Zoya dug her nails into her palms. She could almost hear Nikolai in her head, counseling caution. All Saints, how did he meet with these spineless, self-satisfied toads without committing murder once a day?
But she managed. Only after Schenck was gone did she release a gust of air, hurling that fine bottle of Caryevan wine into the wall with a gratifying smash.
“Schenck never meant to offer us any help, did he?” asked Kirigin.
“Of course not. Schenck’s only purpose was to humble us further.”
Her king would face the Fjerdans and there would be no help from Hiram Schenck and his ilk. Nikolai had known the endeavor was futile but he had sent her nonetheless. Do this gallows deed for me, Zoya, he’d said. And of course, she had.
“Should we send a message to King Nikolai?” Kirigin asked.
“We’ll deliver it ourselves,” said Zoya. There might still be time to meet the Fjerdan tanks and guns beside her soldiers. She strode outside, where a servant was waiting. “Go, get our pilot to ready the flyer.”
“Our bags?” Kirigin asked, hurrying after her down the hall.
“Forget the bags.”
They rounded a corner and headed down a flight of stairs, through the courtyard, and out onto the docks where they’d landed their sea flyer. Zoya was not made for diplomacy, for closed rooms and polite talk. She was made for battle. As for Schenck and Duke Radimov and every other traitor who sided against Ravka, there would be time to deal with them after Nikolai found a way to win this war. We are the dragon and we bide our time.
“I … I have never been in the air,” Kirigin said as they approached the docks where the flyer was moored. She should probably leave him here. He didn’t belong anywhere near combat. But she also didn’t want him under the influence of West Ravka’s nobility.
“You’ll be fine. And if you’re not, just vomit over the side and not into your lap. Or mine.”
“Is there any hope?” Kirigin asked. “For Ravka?”
She didn’t reply. She’d been told there was always hope, but she was too old and too wise for fairy tales.
Zoya sensed movement before she actually saw it.
She whirled and glimpsed light glinting off the blade of a knife. The man was lunging at her from the shadows. She threw up her hands and a blast of wind hurled him backward into the wall. He struck with a bone-breaking crunch, dead before he hit the ground.
Too easy. A decoy—
Kirigin sprang forward, knocking the second assassin to the ground. The count drew his pistol to fire.
“No!” Zoya shouted, using another hard gust of wind to redirect the bullet. It pinged harmlessly off the hull of a nearby ship.
She leapt onto the assassin, pressing his chest into the deck with her knees, and closed her fist, squeezing the breath from his lungs. He clawed at his throat, face turning red, eyes bulging and watering.
She opened her fingers, letting air flood into his lungs, and he gasped like a fish freed of a hook.
“Speak,” she demanded. “Who sent you?”
“A new age … is coming,” he rasped. “The false Saints … will be … purged.”
He looked and sounded Ravkan. Again she sucked the air from his lungs, then let it return in the barest trickle.
“False Saints?” said Kirigin, clutching his bloody arm.
“Who sent you?” she demanded.
“Your power … is unnatural and you will … be punished, Sankta Zoya.” He spat the last two words like a curse.
Zoya hauled back and punched him in the jaw. His head drooped.
“Couldn’t you have choked him unconscious?” asked Kirigin.
“I felt like hitting someone.”
“Ah. I see. I’m glad it was him. But what did he mean by ‘Sankta Zoya’？”
“As far as I know, I’ve worked no miracles nor claimed to.” Zoya’s eyes narrowed. She knew exactly who to blame for this. “Damn Nina Zenik.”
6
NIKOLAI
“BLESS NINA ZENIK,” Nikolai murmured as he walked the line of silent Ravkan troops camouflaged with mud and scrub. In the near dark before dawn, he’d taken his flyer up with Adrik—one of Zoya’s most skilled Squallers—on board to dampen the sound of the engine. Fjerda thought they had the element of surprise, and Nikolai wanted to keep it that way.
But he had to wonder if his enemy needed it. From his vantage in the skies, he’d watched the line of tanks rolling toward Ravka in the gray dawn light. He supposed he should be praying, but he’d never been much for religion—not when he had science and a pair of well-made revolvers to cling to. Right now, though, he hoped that each Ravkan Saint, Kaelish sprite, and all-powerful deity was looking down with some fondness in their hearts for his country, because he needed every bit of help he could get against these odds.