Leigh Bardugo: Siege and Storm

My nose is pinched shut, my mouth forced open. Some kind of broth slides down my throat. I cough and sputter.

“Where am I?” I try to say.

Another voice, cold and pure: “Put her back under.”

I AM IN THE PONY CART,riding back from the village with Ana Kuya. Her bony elbow jabs into my rib as we jounce up the road that will take us home to Keramzin. Mal is on her other side, laughing and pointing at everything we see.

The fat little pony plods along, twitching its shaggy mane as we climb the last hill. Halfway up, we pass a man and a woman on the side of the road. He is whistling as they go, waving his walking stick in time with the music. The woman trudges along, head bent, a block of salt strapped to her back.

“Are they very poor?” I ask Ana Kuya.

“Not so poor as others.”

“Then why doesn’t he buy a donkey?”

“He doesn’t need a donkey,” says Ana Kuya. “He has a wife.”

“I’m going to marry Alina,” Mal says.

The cart rolls past. The man doffs his cap and calls a jolly greeting.

Mal shouts back gleefully, waving and smiling, nearly bouncing from his seat.

I look back over my shoulder, craning my neck to watch the woman slogging along behind her husband. She’s just a girl, really, but her eyes are old and worn.

Ana Kuya misses nothing. “That’s what happens to peasant girls who do not have the benefit of the Duke’s kindness. That is why you must be grateful and keep him every night in your prayers.”

THE CLINK OF CHAINS.

Genya’s worried face. “It isn’t safe to keep doing this to her.”

“Don’t tell me how to do my job,” Ivan snaps.

The Darkling, in black, standing in the shadows. The rhythm of the sea beneath me. The realization hits me like a blow: We’re on a ship.

Please let me be dreaming.

I’M ON THE ROADto Keramzin again, watching the pony’s bent neck as he labors up the hill. When I look back, the girl struggling beneath the weight of the salt block has my face. Baghra sits beside me in the cart, “The ox feels the yoke,” she says, “but does the bird feel the weight of its wings?”

Her eyes are black jet. Be grateful, they say. Be grateful. She snaps the reins.

“DRINK.” MORE BROTH.I don’t fight it now. I don’t want to choke again. I fall back, let my lids drop, drifting away, too weak to struggle.

A hand on my cheek.

“Mal,” I manage to croak.

The hand is withdrawn.

Nothingness.

“WAKE UP.” THIS TIME,I don’t recognize the voice. “Bring her out of it.”

My lids flutter open. Am I still dreaming? A boy leans over me: ruddy hair, a broken nose. He reminds me of the too-clever fox, another of Ana Kuya’s stories, smart enough to get out of one trap, but too foolish to realize he won’t escape a second. There’s another boy standing behind him, but this one is a giant, one of the largest people I’ve ever seen. His golden eyes have the Shu tilt.

“Alina,” says the fox. How does he know my name?

The door opens, and I see another stranger’s face, a girl with short dark hair and the same golden gaze as the giant.

“They’re coming,” she says.

The fox curses. “Put her back down.” The giant comes closer. Darkness bleeds back in.

“No, please—”

It’s too late. The dark has me.

I AM A GIRL,trudging up a hill . My boots squelch in the mud and my back aches from the weight of the salt upon it. When I think I cannot take another step, I feel myself lifted off the ground. The salt slips from my shoulders, and I watch it shatter on the road. I float higher, higher. Below me, I can see a pony cart, the three passengers looking up at me, their mouths open in surprise. I can see my shadow pass over them, pass over the road and the barren winter fields, the black shape of a girl, borne high by her own unfurling wings.

THE FIRST THINGI knew was real was the rocking of the ship—the creak of the rigging, the slap of water on the hull.

When I tried to turn over, a shard of pain sliced through my shoulder. I gasped and jolted upright, my eyes flying open, heart racing, fully awake. A wave of nausea rolled through me, and I had to blink back the stars that floated across my vision. I was in a tidy ship’s cabin, lying on a narrow bunk. Daylight spilled through the sidescuttle.

Genya sat at the edge of my bed. So I hadn’t dreamed her. Or was I dreaming now? I tried to shake the cobwebs from my mind and was rewarded with another surge of nausea. The unpleasant smell in the air wasn’t helping to settle my stomach. I forced myself to take a long, shaky breath.

Genya wore a red kefta embroidered in blue, a combination I’d never seen on any other Grisha. The garment was dirty and a bit worn, but her hair was arranged in flawless curls, and she looked more lovely than any queen. She held a tin cup to my lips.

“Drink,” she said.

“What is it?” I asked warily.

“Just water.”

I tried to take the cup from her and realized my wrists were in irons. I lifted my hands awkwardly. The water had a flat metallic tang, but I was parched. I sipped, coughed, then drank greedily.

“Slowly,” she said, her hand smoothing the hair back from my face, “or you’ll make yourself sick.”

“How long?” I asked, glancing at Ivan, who leaned against the door watching me. “How long have I been out?”

“A little over a week,” Genya said.

“A week ?”

Panic seized me. A week of Ivan slowing my heart rate to keep me unconscious.

I shoved to my feet and blood rushed to my head. I would have fallen if Genya hadn’t reached out to steady me. I willed the dizziness away, shook her off, then stumbled to the sidescuttle and peered through the foggy circle of glass. Nothing. Nothing but blue sea. No harbor. No coast. Novyi Zem was long gone. I fought the tears that rose behind my eyes.

“Where’s Mal?” I asked. When no one answered, I turned around. “Where’s Mal?” I demanded of Ivan.

“The Darkling wants to see you,” he said. “Are you strong enough to walk, or do I have to carry you?”

“Give her a minute,” said Genya. “Let her eat, wash her face at least.”

“No. Take me to him.”

Genya frowned.

“I’m fine,” I insisted. Actually, I felt weak and woozy and terrified. But I wasn’t about to lie back down on that bunk, and I needed answers, not food.

As we left the cabin, we were engulfed in a wall of stench—not the usual ship smells of bilge and fish and bodies that I remembered from our voyage aboard the Verrhader , but something far worse. I gagged and clamped my mouth shut. I was suddenly glad I hadn’t eaten.

“What is that?”

“Blood, bone, rendered blubber,” said Ivan. We were aboard a whaler. “You get used to it,” he said.

“ You get used to it,” retorted Genya, wrinkling her nose.

They brought me to a hatch that led to the deck above. Ivan clambered up the ladder, and I scrambled hastily after him, eager to be out of the dark bowels of the ship and free of that rotting stench. It was hard climbing with my hands in irons, and Ivan quickly lost patience. He hooked my wrists to haul me up the last few feet. I took in great gulps of cold air and blinked in the bright light.