King of Scars

by Leigh Bardugo

  The priest came to with a start and then moaned, reaching up to touch his fingers to the growing bulge at his temple.

  “You took quite a knock to the head,” said Nikolai gently.

  “There were soldiers!” the priest gasped. “In the sky!” Nikolai and Tamar exchanged a staged look of concern. “A man … he came out of the clouds. He had wings! Another came from the cathedral roof.”

  “I fear you may have a concussion,” said Nikolai, helping the priest to his feet.

  “I saw him! The statue … You see, he smashed the statue, our statue of Sankta Lizabeta!”

  “No,” said Nikolai, and pointed to the beam they’d managed to tear lose from the overhang of the cathedral. “Don’t you see the broken beam? It gave way from the rafters and struck you and the statue. You’re lucky you weren’t killed.”

  “Miraculous,” said Zoya dryly.

  “Brother,” the priest implored Yuri. “Tell me you did not see what I did!”

  Yuri tugged at his straggly beard and Nikolai waited. The monk hadn’t stopped staring at him since the khergud attack. At last, Yuri said, “I … I saw nothing without explanation.”

  The priest gave a helpless, baffled huff, and Nikolai felt a jab of guilt. “Come,” he said. “If you don’t have a headache, you will soon. Let’s find you help.”

  They walked back along the forest path to the town, where many of the locals were still celebrating in the town square, and left the priest to their care.

  “I don’t like lying to a priest,” said Tolya as they mounted their horses to ride out to the manse where they would spend the night.

  “I agree,” Yuri added quietly.

  “The truth would have been harder for him to bear,” said Tamar. “Think how unhappy he would be, constantly looking over his shoulder and thinking something was going to come out of the sky and pluck him from the ground like a hawk seizing a stoat.”

  “It’s still a lie,” said Tolya.

  “Then you’ll have to perform some kind of penance,” said Nikolai, his exasperation growing. He was grateful to Tolya. He respected the twins’ faith and its importance to them, but he couldn’t worry over Tolya’s conscience when his mind was trying to contend with a Shu attack on the royal procession and a demon that no longer wanted to wait until dark.

  “You can start by rubbing my feet,” Zoya told the monk.

  “That’s hardly an act of holy contrition,” said Yuri.

  “You’ve never seen her feet,” said Nikolai.

  Zoya tossed her hair over her shoulder. “A man once offered to sign over the deed to his summer home in Polvost if I would let him watch as I stepped on a pile of blueberries.”

  “And did you?” asked Tamar.

  “Of course not. Polvost is a dump.”

  “The priest will be fine,” Nikolai reassured Yuri. “And I appreciate your tact.”

  “I did what I thought was right,” said the monk, more quiet and restrained than Nikolai had ever seen him, his jaw tilted at a stubborn angle. “But I expect an explanation, Your Highness.”

  “Well,” Zoya said as they watched Yuri trot off ahead of the party, “now what?”

  “You mean now that you’ve cooked an invaluable source of information from the inside out?” There was an edge to his voice that he wasn’t entirely sorry for. It wasn’t like Zoya to make that kind of mistake.

  Zoya’s back straightened. “It’s possible I wasn’t entirely in control. I suspect you’re familiar with the sensation.”

  Because it wasn’t just the khergud attack that had unsettled her. It was the memory of that night in the bell tower, of another winged monster. One that had shown its claws again today.

  “Passingly,” he murmured.

  “And I wasn’t talking about the khergud,” said Zoya, pushing past the sudden chill between them. “What are you going to do about the monk?”

  “I have a few hours to figure out what to tell him. I’ll come up with something.”

  “You do have a gift for the preposterous,” said Zoya, kicking her horse into a gallop. “And this whole cursed country seems to have a taste for it.”

  * * *

  It was long past sunset when at last Nikolai was able to retire from dinner and join the others in the quarters the local governor had provided for them.

  The room was clearly the best in the house, and everywhere Nikolai looked there were gestures toward Sankta Lizabeta—the honeycomb floor tiles, roses carved into the mantel, even the walls of the chamber itself had been hollowed into coffers to resemble a great hive. A fire burned in the grate, bathing the sandstone walls in golden light, the cheerful glow somehow inappropriate to the dire events of the day.

  Tamar had returned to the cathedral as soon as night fell to retrieve the bodies of the khergud and arrange their transport to the capital for study. Tolya’s reluctance to desecrate a fallen soldier’s body had been considerably diminished by the ambush, and Nikolai felt no qualms at all. His guards had been attacked. Zoya had almost been taken. Besides, some part of him would always be a privateer. If the Shu wanted to wage this kind of war, let them reap the consequences.

  Tolya had been ordered to watch the monk and make sure he sent no messages to his followers about what he’d seen. Now Yuri sat before the fire, still looking shaken. Tolya and Tamar played chess at a low table, and Zoya perched on the sill of the window, framed by the casement, as if she were the one who might take flight.

  Nikolai shut the door, unsure how to begin. He thought of the Shu soldier’s body cut open on a table. He had seen dissection files, the detailed drawings rendered by Fabrikators and Corporalki. Was that what this problem required? For someone to cut him open and pull him apart? I’d do it gladly, he thought. If this thing could be isolated and excised like a tumor, I’d lie down beneath the scalpel and guide the surgeon’s hand myself.

  But the monster was wilier than that.

  It was Yuri who spoke first from his place on the floor. “He did this to you, didn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Nikolai said simply. He’d thought about what lies he might concoct to appease the monk’s fear and curiosity. But in the end, he knew the truth—at least part of it—would work to best advantage. Yuri wanted to believe in Saints, and Saints required martyrdom.

  Yet now that the time had come to speak, Nikolai did not want to tell this story. He did not want it to be his story. He’d thought the war was in the past, but it refused to remain there.

  He plucked a bottle of brandy from the sideboard, chose a chair, and stretched his legs out in front of the fire. It was a pose of ease and confidence, one he had assumed many times. It felt false.

  “During the war,” he said, tugging the gloves from his hands, “I was captured by the Darkling. No doubt you’ve heard that I was tortured by your Starless Saint.”

  Yuri’s eyes dropped to the tracery of black lines that spread over Nikolai’s fingers and knuckles. “Korol Rezni,” he said quietly. “King of Scars. I’ve heard the stories.”

  “And chalked them up to royal propaganda? A smear campaign against a fallen hero?”

  Yuri coughed. “Well—”

  “Hand me that brandy,” said Zoya. “I can’t tolerate this degree of stupidity on a clear head.”

  Nikolai poured himself a drink before turning over the bottle, but he knew mocking Yuri would do no good. Wasn’t speaking the truth supposed to be freeing? Some kind of tonic for the soul? In Nikolai’s experience, honesty was much like herbal tea—something well-meaning people recommended when they were out of better options.

  “The Darkling had a gift for inflicting misery,” he continued. “He knew pain or imprisonment would be too easy for me to bear. So he used his power to infect me with living darkness. It was my payment for helping the Sun Summoner escape his grasp. I became … I don’t know what exactly I became. Part monster, part man. I hungered for human flesh. I was nearly mindless with the need. Nearly. Enough of my own consciousness still lived on in me that I
continued to battle the monster’s impulses and even rallied the volcra to face the Darkling on the Fold.”

  At the time, Nikolai hadn’t known if there was any point to fighting on, if he would ever be himself again. He hadn’t even known if the Darkling could be killed. But Alina had managed it, armed with a shadow blade wrapped in the Darkling’s own power and wet with the blood of his own line.

  “Before she died, the Sun Summoner slew the Darkling, and the darkness inside me perished with him.” Nikolai took a long swig of his brandy. “Or so I thought.” He’d plummeted to the earth and would have died had Zoya not used the wind to cushion his fall, much as she’d done today. “Several months ago, something began to seize my unconscious mind. Some nights I sleep as well as can be expected—only a lazy monarch rests easy. But on other nights, I become the monster. He controls me completely.”

  “Not completely,” said Zoya. “You haven’t taken a human life.”

  Nikolai felt a rush of gratitude that she would be the one to speak those words, but he forced himself to add, “That we know of. The attacks are getting worse. They come more frequently. The tonics and even the chains I’ve used to keep them at bay are temporary solutions. It may be only a matter of time before my mind gives itself up to the beast and its hungers. It is possible…” Now the words fought him, poison in his mouth. “It’s possible the beast may overtake me completely and I’ll never be able to return to my human form.”

  Silence filled the room, the quiet of a funeral. Why not throw a little more dirt on the coffin? “Today, the monster stepped forward in broad daylight, while I was still awake. That has never happened before.”

  “Was it deliberate?” asked Yuri. “Did you choose to—”

  “I didn’t choose anything. It simply happened. I think the shock Zoya sent through my body allowed me to come back to myself.” He took a long sip from his glass. “I can’t have this thing taking hold of me on a battlefield or in the middle of a state function. Ravka’s position is precarious, and so is mine. The people have only just begun to recover from the war. They want stability and leadership, not a monster born of nightmares.”

  Peace. A chance to recover, to build their lives without the constant fear of battle, the threat of starvation. On this journey, Nikolai had seen the progress Ravka had made with his own eyes. His country could not afford to go to war again, and he’d done everything to make sure they wouldn’t have to. But if the monster emerged, if Nikolai revealed this dark presence, he might be the very thing that set his country back down the path to violence.

  “Perhaps you don’t give the people enough credit,” said Yuri.

  “No?” said Zoya from her perch. “The people who still call Grisha witches despite the years they’ve kept this country safe? Who bar them from owning property in their towns—”

  “That is illegal,” said Nikolai.

  Zoya raised her glass in a mock toast. “I’ll be sure to inform them the next time a Grisha family is driven from their home in the middle of the night.”

  “People are always looking for someone to blame for their suffering,” Yuri said earnestly. “Ravka has seen so much strife. It’s only natural that—”

  There was nothing natural about this.

  “Yuri,” said Nikolai. “We can debate Ravka’s prejudices another time. I told you we came on this journey to investigate the miracle sites, to consider Sainthood for the Darkling.”

  “Was any of that true?”

  Nikolai did not intend to answer that question directly.

  “The Darkling may deserve to take his place among the Saints, but that can’t happen until I’m rid of this affliction.”

  Yuri nodded, then nodded again. He looked down at his bony hands. “But is it something to be rid of?”

  Zoya expelled a bitter laugh. “He thinks you’ve been blessed by the Starless Saint.”

  Yuri pushed his glasses higher on his long nose. “Blessing and curse are different words for the same thing.”

  “You may well be right,” said Nikolai, forcing himself to find the diplomacy that had always served him well. If you listened to a man’s words, you might learn his wants. The trick was to look into his heart and discover his needs. “But Yuri, the Darkling cannot possibly be considered a Saint until his martyrdom is complete.” Zoya’s eyes narrowed. Nikolai ignored her. He would say what he had to, do what he must to be rid of this sickness. “It was not coincidence that brought you to the palace gates. You were meant to bear witness to the last remnant of the Darkling’s power. You were meant to bring us to the thorn wood. You were meant to free us both.”

  “Me?” said Yuri, his voice a bare breath, but Nikolai could see that he wanted to believe. Don’t we all? Who didn’t want to think fate had a plan for him, that his hurts and failures had just been the prologue to a grander tale? To a monk becoming a holy warrior. To a bastard becoming a king. “Me,” repeated Yuri.

  Behind him, Zoya rolled her eyes. Neither Tolya nor Tamar looked happy.

  “Only you can complete the Darkling’s martyrdom,” said Nikolai. “Will you help me? Will you help him?”

  “I will,” said Yuri. “Of course I will. I will take you to the thorn wood. I will build a holy pyre.”

  “Wait just a minute,” Zoya said from her perch. “Are you saying you want to put the king of Ravka on a funeral pyre?”

  Yuri blinked. “I mean, one hopes it would simply be a pyre?”

  “A comforting and essential distinction,” said Nikolai, though he couldn’t say he was thrilled at the possibility. “Is that what the obisbaya requires?”

  Tolya picked up a rook and turned it in his hand. “It isn’t entirely clear, but that seems to be what most of the texts point to.”

  “Yes,” said Yuri, intent now. “There’s some suggestion that Sankt Feliks may have in fact been a member of the Priestguard, and there is text for a ritual to be read during the process. Tolya and I have been trying to make sure the language is intact.”

  Nikolai’s brows rose. “Sankt Feliks? Wasn’t he spitted on a twig and cooked to death like a holy kebob?”

  Tolya set the chess piece down. “Time and translation may have muddied the facts.”

  “Let’s hope they were very muddied,” said Nikolai. “Possibly sunk in a swamp.”

  But now Tamar picked up the rook. “Feliks’ branches are always shown thick with thorns, not much like an apple bough. It could make a kind of sense,” she said. “If we’re right about the site of the thorn wood.”

  “If any part of it remains,” added Zoya.

  “If we can find enough of it to build the pyre,” said Tolya.

  “Then there’s the small matter of surviving the flames,” said Zoya.

  “You will,” said Yuri. “You will survive, and the Starless One will have his true martyrdom.”

  “We ride for the Fold tomorrow,” Nikolai said.

  “Come, Tolya,” said Yuri, rising, his face lit with fervor. “I have some ideas about the translation of the third passage. We must be ready.”

  Tolya shrugged and unbent his massive body. “It’s a kind of poetry.”

  Nikolai downed the last of his drink. “Isn’t everything?”

  Tamar made to follow them from the room, but before she left she turned to Nikolai. In the firelight, her bronze arms glowed umber, the black lines of her sun tattoos stark against her skin.

  “I know you said those things because of the effect they would have on the monk, but Tolya and I have never believed in coincidence,” she said. “Too much has happened in our lives for us to think that faith and fate didn’t play their parts. They may be playing their parts now too.” She bowed. “Good night, Your Highness.”

  Zoya hopped down from her perch, prepared to dose him for the night. He was pained to find that after the events of the day, he was looking forward to a little oblivion.

  “Fate,” Nikolai said as he opened the door to his bedchamber. “Faith. I fear we are in unknown territory, Nazyalensky.
I thought you’d raise a louder protest to skewering me.”

  “What is there to object to?” Zoya asked, rearranging the chess pieces the twins had left in disarray. “If the thorn wood is gone, our hopes crumble to dust, we return to the palace empty-handed, and we get through this party or summit or whatever you want to call it to the best of our ability.”

  Nikolai sat down on the edge of his bed and pulled off his boots. “And if it is there? If fate has been guiding us all along?”

  Zoya lifted a brow. “Then you’d best hope fate thinks you’ll make a good king.”

  Nikolai had been told hope was dangerous, had been warned of it many times. But he’d never believed that. Hope was the wind that came from nowhere to fill your sails and carry you home. Whether it was destiny or sheer desperation guiding them onward, at least once they reached the Fold, he would have answers.

  “We’ll send a decoy coach to Keramzin,” he said, “and travel in disguise. If we really do intend to dig a pit in the middle of the Fold, I don’t want it done under the Lantsov flag.”

  “Do you think the Shu knew who we were? An attack on the king—”

  “Is an act of war,” finished Nikolai. “But they weren’t after me. I don’t think they had any idea who we were. They were hunting Grisha, and they found three of you.”

  “So far from the borders,” said Zoya, lingering in the bedroom doorway. “I feel like they’re taunting us.”

  Nikolai set his boots by the side of the bed. “I owe you an apology.”

  “You owe me an entire crop of them. Why start now?”

  “I meant for the other night in Balakirev. For the bell tower.” He should have said something before, but the shame of hurting her had been more profound than he could have imagined. “Zoya, I’m sorry. For what I did—”

  “It wasn’t you,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Don’t be daft.” But she stayed in the doorway.

  “We cannot work side by side if you fear me.”

  “I don’t fear you, Nikolai.”

  But how much longer would he be himself?