David and Nadia sat at the round table at the room’s center. He’d set out neat little stacks of papers in what was no doubt an important order, and he was buried in a long row of calculations. Occasionally, he would hand a paper to Nadia, who was working on her own set of numbers, her feet resting in Tamar’s lap. Tolya sat on the rug beside the tiled grate, gazing into the fire. It might have been a cozy scene, but the horror of what had happened that morning hung heavy in the air.
Genya studied her designs for the wedding gown, traditional gold and paired with a jeweled kokoshnik. She held up a sketch. “Too much?”
Zoya touched her fingers to the gown’s delicately drawn hem. “For the royal chapel? No. The more sparkle the better.” It was a gloomy place.
“I know,” Genya said. She adjusted the patch over her missing eye. “If only we could hold the ceremony in the gardens.”
“In the middle of winter?” said Nikolai, strolling into the sitting room and heading straight for the wine on the side table. It was as if he’d never been hurt, never been helpless. He had bathed, dressed in fresh clothes. The man seemed to gleam with confidence. “Do you want our guests to freeze to death?”
“That’s one way to win a war,” mused Genya.
“You shouldn’t have wine,” said Zoya. “The Healer’s draught isn’t out of your system yet.”
Nikolai wrinkled his nose. “Then I suppose I’ll drink tea like an old woman.”
“There’s nothing wrong with tea,” objected Tolya.
“Far be it from me to argue with a man as big as a boulder.” Nikolai poured himself a cup of tea and glanced at the papers laid out on the table. “Are those the new calculations for our launch system?” David nodded without looking up. “And how are they coming along?”
“They aren’t.”
“No?”
“I keep getting interrupted,” David said pointedly.
“Splendid. Good to know I’ve done my part.”
Nikolai sank into a large chair by the fire. Zoya could tell he was trying to summon the spirit to rib David or maybe even to celebrate the advantage their new rockets might grant them against the Fjerdans. But even Nikolai’s relentless optimism was no match for what they’d seen on the palace steps.
At last he set his cup down on his knee and said, “Help me understand what happened this morning.”
Tamar and Tolya exchanged a glance.
“This was a message from Queen Makhi,” said Tamar.
“So she does not approve of the wedding? She might have simply sent her regrets.”
“She rolled the dice,” Tamar said. “And she almost won. If she had killed Ehri, she would have had cause for war, and she would have tied up the loose ends of her assassination scheme.”
“We’re going to have a hell of a time explaining what happened here as it is,” said Zoya. “How do we account for the death of eleven high-ranking prisoners in our care?”
“Ehri saw what happened,” said Tolya quietly. “It will be up to her to tell the truth. All of it.”
“All of it,” Tamar repeated.
Nadia laid her pen on the table and took her wife’s hand. “Do you think Queen Makhi will actually come to the wedding?”
“She will,” said Tamar. “But I wouldn’t put it past her to use the occasion to stage some kind of attack. She’s a wily tactician.”
“A good queen,” said Zoya.
“Yes,” Tamar conceded. “Or an effective one. Her mother created a policy of outlawing experimentation on Grisha and had begun to allow them certain rights in exchange for military or governmental service.”
“Like in Ravka,” Nikolai said.
Tolya nodded. “Grisha still couldn’t own property or hold any kind of political office, but they were worthwhile reforms.”
“We’ve never been seen as unnatural there,” said Tamar. “Just dangerous. But not everyone approved. Some Shu didn’t like the idea of Grisha passing as ordinary people.”
“And Makhi didn’t like her mother’s policies?” Nikolai asked.
Now Tamar frowned. She picked up Nadia’s cup and her own and paced to the side table to refill them. “Even before she was crowned, Makhi had her own ideas about how to strengthen Shu Han. When jurda parem was discovered, it presented her with a choice: She could have attempted to keep the secret by destroying Bo Yul-Bayur’s work. Instead Makhi chose to start up the old laboratories and make use of parem as a weapon.”
“That’s what led to the khergud,” Tolya said, his voice desolate, a man surveying the wreck, pointing to a yawning black hole in the hull. This is where it all went wrong.
The khergud were Shu Han’s deadliest soldiers, though the government had never acknowledged them in any official way. They were tailored by Grisha under the influence of parem, their senses heightened, their bones reinforced and altered. Some could even fly. Zoya shivered, remembering being yanked off her feet, the grip of the khergud soldier’s arms around her like steel bands.
Tamar placed the full cups on the table but did not sit. She ran Nikolai’s spy networks. She knew, better than any of them, what was happening to Grisha under Makhi’s stewardship.
“The creation of the khergud…” She hesitated. “It’s a process of trial and error. The Grisha they bring to the labs are referred to as volunteers, but…”
“We know better,” Tolya growled.
“We do,” said Tamar. “The choices the Grisha are presented with are impossible ones. The power the Taban government wields is too absolute.”
“So it’s not a choice at all,” said Genya.
Tolya shrugged. “It’s the same way the Darkling built the Second Army.”
Zoya bristled at that. “The Second Army was a refuge.”
“Maybe for some,” said Tolya. “The Darkling took Grisha from their parents when they were only children. They were taught to forget the places they came from, the people they knew. They served the crown or their families suffered. What kind of choice is that?”
“But no one experimented on us,” said Zoya. And some of us were perfectly happy to forget our parents.
“No,” said Tolya, resting his huge hands on his knees. “They just turned you into soldiers and sent you out to fight their wars.”
“He’s not wrong,” said Genya, looking down at her wine. “Don’t you ever think about what life you might have led if you hadn’t come to the Little Palace?”
Zoya leaned her head back against the silk of the couch. Yes, she wondered. As a little girl, the thought had haunted her dreams and hounded her into waking. She would close her eyes and find herself walking down the aisle. She would see her aunt bleeding on the floor. And always, her mother was there, coaxing Zoya forward, reminding her not to trip on the hem of her little golden wedding dress, as Zoya’s father sat silent in the pews. He’d hung his head, Zoya remembered. But he hadn’t said a word to save her. Only Liliyana had dared to speak. And Liliyana was long dead. Murdered by the Fold and the Darkling’s ambition.
“Yes,” said Zoya. “I think about it.”