Leigh Bardugo - Siege and Storm

Tentatively, the other Grisha had begun to open up to the value of the Fabrikators. With help from the Inferni, the Materialki 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 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 Materialki workshops.

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 endless meetings at the Grand Palace. The Sun Summoner’s power was a valuable bartering chip in Ravka’s attempts to forge alliances with other countries, and I was frequently asked to put in appearances at diplomatic gatherings to demonstrate my power and prove that I was, in fact, alive. The Queen hosted teas and dinners where I was paraded out to perform. Nikolai often dropped by to dole out compliments, flirt shamelessly, and hover protectively by my chair like a doting suitor.

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 days hobbling after serving maids and sleeping in the sun like an old tomcat. In his absence, his counselors talked in endless circles. They argued 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 for partnering with Fjerda. They argued every line of every 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 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 soiled rag. It took everything in me not to burst out laughing.

“Vasily thinks he can lead as our father did,” Nikolai confided to me later 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 the 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, held forth at 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 Nikolai walked me back to the Little Palace after a particularly wretched session. “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. “I’d be passed out on the floor before the hour was up.”

WITH NIKOLAI’S HELP,I’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.

I’d been worried about how Botkin might respond to all the changes. But the man seemed to have a 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 a 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?” I 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 dabbed his lip with a damp cloth.