Zoya hadn’t been there. She had returned to Os Alta too late to help, too late to fight. “If you don’t feel ready to—”
Genya wiped away her tears. “I’m a member of the Triumvirate, not just a grieving widow. I need to be there. And I can’t sit alone with my thoughts.”
That much Zoya understood.
Everyone gathered in her sitting room, at the table where the Darkling’s oprichniki and then Alina’s guards had once sat. The king’s chambers were still intact, but the halls around them weren’t yet cleared of rubble.
Tolya wrapped a shawl around Genya’s shoulders and settled her by the fire while Zoya paced, unsure of what came next. Nadia and Leoni had brought a stack of files with them, most likely the work they’d been doing on the missiles. Adrik was there too. Zoya wondered if Nikolai intended to demote her and give Nadia’s little brother her command. He had every right to.
“Forgive the delay,” Nikolai said when he entered at last. “It’s hard to keep up with correspondence since … Well.” He poured a cup of tea and brought it to Genya, placing it on a saucer in her hands. “Are you hungry?”
She shook her head.
He moved a chair so that he could sit beside her. No one said anything for a long time.
At last, the king sighed. “I don’t know where to begin.”
There had been funerals held all over Os Alta in recent days, once the danger had passed and the bodies could be found, some burned, some buried. The king had attended as many as he could, slipping into churches where prayers were spoken to the Saints, helping to move families out of areas of the city that had become unsafe. Zoya had seen little of him since she’d returned to the capital, and she was glad of that. Facing him would mean facing her failure. Instead she’d tried to help make sense of the chaos that had followed the bombings, setting up new protocols for blackouts across Ravka, lodging formal diplomatic protests with Fjerda, joining the Grisha in the lower town to help with cleanup and rescue efforts, grateful to be busy.
She hadn’t been ready for the terrible quiet of the funeral, or this moment that required an accounting of what they’d suffered. No one wanted to add it up.
“Where else was hit?” asked Tolya. Better to speak of war than of love lost.
“Poliznaya took the brunt of it,” said Nikolai. “We lost over half our flyers, most of our airships. Our stores of titanium are gone.”
He delivered the news with little emotion, a man reporting on the weather. But Zoya knew him too well. The look in his eyes was as unmistakable as it was unfamiliar: He looked defeated.
“All of it?” asked Nadia. “We haven’t begun construction on the missile shells.”
“We’ll have to use another metal.”
But even Zoya knew what that meant. The missiles would be too heavy to attack from a safe range, and far harder for Squallers to aim at a distance.
“Os Kervo will be Fjerda’s next target,” Zoya said, because someone had to.
“We’ve issued blackout warnings throughout the city,” said Nikolai, his gaze skating past her. He’d barely looked at her since she’d returned. “But I think Fjerda may hold back. They attacked us in the hope of intimidating the west and getting them to declare for Vadik Demidov. It’s a strategy the Darkling used in the civil war.”
“He got the best of me again.” She sounded resigned, maybe angry. But there was no hint of the misery inside her, the prickling thing that kept her awake, that ate at her night and day. Rage was easy. Even sorrow. But shame? I let him get away. Anything the Darkling did now, anyone he harmed—the blame would lie with her.
“I agreed to let him be removed from the palace,” said Nikolai. “This isn’t the first time the Darkling has taken us by surprise, but let’s remember his schemes never quite stick.”
Not yet. This time he might win and keep winning. Maybe they should have found a way to forge an alliance with him, to truly bring him to their side. Maybe the Fjerdans wouldn’t have dared attack if they’d known the Darkling had returned. But was Genya expected to work side by side with the man who had sacrificed her to a rapist? Was Zoya meant to share the war room with the man who had murdered her aunt?
“What will he do?” asked Leoni. She was seated beside Adrik. They’d been together at the funeral too. It was common for Grisha who worked undercover to fall in love during a mission, but the romances rarely lasted once the thrill had passed and the agents were back on their home soil. Adrik and Leoni seemed to be an exception, though how either of them put up with the other was beyond her. Maybe relentless gloom and persistent sunshine were the right combination.
Nikolai leaned back in his chair. “The Darkling has a gift for spectacle rivaled only by my own. He’ll want to stage a very public return.”
“My sister has spies and informants stationed in nearly every major town in Ravka,” said Tolya. “We’ll ask about newcomers and strangers.”
“At least Tamar is well,” said Nikolai.
Nadia looked pale beneath her freckles, but all she said was, “Thank the Saints.”
Tamar’s messages had confirmed that with Ehri’s support for the treaty, the Shu queen’s council had agreed to ratify and back their newly forged alliance. Now it was a question of maintaining their leverage and of trying to dismantle the secret khergud program.
“Let’s make sure our soldiers on the northern border keep an eye out for signs of the Starless,” said Nikolai. “I don’t want them crossing into Fjerda.”
“Would the Darkling join up with the Fjerdans?” asked Nadia.
“He might,” said Tolya. “It’s another move he’s made before.”
Nadia’s laugh was rueful. “I don’t know who to root for.”
Zoya wasn’t sure either. More Fjerdans worshipping Ravkan Saints meant more sympathy for Ravka and potentially less support for the war. But that faith might make it far easier for the Darkling to gain a foothold there.
Tolya crossed his huge arms. “The Apparat actively campaigned against granting the Darkling Sainthood. The Fjerdans will have to break with the priest if they want the Darkling on their side.”
“Will they?” said Nikolai. “The Apparat survives. That’s what he does. If he senses the Darkling can become a valued asset, we can be sure he’ll have a sudden epiphany. And coming back from the dead makes for a very grand entrance. Fjerda may not have to choose between the priest and a newly risen Saint at all.”
“I don’t think the Darkling will join the Apparat,” Genya said.
It was the first time she’d spoken. The room felt suddenly still, as if encased in glass.
Nikolai turned to her. “You knew him better than any of us, longer than any of us. Why?”
She set down her teacup. “Pride. The Darkling doesn’t forgive. He punishes. He punished you for betraying him as Sturmhond. He punished me for choosing Alina. When the Darkling staged his coup, he trusted the Apparat with the capital. The priest was meant to lend his authority to the Darkling’s cause. Instead he marshaled the people’s faith for Alina Starkov.”