Nina looked into the faces below as they craned their necks, shielded their eyes, gaping at death borne aloft on black wings. They’d always feared the Grisha, and now, in this moment, from this height, she could admit they’d had a right to that fear—Grisha were born with gifts that made them more deadly than any ordinary soldier. Fjerda had let that fear overtake them, drive them, shape their nation.
But wasn’t there awe in those faces too? Awe Nina had fostered with her phony miracles, her small attempts to sway Fjerdan thought. What had that all been for if it only ended in annihilation?
Save some mercy for my people.
Damn it, Helvar.
There has to be a Fjerda worth saving. Promise me.
She had promised. And in the end, she could not let go of that vow. When she’d spoken those words, when she’d made that oath, she hadn’t been speaking just to Matthias, but to the boy who had killed him, and to the men who cowered in the field below them now.
“Zoya!” she cried, unsure if Zoya could even hear her, if this creature was Zoya Nazyalensky anymore. “Zoya, please. If you destroy them, Brum’s cause will never die. They will always fear us. There will never be an end to it!”
The dragon shrieked and spread its jaws wide.
“Zoya, please!”
Nina smelled ozone on the air. Heard the crackle of lightning.
She pressed her face against the dragon’s scales. She didn’t want to see what came next.
42
NIKOLAI
JURIS.
That was Nikolai’s first thought when the dragon appeared, sunlight glinting blue off its black scales. Until lightning sparked in jagged streaks across the sky. He knew Zoya’s power, recognized it instantly.
He drew the demon back to him. He had long since stopped thinking of what the soldiers around him had seen or if they would damn him for the monster he’d become. Somehow, impossibly, Ravka had seized the advantage. Zoya’s lightning had ignited walls of flame, blocking retreat for the Fjerdan forces, and now she hovered above them, ready to pass judgment.
The Age of Saints. Yuri had predicted it and now, in this trembling moment, it had come. Not with Elizaveta or the Darkling, but on the wings of a dragon. Nikolai thought of all the stories, of Sankt Feliks who had become a beast to fight for the first king, of Juris who had bested the dragon only to take on its form. Zoya had become something the world hadn’t seen since before legends were written.
The dragon’s jaws opened and released an angry shriek. In it, Nikolai heard all of Zoya’s sadness, her rage, the grief she’d endured for every soldier fallen, every friend lost, the deep loneliness of the life she’d been forced to live. The air seemed to come alive, the pressure dropping, lightning gathering.
She was going to kill them all.
Don’t, Nikolai prayed. Don’t give in to this. There has to be more to life, even for soldiers like us.
For a moment, the dragon’s gaze met his and he saw her there, in that inhuman silver, those slitted pupils. He saw the girl who had rested her head against his shoulder in the garden and wept.
There has to be more.
She swiveled her scaled neck and lightning burst across the sky, crackling exclamations that scorched the air and lifted the hair on Nikolai’s arms. But the Fjerdans were still standing. Zoya had spared them.
“Sankta!”
Nikolai wasn’t sure where the shout came from. He turned his head and saw a figure in black, kneeling in the field.
“Sankta Zoya!” the figure shouted again.
He lifted his head, and Nikolai met the Darkling’s gray gaze. The bastard winked at him.
“Sankta!” Another voice, wavering with tears.
“S?nje!” This time from the Fjerdan side.
“Sankta Zoya of the Storms!”
One of the drüskelle threw down his gun. “S?nje Zoya daja Kerken-ning!” he cried, crumpling to his knees. “Me jer jonink. Me jer jonink!”
Saint Zoya of the Lightning. Forgive me. Forgive me.
The drüskelle captain strode forward, his pistol raised. Would he kill this kneeling boy? Blow his head open for daring to entertain heathen thoughts within it? If he did, what would happen?
But two Fjerdan soldiers stepped into the captain’s path, seizing his arms and snatching away his pistol. The drüskelle captain shouted, face red, spittle flying from his mouth. Blasphemy, heresy, treason, abomination. All words that had been used against Grisha before. If the Fjerdans had been winning this battle, maybe those charges would have held sway. But these men didn’t want to die. One by one, the drüskelle went to their knees. Zoya had bought their fealty with mercy.
Again, Nikolai looked to the Darkling. The Starless had surrounded him, praying. The field was full of kneeling soldiers, weeping troops, perplexed Grisha. From the north came the sound of a trumpet—the Fjerdans sounding retreat. The Darkling grinned at Nikolai as if he’d been the architect of it all.
Above them, the dragon flapped her vast wings and he saw someone on her back, though he couldn’t tell who. The great beast roared and the clouds around her pulsed with light. Thunder boomed, rolling over the mountains, and lightning forked through the sky, so bright he had to avert his gaze.
When he looked back, Zoya was gone.
43
ZOYA
ZOYA COULDN’T THINK OVER the sound of Juris’ laughter in her head.
Sankta Zoya.
She was no Saint. It was podge-headed nonsense. But had she helped buy peace for Ravka? Had she done right by leaving the Fjerdans alive? She swooped down to the coast, searching for a place to land that would be out of sight of prying eyes. She needed a moment in the cool dark to pull her thoughts back together, to understand herself again. Her mind felt different, not just her body. She couldn’t grasp the shape of who she was. It was all too much—the soldiers’ panic on the field, the Darkling’s bemusement, the drüskelle commander’s wild rage, Nina’s anguish. Nikolai. She could still feel his fear for her. There has to be more to life, even for soldiers like us. In those brief seconds she had believed. We might shelter in each other. She was tied to all of them.
Juris’ knowledge echoed through her—a cave just north of Os Kervo, hewn into the cliff wall. He had flown this coastline many times before. The cave was snug, but it would do.
I should have killed the Fjerdans. I should have given them a wound from which they’d never recover. But that was an old voice, the voice of a hurt child who had no one to trust, who feared there would always be someone more powerful and more cruel than her. She would forever be a bloodthirsty, furious girl, but she might allow herself to be something else too. If she had helped to earn peace for Ravka, then maybe she could grant her own heart a bit of peace as well.
She set down with an awkward thud, nearly crashing into the cave wall before she managed to stop her speed. Utterly graceless.
“You have to take me back,” Nina said.
Zoya gave a massive shrug. Climb off or I’ll throw you off.
Nina yelped and half rolled off her, landing in a heap on the cave floor. Her clothes were soaked and her blond hair looked like someone had tried to style it with a pitchfork.
“Are you in my head?” Nina squeaked, pressing her hands to her temples. “Can you read my mind?”
Blessedly not. But she could feel. So much. It was terrifying. This was what she had always feared, this deep connection to the world. But she had opened the door. She’d burst right through it. There was no closing it now.