Leigh Bardugo - Shadow and Bone

The crowd erupted into murmurs. The survivors from the skiff were nodding, and I found myself nodding along with them. I had seen the blaze of light, too.

The soldier snapped back to attention and continued, “The volcra scattered and the light disappeared. I ordered us back to drydock immediately.”

“And the girl?” asked the Darkling.

With a cold stab of fear, I realized he was talking about me.

“I didn’t see the girl, moi soverenyi .”

The Darkling raised an eyebrow, turning to the other survivors. “Who actually saw what happened?” His voice was cool, distant, almost disinterested.

The survivors broke into muttered discussion with one another. Then slowly, timidly, the Senior Cartographer stepped forward. I felt a keen twinge of pity for him. I’d never seen him so disheveled. His sparse brown hair was standing at all angles on his head; his fingers plucked nervously at his ruined coat.

“Tell us what you saw,” said Raevsky.

The Cartographer licked his lips. “We… we were under attack,” he said tremulously. “There was fighting all around. Such noise. So much blood… . One of the boys, Alexei, was taken. It was terrible, terrible.” His hands fluttered like two startled birds.

I frowned. If the Cartographer had seen Alexei attacked, then why hadn’t he tried to help?

The old man cleared his throat. “They were everywhere. I saw one go after her—”

“Who?” asked Raevsky.

“Alina… Alina Starkov, one of my assistants.”

The beautiful girl in blue smirked and leaned over to whisper to her friend. I clenched my jaw. How nice to know that the Grisha could still maintain their snobbery in the midst of hearing about a volcra attack.

“Go on,” Raevsky pressed.

“I saw one go after her and the tracker,” the Cartographer said, gesturing to Mal.

“And where were you?” I asked angrily. The question was out of my mouth before I could think better of it. Every face turned to look at me, but I didn’t care. “You saw the volcra attack us. You saw that thing take Alexei. Why didn’t you help?”

“There was nothing I could do,” he pleaded, his hands spread wide. “They were everywhere. It was chaos!”

“Alexei might still be alive if you’d gotten off your bony ass to help us!”

There was a gasp and a burble of laughter from the crowd. The Cartographer flushed angrily and I felt instantly sorry. If I got out of this mess, I was going to be in very big trouble.

“Enough!” boomed Raevsky. “Tell us what you saw, Cartographer.”

The crowd hushed and the Cartographer licked his lips again. “The tracker went down. She was beside him. That thing, the volcra, was coming at them. I saw it on top of her and then… she lit up.”

The Grisha erupted into exclamations of disbelief and derision. A few of them laughed. If I hadn’t been so scared and baffled, I might have been tempted to join them. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so hard on him , I thought, looking at the rumpled Cartographer. The poor man clearly took a bump to the head during the attack.

“I saw it!” he shouted over the din. “Light came out of her!”

Some of the Grisha were jeering openly now, but others were yelling, “Let him speak!” The Cartographer looked desperately to his fellow survivors for support, and to my amazement, I saw some of them nod. Had everyone gone mad? Did they actually think I had chased off the volcra?

“This is absurd!” said a voice from the crowd. It was the beautiful girl in blue. “What are you suggesting, old man? That you’ve found us a Sun Summoner?”

“I’m not suggesting anything,” he protested. “I’m only telling what I saw!”

“It’s not impossible,” said a heavyset Grisha. He wore the purple kefta of a Materialnik, a member of the Order of Fabrikators. “There are stories—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the girl laughed, her voice thick with scorn. “The man’s had his wits rattled by the volcra!”

The crowd erupted into loud argument.

I suddenly felt very tired. My shoulder throbbed where the volcra had dug its talons into me. I didn’t know what the Cartographer or any of the others on the skiff thought they had seen. I just knew this was all some kind of terrible mistake, and at the end of this farce, I would be the one looking foolish. I cringed when I thought of the teasing I would take when this was over. And hopefully, it would be over soon.

“Quiet.” The Darkling barely seemed to raise his voice, but the command sliced through the crowd and silence fell.

I suppressed a shiver. He might not find this joke so funny. I just hoped he wouldn’t blame me for it. The Darkling wasn’t known for mercy. Maybe I should be worrying less about being teased and more about being exiled to Tsibeya. Or worse. Eva said that the Darkling had once ordered a Corporalki Healer to seal a traitor’s mouth shut permanently. The man’s lips had been grafted together and he had starved to death. At the time, Alexei and I had laughed and dismissed it as another of Eva’s crazy stories. Now I wasn’t so sure.

“Tracker,” the Darkling said softly, “what did you see?”

As one, the crowd turned toward Mal, who looked uneasily at me and then back at the Darkling. “Nothing. I didn’t see anything.”

“The girl was right beside you.”

Mal nodded.

“You must have seen something.”

Mal glanced at me again, his look weighted with worry and fatigue. I’d never seen him so pale, and I wondered how much blood he had lost. I felt a surge of helpless anger. He was badly hurt. He should be resting instead of standing here answering ridiculous questions.

“Just tell us what you remember, tracker,” commanded Raevsky.

Mal shrugged slightly and winced at the pain from his wounds. “I was on my back on the deck. Alina was next to me. I saw the volcra diving, and I knew it was coming for us. I said something and—”

“What did you say?” The Darkling’s cool voice cut through the room.

“I don’t remember,” Mal said. I recognized the stubborn set of his jaw and knew he was lying. He did remember. “I smelled the volcra, saw it swooping down on us. Alina screamed and then I couldn’t see anything. The world was just… shining.”

“So you didn’t see where the light was coming from?” Raevsky asked.

“Alina isn’t… She couldn’t…” Mal shook his head. “We’re from the same… village.” I noticed that tiny pause, the orphan’s pause. “If she could do anything like that, I would know.”

The Darkling looked at Mal for a long moment and then glanced back at me.

“We all have our secrets,” he said.

Mal opened his mouth as if to say more, but the Darkling put up a hand to silence him. Anger flashed across Mal’s features but he shut his mouth, his lips pressed into a grim line.

The Darkling rose from his chair. He gestured and the soldiers stepped back, leaving me alone to face him. The tent seemed eerily silent. Slowly, he descended the steps.

I had to fight the urge to back away from him as he came to a halt in front of me.

“Now, what do you say, Alina Starkov?” he asked pleasantly.

I swallowed. My throat was dry and my heart was careening from beat to beat, but I knew I had to speak. I had to make him understand that I’d had no part in any of this. “There’s been some kind of mistake,” I said hoarsely. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t know how we survived.”

The Darkling appeared to consider this. Then he crossed his arms, cocked his head to one side. “Well,” he said, his voice bemused. “I like to think that I know everything that happens in Ravka, and that if I had a Sun Summoner living in my own country, I’d be aware of it.” Soft murmurs of assent rose from the crowd, but he ignored them, watching me closely. “But something powerful stopped the volcra and saved the King’s skiffs.”