Far below, he saw fires burning in the lower and upper towns. He didn’t know how much damage the Grand Palace had sustained, but two of the Little Palace domes had crumpled and one wing was engulfed in flame. At least they hadn’t managed to strike the dormitories. No one would be in the classrooms or workshops this late at night. He could see a smoldering crater at the lakeshore, mere feet from where Grisha children trained and slept. They’d been aiming for the school.
Nikolai peered into the night. Fjerda painted its flyers dark gray for stealth. They were almost impossible to see, and hard to hear over the roar of the Peregrine.
So he cut the engine. He let his flyer’s wings catch the air and he listened. There. To his left, thirty degrees. He waited for the clouds to part and sure enough, he saw a shape moving, lighter than the night around it. He sent the engine rumbling to life and pushed the plane into a dive, firing.
The Fjerdan bomber burst into flame.
The rattle of gunfire filled his ears and he banked hard right, chased by another bomber. He needed better visibility. The clouds gave cover, but they were his enemy too. Bullets pinged off the side of the Peregrine. He couldn’t tell how much damage he’d sustained. He remembered the feeling of plummeting toward the earth when David’s rocket had hit. There would be no Squallers on hand to save him now. He should land and take stock.
No. He wasn’t setting down, not when the people below, his people, were still vulnerable.
The clouds were heavy, he couldn’t see. But the demon inside him could. It was made of night. It wanted to fly.
Nikolai hesitated. He’d never attempted something like this. He didn’t know what might happen. What would it mean to give up control? Would he ever regain it? And while you debate, your people suffer.
Go, he told the demon inside him. It’s time to hunt.
The sensation of releasing the monster was always a strange one—a breath snatched from his lungs, the feeling of rising up to pierce the surface of a lake. Then he was in two places at once. He was himself, a king taking a risk he shouldn’t, a privateer making a gamble he must, a pilot with his hands gripping the Peregrine’s controls—and he was the demon, racing through the air, a part of the dark, his wings spreading.
His monster senses caught the roar of the engine, the smell of fuel. He spotted prey and dove.
He seized the … his demon mind did not have words. It only knew the satisfaction of steel giving way beneath its talons, the screech of metal, the terror of the man it tore from the cockpit and slashed into with its claws. Blood poured over the demon’s mouth—his mouth—hot and salty with iron.
Then he was airborne again, leaping from the plummeting bomber, seeking another quarry. The demon was in control. It sensed the presence of the next bomber before Nikolai saw it. Was this the last?
Hungry for destruction, the demon hurtled toward it through the night and slammed into the Fjerdan bomber, its talons tearing into steel.
No. Nikolai willed it to pull back. I want them to know. I want them to live in fear. The demon climbed onto the front of the plane and slammed its clawed hand through the cockpit glass. The Fjerdan pilot screamed, and Nikolai was looking directly into his eyes. Let them understand what they’re fighting now. Let them know what’s waiting next time they invade Ravka’s skies.
He saw the demon reflected in his enemy’s eyes.
I am the monster and the monster is me.
The demon opened its fanged mouth, but it was Nikolai’s rage that rang out in its roar—for what had been done to his people, his home. The Fjerdan pilot babbled and wept and the demon scented urine in the air.
Go home and tell them what you’ve seen, Nikolai thought as the demon soared through the night. Make them believe you. Tell them the demon king rules Ravka now and vengeance is coming.
Nikolai drew the demon back, and to his surprise, the thing didn’t fight. The shadow disappeared inside him, but it felt different now. He could sense its satisfaction; its thirst for blood and violence had been met. Its heart beat in time with his. It was frightening and yet, the satisfaction was his as well. He was meant to be the wise king, the good king, but right now, he didn’t know how to be wise or good, only angry, the wound inside him burning like the city below. The demon’s presence made it easier to bear.
As the Peregrine descended, he tried to count the plumes of smoke rising from Os Alta. Only daylight would reveal the true extent of the destruction and the lives lost.
He set the plane down on the lake and let it coast to shore. Without the thunder of the engine in his ears, there were only the sounds of fear in the night—the ringing of alarm bells, the shouts of men as they attempted to put out fires and pull friends from the rubble. They would need his help.