Redvin led them inside a steel elevator that carried them skyward. Even the elevator runs better, Nina thought miserably, recalling the clanking brass contraption she’d once ridden in at Lazlayon. Only hours ago, she’d felt sure that she and Hanne would find a way out of all this. Now her fear had swallowed that hope.
The elevator lurched to a stop at the top of the tower, and they emerged into a room lined with windows that had been fitted with different types of lenses. A large crowd of officers had gathered to watch the invasion, and the mood was tense but jubilant. In the distance, Nina could see the curve of the bay, the seagrass-covered knolls teeming with Ravkan soldiers and tanks, and churning through the water, Fjerdan ships, tank carriers, and troop carriers driving toward Ravka.
The Ravkan forces looked battered and flimsy compared to the metal beasts the Fjerdans commanded. Nina saw First Army soldiers climbing the rocks that bordered the low cliffs of the bay. Why not send Tidemakers? Had they been told to hold back? They had an antidote to parem now. Why wouldn’t they use Grisha to raise the waves and try to sink the Fjerdan boats before they landed? Maybe the Fjerdan invasion had arrived too suddenly for them to mount a proper defense.
Nina watched the invading Fjerdan fleet draw closer, like monsters from the deep, gray-backed and hungry.
“The first strike,” said Redvin. “We’ll drive inland, then close on Os Kervo from the south as Brum’s men close from the north. The soil will run red with Ravkan blood.”
But Nina wasn’t so sure. A thought had entered her head, equal parts dread and hope.
“Why do they meet no opposition?” Ylva asked.
“The Ravkans expected Sturmhond’s blockade to hold. The fools concentrated their forces to the north. All that remains in the south is a skeleton crew to meet our assault.”
Sturmhond’s blockade. Just how had the Fjerdans broken through?
Nina bent to a long glass and trained it on the Ravkan forces. It was hard to make out much from this distance, but they seemed unnaturally still. As if they were simply waiting. She focused the lens on the figures she saw standing on the rocks—and recognized a familiar head of raven hair, lifted by the wind.
Not an ordinary soldier. Not a Tidemaker. Zoya Nazyalensky. Ravka’s most powerful Squaller and Grisha general. If Ravka was making its stand on the northern front, what was Zoya doing here?
“Does it trouble you, Mila?” said Ylva. “I have long been a soldier’s wife. I’m used to the realities of battle. But we don’t have to watch.”
“No,” said Nina. “I want to see.”
“At last a bit of spine!” Redvin crowed. “You’ll enjoy this first taste of victory.”
The Fjerdan soldiers leapt into the waves, rifles in hand, charging toward the beach, a tide of violence.
One by one the soldiers on the rocks raised their hands. An army of Squallers.
Zoya was the last. Lightning forked through the skies—not the single bolts Nina had seen Squallers summon before, but a crackling web, a thousand spears of jagged light that turned the sky a vivid violet before they struck the water.
The crowd around Nina gasped.
“Sweet Djel,” shouted Redvin. “No!”
But it was too late.
The sea was suddenly alight, seething like a boiling pot, steam hissing off its surface. Nina could not hear the men in the shallows scream, but she could see their mouths open wide, their bodies shaking as current passed through them. The Fjerdan tank carriers seemed to crumple in on themselves, roofs collapsing in heaps of melted metal, treads welded together.
Sturmhond’s blockade hadn’t broken at all. It had deliberately given way, opening the door to the trap and letting Fjerda’s navy sail through. That was what the Ravkans had been waiting for.
The lightning stopped, leaving the sky clear but for a few clouds. Zoya and her Squallers were done speaking.
The observation tower had gone silent as the officers stared at what was left of their sea invasion, the bodies of their men bobbing in the gentle waves lapping the Ravkan shore, their war machines slumped like shipwreck hulls, some slowly sinking into the sea.
Ylva had her hands clapped over her mouth. Her eyes were full of tears. Nina wondered what Hanne was feeling, watching this destruction beside the prince.
Nina couldn’t celebrate the deaths of soldiers, most of whom had little choice in when they marched or what kind of war they waged. But she thought of the winter ball, of the joyful toasts, how readily Fjerda had celebrated the eve of what they believed would be another nation’s destruction.
This was war. Not parades and boasts but blood and sacrifice, and Ravka would not go quietly.
“We are lost,” Ylva whispered. “So many dead in an instant.”
“Shut your mouth,” Redvin snarled. “This is why women don’t belong near the battlefield.”
A woman just shoved your “taste of victory” right down your throat, Nina thought with satisfaction.
“This is nothing,” Redvin continued, slicing his hand through the air, addressing the officers now. “This offensive was insurance. The Ravkans have a nightmare waiting for them on the northern front that they’ll never recover from.”
“More tanks?” Nina said, putting a hopeful tremor in her voice.
Redvin laughed, and the sound raised the hair on Nina’s arms. “Oh no, little girl. A weapon like nothing this world has ever seen. And the royal whelp helped create it.”
“Prince Rasmus?” Her surprise was real.
“Yes, he’s more bloodthirsty than any of us could have hoped. Got the idea at the opera, if you please.”
Hajefetla. Songbird. Was Redvin speaking of the plans she’d seen on Brum’s desk, the weapon the prince had spoken of at the ball? Rasmus had invented this new weapon. Rasmus, who they had hoped might be steered toward peace, who Nina had encouraged King Nikolai to believe might be an ally. They had known he was cruel, but they’d hoped it was a petty cruelty, personal, childish, a habit born of frustration. They’d wanted to believe he could be purged of Fjerda’s poison. But he was a warmonger, just like Brum. She remembered what Joran had said that night on the ice moat: He was testing his new strength. Rasmus didn’t want to forge a new world that valued life and mercy more than strength or military might. He wanted to prove to the world he was Fjerdan to the core. She had to figure out how to warn Nikolai that the prince couldn’t be counted on. But first she had to get out of this tower and find a way to Hanne.
“I cannot bear this,” Nina said. “It is too terrible to see our soldiers suffer.”
Ylva placed her arm around Nina’s shoulder and shepherded her toward the elevator. “We’ll leave the men to it.” Once the doors closed, she said, “It will be all right, Mila. If Redvin says Fjerda has the advantage, we do.”
That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.
When they reached the deck, Nina was glad of the salt sting of the sea air. It was easy to say, “Ylva, can you go on without me? I’m not ready to be back in our cabin yet. I need to clear my head.”
Ylva removed her shawl and tucked it around Nina’s shoulders. “You cannot go to her, Mila. His guards will not allow it. I wish you could. I wish I’d sent you both to live with the Hedjut.”