“It is.”
“But there’s some kind of catch, isn’t there?”
“It’s possible that it’s located in the Sikurzoi.”
The mountains that ran along the Ravkan border with Shu Han. The lower hills were crawling with patrols of Shu soldiers, and the rocky terrain beyond would be hard to traverse. But Tamar would find a way to get them where they needed to be. “An inconvenient obstacle, but hardly an insurmountable one.”
“It’s also possible the path to this particular monastery was blocked by a landslide nearly three hundred years ago, and only the monks know the way through.”
“Then we’ll simply go over it.”
“It’s also possible no one has spoken to or heard from these monks for another three hundred years before that.”
“Saints’ blood,” she swore. “You have no idea if these monks have thorn-wood seeds.”
“I know they had them.”
“You don’t even know if they really exist!”
“Perhaps it’s a matter of faith. Are you thinking of killing me, Zoya?”
“Yes.”
“Your king wouldn’t be pleased.”
“I’m not going to do it,” she lied. “I just enjoy thinking about it. It’s soothing, like humming myself a little melody. Besides, death is too good for you.”
“Is it?” He sounded almost curious. “What would make my atonement complete? An eternity of torture?”
“It would be a start. Though letting you live a long life without your power isn’t a bad beginning either.”
Now his face went cold. “Make no mistake, Zoya Nazyalensky. I did not live a hundred lives, die, and return to this earth, to live as an ordinary man. I will find a path back to my power. One way or another, I’ll cast out the remainders of Yuri’s soul. But the obisbaya is your king’s only chance to be free of his demon and for the world to be free of the Fold.” He leaned back against the seat. “I hear tell there was an attempt on your life.”
Damn it. Which guards had been talking? What had he overheard?
“The more powerful you become, the more enemies you acquire,” he said. “And the Apparat is not a good enemy to have.”
“How do you know the Apparat was behind the attack?” They’d gotten little information from the assassin, but he was definitely one of the Apparat’s Priestguard. Zoya suspected the Apparat cared less about people calling her a Saint—though that was disconcerting enough—and more about eliminating her to weaken Ravka’s forces. His zealot followers had been happy to make the attempt.
A smug smile touched the Darkling’s mouth. “After hundreds of years, one becomes a very good guesser. The Apparat wants Saints he can control. A weak girl, or better yet a dead one. This assassination was meant to be your martyrdom.”
“I’m no Saint. I’m a soldier.”
He tried to spread his hands, the chains at his wrists clanking. “And yet, do we not make miracles?”
“Yuri really is still in there, prattling on, isn’t he?” This journey already felt interminable. “I’m not in the business of miracles. I practice the Small Science.”
“You know as well as I that the line between Saint and Grisha was once blurred. It was a time of miracles. Maybe that time has come again.”
Zoya wanted nothing to do with it. “And when one of the Apparat’s assassins slips through my guard or a Fjerdan bullet lodges in my heart, will I be resurrected like Grigori? Like Elizaveta? Like you?”
“Are you so very sure you can be killed at all?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The power that I possess, that Elizaveta and Grigori and Juris possessed, that now crackles through your veins, is not so easily wiped from the world. You can strike a bird from the sky. It’s far harder to vanquish the sky itself. Only our own power can destroy us, and even then it’s not a sure thing.”
“And your mother?”
The Darkling’s gaze slid back to the covered window. “Let us not speak of the past.”
She had been Zoya’s teacher, feared and beloved, powerful beyond measure. “I watched her throw herself from a mountaintop. She sacrificed herself to stop you. Was that her martyrdom?”
The Darkling said nothing. Zoya couldn’t stop herself.
“Grigori was eaten by a bear. Elizaveta was drawn and quartered. Still they returned. There are stories whispered in the Elbjen mountains of the Dark Mother. She crowds in when the nights grow long. She steals the heat from kitchen fires.”