Twenty Two

DAWN WAS CREEPING over Kribirsk as Ivan brought me back to my tent. I sat down on my cot and stared unseeingly at the room. My limbs felt strangely heavy, my mind a blank. I was still sitting there when Genya arrived.

She helped me wash my face and change into the black kefta I’d worn to the winter fete. I looked down at the silk and thought of tearing it to shreds, but somehow I couldn’t manage to move. My hands stayed limp at my sides.

Genya steered me into the painted chair. I sat still as she arranged my hair, piling it onto my head in loops and coils that she secured with golden pins, the better to show off Morozova’s collar.

When she had finished, she pressed her cheek against mine and led me to Ivan, placing my hand on his arm like a bride. Not a word had passed between us.

Ivan led me to the Grisha tent, where I took my place by the Darkling’s side. I knew that my friends were watching me, whispering, wondering what was wrong. They probably thought I was nervous about entering the Fold. They were wrong. I wasn’t nervous or frightened. I wasn’t anything anymore.

The Grisha followed us in an ordered processional all the way to the drydocks. There, only a select few were permitted to board the sandskiff. It was larger than any I’d seen and equipped with three enormous sails emblazoned with the Darkling’s symbol. I scanned the crowd of soldiers and Grisha on the skiff. I knew Mal must be on board somewhere, but I couldn’t see him.

The Darkling and I were escorted to the front of the skiff, where I was introduced to a group of elaborately dressed men with blond beards and piercing blue eyes. With a start, I realized they were Fjerdan ambassadors. Beside them, in crimson silks, stood a delegation from the Shu Han, and next to them, a group of Kerch tradesmen in shortcoats with curiously belled sleeves. An envoy of the King stood with them in full military dress, his pale blue sash bearing a golden double eagle, a stern expression on his weathered countenance.

I studied them curiously. This must be why the Darkling had delayed our trip into the Fold. He’d needed time to assemble the proper audience, witnesses who would attest to his newfound power. But just how far did he intend to go? A feeling of foreboding stirred inside me, disturbing the lovely numbness that had held me in its grip all morning.

The skiff shuddered and began to slide over the grass and into the eerie black mist of the Fold. Three Summoners raised their arms and the great sails snapped forward, swelling with wind.

The first time I’d entered the Fold, I’d feared the darkness and my own death. Now, darkness was nothing to me, and I knew that soon death would seem like a gift. I’d always known I would have to return to the Unsea, but as I looked back, I realized that some part of me had anticipated it. I had welcomed the chance to prove myself and—I cringed when I thought of it—to please the Darkling. I had dreamed of this moment, standing by his side. I had wanted to believe in the destiny he’d laid out for me, that the orphan no one wanted would change the world and be adored for it.

The Darkling stared ahead, radiating confidence and ease. The sun flickered and began to disappear from view. A moment later, we were in darkness.

For a long while, we drifted in the black, the Grisha Squallers driving the skiffs forward over the sand.

Then, the Darkling’s voice rang out. “Burn.”

Huge clouds of flame burst from the Inferni on either side of the skiff, briefly illuminating the night sky. The ambassadors and even the guards around me stirred nervously. The Darkling was announcing our location, calling the volcra directly to us.

It didn’t take long for them to answer, and a tremor ran up my spine as I heard the distant beat of leathery wings. I felt fear spread through the passengers on the skiff and heard the Fjerdans begin to pray in their lilting tongue. In the flare of Grisha fire, I saw the dim shapes of dark bodies flying toward us. The volcras’ shrieks split the air.

The guards reached for their rifles. Someone began to weep. But still the Darkling waited as the volcra drew closer.

Baghra had claimed that the volcra had once been men and women, victims of the unnatural power unleashed by the Darkling’s greed. It might have been my mind playing tricks, but I thought I heard something not just horrible, but human in their cries.

When they were almost upon us, the Darkling gripped my arm and simply said, “Now.”

That invisible hand took hold of the power inside me, and I felt it stretch, reaching through the darkness of the Fold, seeking the light. It came to me with a speed and fury that nearly knocked me from my feet, breaking over me in a shower of brilliance and warmth.

The Fold was alight, as bright as noon, as if its impenetrable darkness had never been. I saw a long reach of blanched sand, hulks of what looked like shipwrecks dotting the dead landscape, and above it all, a teeming flock of volcra. They screamed in terror, their writhing gray bodies gruesome in the bright sunlight. This is the truth of him, I thought as I squinted in the dazzling light. Like calls to like. This was his soul made flesh, the truth of him laid bare in the blazing sun, shorn of mystery and shadow. This was the truth behind the handsome face and the miraculous powers, the truth that was the dead and empty space between the stars, a wasteland peopled by frightened monsters.

Make a path. I wasn’t sure if he spoke or simply thought the command that reverberated through me. Helpless, I let the Fold close in around us as I focused the light, making a channel through which the skiff could pass, bordered on both sides by walls of rippling darkness. The volcra fled into the dark, and I could hear them crying in rage and confusion as if from behind an impenetrable curtain.

We sped over the colorless sands, the sunlight spreading in glimmering waves before us. Far ahead, I saw a flash of green, and I realized I was seeing the other side of the Shadow Fold. We were looking into West Ravka, and as we drew closer, I saw their meadow, their drydocks, the village of Novokribirsk nestled behind it. The towers of Os Kervo gleamed in the distance. Was it my imagination, or could I smell the salt tang of the True Sea on the air?

People were streaming from the village and crowding onto the drydocks, pointing at the light that had split the Fold open before them. I saw children playing in the grass. I could hear the dockworkers calling to each other.

At a signal from the Darkling, the skiff slowed, and he lifted his arms. I felt a spike of horror as I understood what was about to happen.

“They’re your own people!” I cried desperately.

He ignored me and brought his hands together with a sound like a clap of thunder.

It all seemed to happen slowly. Darkness rippled out from his hands. When it met the darkness of the Fold, a rumbling sound rose up out of the dead sands. The black walls of the path I’d created pulsed and swelled. It’s like it’s breathing, I thought in terror.

The rumble grew to a roar. The Fold shook and trembled around us and then burst forward in a terrible cascading tide.

A frightened wail went up from the crowd on the docks as darkness rushed toward them. They ran, and I saw their fear, heard their screams as the black fabric of the Fold crashed over the drydocks and the village like a breaking wave. Darkness enveloped them, and the volcra set upon their new prey. A woman carrying a little boy stumbled, trying to outrun the grasping dark, but it swallowed her, too.

I reached inside of myself desperately, trying to expand the light, to drive the volcra off, to offer some kind of protection. But I could do nothing. My power slid away from me, pulled from me by that invisible, taunting hand. I wished for a knife to drive into the Darkling’s heart, into my own heart, anything that would make this stop.

The Darkling turned to look at the ambassadors and the King’s envoy. Their faces were identical masks of horror and shock. Whatever he saw there must have satisfied him, because he separated his hands and the darkness stopped pushing forward. The rumbling faded.

I could hear the anguished cries of those lost in the dark, the shrieks of the volcra, the sounds of rifle fire. The drydocks were gone. The village of Novokribirsk was gone. We were staring into the new reaches of the Fold.

The message was clear: Today it had been West Ravka. Tomorrow, the Darkling could just as easily push the Fold north to Fjerda or south to the Shu Han. It would devour whole countries and drive the Darkling’s enemies into the sea. How many deaths had I just helped to bring about? How many more would I be responsible for?

Close the path, commanded the Darkling. I had no choice but to obey. I pulled the light back until it rested around the skiff like a glowing dome.

“What have you done?” whispered the envoy, his voice shaking.

The Darkling turned on him. “Do you need to see more?”

“You were meant to undo this abomination, not enlarge it! You’ve slaughtered Ravkans! The King will never stand—”

“The King will do as he’s told, or I’ll march the Shadow Fold to the walls of Os Alta itself.”

The envoy sputtered, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. The Darkling turned to the ambassadors. “I think you understand me now. There are no Ravkans, no Fjerdans, no Kerch, no Shu Han. There are no more borders, and there will be no more wars. From now on, there is only the land inside the Fold and outside of it, and there will be peace.”

“Peace on your terms,” said one of the Shu Han angrily.

“It will not stand,” blustered a Fjerdan.

The Darkling looked them over and said very calmly, “Peace on my terms. Or your precious mountains and your saintsforsaken tundra will simply cease to exist.”

With crushing certainty, I understood that he meant every word. The ambassadors might hope it was an empty threat, believe that there were limits to his hunger, but they would learn soon enough. The Darkling would not hesitate. He would not grieve. His darkness would consume the world, and he would never waver.

The Darkling turned his back on their stunned and angry expressions and addressed the Grisha and soldiers on the skiff. “Tell the story of what you’ve seen today. Tell everyone that the days of fear and uncertainty are over. The days of endless fighting are over. Tell them that you saw a new age begin.”

A cheer went up from the crowd. I saw a few soldiers muttering to each other. Even some of the Grisha looked unnerved. But most of their faces were eager, triumphant, shining.

They’re hungry for this, I realized. Even after they’ve seen what he can do, even after watching their own people die. The Darkling wasn’t just offering them an end to war, but an end to weakness. After all these long years of terror and suffering, he would give them something that had seemed permanently beyond their grasp: victory. And despite their fear, they loved him for it.

The Darkling signaled to Ivan, who stood behind him, waiting for orders. “Bring me the prisoner.”

I looked up sharply, a fresh bolt of fear shooting through me as Mal was led through the crowd to the railing, his hands bound.

“We return to Ravka,” said the Darkling. “But the traitor stays.”

Before I even knew what was happening, Ivan shoved Mal over the edge of the skiff. The volcra screeched and beat their wings. I ran to the railing. Mal was on his side in the sand, still within the protective circle of my light. He spat sand from his mouth and pushed himself up with his bound hands.

“Mal!” I cried.

Without thinking, I turned on Ivan and punched him hard in the jaw. He stumbled back against the railing, stunned, and then lunged at me. Good, I thought as he grabbed me. Throw me over, too.

“Hold,” said the Darkling, his voice like ice. Ivan scowled, his face red with embarrassment and anger. He relaxed his grip but didn’t let go.

I could see the confusion of the people on the skiff. They didn’t know what this show was about, why the Darkling was troubling with a deserter or why his most valued Grisha had just punched his second-in-command.

Pull it back. The command rang through me and I looked at the Darkling in horror.

“No!” I said. But I couldn’t stop it; the dome of light began to contract. Mal looked at me as the circle shrank closer to the skiff, and if Ivan hadn’t had hold of me, the look of regret and love in his blue eyes would have sent me to my knees. I fought with everything inside me, every bit of strength I had, everything Baghra had taught me, and it was nothing in the face of the Darkling’s power over me. The light inched closer to the skiff.

I gripped the railing and cried out in rage, in misery, the tears streaming down my cheeks. Mal was standing at the edge of the gleaming circle now. I could see the shapes of the volcra in the swirling dark, feel the beat of their wings. He could have run, could have wept, could have clung to the sides of the skiff until the darkness took him, but he did none of those things. He stood unflinching before the gathering dark.

Only I had the power to save him—and I was powerless to save him. In the next breath, the darkness swallowed him. I heard him scream. The memory of the stag reared up before me, so vivid that for a moment the snowy glade swam in my vision, the image of it transposed over the barren landscape of the Fold. I smelled the pines, felt the chill air on my cheeks. I remembered the stag’s dark, liquid eyes, the plume of his breath in the cold night, the moment when I knew that I would not take his life. And finally, I understood why the stag had come to me every night in my dreams.

I’d thought the stag was haunting me, a reminder of my failure and the price my weakness would exact. But I was wrong.

The stag had been showing me my strength—not just the price of mercy but the power it bestowed. And mercy was something the Darkling would never understand.

I had spared the stag’s life. The power of that life belonged to me as surely as it belonged to the man who had taken it.

I gasped as understanding flooded through me, and I felt that invisible grip falter. My power slid back into my hands. Once more, I stood in Baghra’s hut, calling the light for the first time, feeling it rush toward me, taking possession of what was rightfully mine. This was what I had been born for. I would never let anyone separate me from it again.

Light exploded from me, pure and unwavering, flooding over the dark place where Mal had stood only moments before. The volcra that had hold of him shrieked and released its grip. Mal fell to his knees, blood streaming from his wounds as my light enveloped him and drove the volcra back into the darkness.

The Darkling looked momentarily confused. He narrowed his eyes, and I felt his will descend on me again, felt that invisible hand grasping. I shrugged it off. It was nothing. He was nothing.

“What is this?” he hissed. He raised his hands and skeins of darkness spooled toward me, but with a flick of my hand, they burned away like mist.

The Darkling advanced on me, his handsome features contorted with fury. My mind was working frantically. I knew he would have liked to kill me where I stood, but he couldn’t, not with the volcra circling outside the light that only I could provide.

“Seize her!” he shouted to the guards surrounding us. Ivan reached out.

I felt the weight of the collar around my neck, the steady rhythm of the stag’s ancient heart beating in time with mine. My power rose up in me, solid and without hesitation, a sword in my hand.

I lifted my arm and slashed. With an ear-splitting crack, one of the skiff ’s masts split in two. People bleated in panic and scattered as the broken mast fell to the deck, the thick wood gleaming with burning light. Shock registered on the Darkling’s face.

“The Cut!” Ivan gasped, taking a step backward.

“Stay back,” I warned.

“You aren’t a murderer, Alina,” said the Darkling.

“I think the Ravkans I just helped you slaughter would disagree.”

Panic was spreading through the skiff. The oprichniki looked wary, but they were fanning out to surround me just the same.

“You saw what he did to those people!” I cried to the guards and Grisha around me. “Is that the future you want? A world of darkness? A world remade in his image?” I saw their confusion, their anger and fear. “It’s not too late to stop him! Help me,” I begged. “Please, help me.”

But no one moved. Soldier and Grisha alike stood frozen on the deck. They were all too afraid, afraid of him and afraid of a world without his protection.

The oprichniki inched closer. I had to make a choice. Mal and I wouldn’t have another chance.

So be it, I thought.

I glanced over my shoulder, hoping Mal understood, and then I dove for the side of the skiff.

“Don’t let her reach the railing!” the Darkling shouted.

The guards surged toward me. And I let the light go out.

We were plunged into darkness. People wailed and, above us, I heard the volcra screeching. My outstretched hands struck the railing. I ducked under it and hurled myself onto the sand, rolling to my feet and running blindly toward Mal as I threw the light ahead of me in an arc.

Behind me, I heard the sounds of slaughter on the skiff as the volcra attacked and clouds of Grisha flame exploded in the darkness. But I couldn’t stop to think of the people I’d left behind.

My arc of light flashed over Mal, crouched in the sand. The volcra looming over him screeched and whirled away into the dark. I sprinted toward him and pulled him to his feet.

A bullet pinged against the sand beside us and I plunged us into darkness again.

“Hold your fire!” I heard the Darkling shouting over the chaos on the skiff. “We need her alive!”

I threw out another arc of light, scattering the volcra that were hovering around us.

“You can’t run from me, Alina!” the Darkling shouted.

I couldn’t let him come after us. I couldn’t take the chance that he might survive. But I hated what I had to do. The others on the skiff had failed to come to my aid, but did they deserve to be abandoned to the volcra?

“You can’t leave us all here to die, Alina!” the Darkling shouted. “If you take this step, you know where it will lead.”

I felt a hysterical laugh burble up inside me. I knew. I knew it would make me more like him.

“You begged me for clemency once,” he called over the dead reaches of the Fold, over the hungry shrieks of the horrors he had made. “Is this your idea of mercy?”

Another bullet hit the sand, only inches from us. Yes, I thought as the power rose up inside me, the mercy you taught me.

I raised my hand and brought it down in a blazing arc, slashing through the air. An earth-shaking crack echoed through the Fold as the sandskiff split in half. Raw screams filled the air and the volcra shrieked in their frenzy.

I grabbed Mal’s arm and threw a dome of light around us. We ran, stumbling into the darkness, and soon the sounds of battle faded as we left the monsters behind.

WE EMERGED FROM THE FOLD somewhere south of Novokribirsk and took our first steps in West Ravka. The afternoon sun was bright, the meadow grass green and sweet, but we didn’t stop to savor any of it. We were tired, hungry, and wounded, but our enemies wouldn’t rest, and neither could we.

We walked until we found cover in an orchard and hid there until dark, afraid of being spotted and remembered. The air was thick with the smell of apple blossoms, but the fruit was far too small and green to eat.

There was a bucket full of fetid rainwater sitting beneath our tree, and we used it to wash the worst stains from Mal’s bloodied shirt. He tried not to wince as he pulled the torn fabric over his head, but there was no disguising the deep wounds the volcra’s claws had left across the smooth skin of his shoulder and back.

When night came, we began our trek to the coast. Briefly, I’d worried that we might be lost. But even in a strange country, Mal found the way.

Shortly before dawn, we crested a hill and saw the broad sweep of Alkhem Bay and the glittering lights of Os Kervo below us. We knew we should get off the road. It would soon be bustling with tradesmen and travelers who were sure to notice a cut-up tracker and a girl in a black kefta. But we couldn’t resist our first glimpse of the True Sea.

The sun rose at our backs, pink light gleaming off the city’s slender towers then splintering gold on the waters of the bay. I saw the sprawl of the port, the great ships bobbing in the harbor, and beyond that blue, and blue, and blue again. The sea seemed to go on forever, stretching into an impossibly distant horizon. I had seen plenty of maps. I knew there was land out there somewhere, beyond long weeks of travel and miles of ocean. But I still had the dizzying sense that we were standing at the edge of the world. A breeze came in off the water, carrying the smell of salt and damp, the faint cries of gulls.

“There’s just so much of it,” I said at last.

Mal nodded. Then he turned to me and smiled. “A good place to hide.”

He reached out and slid his hand into my hair. He pulled one of the gold pins from the tangled waves. I felt a curl slide free and slither down my neck.

“For clothes,” he said as he dropped the pin into his pocket.

A day ago, Genya had placed those golden pins in my hair. I would never see her again, never see any of them. My heart twisted. I didn’t know if Genya had ever really been my friend, but I would miss her just the same.

Mal left me waiting a little way off the road, hidden in a stand of trees. We’d agreed it would be safer for him to enter Os Kervo by himself, but it was hard to watch him go. He’d told me to rest, but once he was gone, I couldn’t seem to find sleep. I could still feel power thrumming through my body, the echo of what I’d done on the Fold. My hand strayed to the collar at my neck. I’d never felt anything like it, and some part of me wanted to feel it again.

And what about the people you left there? said a voice in my head that I desperately wanted to ignore. Ambassadors, soldiers, Grisha. I had as good as doomed them all, and I couldn’t even be sure that the Darkling was dead. Had he been torn apart by volcra? Had the lost men and women of the Tula Valley finally had their revenge on the Black Heretic? Or was he, at this very moment, hurtling toward me over the dead reaches of the Unsea, ready to bring down his own kind of reckoning?

I shuddered and paced, flinching at every sound.

By late afternoon, I was convinced that Mal had been identified and captured. When I heard footsteps and saw his familiar form emerge through the trees, I nearly sobbed with relief.

“Any trouble?” I asked shakily, trying to hide my nerves.

“None,” he said. “I’ve never seen a city so crowded with people. No one even gave me a second glance.”

He wore a new shirt and an ill-fitting coat, and his arms were laden with clothes for me: a sacklike dress in a red so faded it looked almost orange and a nubbly mustard-colored coat. He handed them to me and then tactfully turned his back so that I could change.

I fumbled with the tiny black buttons of the kefta. There seemed to be a thousand of them. When the silk finally slid over my shoulders and pooled at my feet, I felt a great burden lift from me. The cool spring air pricked my bare skin and, for the first time, I dared to hope that we might really be free. I quashed that thought. Until I knew the Darkling was dead, I would never draw an easy breath.

I pulled on the rough wool dress and the yellow coat.

“Did you deliberately buy the ugliest clothes you could find?”

Mal turned to look at me and couldn’t restrain a smile. “I bought the first clothes I could find,” he said. Then his grin faded. He touched my cheek lightly, and when he spoke again, his voice was low and raw. “I never want to see you in black again.”

I held his gaze. “Never,” I whispered.

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a long red scarf. Gently, he wrapped it around my neck, hiding Morozova’s collar. “There,” he said, smiling again. “Perfect.”

“What am I going to do when summer comes?” I laughed.

“By then we’ll have found a way to get rid of it.”

“No!” I said sharply, surprised by how much the idea upset me. Mal recoiled, taken aback. “We can’t get rid of it,” I explained. “It’s Ravka’s only chance to be free of the Shadow Fold.”

It was the truth—just not all of it. We did need the collar. It was insurance against the Darkling’s strength and a promise that someday we’d return to Ravka and find a way to set things right. But what I couldn’t tell Mal was that the collar belonged to me, that the stag’s power felt like a part of me now, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to let it go.

Mal studied me, his brow furrowed. I thought of the Darkling’s warnings, of the bleak look I’d seen in his face and in Baghra’s.

“Alina …”

I tried for a reassuring smile. “We’ll get rid of it,” I promised. “As soon as we can.”

Seconds passed. “All right,” he said at last, but his expression was still wary. Then, he pushed the crumpled kefta with the toe of his boot. “What should we do with this?”

I looked down at the heap of tattered silk and felt anger and shame roll over me.

“Burn it,” I said. And we did.

As the flames consumed the silk, Mal slowly pulled the rest of the golden pins from my curls, one by one, until my hair tumbled around my shoulders. Gently, he pushed my hair aside and kissed my neck, right above the collar. When the tears came, he pulled me close and held me, until there was nothing left but ashes.