Page 53 of Rule of Wolves

“I don’t honestly know anymore.”

Genya gave a little shiver. “I’m glad he’ll be gone from this place. Even for a short while. I hate having him in our home.”

Our home. Was that what this place was? Was that what they had made it?

“He should have a trial,” said David.

Genya wrinkled her nose. “Or maybe he should be burned on the pyre as the Fjerdans do and scattered at sea. Am I a monster for saying so?”

“No,” said Zoya. “As the king likes to remind me, we’re human. Do you … I look back and I hate knowing how easy I was to manipulate.”

“Hungry for love and full of pride?”

Zoya squirmed. “Was I that obvious?”

Genya looped her arm through Zoya’s and leaned her head against her shoulder. Zoya tried not to stiffen. She wasn’t good at this kind of closeness, but some childish part of her craved it, remembered how easy it had felt to laugh with her aunt, how glad she’d been when Lada had climbed into her lap to demand a story. She’d pretended to resent it, but she’d felt like she belonged with them.

“We were all that way. He took us from our families when we were so young.”

“I don’t regret that,” Zoya said. “I hate him for many things, but not for teaching me to fight.”

Genya looked up at her. “Just remember, Zoya, he wasn’t teaching you to fight for yourself but in his service. He had only punishment for those who dared to speak against him.”

He was the reason for Genya’s scars, for all the pain she’d endured.

No, that wasn’t true. Zoya had known what Genya was forced to suffer when they were just girls. Everyone had. But the other Grisha hadn’t comforted her or cared for her. They’d mocked her, sneered at her, excluded her from their meals and the circle of their friendship. They’d left her unforgivably alone. Zoya had been the worst of them. The Darkling wasn’t the only one who owed penance.

But I can change that now, Zoya vowed. I can make sure he never returns here.

She let herself rest her cheek against the silky top of Genya’s head and made them both a promise: Wherever this adventure led, the Darkling wasn’t coming back from it.

12

NIKOLAI

ZOYA HADN’T WAITED TO SAY goodbye. Alina had been contacted and—thanks to her generosity or an unhealthy taste for martyrdom—had agreed to the meeting. Zoya had arranged the mission with predictably ruthless efficiency, and a week later, she was gone. Before dawn, without fanfare or parting words. Nikolai was both stung and grateful. She was right. The gossip around them had become a liability, and they had enough of those already. Zoya was his general and he her king. Best for everyone to remember it. And now he could visit the Little Palace without having to worry about bumping into her and enduring her acid tongue.

Excellent, he told himself as he made the walk from the Grand Palace. So why do I feel like I’ve had my guts gently gnawed on by a volcra?

He passed through the wooded tunnel that he now recognized as quince and headed down past the lake, where he could see two of his new flyers bobbing gently in the water, gray morning light glinting off their hulls. They were extraordinary machines, but Ravka simply didn’t have the money to produce them in any real quantity. Yet. Perhaps an infusion of Shu gold would do the trick.

Tamar’s spies had brought them news of the Fjerdan prince’s public collapse, and it didn’t bode well for Ravka. They’d renewed diplomatic talks, but Nikolai knew Fjerda was holding separate conversations with West Ravka and trying to encourage them to secede. Jarl Brum had been steering his country’s strategic choices for years, and a weakened Prince Rasmus would only embolden him.

The infirmary was located in the Corporalki wing of the Little Palace, behind the imposing red-lacquered doors. There were private rooms for patients who needed extensive care and quiet, and one of them had been set aside for Princess Ehri Kir-Taban. The hallway was heavily protected by both Grisha and palace guards.

Ehri lay in a narrow bed. She wore a green silk dressing gown embroidered with pale yellow flowers. Her skin was a raw pink, shiny and taut. The fire had scorched the hair from her head, which was wrapped in soft white linen. She had no eyebrows or lashes. Genya had explained that it would still take several days to bring Ehri’s flesh and hair back to full health, but they had reversed the worst of the damage. It was a miracle she had survived—a miracle wrought by Grisha Healers, who had restored her body and kept her pain in check as they did it.

Nikolai sat down beside the bed. Ehri said nothing. She rolled her head to the side, turning her gaze to the gardens and away from him. A single tear slipped down her pink cheek. Nikolai drew a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed it away.

“I would prefer that you left,” she said.

That was what she’d said every time he’d summoned the will to speak to her since her true identity had been discovered. But he couldn’t put this off any longer.

“We should talk,” he said. “I’ve brought novels and summer cherries by way of a bribe.”

“Summer cherries. In the dead of winter.”

“It is never winter in the Grisha greenhouses.”