. I saw him point to one of the rogues and mouth, “Pay up.”

I turned back to the broken mountain, my blood fizzing with power, my mind reeling from the reality, the permanence of what I’d just done. Again, clamored a voice inside me, hungry for more. First a man, then a mountain. There and gone. Easy. I shivered in my kefta, comforted by the soft brush of the fox fur.

“Took your time,” grumbled Baghra. “At this rate, I’ll lose both my feet to frostbite before you make any progress at all.”