“Signal the flyers!” she shouted to the Sun Soldiers, then turned her wrath on him. If only she’d had time to master the gifts Juris had granted her. “You have nowhere to go. The king’s soldiers will hunt you to the ends of the earth and so will I.”
Gunshots shattered the air as the flyers overhead opened fire on the Darkling from above. One found its target, and the Darkling gave a yelp of rage and pain. He can still bleed.
But the nichevo’ya swarmed around him in a mass of wings and writhing bodies, absorbing bullets as if they were nothing at all.
Two of the shadow soldiers surged skyward, and a moment later the flyers were plummeting toward the earth.
Zoya screamed, hurling her power in a wave of wind to break their fall.
Not one more, she vowed. She would not lose a single soldier more to this man.
“I have bested many kings and survived many foes greater than you,” said the Darkling. The shadows leapt and dove around him as he rose into the sky. “And now I will become what the people most desire. A savior. When I am done, they will know what a Saint can do.”
Darkness swirled around him, as if the shadows were glad in their dancing, returned to their beloved keeper. The Sun Soldiers pushed against the darkness with their light. But Zoya saw his hands in motion—the Darkling was going to use the Cut. He would kill them all.
We are the dragon. Juris’ consciousness tugged at hers, pulling her toward something more, even as her own heart refused it. No. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
She threw her arms out in a circle of wind that flattened the trees and threw the Sun Soldiers off their feet but away from harm. Not one more. She drew a bolt of pure crackling lightning from the sky, a spear of fire to end the Darkling as they should have ended him years ago.
But darkness enveloped her, and in the next minute, when the shadows cleared, he was gone.
Alina stood at the top of the sanatorium steps, her face ghostly in the gray light. Her right hand was bleeding. Misha was screaming, his anguish like the cry of something born wild as Mal held him back. Oncat looked on, unmoved, tail twitching, as if there was nothing a cat hadn’t seen.
“Let him go,” Alina said softly.
Misha shot down the stairs, angry tears spilling from his eyes, and stumbled into the woods in the direction the Darkling had gone. Mal’s hand was bleeding too.
The Sun Soldiers slowly climbed to their feet. They looked dazed, frightened.
“You’re all right?” Zoya asked.
They nodded.
“No broken bones?”
They shook their heads.
“Then prepare the coach. I need to get back to the airship. We’ll get messages to the nearest base to send sorties out to track him.”
“You won’t find him,” said Alina. “Not until he wants you to. He has the shadows for refuge.”
“I can damn well try,” Zoya said. “We have to get you out of here. We can evacuate you to—”
Alina shook her head. “We’re going back to Keramzin.”
“He’ll find you. Don’t underestimate him.” Zoya knew she sounded angry, even cold. But she didn’t know how else to hold back the flood of fear and helplessness threatening to overtake her. She’d let him get away and now she didn’t know what he might do, who he might hurt. She’d let this happen.
“I know what the Darkling is,” said Alina. “I know how he treats his enemies.”
“We both do,” said Mal, taking a handkerchief from his pocket to bind Alina’s hand. “We’re not letting him chase us from our home.”
“You don’t understand.” He was going to kill them. He was going to kill all of them and Zoya would be powerless to stop it. “We can find someplace to hide the orphans for a while. We can—”
Alina rested her hands on Zoya’s shoulders. “Zoya. Stop.”
“We’re not going to uproot the children,” Mal said. “They’ve already been through enough.”
“Then I’ll send a contingent of First Army soldiers and Summoners to you.”
Mal blew out a breath. “You can’t afford to waste soldiers, and they’d be no good against him anyway. All they’ll do is terrify the children.”
“Better that they’re scared and safe.”
“There is no safe,” Alina said, her voice steady. “There never has been. Not in my lifetime. But I meant what I said. You and Nikolai are the ones who can change that.”
“How did he do it? What happened in there?”
“He drove this through our hands.” Mal uncurled his fingers. In his palm lay a long, bloody thorn.
A piece of the thorn wood. The Darkling must have hidden it somewhere in Yuri’s clothing. He’d kept it with him since the failed obisbaya and their battle on the Fold, waiting for his moment.
“He needed our blood,” said Alina.
The Sun Saint and the tracker—Morozova’s other descendant. The two people who had almost ended his life. Only our own power can destroy us, and even then it’s not a sure thing. He’d been taunting them the whole time, begging them to guess at his plan. I understand we’re blood related.
Panic reared up in Zoya, a clawing, panting thing. “I let him go. I failed all of us.”
“Not yet,” said Mal. “Unless, of course, you’re giving up.”
Alina smiled and gave her a little shake. “I didn’t put you in charge because you run from a fight.”
Zoya broke away and pressed her palms against her eyes. “How can you be so damn calm?”
Alina laughed. “I don’t feel calm at all.”
“Definitely still terrified,” said Mal.
“Did he seem different to you?” Alina asked.
Mal shrugged. “He seemed about the same. Gloomy and insufferable.”
“What was the boy’s name? The monk?”
“Yuri Vedenen,” Zoya said. “I never would have guessed that skinny little runt could cause so much trouble.”
“I bet you said the same thing about me once.”
Zoya scowled. “You’d win that bet.”
“Genya’s letter said you thought Yuri was still inside him. I think you’re right. The Darkling seemed different, off-kilter.”
Mal’s brows rose. “Has he ever been on-kilter?”
“Not exactly,” conceded Alina. “Eternity will do that to a person.”
She rested her bandaged hand on Zoya’s cheek and Zoya stilled, feeling suddenly like she was with her aunt again, in that kitchen in Novokribirsk. I could stay here, Zoya had said. I could stay with you and never go back. Her aunt had only smoothed Zoya’s hair and said, Not my brave girl. There are some hearts that beat stronger than others.
“Zoya,” Alina said, drawing her back to the present, to her fear, to this wretched place. “You are not alone in this. And he can be beaten.”
“He is immortal.”
“Then why did he flinch when you brought down the storm?”
“It did nothing!”
“He sees something in you that frightens him. He always has. Why do you think he worked so hard to make us doubt ourselves? He was afraid of what we might become.”