Leigh Bardugo - Shadow and Bone

The sun melted away and we watched the plateau turn blue in the twilight. We waited, listening to the sound of our own breath and the wind moaning over the vastness of Tsibeya. But as the light faded, the plateau stayed empty.

The moon rose, obscured by clouds. Mal didn’t move. He sat still as stone, staring out into the reaches of the plateau, his blue eyes distant. I pulled the other fur from the pack and wrapped it around his shoulders and mine. Here, in the lee of the rock, we were protected from the worst of the wind, but it wasn’t much for shelter.

Then he sighed deeply and squinted up at the night sky. “It’s going to snow. I should have taken us into the woods, but I thought…” He shook his head. “I was so sure.”

“It’s okay,” I said, leaning my head against his shoulder. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Our supplies won’t last forever, and every day we’re out here is another chance for us to get caught.”

“Tomorrow,” I said again.

“For all we know, he’s found the herd already. He’s killed the stag and now they’re just hunting us.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Mal said nothing. I pulled the fur up higher and I let the tiniest bit of light blossom from my hand.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m cold.”

“It isn’t safe,” he said, yanking the fur up to hide the light that shone warm and golden on his face.

“We haven’t seen another living soul for over a week. And staying hidden won’t do us much good if we freeze to death.”

He frowned but then he reached out, letting his fingers play in the light, and said, “That’s really something.”

“Thanks,” I said, smiling.

“Mikhael is dead.”

The light sputtered in my hand. “What?”

“He’s dead. He was killed in Fjerda. Dubrov, too.”

I sat frozen in shock. I’d never liked Mikhael or Dubrov, but none of that mattered now. “I didn’t realize…” I hesitated. “How did it happen?”

For a moment, I didn’t know if he would answer or even if I should have asked. He stared at the light that still glimmered from my hand, his thoughts far away.

“We were way up north near the permafrost, way past the outpost at Chernast,” he said quietly. “We had hunted the stag almost all the way into Fjerda. The captain came up with this idea that a few of us should cross the border disguised as Fjerdans and keep tracking the herd. It was stupid, ridiculous really. Even if we managed to get through the border country undiscovered, what were we supposed to do if we caught up with the herd? We had orders not to kill the stag, so we’d have to capture it and then somehow get it back over the border into Ravka. It was insane.”

I nodded. It did sound crazy.

“So that night, Mikhael and Dubrov and I laughed about it, talked about how it was a suicide mission and how the captain was a complete idiot, and we toasted the poor bastards who got stuck with the job. And the next morning I volunteered.”

“Why?” I said, startled.

Mal was silent again. At last, he said, “You saved my life on the Shadow Fold, Alina.”

“And you saved mine,” I countered, unsure of what any of that had to do with a suicide mission into Fjerda. But Mal didn’t seem to hear me.

“You saved my life and then in the Grisha tent, when they led you away, I didn’t do anything. I stood there and let him take you.”

“What were you supposed to do, Mal?”

“Something. Anything.”

“Mal—”

He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “I know it doesn’t make sense. But it’s how I felt. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I kept seeing you walk away, seeing you disappear.”

I thought of all the nights I had lain awake in the Little Palace, remembering my last glimpse of Mal’s face vanishing into the crowd as the Darkling’s guards led me away, wondering if I would ever see him again. I had missed him so terribly, but I had never really believed that Mal might be missing me just as much.

“I knew we were hunting the stag for the Darkling,” Mal continued. “I thought… I had this idea that if I found the herd, I could help you. I could help to make things right.” He glanced at me and the knowledge of how very wrong he had been passed between us. “Mikhael didn’t know any of that. But he was my friend, so like an ass, he volunteered, too. And then, of course, Dubrov had to sign on. I told them not to, but Mikhael just laughed and said he wasn’t going to let me get all the glory.”

“What happened?”

“Nine of us crossed the border, six soldiers and three trackers. Two of us came back.”

His words hung in the air, cold and final. Seven men dead in pursuit of the stag. And how many others that I didn’t know about? But even as I thought it, a disturbing idea entered my mind: How many lives could the stag’s power save? Mal and I were refugees, born to the wars that had raged at Ravka’s borders for so long. What if the Darkling and the terrible power of the Shadow Fold could stop all that? Could silence Ravka’s enemies and make us safe forever?

Not just Ravka’s enemies , I reminded myself. Anyone who stands against the Darkling, anyone who dares oppose him. The Darkling would make the world a wasteland before he ceded one bit of power.

Mal rubbed a hand over his tired face. “It was all for nothing anyway. The herd crossed back into Ravka when the weather turned. We could have just waited for the stag to come to us.”

I looked at Mal, at his distant eyes and the hard set of his scarred jaw. He looked nothing like the boy I’d known. He’d been trying to help me when he went after the stag. That meant that I was partially responsible for the change in him, and it broke my heart to think of it.

“I’m sorry, Mal. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Alina. I made my own choices. But those choices got my friends killed.”

I wanted to throw my arms around him and hug him close. But I couldn’t, not with this new Mal. Maybe not with the old one either, I admitted to myself. We weren’t children anymore. The ease of our closeness was a thing of the past. I reached out and laid a hand on his arm.

“If it’s not my fault, then it’s not yours either, Mal. Mikhael and Dubrov made their own choices, too. Mikhael wanted to be a good friend to you. And for all you know, he had his own reasons for wanting to track the stag. He wasn’t a child, and he wouldn’t want to be remembered as one.”

Mal didn’t look at me, but after a moment he laid his hand over mine. We were still sitting that way when the first flakes of snow began to fall.

MY LIGHT KEPT US warm through the night in the lee of the rock. Sometimes I dozed off and Mal had to nudge me awake so that I could pull sun across the dark and starlit stretches of Tsibeya to warm us beneath the furs.

When we emerged the next morning, the sun shone brightly over a world blanketed in white. This far north, snow was common well into spring, but it was hard not to feel that the weather was just another part of our bad luck. Mal took one look at the pristine expanse of the meadow and gave a disgusted shake of his head. I didn’t have to ask what he was thinking. If the herd had been close by, any sign they had left would have been covered by the snow. But we would leave plenty of tracks for anyone else to follow.

Without a word, we shook out the furs and stowed them away. Mal tied his bow to his pack, and we began the trek across the plateau. It was slow going. Mal did what he could to disguise our tracks, but it was clear that we were in serious trouble.

I knew Mal blamed himself for not being able to find the stag, but I didn’t know how to fix that. Tsibeya felt somehow bigger than it had the previous day. Or maybe I just felt smaller.