Leigh Bardugo - Shadow and Bone

“I think it’s brilliant!” I exclaimed more loudly than I’d intended.

Baghra made a disgusted sound.

The Darkling gave her a sharp glance, but then he turned to me. “Alina, have you ever heard of Morozova’s herd?”

“Of course she has. She’s also heard of unicorns and the Shu Han dragons,” Baghra said mockingly.

An angry look passed over the Darkling’s features, but then he seemed to master himself. “May I have a word with you, Alina?” he inquired politely.

“Of… of course,” I stammered.

Baghra snorted again, but the Darkling ignored her and took me by the elbow to lead me out of the cottage, shutting the door firmly behind us. When we had walked a short distance down the path, he heaved a huge sigh and ran his hands through his hair again. “That woman,” he muttered.

It was hard not to laugh.

“What?” he said warily.

“I’ve just never seen you so… ruffled.”

“Baghra has that effect on people.”

“Was she your teacher, too?”

A shadow crossed his face. “Yes,” he said. “So what do you know about Morozova’s herd?”

I bit my lip. “Just, well, you know…”

He sighed. “Just children’s stories?”

I shrugged apologetically.

“It’s all right,” he said. “What do you remember from the stories?”

I thought back, remembering Ana Kuya’s voice in the dormitories late at night. “They were white deer, magical creatures that appeared only at twilight.”

“They’re no more magical than we are. But they are ancient and very powerful.”

“They’re real?” I asked incredulously. I didn’t mention that I certainly hadn’t been feeling very magical or powerful lately.

“I think so.”

“But Baghra doesn’t.”

“She usually finds my ideas ridiculous. What else do you remember?”

“Well,” I said with a laugh. “In Ana Kuya’s stories, they could talk, and if a hunter captured them and spared their lives, they granted wishes.”

He laughed then. It was the first time I’d ever heard his laugh, a lovely dark sound that rippled through the air. “Well, that part definitely isn’t true.”

“But the rest is?”

“Kings and Darklings have been searching for Morozova’s herd for centuries. My hunters claim they’ve seen signs of them, though they’ve never seen the creatures themselves.”

“And you believe them?”

His slate-colored gaze was cool and steady. “My men don’t lie to me.”

I felt a chill skitter up my spine. Knowing what the Darkling could do, I wouldn’t be keen on lying to him either. “All right,” I said uneasily.

“If Morozova’s stag can be taken, its antlers can be made into an amplifier.” He reached out and tapped my collarbone—even that brief contact was enough to send a jolt of surety through me.

“A necklace?” I asked, trying to picture it, still feeling the tap of his fingers at the base of my throat.

He nodded. “The most powerful amplifier ever known.”

My jaw dropped. “And you want to give it to me?”

He nodded again.

“Wouldn’t it just be easier for me to get a claw or a fang or, I don’t know, pretty much anything else?”

He shook his head. “If we have any hope of destroying the Fold, we need the stag’s power.”

“But maybe if I had one to practice with—”

“You know it doesn’t work that way.”

“I do?”

He frowned. “Haven’t you been reading your theory?”

I gave him a look and said, “There’s a lot of theory.”

He surprised me by smiling. “I forget that you’re new to this.”

“Well, I don’t,” I muttered.

“Is it that bad?”

To my embarrassment, I felt a lump well up in my throat. I swallowed it down. “Baghra must have told you I can’t summon a single sunbeam on my own.”

“It will happen, Alina. I’m not worried.”

“You’re not?”

“No. And even if I were, once we have the stag, it won’t matter.”

I felt a surge of frustration. If an amplifier could make it possible for me to be a real Grisha, then I didn’t want to wait for some mythical antler. I wanted a real one. Now.

“If no one’s found Morozova’s herd in all this time, what makes you think you’ll find it now?” I asked.

“Because this was meant to be. The stag was meant for you, Alina. I can feel it.” He looked at me. His hair was still a mess, and in the bright morning sunlight, he looked more handsome and more human than I’d ever seen him. “I guess I’m asking you to trust me,” he said.

What was I supposed to say? I didn’t really have a choice. If the Darkling wanted me to be patient, I would have to be patient. “Okay,” I said finally. “But hurry it up.”

He laughed again, and I felt a pleased flush creep up my cheeks. Then his expression became serious. “I’ve been waiting for you a long time, Alina,” he said. “You and I are going to change the world.”

I laughed nervously. “I’m not the world-changing type.”

“Just wait,” he said softly, and when he looked at me with those gray quartz eyes, my heart gave a little thump. I thought he was going to say something more, but abruptly he stepped back, a troubled look on his face. “Good luck with your lessons,” he said. He gave me a short bow and turned on his heel to walk up the path to the lakeshore. But he’d only gone a few steps before he turned back to me. “Alina,” he said. “About the stag?”

“Yes?”

“Please keep it to yourself. Most people think it’s just a children’s story, and I’d hate to look a fool.”

“I won’t say anything,” I promised.

He nodded once and, without another word, strode away. I stared after him. I felt a little dazed, and I wasn’t sure why.

When I looked up, Baghra was standing on the porch of her cottage, watching me. For no reason at all, I blushed.

“Hmph,” she snorted, and then she turned her back on me, too.

AFTER MY CONVERSATION with the Darkling, I took my first opportunity to visit the library. There was no mention of the stag in any of my theory books, but I did find a reference to Ilya Morozova, one of the first and most powerful Grisha.

There was also plenty about amplifiers. The books were very clear on the fact that a Grisha could have only one amplifier in his or her lifetime and that once a Grisha owned an amplifier, it could be possessed by no one else: “The Grisha claims the amplifier, but the amplifier claims the Grisha, as well. Once it is done, there can be no other. Like calls to like, and the bond is made.”

The reason for this wasn’t entirely clear to me, but it seemed to have something to do with a check on Grisha power.

“The horse has speed. The bear has strength. The bird has wings. No creature has all of these gifts, and so the world is held in balance. Amplifiers are part of this balance, not a means of subverting it, and each Grisha would do well to remember this or risk the consequences.”

Another philosopher wrote, “Why can a Grisha possess but one amplifier? I will answer this question instead: What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men.”

Sitting beneath the library’s glass dome, I thought of the Black Heretic. The Darkling had said that the Shadow Fold was the result of his ancestor’s greed. Was that what the philosophers meant by consequences? For the first time, it occurred to me that the Fold was the one place where the Darkling was helpless, where his powers meant nothing. The Black Heretic’s descendants had suffered for his ambition. Still, I couldn’t help but think that it was Ravka that had been made to pay in blood.

FALL TURNED TO WINTER, and cold winds stripped the branches in the palace gardens bare. Our table was still laden with fresh fruit and flowers furnished from the Grisha hothouses, where they made their own weather. But even juicy plums and purple grapes did little to improve my appetite.