“The Apparat’s presence here undermines all we’ve worked for,” Brum went on. “How can I purge our towns and cities of foreign influence when there is a heretic at the very heart of our government? We look like the worst of hypocrites, and he has spies in every alcove.”
Ylva shuddered. “He has a most unnerving way about him.”
“It’s all for show. The beard. The dark robes. He likes to terrify the ladies with his strange pronouncements and his skulking, but he’s little more than a squawking bird. And we need him if we’re to put Demidov on the throne. The priest’s backing will matter to the Ravkans.”
“He smells of graveyards,” said Hanne.
“It’s only incense.” Brum drummed his fingers on the windowsill. “It’s hard to tell what the man really believes. He says the Ravkan king is possessed by demons, that Vadik Demidov was anointed by the Saints themselves to rule.”
“Where did Demidov come from anyway?” Nina said. “I so hope we’ll get to meet him.”
“We keep him safe in case any Ravkan assassins have a mind to take a shot at him.”
Pity that.
“Is he really a Lantsov?” she pushed.
“He has more claim to the crown than that bastard Nikolai.”
The coach jolted to a halt and they descended, but before Nina’s feet had even touched the gravel path, a soldier was running up to Brum, a folded paper in hand. Nina glimpsed the royal seal—silver wax and the crowned Grimjer wolf.
Brum broke the seal and read the note, and when he looked up, his expression made Nina’s stomach sink. Despite his wet clothes and the humiliation he’d suffered at the harbor, he was beaming.
“It’s time,” he said.
Nina saw Ylva smile ruefully. “You’ll be leaving us, then. And I will wait every night with fear in my heart.”
“There is nothing to fear,” Brum said, tucking the paper into his coat pocket. “They cannot stand against us. Finally, our moment has come.”
He was right. The Fjerdans had tanks. They had Grisha captives addicted to parem. Victory was assured. Especially if Ravka was stranded without allies. I should be there. I belong in that fight.
“Will you be traveling far?” Nina asked.
“Not at all,” said Brum. “Mila, you look so frightened! Have you so little faith in me?”
Nina forced herself to smile. “No, sir. I only fear for your safety as we all do. Here,” she said, “let me take your coats so everyone can get inside and be warm. You should have every moment together as a family before Commander Brum leaves.”
“What a blessing you are, Mila,” Ylva said fondly.
Nina took her coat, and Hanne’s, and Brum’s, her hand already snaking into the pocket where he’d placed the note.
War was coming.
She needed to get a message to her king.
3
NIKOLAI
NIKOLAI TRIED TO STEADY his nervous mount with a pat to the horse’s withers. His groom had suggested it wasn’t appropriate for a king to ride out on a horse named Punchline, but Nikolai had a soft spot for the piebald pony with crooked ears. He certainly wasn’t the prettiest horse in the royal stables, but he could run for miles without tiring and he had the steady disposition of a lump of rock. Usually. Right now he could barely keep still, hooves dancing left and right as he tugged at his reins. Punchline didn’t like this place. And Nikolai couldn’t blame him.
“Tell me I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing,” he said, meager hope in his heart.
“What do you think you’re seeing?” asked Tamar.
“Mass destruction. Certain doom.”
“Not entirely certain,” said Zoya.
Nikolai cut her a glance. She’d tied back her black hair with a dark blue ribbon. It was eminently practical, but it had the unfortunate effect of making him want to untie it. “Do I detect optimism in my most pessimistic general?”
“Likely doom,” Zoya corrected, pulling gently on her white mare’s reins. All the horses were nervous.
Dawn crept over Yaryenosh, bathing the town’s rooftops and streets in rosy light. In the pastures beyond, Nikolai could see a herd of ponies, their winter coats shaggy, stamping their hooves in the cold. It would have been a quaint scene, a dreamy landscape for some hack painter to sell off to a rich merchant with a surfeit of cash and a dearth of taste—if it hadn’t been for the dead, ashy soil that stained the countryside like a blot of spilled ink. The blight stretched from the paddocks of the horse farm in the distance all the way to the edges of the town below.