“I ask nothing,” said Aleksander, spreading his arms wider. “It is the Starless One who gives this command.” Shadows began to bleed from his palms. The crowd cried out. “You must decide how you will answer.”
He threw his head back, letting the shadows billow out over the crowd. They went to their knees. He heard sobbing. He was fairly sure Brother Azarov had fainted.
“Will you run to the south or will you carry our Saint’s banners north?” he demanded of the crowd. “How will you answer the Starless One?”
“North!” they cried. “North!”
They clung to one another, weeping, as the shadows blocked out the setting sun.
“I’m sorry I doubted you,” Chernov said, approaching with tears in his eyes.
Aleksander smiled, letting the shadows recede. He placed a hand on Chernov’s shoulder. “Don’t apologize, brother. You and I are going to change the world.”
27
NIKOLAI
THEY JOURNEYED TO KETTERDAM aboard the Cormorant, a large airship that would allow them to transport the titanium back to Ravka—assuming they were able to acquire it. But they couldn’t approach the city in a Ravkan vessel, so they moored the giant craft at a smuggler’s island off the Kerch coast. Adrik and his Squallers would keep it wreathed in mist while Zoya and Nikolai met up with the Volkvolny, the privateer Sturmhond’s most famous ship.
Numerous people had stepped into the role of Sturmhond since Nikolai had created the identity for himself. It had made it easy to keep the privateer’s legend and influence alive while he sat the throne. And, of course, there were things a privateer with no known allegiance might accomplish that a king bound by the rules of diplomacy could not. Sturmhond’s gift for making and breaking blockades and acquiring stolen property had served Ravka’s interests more than once. It felt good to slip into the familiar teal coat and strap Sturmhond’s pistols to his hips.
Zoya was waiting on the deck of the Volkvolny. She had dressed as a common sailor in trousers and a roughspun shirt, and braided her hair, but she looked completely ill at ease out of her kefta. Nikolai had seen the way Nina disappeared into a role, changed the way she walked, the way she spoke, seemingly without effort. Zoya did not have this gift. Her posture remained razor sharp, her chin lifted slightly, less like a rough-and-tumble sailor than a beautiful aristocrat who had taken it into her head to spend the day among commoners.
Her eyes scanned him from the crown of his head to the toes of his boots. “You look absurd in that outfit.”
“Absurdly dashing? I agree.”
She rolled her eyes as the ship surged forward to find its berth in the Ketterdam harbor. “You like playing the pirate too much.”
“Privateer. And yes, I do. There’s freedom in it. When I wear this coat, my responsibility is the people on this ship. Not an entire nation.”
“It’s a game of pretend,” she said.
“A welcome illusion. One might be anything or anyone aboard a ship.”
They leaned on the rail, watching as the sprawl of the city and its busy port came into view.
“You miss it, don’t you?” she asked.
“I do. Maybe if this all goes to hell and Vadik Demidov takes my crown, I’ll simply return to being Sturmhond. I can serve my country without wearing a crown.”
He was unnerved by how much the idea appealed to him. It wasn’t the work of being a king he minded. Problems were meant to be solved. Obstacles defeated. Allies won through charm or the occasional bribe. He was happy to pick up a sword or a pen on Ravka’s behalf, to go without sleep or comfort in order to see a mission through. But kings didn’t take action—not the way that a privateer or even a general could. Being a king meant second-guessing every move, considering countless variables before making a decision, knowing that each choice might have consequences that others would pay for. We need a king, not an adventurer. Zoya was right, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.
She cast him a curious glance. “Could you do it? Give up the throne?”
“I don’t know. When you’ve wanted something so long, it’s hard to imagine a life without it.” He supposed he wasn’t just talking about Ravka.
Zoya stood a little straighter, all propriety. “Growing up means learning to go without.”
“What a depressing thought.”
“It’s not so bad. Starve long enough, you forget your hunger.”
He leaned closer. “If it’s so easy to lose your appetite, maybe you were never truly hungry at all.” She looked away, but not before he saw the faintest blush tinge her cheeks. “You could come with me, you know,” he said idly. “A Squaller is always welcome on a ship’s crew.”
Zoya wrinkled her nose. “Live on salt cod and pray to the Saint of Oranges that I don’t get scurvy? I think not.”
“No small part of you wishes for this kind of freedom?” Because, all Saints, he did.
She laughed, tilting her face to the salt breeze. “I long for boredom. I would gladly sit in a drawing room at the Little Palace and sip my tea and maybe fall asleep in the middle of a tedious meeting. I’d like to linger over a meal without thinking of all the work yet to be done. I’d like to get through one night without…”
She trailed off, but Nikolai understood too well how to finish her thought. “Without a nightmare. Without waking in a cold sweat. I know.”
Zoya rested her chin in her hands and looked out at the water. “We’ve been promised a future for so long. A day when the Grisha would be safe, when Ravka would be at peace. Every time we try to grab for it, it slips through our fingers.”
Nikolai had sometimes wondered if it was in his nature to be restless, in Zoya’s nature to be ruthless, and in Ravka’s nature to be forever at war beneath the Lantsov banner. Was that part of what drew him to this life as king? He longed for peace for his country, but did some part of him fear it as well? Who was he without someone to oppose him? Without a problem to solve?
“I promised you that future.” He wished he’d been able to make that dream come true for both of them. “I didn’t deliver.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she clipped out, haughty and imperious as a queen. But she didn’t look at him when she said, “You gave Ravka a chance. You gave me a country I could fight for. I’ll always be grateful for that.”
Gratitude. Was that what he wanted from her? Nevertheless, Nikolai found he was pleased. He cleared his throat. “I believe we’ve arrived.”
The crew lowered the gangway, and Nikolai and Zoya strode up the Fifth Harbor dock.
Zoya planted her hands on her hips, surveying the tangle of people and cargo around them. “Of course Brekker couldn’t be bothered to meet us.”
“Best not to announce our association on the Ketterdam docks.” It would have been safer and simpler to send a delegation on the crown’s behalf, but Brekker had ignored every message until Nikolai had penned the letter himself. He and Zoya had worked with the young thief before. They weren’t friends or even trusted associates, but they had a better shot of winning Kaz Brekker’s help than strangers.
“You are a king.”
“Not while I wear this coat.”
“Even with a pelican on your head, you’d still be the king of Ravka, and it wouldn’t kill that Barrel rat to show a bit of respect.” They plunged into the crowds of tourists and sailors on the quay. “I loathe this city.”
“It’s lively,” he said, switching to Kerch.
“If by lively you mean a rat-infested, coal-dust-covered lump of human misery,” she replied in kind, her accent heavy. “And I don’t like their language either.”
“I like the bustle. You can feel the prosperity of this place; I want Ravka to have a piece of this—trade, industry. Our country shouldn’t always have to be the beggar at the door.”
Zoya’s face was thoughtful as they turned onto East Stave, both sides of the canal lined with gambling dens, some grand and some squalid. Each facade was more garish than the last, meant to entic
e tourists looking for fun. Barkers shouted from every doorway, promising the biggest pots and the liveliest play.
“You don’t agree,” he said with some surprise.
Zoya eyed an imposing building that Nikolai could have sworn had been called the Emerald … Empire? Palace? It had once been done up in Kaelish green and gold. Now it was outfitted in heaps of fake jewels, and a sign over the door read THE SILVER SIX.
A barker shouted at an old panhandler, chasing him from his roost beside the door. “Go on with you! Don’t make me call the stadwatch.” The man hobbled a few steps off, nearly toppling over his walking stick, his old body twisted by time and trouble.
“Spare a coin for an old fool what’s lost his luck?”
“I said go! You’re scaring off the pigeons.”
“Easy now,” said Nikolai. “We’re all someone’s uncle.”
“I don’t have no brothers or sisters,” said the barker.
Nikolai tossed a folded kruge into the old man’s cap. “Then let’s all give thanks your parents didn’t make more of you.”
“Hey!” snarled the barker, but they were already moving on.
“That’s what I mean,” said Zoya as they crossed another bridge. “This city is all about the next bit of coin.”
“And they’re richer for it.”
The energy of the Barrel felt contagious—the street vendors hawking paper cones full of sizzling meat and syrupy stacks of waffles, two-bit magicians daring passersby to try their luck, drunken tourists outfitted as the Gray Imp or the Lost Bride, and smooth-limbed creatures of impossible beauty, bodies clad in bare scraps of silk, cheekbones dusted with glitter, luring the lonely or curious across one of the many bridges to the pleasure houses of West Stave. The sheer amount of money passing through this place, the endless tide of people—there was nothing like it in Ravka.
She shook her head. “You see this city from the position of a king. A prince who came here as a student, a privateer who rules the seas. From where I stand, the view is not the same.”
“Because you’re Grisha?”
“Because I know what it is to be sold.” She gestured to the busy street and the canal teeming with gondels and market boats. “I know we need this. Jobs for our people, money in our coffers. But Ketterdam was built on the backs of the vulnerable. Grisha indentures. Suli and Zemeni and Kaelish who came here for something better but weren’t permitted to own land or hold positions on the Merchant Council.”
“Then we take what we like from the Kerch and leave the rest. We build something better, something for everyone.”
“If fate gives us half a chance.”
“And if fate doesn’t give us the chance, we steal it.”
“Ketterdam is rubbing off on you.” A small smile curled her lips. “But I think I believe you. Maybe it’s the coat.”
Nikolai winked at her. “It’s not the coat.”
“Come closer so I can push you into the canal.”
“I think not.”
“I do want prosperity for Ravka,” said Zoya. “But for all of Ravka. Not just the nobles in their palaces or the merchants with their fleets of ships.”
“Then we build that future together.”
“Together,” Zoya repeated. Her expression was troubled.
“What doomsaying is happening behind that gorgeous face, Nazyalensky?”
“If we survive the war … Once peace is struck, you should station me elsewhere.”
“I see,” he said, unwilling to show how much those words bothered him. “Did you have someplace in mind?”
“Os Kervo. We’ll need a strong presence there.”
“You’ve thought it all out, then.”
She nodded, two quick bobs of her chin. “I have.”
All for the best. Peace would mean seeking a new alliance, a bride who could help keep Ravka independent. A memory came to him, the fleeting image of Zoya at his bedside. She’d pressed a kiss to his forehead. Her touch had been cool as a breeze off the sea. But that had never happened and never would. He must have dreamed it.
“Very well. You may have any command you wish. Assuming we survive.”
“We had better,” she said, tugging at her roughspun sleeves. “It’s going to take me two days to wash off the stench of cheap perfume and bilgewater. How can we be sure Brekker will help us at all?”
“He’s a man who believes everything has a price, so I think he will.”
“But can he help us?”
“That I can’t be sure of. But we don’t have time to gather the intelligence we’d need to steal the titanium on our own. He knows this city and its dealings better than anyone.”
“Saints,” Zoya gasped as the Crow Club came into view. It looked like a great black bird of prey among a sea of gaudy peacocks. It was three times the size of any other establishment on the block.
“It seems Mister Brekker has expanded.”
“Why would anyone enter that place?” Zoya asked, even as two giggling Zemeni girls in country frocks stepped inside. “It looks like a demon dance hall.”
“Because they love a good thrill,” said a voice behind them—the old beggar had followed them down the Stave. But now he stood, unfolding from his bent posture, and cast off his foul-smelling cloak along with the gray wisps of what must have been a wig. The walking stick in his hand was topped by a crow’s head.
Kaz Brekker wiped the putty from his face and ran a gloved hand through his dark hair. “Didn’t you know, General Nazyalensky? Thrills are what all these pigeons come to the Barrel for.”
Zoya looked like she wanted to send the thief to a soggy death in one of the canals, but Nikolai had to laugh. “Mister Brekker. I should have known.”
“Yes,” Kaz said. “You should have. But I can see you have plenty to distract you these days.”
He could have meant the war. He could have meant any number of things, but the slight quirk of Kaz’s brow made Nikolai feel as if he was standing naked on the Stave with his heart’s desires tattooed in capital letters on his chest. He was grateful when Brekker turned his attention back to Zoya.
“For the record, General Nazyalensky, Kerch is a country without mercy or law, but it is at least a place where a man might make something of himself without noble blood or magic in his veins.”
“The Grisha do not practice ‘magic,’” Zoya said with disdain. “It is the Small Science. And it’s rude to eavesdrop.”
“Better to get fat on information than starve on good manners. Shall we?”
The doormen came to attention as Kaz led Zoya and Nikolai beneath the widespread wings of the crow and into the club. He directed them to a discreet door set off to the side of the gambling floor, guarded by two heavyset men.
“Why the charade?” asked Zoya. “Or do you just like the opportunity to dress up?”
“I like to know what I’m dealing with, and I like to know just how desperate the situation is. I could sit across a table from you and hear the polished pitch you no doubt practiced on your journey, or I could get the straight facts right from your lips.”
They passed through a card room. Kaz unlocked another door, and they entered a tunnel barely high enough to stand in, dimly lit by the green tinge of phosphorescent bonelight. A few minutes later, the floor began to slope downward slightly and the air turned cool and damp.
“We’re passing beneath the canals, aren’t we?” asked Nikolai, unable to keep the excitement from his voice. “When did you build this tunnel?”
“When I needed to. You want to go after the titanium the Kerch army has stockpiled at Rentveer.”
How did Brekker get his information? They’d shared no details of the proposed mission, only requested an opportunity to meet and negotiate. “We do.”
“That’s a fortified military base on one of the roughest sections of the Kerch coastline. It’s unreachable by sea without divine intervention and impossible to approach by air without being shot down. There’s only one road in or out, and it’s heav
ily guarded. All that adds up to an almost guaranteed chance of capture. I have a long list of enemies who would like nothing better than to catch me at something illegal and throw me in Hellgate.”
“So you’ve left off criminal enterprise?” Zoya asked skeptically.
“I know which chances to take. Why should I take this one?”
“Because you like a challenge?” suggested Nikolai.
“You have confused me with some other thief.”
“I don’t think so,” said Nikolai. “I have something you want. Safety for the Wraith.”
He didn’t miss the slight bobble in Brekker’s step.
“Speak,” said Kaz.
“It is my understanding that a certain ship, captained by a young Suli woman and flying under no country’s banner, has thrown the human trade in and out of Ketterdam into upheaval. I particularly liked the tale of the two slavers she left slathered in tar and crow feathers at the entrance to the Stadhall. I do admire her theatrics, though the Merchant Council was less impressed, perhaps due to the note pinned to the captain’s chest that read, ‘Gert Van Verent’s new mansion was paid for in bodies.’ It made for quite the story in the papers, and Mister Verent—a former member of the Council in good standing—is now under investigation.”
“He isn’t.”
“No?”
“He was found guilty and sentenced to two years in Hellgate. His political rivals have already carved up his fortune.”
“How swift is Kerch justice when there’s money to be made,” Nikolai marveled. “The captain and her ship are known only as the Wraith, but I have it on good authority that this mysterious Suli woman is Inej Ghafa.”
“Never heard of her.”
“No?” Nikolai feigned shock. “That surprises me, given her association with the Dregs and her considerable talent for puncturing people with all the zeal of a nearsighted auntie trying to embroider a quilt. But it may be for the best that you have no personal connection.”
“Is that so?”
They had stopped at a huge iron door with an elaborate locking mechanism.
“Have you heard of the izmars’ya?” Nikolai asked.
Rule of Wolves Page 32
