Leigh Bardugo - Siege and Storm

Sergei sat to Mal’s right, his arms crossed sullenly over his chest. He wasn’t happy to be sitting next to an otkazat’sya guard, and he was even less pleased that I’d insisted on seating a Fabrikator directly to my left, in what was considered a position of honor. She was a Suli girl named Paja whom I’d never met before. She had dark hair and nearly black eyes, and the red embroidery at the cuffs of her purple kefta indicated that she was one of the Alkemi, Fabrikators who specialized in chemicals like blasting powders and poisons.

David sat further down the table, his cuffs emblazoned in gray. He worked in glass, steel, wood, stone—anything solid. David was a Durast, and I knew he was the best of them because the Darkling had chosen him to forge my collar. Then there was Fedyor, and Zoya beside him, gorgeous as always in Etherealki blue.

Across from Zoya sat Pavel, the dark-skinned Inferni who’d spoken so angrily against me the previous day. He had narrow features and a chipped tooth that whistled slightly when he talked.

The first part of the meeting was spent discussing the numbers of Grisha at the various outposts around Ravka and those who might be in hiding. Zoya suggested sending messengers to spread the news of my return and offer full and free pardon to those who swore their allegiance to the Sun Summoner. We spent close to an hour debating the terms and wording of the pardon. I knew I would have to take it to Nikolai for the King’s approval, and I wanted to step carefully. Finally, we agreed on “loyalty to the Ravkan throne and the Second Army.” No one seemed happy with it, so I was pretty sure we’d gotten it right.

It was Fedyor who raised the issue of the Apparat. “It’s troubling that he’s evaded capture this long.”

“Has he tried to contact you?” Pavel asked me.

“No,” I said. I saw the skepticism in his face.

“He’s been spotted in Kerskii and Ryevost,” said Fedyor. “He shows up out of nowhere to preach, then disappears before the King’s soldiers can close in.”

“We should think about an assassination,” said Sergei. “He’s growing too powerful, and he could still be colluding with the Darkling.”

“We’d have to find him first,” observed Paja.

Zoya gave a graceful wave of her hand. “What would be the point? He seems bent on spreading word of the Sun Summoner and claiming she’s a Saint. It’s about time the people had some appreciation for the Grisha.”

“Not the Grisha,” said Pavel, jutting his chin truculently in my direction. “Her.”

Zoya lifted one elegant shoulder. “It’s better than them reviling us all as witches and traitors.”

“Let the King do the dirty work,” said Fedyor. “Let him find the Apparat and execute him and let him suffer the people’s wrath.”

I couldn’t believe we were calmly debating a man’s murder. And I wasn’t sure I wanted the Apparat dead. The priest had plenty to answer for, but I wasn’t convinced he was still working with the Darkling. Besides, he’d given me the Istorii Sankt’ya , and that meant he was a possible source of information. If he was captured, I could only hope the King would keep him alive long enough for questioning.

“Do you think he believes it?” asked Zoya, studying me. “That you’re a Saint risen and back from the dead?”

“I’m not sure it makes a difference.”

“It would help to know just how crazy he is.”

“I’d rather fight a traitor than a zealot,” Mal said quietly. It was the first time he’d spoken. “I may have some old contacts in the First Army who will still talk to me. There are rumors of soldiers defecting to join him, and if that’s the case, they must know where he is.”

I stole a glance at Zoya. She was gazing at Mal with those impossibly blue eyes. It seemed like she’d spent half the meeting batting her lashes at him. Or maybe I was imagining things. She was a powerful Squaller and, potentially, a powerful ally. But she’d also been one of the Darkling’s favorites, and that certainly made her difficult to trust.

I almost laughed out loud. Who was I kidding? I hated even sitting in the same room with her. She looked like a Saint. Delicate bones, glossy black hair, perfect skin. All she needed was a halo. Mal paid her no attention, but a twisting feeling in my gut made me think he was ignoring her a little too deliberately. I knew I had more important things to worry about than Zoya. I had an army to run and enemies on every side, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

I took a breath and tried to focus. The hardest part of the meeting was still to come. As much as I just wanted to curl up somewhere quiet and dark, there were things that needed to be addressed.

I looked around the table and said, “You need to know what we’re up against.”

The room fell silent. It was as if a bell had rung, as if everything that had come before was mere playacting, and now the real meeting had begun.

Piece by piece, I laid out what I knew about the nichevo’ya, their strength and size, their near invulnerability to bullet and blade, and most important, the fact that they did not fear sunlight.

“But you escaped,” Paja said tentatively, “so they must be mortal.”

“My power can destroy them. It’s the one thing they don’t seem able to recover from. But it isn’t easy. It requires the Cut, and I’m not sure how many I can handle at once.” I didn’t mention the second amplifier. Even with it, I knew I couldn’t withstand the onslaught of a fully formed shadow army, and the fetter was a secret I intended to keep, at least for now. “We only escaped because Prince Nikolai got us outside the Darkling’s range,” I continued. “They seem to need to be close to their master.”

“How close?” asked Pavel.

I looked to Mal.

“Hard to say,” he replied. “A mile. Maybe two.”

“So there’s some limit to his power,” Fedyor said, with no small amount of relief.

“Absolutely.” I was glad to be able to relate something that wasn’t completely dire. “He’ll have to enter Ravka with his army to get to us. That means we’ll have warning and that he’ll be vulnerable. He can’t summon them the way he summons darkness. The effort seems to cost him.”

“Because it’s not Grisha power,” David said. “It’s merzost .”

In Ravkan, the word for magic and abomination was the same. Basic Grisha theory stated that matter couldn’t just be created from nothing. But that was a tenet of the Small Science. Merzost was different, a corruption of the making at the heart of the world.

David fiddled with a loose thread at his sleeve. “That energy, that substance has to come from somewhere. It must be coming from him.”

“But how is he doing it?” asked Zoya. “Has there ever been a Grisha with this kind of power?”

“The real question is how to fight them,” said Fedyor.

Talk turned to defense of the Little Palace and the possible advantages of confronting the Darkling in the field. But I was watching David. When Zoya had asked about other Grisha, he’d looked directly at me for the first time since I’d arrived at the Little Palace. Well, not at me exactly, but at my collar. He’d gone right back to staring at the table, but if possible, he seemed even more uncomfortable than before. I wondered what he might know about Morozova. And I wanted an answer to Zoya’s question, too. I didn’t know if I had the training or the nerve to attempt such a thing, but was there a way to summon soldiers of light to fight the Darkling’s shadow army? Was that the power the three amplifiers might give me?

I meant to try to talk to David alone after the meeting, but as soon as we adjourned, he shot out the door. Any thoughts I had of cornering him in the Materialki workshops that afternoon were squelched by the piles of paper waiting for me in my chambers. I spent hours preparing the Grisha pardon and signing countless documents guaranteeing funds and provisions for the outposts the Second Army hoped to reestablish on Ravka’s borders. Sergei had tried to manage some of the Darkling’s duties, but much of the work had simply gone unattended.