“Korol Rezni!” soldiers shouted when they caught sight of him.
King of Scars. He didn’t mind the name so much anymore.
“Who fights beside me?” he called back.
And they bellowed their names in response, falling into step behind him.
Nikolai smelled gunpowder, burning flesh, turned earth—as if the whole field had been dug as a grave. He remembered Halmhend, the bodies spread out before him, the spatter of red on Dominik’s lips as he died. This country gets you in the end, brother. Don’t forget it. Nikolai had promised to do better, to build something new. But in the end, all his inventions and diplomacy had come down to this: a brawl in the dirt.
He was walking, then running, and then he was in the thick of it. Nikolai’s world narrowed to smoke and blood, the sounds of gunfire, the roar of tanks. Figures emerged in flashes, and there was only the briefest moment to tell friend from foe. The Fjerdan helmets helped—a design Nikolai had never seen before but distinct from what the Ravkan soldiers wore. He shot, shot again, reloaded. Someone ran at him from his left—a gray uniform. He yanked the knife from his belt and plunged it into a soft belly. This was a feeling he had been happy to forget, the knowledge that death walked with you, breathing down your neck, guiding your hand but ready to turn the blade on you in the space of a moment.
A bullet grazed his shoulder and he flinched back, lost his footing. Tolya was there, laying down cover as Nikolai righted himself, reloaded, strode forward again. He wouldn’t remember these faces, brief glimpses like ghosts, bodies underfoot, but he knew he would see them in his nightmares.
“Nikolai!” shouted Tolya.
But Nikolai had already heard the beast approaching—the gigantic transporter they’d glimpsed in their first engagement with the Fjerdans, the one that had been full of drugged Grisha. Its huge treads thundered over the earth, metal gears shrieking, the air thick with the stink of burning fuel.
Nikolai had ordered his remaining flyers to keep Fjerda’s air support at bay as best they could, but to watch for the transport. Now he saw them descend, releasing clouds of the Zemeni antidote. But the Squallers who rode atop the vehicles were wearing masks this time. They raised their hands, driving back the haze of antidote in a hard gust that sent the flyers wobbling off course.
“Those masks!” Tolya shouted over the din.
They weren’t ordinary masks, like those worn on the Ravkan side. Nikolai suspected they were being used to keep Fjerda’s Grisha dosed with parem.
The transport’s huge metal mouth opened and another row of sickly Grisha emerged, masks in place. All along the Fjerdan line, soldiers were pushing strange objects into position—big metal disks somewhere between a dish and a bell shape, winter sun gleaming off their curved edges. Nina’s parabolas. Songbird. Suddenly Nikolai understood the strange helmets the Fjerdan soldiers wore.
“Open fire!” he shouted. “Take out the drugged Grisha! Take out the bells!”
But it was too late. The Fjerdan soldiers lifted huge mallets and struck the dishes. A strange thrum filled the air. The drugged Squallers arced their arms and people began to scream.
The sound was overwhelming. Nikolai clapped his hands to his ears and all over the field he saw soldiers doing the same, dropping their weapons, collapsing to their knees. It was like nothing he’d ever heard before, rattling his mind, his bones, filling his skull. It was impossible to think.
The Fjerdan troops, protected by those strange helmets, surged forward, opening fire, picking off helpless Ravkan soldiers and Grisha. The helmets had been created to protect them from this horrifying, paralyzing sound.
Blood leaked from Tolya’s ears. Nikolai felt wetness on his neck and realized the same thing must be happening to him. The vibration felt like it was pulling him apart. Ravka’s missiles seemed like toys.
He’d thought he could give his country a fighting chance. He’d thought that despite their numbers and their resources, he could think his way out of this for his people. Hopeless, foolish pride. This was how it would all end. With Ravka brought to its knees.
At least he’d fought to the end as their king.
But maybe Ravka didn’t need a king. Or even an adventurer.
Maybe his country needed a monster.
He had one last gambit left, a final trick for the fox to play, a bit of hope dressed in shadow—his demon. But once the troops saw what he was, once his enemies knew the truth, the crown would be forever out of his grasp. So be it.
Go, he commanded. Stop them. Help keep my country free.