Leigh Bardugo - Siege and Storm

I ignored him and pulled the red book out of my pocket. “Look,” I said, holding the page open and casting a glow over Sankt Ilya’s exultant face.

Mal went still. “The stag,” he said. “And Rusalye.” I watched him examine the illustration and saw the moment that realization struck. “Saints,” he breathed. “There’s a third.”

SANKT ILYA STOODbarefoot on the shore of a dark sea. He wore the ragged remnants of a purple robe, his arms outstretched, his palms turned upward. His face had the blissful, placid expression Saints always seemed to wear in paintings, usually before they were murdered in some horrific way. Around his neck he wore an iron collar that had once been connected to the heavy fetters around his wrists by thick chains. Now the chains hung broken by his sides.

Behind Sankt Ilya, a sinuous white serpent splashed in the waves.

A white stag lay at his feet, gazing out at us with dark, steady eyes.

But neither of these creatures held our attention. Mountains crowded the background behind the Saint’s left shoulder, and there, barely visible in the distance, a bird circled a towering stone arch.

Mal’s finger traced its long tailfeathers, rendered in white and the same pale gold that illuminated Sankt Ilya’s halo. “It can’t be,” he said.

“The stag was real. So was the sea whip.”

“But this is… different.”

He was right. The firebird didn’t belong to one story, but to a thousand. It was at the heart of every Ravkan myth, the inspiration for countless plays and ballads, novels and operas. Ravka’s borders were said to have been sketched by the firebird’s flight. Its rivers ran with the firebird’s tears. Its capital was said to have been founded where a firebird’s feather fell to earth. A young warrior had picked up that feather and carried it into battle. No army had been able to stand against him, and he became the first king of Ravka. Or so the legend went.

The firebird was Ravka. It was not meant to be brought down by a tracker’s arrow, its bones worn for the greater glory of some upstart orphan.

“Sankt Ilya,” Mal said.

“Ilya Morozova.”

“A Grisha Saint?”

I touched the tip of my finger to the page, to the collar, to the two fetters on Morozova’s wrists. “Three amplifiers. Three creatures. And we have two of them.”

Mal gave his head a firm shake, probably trying to clear away the haze of wine. Abruptly, he shut the book. For a second, I thought he might throw it into the sea, but then he handed it back to me.

“What are we supposed to do with this?” he said. He sounded almost angry.

I’d thought about that all afternoon, all evening, throughout that interminable dinner, my fingers straying to the sea whip’s scales again and again, as if anxious for the feel of them.

“Mal, Sturmhond has Fabrikators in his crew. He thinks I should use the scales… and I think he might be right.”

Mal’s head snapped around. “What?”

I swallowed nervously and plunged ahead. “The stag’s power isn’t enough. Not to fight the Darkling. Not to destroy the Fold.”

“And your answer is a second amplifier?”

“For now.”

“ For now? ” He ran a hand through his hair. “Saints,” he swore. “You want all three. You want to hunt the firebird.”

I felt suddenly foolish, greedy, even a little ridiculous. “The illustration—”

“It’s just a picture, Alina,” he whispered furiously. “It’s a drawing by some dead monk.”

“But what if it’s more? The Darkling said Morozova’s amplifiers were different, that they were meant to be used together.”

“So now you’re taking advice from murderers?”

“No, but—”

“Did you make any other plans with the Darkling while you were holed up together belowdecks?”

“We weren’t holed up together,” I said sharply. “He was just trying to get under your skin.”

“Well, it worked.” He gripped the ship’s railing, his knuckles flexing white. “Someday I’m going to put an arrow through that bastard’s neck.”

I heard the echo of the Darkling’s voice. There are no others like us. I pushed it aside and reached out to lay my hand on Mal’s arm. “You found the stag, and you found the sea whip. Maybe you were meant to find the firebird, too.”

He laughed outright, a rueful sound, but I was relieved to hear the bitter edge was gone. “I’m a good tracker, Alina, but I’m not that good. We need someplace to start. The firebird could be anywhere in the world.”

“You can do it. I know you can.”

Finally, he sighed and covered my hand with his own. “I don’t remember anything about Sankt Ilya.”

That was no surprise. There were hundreds of Saints, one for every tiny village and backwater in Ravka. Besides, at Keramzin, religion was considered a peasant preoccupation. We’d gone to church only once or twice a year. My thoughts strayed to the Apparat. He had given me the Istorii Sankt’ya , but I had no way of knowing what he intended by it, or if he even knew the secret it contained.

“Me neither,” I said. “But that arch must mean something.”

“Do you recognize it?”

When I’d first glanced at the illustration, the arch had seemed almost familiar. But I’d looked at countless books of maps during my training as a cartographer. My memory was a blur of valleys and monuments from Ravka and beyond. I shook my head. “No.”

“Of course not. That would be too easy.” He released a long breath, then drew me closer, studying my face in the moonlight. He touched the collar at my neck. “Alina,” he said, “how do we know what these things will do to you?”

“We don’t,” I admitted.

“But you want them anyway. The stag. The sea whip. The firebird.”

I thought of the surge of exultation that had come from using my power in the battle against the Darkling’s horde , the way my body fizzed and thrummed when I wielded the Cut. What might it feel like to have that power doubled? Trebled? The thought made me dizzy.

I looked up at the star-filled sky. The night was velvety black and strewn with jewels. The hunger struck me suddenly. I want them , I thought. All that light, all that power. I want it all.

A restless shiver moved over me. I ran my thumb down the spine of the Istorii Sankt’ya. Was my greed making me see what I wanted to see? Maybe it was the same greed that had driven the Darkling so many years ago, the greed that had turned him into the Black Heretic and torn Ravka in two. But I couldn’t escape the truth that without the amplifiers, I was no match for him. Mal and I were low on options.

“We need them,” I said. “All three. If we ever want to stop running. If we ever want to be free.”

Mal traced the line of my throat, the curve of my cheek, and all the while, he held my gaze. I felt like he was looking for an answer there, but when he finally spoke, he just said, “All right.”

He kissed me once, gently, and though I tried to ignore it, there was something mournful in the brush of his lips.

I DIDN’T KNOWif I was eager or simply afraid I’d lose my nerve, but we ignored the late hour and went to Sturmhond that night. The privateer greeted our request with his usual good cheer, and Mal and I returned to the deck to wait beneath the mizzenmast. A few minutes later, the captain appeared, a Materialnik in tow. With her hair in braids and yawning like a sleepy child, she didn’t look very impressive, but if Sturmhond said she was his best Fabrikator, I had to take him at his word. Tolya and Tamar trailed behind, carrying lanterns to help the Fabrikator at her work. If we survived whatever came next, everyone aboard the Volkvolny would know about the second amplifier. I didn’t like it, but there was nothing to be done about it.