“Our king needs every minute.”
Kirigin’s cheeks flushed. He tapped his fingers on the table. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
Zoya turned back toward the window.
She felt his shame, his eagerness, his longing. They came on like a sudden storm, a gust that swept her off solid ground and into free fall. One moment she was standing, sure-footed in a sunlit room in Os Kervo, looking out at the sea. The next she was gazing at a beautiful girl before her, raven-haired, her blue eyes distant. She reached out to touch the girl’s smooth cheek.
“Zoya?”
Zoya slammed back into her own consciousness just in time to smack Kirigin’s hand away. “I did not give you leave to touch me.”
“My apologies,” he said, cradling his hand as if she’d broken one of his fingers. “You just looked so … lost.”
And she had been lost. She glanced down at the shimmering black fetters on her wrists. They looked like shackles but they felt natural, as if they’d always been meant to lie cool against her skin. Power. The hunger for it like a heartbeat, steady and unrelenting. It was the temptation of all Grisha, and the acquisition of an amplifier only made it worse. Open the door, Zoya.
She could never be sure if it was her own voice or Juris’ that spoke in her head. She only knew that his presence within her was real. No figment of her imagination could be so irritating. Sometimes, beneath Juris, she could sense another mind, another presence that was not human, had never been human, something ancient—and then the world would shift. She would hear a servant whispering gossip in the kitchens, smell apple blossoms in the orchard at Yelinka—nearly fifteen miles away. All that she could bear, but the emotions, this sudden drop into someone else’s pain or joy … It was too much.
Or maybe you’re losing your mind, she considered. It was possible. After what she’d seen on the Fold, what she’d done—murdered a Saint bent on destruction, driven a blade into the heart of a dragon, into the heart of a friend. She had saved Nikolai’s life. She had saved Ravka from Elizaveta. But she hadn’t stopped the Darkling from returning, had she? And now she couldn’t help but wonder if there was any chance she could save her country from war.
“I was lost in thought,” Zoya said, shaking out the sleeves of her blue kefta. “That’s all.”
“Ah,” said Kirigin. But he didn’t look convinced.
“You never served, did you?”
“No indeed,” said the count, seating himself at the end of a long rectangular table engraved with the West Ravkan crest—two eagles bracketing a lighthouse. He was wearing a custard-yellow coat and a coral waistcoat that, in combination with his pallid skin and bright red hair, made him look like an exotic bird seeking a perch. “My father sent me away to Novyi Zem during the civil war.” He cleared his throat. “Zoya—” She flashed him a look and he hastily corrected himself. “General Nazyalensky, I wonder if you might consider a visit to my holdings near Caryeva.”
“We are at war, Kirigin.”
“But after the war. In the summer, perhaps. We could go for the races.”
“Are you so sure there will be an after?”
Kirigin looked startled. “The king is a brilliant tactician.”
“We don’t have the numbers. If he fails to stop the Fjerdans at Nezkii, this war will be over before it begins. And to win, we need reinforcements.”
“And we will have them!” Kirigin declared. Zoya envied his optimism. “One day there will be peace again. Even in a time of war, we might slip away for a moment. For a quiet dinner, a chance to talk, to get to know each other. Now that the king is to be married—”
“The king’s plans are none of your concern.”
“Certainly, but I thought that now you might be free to—”
Zoya turned on him. She felt current crackle through her, felt the wind lift her hair. “Be free to what, exactly?”
Kirigin held up his hands as if he could ward her off. “I simply meant—”
She knew what he meant. Rumors had surrounded her and Nikolai for months, rumors she had encouraged to hide the secret of the demon that lived inside him and what it took to keep the monster under control. So why did it make her so angry to hear these words now?
She took a slow breath. “Kirigin, you are a charming, handsome, very … amiable man.”
“I … am?” he said, then added with more surety, “I am.”
“Yes, you are. But we are not suited in temperament.”