“Are you so very sure you can be killed at all?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The power that I possess, that Elizaveta and Grigori and Juris possessed, that now crackles through your veins, is not so easily wiped from the world. You can strike a bird from the sky. It’s far harder to vanquish the sky itself. Only our own power can destroy us, and even then it’s not a sure thing.”
“And your mother?”
The Darkling’s gaze slid back to the covered window. “Let us not speak of the past.”
She had been Zoya’s teacher, feared and beloved, powerful beyond measure. “I watched her throw herself from a mountaintop. She sacrificed herself to stop you. Was that her martyrdom?”
The Darkling said nothing. Zoya couldn’t stop herself.
“Grigori was eaten by a bear. Elizaveta was drawn and quartered. Still they returned. There are stories whispered in the Elbjen mountains of the Dark Mother. She crowds in when the nights grow long. She steals the heat from kitchen fires.”
“Liar.”
“Maybe. We all have stories to tell.”
Zoya pulled up the shade, then lowered her window, inhaling the cold winter air.
The woods were thick with snow, the branches of the birch trees glittering with frost.
She felt something in her stir, as if waking, as if whatever was inside her had also lifted its head to breathe deeply of the pines. These woods should have felt barren, maybe even sinister with their long shadows, but instead …
“Do you feel it?” the Darkling asked. “The world is more alive here.”
“Be silent.”
She didn’t want to share this with him. It was winter but she could still hear birdsong, the rustle of small creatures in the brush. She saw the tracks of a hare through the white drifts of snow.
She reached over and raised the shade on the Darkling’s side. From this vantage, they could see a low hill and the abandoned sanatorium.
“What is that place?” the Darkling asked.
“It was a duke’s dacha long ago. The hill was covered in his vineyards. Then it became a quarantine house during an outbreak of the wasting plague. They dug up the vines to bury the bodies. When the quarantine ended, the duke was dead and no one wanted the property. They said it was cursed. It seemed just the right spot for this wretched endeavor.”
The sanatorium was miles from any real village or town and had long been rumored to be haunted. They wouldn’t have to worry about unwanted visitors.
As they watched, a coach pulled up and three figures emerged—a man, a young boy accompanied by an orange cat that bolted for the trees, and a small, slender woman, her hair long and white as the first snowfall. She tilted her face up to the sky, as if letting the winter light pour through her. Alina Starkov, the Sun Saint.
Is she afraid? Zoya wondered. Eager? Angry? She felt the dragon stir as if called. No. She didn’t want to feel what Alina was feeling. Her own emotions were enough of a burden. Mal placed a shawl around Alina’s shoulders, wrapping his arms around her as they looked out over the old vineyard.
“Charming.”
Zoya studied the Darkling’s face. “You can sneer, but I see your hunger.”
“For the life of an otkazat’sya?”
“For a life of the kind you and I have never known and will never know—quiet, peace, the surety of love.”
“There is nothing sure about love. Do you think love will protect you when the Fjerdans come to capture the Stormwitch?”
She didn’t. But maybe she wanted to believe there was more to life than fear and being feared.
She yanked down the shade and tapped the roof. The coach traveled on, up the cramped cart track in slow switchbacks. At last, they rattled to a stop.
“Stay here,” she said, hooking his shackles to the seat.
She descended from the coach, closing the door behind her. Mal and Alina stood on the sanatorium’s stairs, but when Alina saw Zoya, she smiled and raced down the steps with arms open. Zoya blinked away an embarrassing prickle of tears. She hadn’t known how Alina might greet her, given the circumstances. She let herself be hugged. As always, Ravka’s Saint smelled of paint and pine.
“Is he in there?” Alina asked.
“He is.”
“You bring me the worst gifts.”
The tabby had returned from its sojourn and was twining through Misha’s legs. It padded over to Zoya. “Hello, Oncat,” she murmured, hefting the cat into her arms and feeling the comforting rumble of its purr.
Misha said nothing, just watched, his young face tense. He was only eleven years old, but he’d seen tragedy enough for ten lifetimes.
“Are you ready?” she asked Alina.
“Not at all. Couldn’t we have met someplace slightly less … nightmare-inducing?”
“Believe me, I’d rather be in a plush hotel in Os Kervo sipping a glass of wine.”
“It’s not so bad,” said Mal. “We don’t get out much.”
“Just for the occasional hunting trip?” asked Zoya.
Noblemen loved to hunt on the lands around Keramzin, and in the company of two humble peasants, they often drank and gossiped and talked matters of state. Alina and Mal had turned the orphanage into a way station for intelligence gathering.
The Sun Soldiers had fanned out to surround the sanatorium and create a perimeter. Now a young soldier with sun tattoos on both of her forearms emerged from the building.
She bowed to Zoya but paid little attention to the girl with the shawl tucked around her head. As far as these soldiers and everyone in Ravka knew, Alina Starkov had died on the Shadow Fold.
“There’s water damage throughout, so we’ve placed chairs in the entry.”
Zoya set down Oncat. “There’s hot tea?”
The soldier nodded. Alina cut Zoya a glance, and she shrugged. If they had to endure the Darkling, they could at least be civilized about it.
“Keep eyes on the door,” Zoya commanded. “If you hear anything out of the ordinary—anything at all—do not wait for my orders.”
“I’ve guarded him in the sun cell,” the tattooed soldier said. “He seems harmless enough.”
“I didn’t ask for an assessment of the threat,” Zoya bit out. “Stay alert, and respond with deadly force. If he gets free, we won’t have a second shot at him, understood?”
The soldier nodded, and Zoya dismissed her with a disgusted flick of her hand.
“Still making friends?” Alina said with a laugh.
“These children are going to get themselves and us killed.”
Mal smiled. “Are you nervous, Zoya?”
“Don’t be absurd.”
He turned to Alina. “She’s nervous.”
“You’re not?” asked Alina.
“Oh, I’m terrified, but I didn’t expect Zoya to be.”
Alina yanked her shawl tighter. “Let’s get this over with.”
Zoya strode to the coach and ducked inside. She unhooked the Darkling’s shackles from the seat and drew the blindfold back over his eyes.
“Is that strictly necessary?”
“Probably not,” she admitted. “Behave yourself.”
Flanked by Sun Soldiers, she led him across the yard and up the stairs.