chapter eighteen.
The Fall of a Grisha
SUMMER DEPENDED, BRINGING WAVES OF balmy heat to Os Alta. The only relief to be found was in the lake, or in the cold pools of the banya that lay in the dark shade of birchwood grove beside the Little Palace. Whatever hostility the Ravkan court felt toward the Grisha, it didn't stop them from beckoning Squallers and Tidemakers to the Grand Palace to summon breezes and fashion massive blocks of ice to cool the stuffy room.
It was hardly a worthy use of Grisha talent, but I was eager to keep the King and Queen happy, and Alina and I'd already deprived them of several much-valued Fabrikators, who were hard at work on David's mysterious mirrored dishes.
Every morning, Alina and I met with our Grisha council— sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for hours— to discuss intelligence reports, troop movements, and what we were hearing from the northern and southern borders.
Nikolai still hoped to take fight to the Darkling before he'd assembled the full strength of his shadow army, but so far Ravka's network of spies and informants had been unable to discover his location. It was looking more and more likely that we'd have to make our stand in Os Alta. Our only advantage was that the Darkling couldn't simply send the Nichevo'ya against us. He had to stay close to his creatures, and that meant he would have to march to the capital with them. The big question was whether he would enter Ravka from Fjerda or from the Shu Han.
Standing in the war room before the Grisha council, Nikolai gestured to one of the massive maps along the wall.
"We took back most of this territory in the last campaign," he said, pointing to Ravka's northern border with Fjerda. "It's dense forest, almost impossible to cross when the rivers aren't frozen, and all the access roads have been blockaded."
"Aren't there Grisha stationed there?" asked Zoya.
"No," Nikolai said. "But there are lots of scouts based out of Ulensk. If he comes that way, we'll have plenty of warning."
"And he would have to deal with the Petrazoi," said Paja. "Whether he goes over or around them, it will buy us more time."
She'd come into her own over the last few weeks. Though David remained silent and fidgety, she actually seemed glad to have time away from the workrooms.
"I'm more concerned with the permafrost," Nikolai said, running his hand along the stretch of border that ran above Tsibeya. "It's heavily fortified. But that's a lot of territory to cover."
I nodded. Alina, Mal, and I had once walked those wild lands together, and I remembered how vast they'd felt.
"And if he comes from the south?" asked Zoya.
Nikolai signaled Fedyor, who rose and began to walk the Grisha through the weak points of the southern border. Because he'd been stationed at Sikursk, the Corporalnik knew the area well.
"It's almost impossible to patrol all the mountain passes coming out of the Sikurzoi," he observed grimly. "Shu raiding parties have been taking advantage of the fact for years. It would be easy enough for the Darkling to slip through."
"Then it's a straight march to Os Alta," said Sergei.
"Passed the military base at Poliznaya," Nikolai noted. "That could work to our advantage. Either way, when he marches, we'll be ready."
"Ready?" Pavel snorted. "For an army of indestructible monsters?"
"They're not indestructible," Nikolai said, nodding his head to Me and Alina. "And the Darkling isn't either. I know. I shot him."
Zoya's eyes widened. "You shot him?"
"Yes," he said. "Unfortunately, I didn't do a very good job of it, but I'm sure I'll improve with practice." He surveyed the Grisha, looking into each worried face before he spoke again. "The Darkling is powerful, but so are we. He's never faced the might of the First and Second Armies working in tandem, or the kinds of weapons I intend to supply. We face him. We flank him. We see which bullet gets lucky."
While the Darkling's shadow horde was focused on the Little Palace, he would be vulnerable. Small, heavily armed units of Grisha and soldiers would be stationed at two-mile intervals around the capital. Once the fighting began, they would close on the Darkling and unleash all the firepower that Nikolai could muster.
In a way, it was what the Darkling had always feared. Again, I remembered how he'd described the new weaponry being created beyond Ravka's borders.
Paja cleared her throat. "Do we know what happens to the shadow soldiers when we kill the Darkling?"
I wanted to hug her. I didn't know what might happen to the Nichevo'ya if we managed to put the Darkling down. They might vanish to nothing, or they might go into a mad frenzy or worse, but she'd said it: When we kill the Darkling. Tentative, frightened, but it still sounded suspiciously like hope.
❂♕
We focused the majority of our efforts on Os Alta's defense. The city had an ancient system of warning bells to alert the palace when an enemy was in sight. With his father's permission, Nikolai had installed heavy guns like those on the Hummingbird above the city and palace walls. Despite Grisha grumbling, Alina and I'd had several placed on the roof of the Little Palace. They might not stop the Nichevo'ya, but they would slow them.
Tentatively, the other Grisha has begun to open up to the value of the Fabrikators. With help from the Inferni, the Materalki were trying to create grenatki that might produce a powerful enough flash of light to stall or stun the shadow soldiers.
The problem was doing it without using blasting powders that would level everyone and everything around them. I sometimes worried that they might blow up the entire Little Palace and do the Darkling's work for him. More than once, I saw Grisha in the dining hall with burnt cuffs or singed brows. I encouraged them to try the more dangerous work by the lakeside with the Tidemakers on hand in case of emergency.
Nikolai was intrigued enough by the project that he insisted on getting involved in the design. The Fabrikators tried to ignore him, then pretended to indulge him, but they quickly learned that Nikolai was more than a bored prince who liked to dabble.
Not only did he understand David's ideas, he'd worked long enough with the rogue Grisha that he slipped easily into the language of the Small Science. Soon, they seemed to forget his rank and his otkazat'sya status, and he could often be found hunched over a table in the Materalki workshop.
I was most disturbed by the experiments taking place behind the red-lacquered doors of the Corporalki anatomy rooms, where they were collaborating with the Fabrikators to try to fuse Grisha steel with human bone. The idea was to make it possible for a soldier to withstand Nichevo'ya attack. But the process was painful and imperfect, and often, the metal was simply rejected by the subject's body. The Healers did what they could, but the ragged screams of First Army volunteers could sometimes be heard echoing through the halls of the Little Palace.
Afternoons were taken up by the endless meetings at the Grand Palace. The Sun Summoner and the Tidemaker's power was a valuable bartering chip in Ravka's attempts to forge alliances with other countries, and frequently Alina and I were to put in appearances at diplomatic gatherings to demonstrate our powers and to prove that we were, in fact, alive.
The Queen hosted teas and dinners where we were paraded out to perform. Some asked why I wasn't summoning sunlight since my title had been 'Sun Summoner and Tidemaker' but I'd had to make up some wasteful lies for the diplomats, so that they didn't get suspicious. At least they'd shrugged it off and moved on. The fact that I was just a Tidemaker today still bothered me, not but a few months ago had that been a different story.
Nikolai often dropped by to dole out compliments, flirt shamelessly with Alina to which she'd scowled and sent him off. It was amusing to watch really, just how hard Nikolai was trying to swoon Alina right off her feet. But it was also amusing to watch Alina raise her hand to cast him off, saints knows she's already too deep in love with a tracker boy.
But nothing was as tedious as the "strategy sessions" with the King's advisers and commanders. The King rarely attended. He preferred to spend his day hobbling after serving maids and sleeping in the sun like an old tomcat. In his absence, his counselors talked in endless circles. They agreed that we should make peace with the Darkling or that we should go to war with the Darkling.
They argued for allying with the Shu, then partnering with Fjerda. They argued every line of budget, from quantities of ammunition to what the troops ate for breakfast. And yet it was rare that anything got done or decided.
When Vasily learned that Nikolai, Alina, and I were attending the meetings, he put aside years of ignoring his duties as the Lantsov heir and insisted on being there as well. To my surprise, Nikolai welcomed him enthusiastically.
"What a relief," he said. "Please tell me you can make sense of these." He shoved a towering stack of ledgers across the table.
"What is this?" Vasily asked.
"A proposal for repairs to an aqueduct outside of Chernitsyn."
"All this for an aqueduct?"
"Don't worry," said Nikolai. "I'll have the rest delivered to your room."
"There's more? Can't one of the ministers—"
"You saw what happened when our father let others take over the business of ruling Ravka. We must remain vigilant."
Warily, Vasily lifted the topmost paper from the pile as if he were picking up a solid rag. It took everything in me not to burst out laughing.
"Vasily thinks he can lead as our father did," Nikolai confided to Alina and me that afternoon. "throwing banquets, giving the occasional speech. I'm going to make sure he knows just what it means to rule without the Darkling or the Apparat there to take reins."
It seemed like a good enough plan, but before long, I was cursing both princes beneath my breath. Vasily's presence ensured that meetings ran twice as long. He postured and preened, weighed in on every issue, and held forth as length on patriotism, strategy, and the finer points of diplomacy.
"I've never met a man who can say so much without saying anything at all," I fumed as I walked beside Alina back to the Little Palace, Nikolai in tow. "There's got to be something you can do."
"Like what?"
"Get one of his prize ponies to kick him in the head."
"I'm sure they're frequently tempted," Nikolai said. "Vasily's lazy and vain, and he likes to take shortcuts, but there's no easy way to govern a country. Trust me, he'll tire of it all soon enough."
"Maybe," I said. "But I'll probably die of boredom before he does."
Nikolai laughed. "Next time, bring a flask. Every time he changes his mind, take a sip."
I groaned as Alina and Nikolai chucked. "I'd be passed out on the floor before the hour was up."
❂♕
With Nikolai's help, we'd brought in armaments experts from Poliznaya to help familiarize the Grisha with modern weaponry and give them training in firearms. Though the sessions had started out tensely, they seemed to be going more smoothly now, and we hoped that a few friendships might be forming between the First and Second Armies.
The units of Grisha and soldiers who had been assembled to hunt down the Darkling when he approached Os Alta made the fastest progress. They returned from training missions full of private jokes and new camaraderie. They even took to calling each other nolniki, zeroes, because they were no longer strictly First or Second Army.
Alina and I had been worried about how Botkin might respond to all the changes. But the man seemed to have s gift for killing, no matter the method, and he delighted in any excuse to spend time talking weaponry with Tolya and Tamar.
Because the Shu had a bad habit of taking scalpel to their Grisha, few survived to make it into the ranks of the Second Army. Botkin loved being able to speak in his native tongue, but he also loved the twins' ferocity. They didn't rely only on their Corporalki abilities the way Grisha raised at the Little Palace tended to. Instead, Heartrending was just one more weapon in their impressive arsenal.
"Dangerous boy. Dangerous girl." Botkin commented, watching the twins spar with a group of Corporalki one morning while a clutch of nervous Summoners waited their turn. Marie and Sergei were there, Nadia trailing behind them as always.
"She'f worf than he if," complained Sergei.
Tamar had split his lip open, and he was having trouble talking. "I feel forry for her hufband."
"Will not marry," said Botkin as Tamar threw a hapless Inferni to the ground.
"Why not?" Alina asked, surprised.
"Not her. Not brother either," said the mercenary. "They are like Botkin. Born for battle. Made for war."
Three Corporalki hurled themselves at Tolya. In moments, they were all moaning on the floor. I thought of what Tolya had said in the library, that he wasn't born to serve the Darkling. Like so many Shu, he'd taken the path of the soldier for hire, traveling the world as a mercenary and a privateer. But he'd ended up at the Little Palace anyway. How long would he and his sister stay?
"I like her," said Nadia, looking wistfully at Tamar. "She's fearless."
Botkin laughed. "Fearless is other word for stupid."
"I wouldn't fay that to her fafe," grumbled Sergei as Marie dabbled his lip with a damp cloth.
I found myself starting to smile and turned aside. I hadn't forgotten the way the three of them had welcomed me to the Little Palace. They hadn't been the ones to call me a whore or try to throw me out, but they certainly hadn't spoken up to defend me, and the idea of pretending friendship was just a little too much. Besides, I didn't quite know how to behave around them. We'd never been truly close, and now our difference in status felt like an unbridgeable gap.
Genya wouldn't care, I thought suddenly. Genya had known me. She'd laughed with me and confided in me, and no shiny kefta or title would have kept her from telling me exactly what she thought or slipping her arm through mine to share a bit of gossip. Despite the lies she'd told Alina and me, I missed her.
As if in answer to my thoughts, I felt a tug on my sleeve, and a tremulous voice said, "Moi Soverenyi?"
Nadia stood shifting from foot to foot. "I hoped..."
"What is it?" Alina asked coming to stand beside me.
She turned to a murky corner of the stables and gestured to a young boy in Etheralki blue whom I'd never seen before. A few Grisha had begun to trickle in after we'd sent out the pardon, but this boy looked too young to have served in the field. He approached nervously, fingers twisting in his kefta.
"This is Adrik," Nadia said, placing her arm around him. "My brother."
The resemblance was there, though you had to look for it. "We heard that you two plan to evacuate the school."
"That's right," we were sending the students to the one place Alina knew with dormitories and space enough to house them, a place far from the fighting: Keramzin. Botkin would go with them, too. Alina and I hated to lose such a capable soldier, but this way the younger Grisha would still be able to learn from him— and he'd be able to keep an eye on them. Since Baghra wouldn't see me, I'd sent a servant to her with the same offer. She'd made no reply. Despite my best attempts to ignore her slights, the repeated rejections still stung.
"You're a student?" I asked Adrik, pushing thoughts of Baghra from my mind. He nodded once, and I noted the determined thrust to his chin.
"Adrik was wondering... we were wondering if—"
"I want to stay," he said fiercely.
My brows shot up and I shared a look with Alina. "How old are you?"
"Old enough to fight."
"He would have graduated this year," put in Nadia.
I frowned. He was only a couple years younger than I was, but he was all bony elbows and rumpled hair.
"Go with the others to Keramzin," Alina said. "If you still want to, you can join us in a year." If we're still here.
"I'm good," he said. "I'm a Squaller, and I'm as strong as Nadia, even without an amplifier."
"It's too dangerous—"
"This is my home. I'm not leaving."
"Adrik!" Nadia chastised.
"It's okay," I said with another glance at Alina.
Adrik seemed almost feverish. His hands were balled into fists. I looked at Nadia. "You're sure you want him to stay?"
"I—" began Adrik.
"I'm talking to your sister. If you fall to the Darkling's army, she's the one who will have to mourn you." Nadia paled slightly at that, but Adrik didn't flinch. I had to admit he had mettle.
Nadia worried the inside of her lip, glancing from Alina and me to Adrik.
"If you're afraid to disappoint him, think what it will be like to bury him," Alina said.
We knew we were being harsh, but we wanted them both to understand what they were asking.
She hesitated, then straightened her shoulders. "Let him fight," she said. "I say he stays. If you send him away, he'll just be back at the gates a week from now."
I sighed, then turned my attention back to Adrik, who was already grinning. "Not a word to the other students," I said. "I don't want them getting ideas." I jabbed a finger at Nadia. "And he's your responsibility."
"Thank you, Moi Soverenyi's," said Adrik, bowing to Me and Alina.
I knew immediately that Alina and I would regret this decision. "Get him back to classes."
I watched them walk up the hill towards the lake, then dusted myself off and made my way to one of the smaller training rooms, Alina in tow. We found Mal sparring with Pavel. Mal had been at the Little Palace less and less than Alina and I had registered. The invitations had started arriving the afternoon he returned from Balakirev— hunts, house parties, trout fishing, card games. Every nobleman and officer seemed to want Mal at his next event.
Sometimes he was just gone for an afternoon, sometimes for a few days. It was odd to see him in such a place, before we'd even got to Kribirsk he hadn't wanted to come back here at all— it was well obvious time has changed.
"I could watch him all day," said a voice from behind us. Alina stiffened. Zoya was standing there. Even in the heat, she never seemed to sweat.
"You don't think he stinks of Keramzin?" Alina asked.
"I find the lower classes have a certain rough appeal. You will let me know when you're through with him, won't you?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Oh, did I misunderstand? You two seem so... close. But I'm sure you're setting your sights higher these days."
Alina turned on her. "What are you doing here, Zoya?"
"I came for training session."
"You know what I mean. What are you doing at the Little Palace? I thought you went searching for your family."
"I'm a soldier of the Second Army. This is where I belong." Zoya didn't care to answer the second part of the question.
"You don't like us, and you've never missed an opportunity to let us know it. Why follow us now?"
"What choice do I have?"
"I'm sure the Darkling would gladly welcome you back at his side."
"Are you ordering me to leave?" She was striving for her usual haughty tone, but I could tell she was scared.
"I want to know why you're so determined to stay," Alina said sharply.
"Because I don't want to live in darkness," she said. "Because you two are our best chance."
I shook my head and butted in. "Too easy."
She flushed. "Am I supposed to beg?"
Would she? I found I didn't mind the idea. "You're vain. You're ambitious. You would have done anything for the Darkling's attention. What changed?"
"What changed?" she choked out. Her lips thinned, and her fists clenched at her sides. "Didn't you two listen when I apologized for everything? Didn't you listen about my family?"
Her voice broke, and I was instantly ashamed of the pleasure I'd felt watching her squirm. "My aunts dead. My niece is dead. The Darkling could have told me what he meant to do. I could have warned them—"
Baghra's voice echoed in my ears: You're taking to power well... As it grows, it will hunger for more. And yet, did I believe Zoya? Was the sheen in her eyes real or pretense? She blinked back her tears and glared at Alina and me. "I still don't like you two. I never will. You're common and clumsy, and I don't know why you were born with such powers. But you're still a Sun Summoner and Tidemaker, and if you can keep Ravka free, then I'll fight for you."
I watched her, considering, noting the two bright spots of color that flamed high on her cheeks, the trembling of her lip.
"Well?" she said, and I could see how much it cost her to ask. "Are you two going to send me away?"
I looked over to Alina again, to which she replied, "You can stay,"
"Is everything all right?" Mal asked. We hadn't even noticed that he'd left off sparring.
In an instant, Zoya's uncertainty was gone. She gave him a dazzling smile. "I hear you're quite the marvel with a bow and arrow. I thought you might offer me a lesson."
Mal glanced at Alina and back to Zoya. "Maybe later."
"I look forward to it," she said, and swept away in a soft rustle of silk.
❂♕
Not too long after the incident with Zoya was Alina back at my door, with a bright smile on her face.
"Yes?"
"Mal invited me to a fortune-telling party in the upper towns two days from now. He said you should come."
I looked at Alina with a knowing look, "I can't," I said. "We have meetings that night, and I need to check with David about the mirrored dishes, and on top of that the evacuation."
"You can," Alina said. "And you will. Just for an hour or two."
It was tempting— I will admit but we had duties to fulfill. But with the look, Alina was giving me right now. I suppose it wouldn't hurt for just an hour. And it would allow us to get away from all the pressure of the Little Palace.
"No one will know the Summoners are there."
"All right," I said. "Let's go."
Her face broke out into a grin.
"Tolya and Tamar won't like it," I warned.
"They're our guards. They will follow our orders."
That was true.
I rolled my eyes as Alina squealed and pushed her away into my chambers, already planning our attire.
We are in such trouble.
『Author's note』
I hated writing this chapter if I'm being honest. Never again.
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