36
ZOYA
ZOYA DESCENDED FROM THE ROCKS on a gust of wind. She could see where her lightning had struck the beach, leaving the sheen of glass where sand had been. She didn’t turn her eyes to the waters and the bodies there, but marched up the gentle hills of seagrass and joined the rest of her troops. Up close, the painted flats they’d erected above the beach looked less like tanks than what they really were—a bit of theater meant to deceive the enemy. But they’d only needed them to be believable from a distance, some sleight of hand inspired by their associates at the Crow Club. If the Fjerdans had seen the bay almost entirely unprotected, they might have sensed the trap and the storm that awaited them. Ravka’s soldiers had been outfitted in rubber-soled boots instead of leather, just in case.
“So many dead,” Genya murmured as Zoya approached the Triumvirate command tent and called for fresh water.
“It had to be done.” She couldn’t stop to grieve for soldiers she’d never known, not when her own people were mobilizing on the northern front. She had warned Nikolai that she’d been made to be a weapon. This was what she was good at, what she understood.
She strode toward the flyer they’d readied. She needed to get in the air.
“You’re all right?” Genya asked, pulling on her flying goggles. She’d posed that question a lot since they’d lost David, as if the words could somehow protect them from harm.
“Just covered in salt. Word from the northern front?”
“They’ve engaged.”
“Then let’s get moving.” Zoya tried to ignore the fear that seized her. They would travel low and inland to avoid being intercepted by any Fjerdans in the air. A regiment of Grisha and First Army soldiers would remain behind in case Fjerda decided to make another attempt at the beach, but Zoya thought they’d send their naval base to the northern front to bolster the invasion there.
“We do have some news,” said Genya, drawing Zoya from her thoughts. “The Starless have been spotted on the field.”
Zoya smacked her fist against the flyer’s metal hull. “Fighting for Ravka or Fjerda?”
“Hard to tell. They’ve hung back from the fray.” Genya paused. “He’s with them.”
Of course the Darkling had found his way to the field, surrounded by his followers. But what did he intend? Nikolai had said the Darkling had a gift for spectacle.
“The battle is just the backdrop for him,” she realized. “He’s going to stage his return with some kind of miracle.” She remembered what Alina had said to him. Why do you have to be the savior? The Darkling would wait for his moment, maybe even for Nikolai’s death, and then the Saint would appear to lead them all to—what? Freedom? He’d never had to face Fjerda’s new war machines. He couldn’t beat them on his own, no matter what he believed. And Zoya would dose herself with parem before she followed him again.
“General!” A soldier was running toward her with a note in his hand. “I was asked to deliver this to you.”
Genya plucked it from his fingers.
“By whom?” said Zoya.
“A man in monk’s robes. He came ashore a little ways up the coast.”
“Were his robes brown or black?”
“Brown and bearing the Sun Summoner’s symbol.”
Genya’s eyes moved over the paper. “Oh, Saints.”
“Give it to me.”
“Zoya, you must keep your head.”
“What the hell does it say?” She snatched it from Genya’s hand.
The note was brief and in Ravkan: I have Mila Jandersdat. Come to the eastern observation tower aboard Leviathan’s Mouth. She will await you in the cells.
Zoya crushed the note in her hand. The Apparat had Nina.
“This is a trap,” said Genya. “Not a negotiation tactic. He wants you to do something rash. Zoya? Zoya, what are you doing?”
Zoya stalked back to the tent. “Something rash.”
“We have a strategy,” Genya argued, hurrying to follow. “It’s working. We need to stick to it. And Nikolai needs you to help guide our rockets.”
Zoya hesitated. She didn’t want to leave her king without the resources he needed. And damn it, she wanted to be beside him in this fight. Every time she thought of him lying on the floor of the Cormorant, his arm cushioning his head as he spoke those words, those absurd, beautiful words … No prince and no power could make me stop wanting you. The memory was like drinking something sweet and poisonous. Even knowing the misery it would cause her, she couldn’t stop craving the taste.