Rule of Wolves

by Leigh Bardugo

  Nikolai had sent his parents into exile in Kerch’s Southern Colonies during the civil war. It hadn’t been an easy decision. But his father hadn’t been a popular king and the army had begun to desert rather than follow him. When the extent of his crimes against Genya Safin had been revealed, Nikolai had given his father a choice: face trial for rape or relinquish his crown and go into permanent exile. It was not how Nikolai had wanted to become king, and he supposed he would never know if it was the right choice.

  They passed over the bridge and onto the Gersky Prospect, where couples strolled in the park and nannies pushed children in prams. This place couldn’t have seemed farther from the muddy battlefield they’d left behind. And yet, if they’d failed at Nezkii or Ulensk, Fjerdan tanks would be rolling toward these grand thoroughfares and green parks right now.

  The palace gates emblazoned with the gold double eagle opened to them, and only when they clanged shut did Nikolai let himself breathe a sigh of relief. There were times when he’d resented these manicured grounds, the many-tiered wedding cake of terraces and gilding that was the Grand Palace. He’d been embarrassed by its excesses and exhausted by its demands. But the last time he’d ridden out, it had been no sure thing he would return. He was grateful to be alive, grateful his most trusted friends were safe, grateful for the cold winter air and the crunch of gravel beneath his horse’s hooves.

  When they reached the palace steps, a group of servants approached to take their horses. “Rostik,” he said, greeting the groom. “How are my favorite members of the royal household?”

  The groom smiled. “Avetoy was favoring one of his back legs last week, but we got him healed up right. Did Punchline do his best for you?”

  Nikolai gave the horse a fond pat. “I think he’s rather majestic in this light.”

  He heard a loud pop, like a cork being loosed from a bottle, then another. A shout from somewhere inside the palace.

  “Gunshots!” said Tamar.

  Nikolai shoved the groom behind him and drew one of his revolvers.

  “Stay down,” he told Rostik.

  Tolya and Tamar moved to flank him, and Zoya’s arms were already raised in combat stance. The royal guards arrayed themselves at the base of the stairs.

  “Nikolai,” said Tolya, “we need to get you out of here. There are flyers moored at the lake.”

  But Nikolai had no intention of running. “Someone is in my house, Tolya. They’re shooting at my people.”

  “Your Highness—”

  “All Saints,” Zoya gasped.

  The Tavgharad flooded onto the steps, fanning out in a fighting formation.

  There were eleven of them, all women, wearing black uniforms marked by carnelian falcons. Two of them had taken rifles from palace guards, but even unarmed, they were some of the deadliest soldiers in the world.

  “Ehri, what are you doing?” Nikolai asked carefully.

  Princess Ehri Kir-Taban stood at the center of their formation in a green velvet gown and coat—traveling clothes. This was not another assassination attempt. It was something else entirely.

  Ehri’s pointed chin lifted high. “Nikolai Lantsov, we will be your captives no longer.”

  “So the courtship is going well?” Zoya muttered.

  “I see,” said Nikolai slowly. “Where is it you plan to go?”

  “Home,” she declared.

  “And how did your friends get free?”

  “I…” Her voice wavered. “I struck a guard. I don’t think I killed him. The rest was easy.”

  That was Nikolai’s fault. He’d kept the Tavgharad behind bars in the palace dungeon, but he’d given Ehri free use of the upper floors of the palace, the gardens. He hadn’t wanted her to feel like a prisoner. Now, he suspected at least two of his guards were dead, and he didn’t want to see more violence done this day.

  Nikolai holstered his weapon and stepped forward, hands raised.

  “Please,” he said. “Be reasonable, Princess. You cannot hope to escape. There are too many miles between you and the Sikurzoi.”

  “You will provide us transport. You cannot harm us without incurring the wrath of my sister and all of Shu Han. The wedding you desire is a sham and a travesty.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” Nikolai admitted. “But have I been cruel to you? Treated you unfairly?”

  “I … No.”

  A look passed from one member of the Tavgharad to the next. Inside him the demon snarled. Something was wrong. He was missing something right in front of him.

  The Tavgharad guard with the rifle set down her weapon, but it was hardly a gesture of peace. Her expression looked carved from stone.

  “What is that smell?” said Zoya.

  “I don’t smell anything,” said Tolya.

  Zoya fluttered her fingers and a bare breeze wafted toward them from the steps.

  “Accelerant,” said Tamar, edging closer to the stairs. “Their clothes are soaked.”

  Understanding and terror struck Nikolai. They couldn’t mean to …

  “Set us free!” demanded Ehri. “Queen Makhi will never stand for—”

  “Ehri, move away from them,” he said, watching one of the Tavgharad reach into her pocket. “This is not an escape. This is—”

  “I will never—”

  “Ehri!”

  But it was too late. The Tavgharad guard who had put down her rifle shouted something in Shu. Nikolai glimpsed the match in her hand.

  One by one, the Tavgharad burst into flame, each of them a torch engulfed in golden fire. All of it too fast, a slide of keys on the piano, a sudden doomed flourish.

  “No!” Nikolai cried, rushing forward. He saw Ehri’s shocked face, the flames racing up her skirts as she screamed.

  Zoya acted in an instant, a rush of cold wind extinguishing the fire in a single icy blast. It wasn’t enough. Whatever the Tavgharad had doused themselves with had worked too well. Ehri was on the ground, screaming. The others were silent heaps of charred flesh and ash. His servants were crying out in terror and the palace guards stood frozen in disbelief.

  Nikolai’s hands and forearms were badly burned where he’d tried to grab Ehri, his clothing clinging to his smoking flesh. But it was nothing compared to what had happened to the princess. Her skin was scorched black, and where the top layer of flesh was burned away, her limbs were red and wet. Nikolai could feel the heat radiating from her body. She was shaking, her screams stuttering as she convulsed, her body going into shock.

  “Tamar, drop her pulse and put her into a coma,” Nikolai commanded. “Tolya, get a Healer.”

  Ehri’s screams went silent as Tamar knelt and did her work.

  “Why would they do this?” Zoya said, her face stricken as she took in the sudden carnage, the burned piles of blood and bone that had been women mere moments before.

  Tamar’s hands were trembling as she monitored Ehri’s pulse. “We gave her too much freedom. We should have kept her in the dungeons, sent the Tavgharad to the brig at Poliznaya.”

  “She didn’t know,” said Nikolai, looking down at Ehri’s ruined flesh, the hitching rise and fall of her chest. They had to get her to the infirmary. “She didn’t know. I saw it on her face. The accelerant was only on the hem of her robes.”

  “Where did they even get it?” asked Zoya.

  Nikolai shook his head. “From the kitchens when they escaped? It’s possible they made it themselves.”

  Tamar rose as Tolya returned with a stretcher borne by two Corporalki in their red kefta. Their faces showed their dismay, but if anyone could heal Ehri, the Grisha could.

  Nikolai stood on the steps, surrounded by death, watching Ehri and her keepers disappear in the direction of the Little Palace.

  “Why?” Zoya said again.

  “Because they are Tavgharad,” Tamar replied. “Because they serve their queen unto death. And Ehri is no queen.”

  9

  ZOYA

  ZOYA HOVERED BY THE WINDOW in Nikolai’s bedroom, watching
the winter wind play over the palace grounds, as it made the bare branches rattle and sigh as if resigned to the dark days to come. The gardens looked bleak at this time of year, before snow fell to soften them. Ehri had been taken to the Little Palace, where she would be seen to by the same Grisha Healers who had brought her double, Mayu Kir-Kaat, back from the brink of death only weeks before.

  Behind her, she heard Nikolai draw a swift breath. He was lying atop his covers as a Healer tended to his burns. She’d seen to his hands first, where the worst of the damage had been, but the rest would take far longer.

  Zoya went to his side. “Can’t you give him something more for the pain?”

  “I gave him the strongest draught I could,” said the Healer. “Anything else he won’t wake up from. I could put him into a coma, but—”

  “No,” Nikolai said, his eyes fluttering open. “I hate that feeling.”

  Zoya knew why. When he’d been fighting the demon, she’d used a powerful sleeping tonic to knock him out every night for months. He’d said it felt like dying.

  The Healer filled a bowl with some sharp-smelling solution. “It would be easier to put him under. I can’t have him moving around while I work.”

  Zoya sat down beside Nikolai on the bed, trying not to jostle him.

  “You must be still,” she murmured.

  “Don’t go.”

  He shut his eyes and gripped her hand in his. Zoya knew the Healer had noticed it, knew he would probably gossip about it later. But she could weather the gossip. Saints knew she’d endured worse. And maybe she needed to feel his hand in hers after the shock of what they’d witnessed. She couldn’t stop seeing those women burn.

  “You shouldn’t be here for this,” said the Healer. “It’s an ugly process.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  The Healer flinched and Zoya wondered if the dragon had emerged, shining silver in her eyes. Let him gossip about that too.

  Nikolai clung to her hand as the Healer stripped the ruined flesh from his arm. Only then could it be replaced with healthy skin. It seemed to take hours, first one arm, then the other. Whenever Zoya left the king’s side—to fetch a cool cloth for his head, to turn up the lanterns so that the Healer had better light—Nikolai would open his eyes and mutter, “Where is my general?”

  “I’m here,” she repeated, again and again.

  Once the Healer had dealt with the singed flesh of his arms, no hair remained on them, but the scars on his hands—the veins of shadow the Darkling had left—were still visible.

  “He’ll need to rest,” said the Healer, rising and stretching when the work was done. “But the damage was fairly superficial.”

  “And Princess Ehri?” Zoya asked.

  “I don’t know. Her burns were much more severe.”

  Once the Healer was gone, Zoya waited for Nikolai’s breathing to turn deep and even. Dusk had fallen. Outside the lanterns in the garden were being lit, a string of stars strewn across the grounds. She had missed this room, who Nikolai became in this room, the man who for a moment might let the mantle of king fall away, who trusted her enough to close his eyes and fall into dreams as she stood watch. She needed to get back to the Little Palace, check on Princess Ehri, talk to Tamar, forge a plan. But this might be the last time she saw him this way.

  At last she rose and turned down the lights.

  “Don’t go,” he said, still half asleep.

  “I have to bathe. I smell like a forest fire.”

  “You smell like wildflowers. You always do. What can I say to make you stay?” His words trailed off into a drowsy mumble as he fell back asleep.

  Tell me it’s more than war and worry that makes you speak those words. Tell me what they would mean if you weren’t a king and I weren’t a soldier. But she didn’t want to hear any of that, not really. Sweet words and grand declarations were for other people, other lives.

  She brushed the hair back from his face, placed a kiss on his forehead. “I would stay forever if I could,” she whispered. He wouldn’t remember anyway.

  * * *

  Hours later, Zoya’s sitting room was crowded with people. She hadn’t invited anyone; they’d simply gathered there, settling in front of the fire with cups of sweetened tea. Saints, she was glad of it. Usually, she valued her privacy, but tonight she needed company.

  Despite the bath she’d taken, she felt like she could smell death clinging to her, in her hair, in her clothes. She had curled up beside Genya on the couch next to the fire. Its cushions were embroidered in pewter silk, and usually she was fussy about people putting their feet up on it, but right now she couldn’t have cared less. She took a long sip from her mug of warmed wine. Tea was not enough for her tonight.

  David and Nadia sat at the round table at the room’s center. He’d set out neat little stacks of papers in what was no doubt an important order, and he was buried in a long row of calculations. Occasionally, he would hand a paper to Nadia, who was working on her own set of numbers, her feet resting in Tamar’s lap. Tolya sat on the rug beside the tiled grate, gazing into the fire. It might have been a cozy scene, but the horror of what had happened that morning hung heavy in the air.

  Genya studied her designs for the wedding gown, traditional gold and paired with a jeweled kokoshnik. She held up a sketch. “Too much?”

  Zoya touched her fingers to the gown’s delicately drawn hem. “For the royal chapel? No. The more sparkle the better.” It was a gloomy place.

  “I know,” Genya said. She adjusted the patch over her missing eye. “If only we could hold the ceremony in the gardens.”

  “In the middle of winter?” said Nikolai, strolling into the sitting room and heading straight for the wine on the side table. It was as if he’d never been hurt, never been helpless. He had bathed, dressed in fresh clothes. The man seemed to gleam with confidence. “Do you want our guests to freeze to death?”

  “That’s one way to win a war,” mused Genya.

  “You shouldn’t have wine,” said Zoya. “The Healer’s draught isn’t out of your system yet.”

  Nikolai wrinkled his nose. “Then I suppose I’ll drink tea like an old woman.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with tea,” objected Tolya.

  “Far be it from me to argue with a man as big as a boulder.” Nikolai poured himself a cup of tea and glanced at the papers laid out on the table. “Are those the new calculations for our launch system?” David nodded without looking up. “And how are they coming along?”

  “They aren’t.”

  “No?”

  “I keep getting interrupted,” David said pointedly.

  “Splendid. Good to know I’ve done my part.”

  Nikolai sank into a large chair by the fire. Zoya could tell he was trying to summon the spirit to rib David or maybe even to celebrate the advantage their new rockets might grant them against the Fjerdans. But even Nikolai’s relentless optimism was no match for what they’d seen on the palace steps.

  At last he set his cup down on his knee and said, “Help me understand what happened this morning.”

  Tamar and Tolya exchanged a glance.

  “This was a message from Queen Makhi,” said Tamar.

  “So she does not approve of the wedding? She might have simply sent her regrets.”

  “She rolled the dice,” Tamar said. “And she almost won. If she had killed Ehri, she would have had cause for war, and she would have tied up the loose ends of her assassination scheme.”

  “We’re going to have a hell of a time explaining what happened here as it is,” said Zoya. “How do we account for the death of eleven high-ranking prisoners in our care?”

  “Ehri saw what happened,” said Tolya quietly. “It will be up to her to tell the truth. All of it.”

  “All of it,” Tamar repeated.

  Nadia laid her pen on the table and took her wife’s hand. “Do you think Queen Makhi will actually come to the wedding?”

  “She will,” said Tamar. “But I would
n’t put it past her to use the occasion to stage some kind of attack. She’s a wily tactician.”

  “A good queen,” said Zoya.

  “Yes,” Tamar conceded. “Or an effective one. Her mother created a policy of outlawing experimentation on Grisha and had begun to allow them certain rights in exchange for military or governmental service.”

  “Like in Ravka,” Nikolai said.

  Tolya nodded. “Grisha still couldn’t own property or hold any kind of political office, but they were worthwhile reforms.”

  “We’ve never been seen as unnatural there,” said Tamar. “Just dangerous. But not everyone approved. Some Shu didn’t like the idea of Grisha passing as ordinary people.”

  “And Makhi didn’t like her mother’s policies?” Nikolai asked.

  Now Tamar frowned. She picked up Nadia’s cup and her own and paced to the side table to refill them. “Even before she was crowned, Makhi had her own ideas about how to strengthen Shu Han. When jurda parem was discovered, it presented her with a choice: She could have attempted to keep the secret by destroying Bo Yul-Bayur’s work. Instead Makhi chose to start up the old laboratories and make use of parem as a weapon.”

  “That’s what led to the khergud,” Tolya said, his voice desolate, a man surveying the wreck, pointing to a yawning black hole in the hull. This is where it all went wrong.

  The khergud were Shu Han’s deadliest soldiers, though the government had never acknowledged them in any official way. They were tailored by Grisha under the influence of parem, their senses heightened, their bones reinforced and altered. Some could even fly. Zoya shivered, remembering being yanked off her feet, the grip of the khergud soldier’s arms around her like steel bands.

  Tamar placed the full cups on the table but did not sit. She ran Nikolai’s spy networks. She knew, better than any of them, what was happening to Grisha under Makhi’s stewardship.