Rule of Wolves

by Leigh Bardugo

  Joran bowed and Nina clutched at Hanne’s arm, afraid that if she let go, she would chase the guard down and wrap her hands around his throat.

  “Now smile for me, Hanne. Sometimes princes are cruel. It’s their prerogative.”

  Hanne’s fingers tensed on Nina’s arm, but she forced herself to smile and curtsy. “Of course, Your Highness.”

  I taught her that, Nina thought. I taught her to lie and feign compliance. I took a wild thing and showed her how to wear a leash. It might be pretense now, but Nina knew—act the part long enough and the show of being tame could become reality.

  Hanne’s performance was enough for the prince.

  He grinned, eyes twinkling. “What a pretty bride you’ll make for someone. Shall we have another dance? We can take poor Mila to sit with your mother, and Joran will be left to turn in circles with his hands full of punch glasses.”

  “It would be my great pleasure, Your Highness,” Hanne said sweetly.

  “There now. I’ve bent a Brum to my will. That wasn’t so hard.”

  The prince laughed, but Nina could not make herself join in.

  * * *

  Nina left the ball early. She didn’t want to abandon Hanne, but Ylva insisted.

  “I think you’ve taken ill again, Mila. Your hands are ice cold and I’ve never seen you so pale.”

  She returned to her room, but she didn’t know how to make herself go through the motions of preparing for bed. She lay down on her covers, fully dressed in her silver finery. She couldn’t stop remembering the weight of Matthias’ body. She could still feel him in her arms, a burden she would carry forever. When he’d taken her hand, his fingers had been wet with his own blood.

  She screamed into her pillow, needing to put this pain somewhere, anywhere. All she could hear was his voice.

  I need you to save the others … the other drüskelle. Swear to me you’ll at least try to help them.

  Matthias had been shot in the gut. He’d been facing his killer. He’d known who it was. A drüskelle like him. A boy, really. And that boy hadn’t been operating under orders from his commander. If Joran had been sent after Matthias, he would have been rewarded for the killing. Instead he’d been made the prince’s personal guard—a reminder that he’d disobeyed his commander, that he’d killed one of their own. But not a real punishment either. Not for murder.

  There has to be a Fjerda worth saving. Promise me.

  She had promised, but all Saints, she hadn’t known what that promise would demand.

  The door opened and Hanne rushed in. “I got away as soon as I could.”

  Nina sat up, trying to brush the hot tears from her cheeks.

  Hanne threw her arms around her and pressed her forehead against Nina’s. “I’m so sorry. I’ll kill him if he hurt you. I don’t know why the prince—”

  “No,” said Nina. “Joran didn’t … He didn’t make advances.”

  “Then what happened?”

  Nina didn’t know how to say it, how to unravel all of it. “He wronged me. Badly. I … I wanted to kill him. I still want to kill him. I told him so.”

  “You threatened the prince’s bodyguard?”

  Nina covered her face with her hands. All her talk about maintaining her cover, about how careful they had to be. “I did. He may go directly to your father. He knows I’m not who I’ve claimed to be.” Then a fresh bolt of fear shot through her. “Why are you back so soon? Did something happen with the prince?”

  “No. The ball ended early. The drüskelle left. The other soldiers escorted out the prince and the rest of the royal family.”

  “The war,” said Nina. “It’s starting.”

  Hanne nodded. “I think so.”

  Nina pushed up from the bed and paced the room. She couldn’t order her thoughts. She had put herself and Hanne in danger, but she also had a narrow opportunity to act. War had come, and that meant the drüskelle would be deployed against Ravka’s Grisha forces. She might never have a chance at vengeance again.

  “Hanne, I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  Hanne’s eyes were steady. “Where?”

  “I…” If she did what she intended, if she murdered Joran, there would be nowhere to hide. It would mean a death sentence. And if she somehow managed to escape? She would never see Hanne again.

  Hanne rose slowly. “This is because of Matthias.”

  Nina flinched backward. Hanne had never spoken his name.

  “I know you loved him,” Hanne continued. “My father cursed the name of Nina Zenik, the Grisha whore who had beguiled his favorite pupil.”

  “You knew him?” Nina whispered.

  “Only in passing. Only as one of my father’s soldiers.”

  “He…” Nina’s whole body shook. She felt as if the room was crowded with ghosts, the person she’d been, the boy she’d loved, the girl she loved now—brave and kind and full of strength. This girl she didn’t deserve. “Joran murdered him. He said it himself. He shot an unarmed man and left him…” Her voice caught. She was choking on the words. “He left him to die. But Matthias found the strength to make his way to me.” For one last kiss. There had been so few. Nina’s hands closed into fists, that overwhelming tide rising inside her. “This may be my only chance.”

  “At what?”

  “To settle the score,” Nina bit out. “To see justice done.”

  “Joran is not yet seventeen,” Hanne said quietly. “He would have been fifteen when Matthias died.”

  “Matthias didn’t die. He didn’t pass away peacefully in his bed. He didn’t step in front of a horse cart. He was murdered in cold blood.”

  “And did he tell you who killed him?”

  Nina turned away. “He refused to.”

  Save some mercy for my people. Matthias could have told her it had been a young drüskelle who had murdered him; maybe he’d even known Joran’s name. Instead he’d pleaded for his country and his brothers. He hadn’t wanted her to seek revenge. But what about what she wanted? What about the sorrow she would never be free of?

  Hanne laid a hand on Nina’s shoulder, gently turning her. “Joran was a boy raised on hate. The way Matthias was. And Rasmus. And me.”

  “You don’t understand.” The same words Joran had spoken hours before. He believed he was beyond salvation. Maybe Nina believed the same thing of herself.

  But Hanne only shook her head. “None of us understand until it’s too late. If you do this, you’ll be found out. You’ll be executed.”

  “Maybe.”

  Hanne’s jaw set. “Is it so easy then? To leave this place? To abandon me?”

  Nina looked up into Hanne’s eyes. Was that what she was doing? How could she abandon something that had never been named, never spoken, that could never be?

  “Prince Rasmus wants to marry you,” Nina said.

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “I’m not a fool. It’s because of my father, not me.”

  “That’s not true,” Nina said. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

  Hanne’s laugh was brittle, cold and sudden, hail on a windowpane. “Oh, I know it. Like something to be conquered. A Brum to be bent to his will. I understand where his cruelty comes from. He’s spent too long envying others and hating himself. I know that disease.”

  “But there’s nothing cruel in you.”

  “You might be surprised. But maybe I could heal his heart too, over time.”

  Nina pressed her lips together. “You would be queen.”

  “I could help to guide him, change his thinking. We might shape Fjerda anew.”

  “And could you be happy with him?” She had to force the question from her mouth.

  “No. Not with him. Not with any man.” Hanne bowed her head. “Maybe I can’t be happy at all.”

  “When we started Heartwood—”

  “I know. I thought I could will myself to want this life, to want marriage, to be … like everyone else. I thought if I played the part long enough and we
ll enough—”

  “The performance would become reality.”

  Hanne’s calm had drained away. She sat down on the bed, and when she looked up at Nina, her expression was lost, frightened. “I don’t know what to do. We baited our hook and caught a prince. If he asks for my hand, I cannot deny him. But Nina … Nina, I can’t say yes.”

  Nina knew she had to go to find Joran now, before the prince left Djerholm, before she lost this chance. But she couldn’t leave Hanne.

  “I did this,” she said. “With my lies and my scheming.” She sat down hard on the covers beside Hanne. Her vengeance could wait. It was one thing to sacrifice her own life, but she wouldn’t leave Hanne captive to a future she’d never wanted. She wouldn’t abandon her to fend for herself in this place. “The queen was right. You’re good and I’m … I led you to this. I’ve never been good for you.”

  Hanne held her gaze. “Sweets aren’t good for me. I’ve been told riding will make me mannish and the wind will chafe my skin and age me. I know all the things that aren’t good for me. And I want them just the same.”

  Nina’s throat was dry. “Do you?” she asked quietly. “Want them?”

  Hanne’s copper eyes glowed like topaz. Slowly she nodded. “Since the moment we met. Since you charged into that clearing like a girl I had dreamed into being.”

  It had been too much tonight—learning what Joran had done, watching Hanne with the prince, knowing she’d set them on this path. Maybe this is my fate, she thought, to find love and lose it. But Nina made herself say the words. She wouldn’t rob Hanne of the chance to stay with her parents, to live among her people, not if it was what she truly wanted. “If you can love him, I’ll find a way to let you go.”

  Hanne leaned forward and brushed a damp strand of hair from Nina’s cheek. Nina felt the strong curve of Hanne’s fingers against the nape of her neck, Hanne’s breath on her lips.

  “Never let me go,” Hanne whispered.

  “Never,” Nina said, and closed the distance between them, feeling the soft press of Hanne’s mouth, the thin silk of her dress, this moment like light on water, brief and startling, blinding in its beauty.

  31

  NIKOLAI

  NIKOLAI WATCHED UNTIL ZOYA had clipped herself to the harness and been lifted into the Cormorant. He knew she would be fine. Of all of them, she was the least fragile, the least vulnerable. He wasn’t being logical, but she’d seemed shaken by their encounter with the Suli and her confession that shouldn’t have had to be a confession. When war came, he wouldn’t be able to protect her any more than he’d protected David. So, for a brief moment, he watched over her, logic be damned.

  When the mists closed around the airship, he jogged down the tunnel in the cliffside to catch up to Kaz. The damp walls gleamed shiny and black in the light from Brekker’s lantern.

  Their entry into the base was smooth, just a question of keeping quiet and waiting for the guards to pass through the rooms above the basement, then move on to the rest of their rounds. Nikolai and Kaz followed on silent feet, Kaz limping more heavily after their long journey down the tunnel. He wouldn’t have to repeat the trip. They would leave by air along with the stolen titanium.

  Two picked locks later, they were waiting in a darkened doorway, peering through a small circular window. The base was built around a central yard full of building materials, which had once been open to the air. But now, most of the cargo was protected by the metal shell connected to the base walls, its roof humped like the back of a whale. There didn’t seem to be too many guards, and Nikolai was eager to move.

  “The yard doesn’t look well protected.”

  “It isn’t,” said Kaz. “They’re relying on their external defenses. They’ve gotten comfortable.”

  Nikolai wondered if the same thing might be true at Ravka’s more valuable targets. Maybe he should rethink the security at his own military bases and at the palace. Brekker would probably make an excellent security consultant—if Nikolai didn’t think he would steal the golden domes right off the Little Palace roof.

  “You’re twitchy for a monarch,” said Kaz, eyes on the yard.

  “Have you met many?”

  “Plenty of men who call themselves kings.”

  Nikolai glanced through the window again. “The fate of a nation resting on one’s shoulders does make a fellow restless. Shouldn’t we get going?”

  “You get one chance to make a move like this. Assuming we open that shell without the guards hearing us or some alarm going off, we’ll have about thirty minutes to exchange the aluminum for the titanium.”

  “Tight. But I think we can manage it.”

  “Not if our timing is off. About thirty minutes is meaningless. So we watch the guards do their rounds until we know what their pace really is.”

  Thunder rumbled over the yard. Zoya’s signal. That meant the airship was in place above the steel hull protecting the cargo.

  Finally Kaz said, “Stay alert.”

  He pushed the door open and they were creeping across the yard.

  The storm was raging now, Zoya and Adrik conducting it from above like maestros. Nikolai could hear thunder, the rough patter of rain against the metal roof. They needed those sounds. Locating the operating box was easy enough, but the awful shriek that went up from the metal hull as it creaked open was far louder than Nikolai had expected.

  “Kerch engineering,” muttered Kaz.

  But at last the shell split to reveal the roiling clouds of the night sky and the Cormorant hovering above. Though thunder and lightning crashed around them, thanks to the Squallers above, not a single drop of rain fell on the cargo below.

  The bay doors of the airship opened and a cable was lowered.

  “Go,” said Kaz. “I’ll keep the watch.”

  Nikolai ran out into the yard, suddenly grateful for Kaz’s vigilance. He didn’t like the feeling of being this exposed. He had to hope the guards would stick to their routine, walking the perimeter outside. He grabbed the end of the cable and hooked its anchor to a metal beam at the base of the shell. A platform followed on a separate cable, descending in the calm that the Squallers had created. It was stacked with aluminum. Carefully, Nikolai steered the platform into position and set it beside the sprawling stash of titanium.

  He took the hooks attached to the platform cables and fastened them to a pallet of titanium. It would have been easier with more hands, but they needed Kaz on lookout. And at least the titanium was light enough that it was easy to manage on the ascent.

  Platform, pallet, platform, pallet. Nikolai sent titanium up and directed aluminum down as the wind howled, their progress impossibly slow. His arms and back began to ache. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he heard Kaz give a low whistle. A moment later, the thief appeared.

  “Guards approaching. We need to get out now.”

  “It can’t have been thirty minutes. We’ve only got half the titanium on board. Maybe less.”

  “You can have half or you can have a gunfight. Jesper will be very sad he missed out.”

  They couldn’t afford a brawl. No Ravkan agent could be found on this base, let alone the king of Ravka, regardless of his disguise.

  Nikolai looked up at the airship and signaled to Adrik, leaning over the bay doors. “Let’s go.”

  Kaz hit the controls and the metal shell slowly began to close. They leapt onto what would be the final pallet of titanium and the crew of the airship drew them up.

  Less than one hundred feet from the bay doors of the airship, Nikolai realized something was wrong.

  He peered down at the cable still hooked to the beam below. “The anchor line isn’t releasing.” Nikolai gestured up at Adrik to try the release again, but the mechanism was stuck. The anchor didn’t budge. “I have to go back down. I’ll disengage it manually.”

  “There isn’t time,” said Kaz. “Those hull doors are going to close first. They can eject the cable when we get to the top.”

  “No good.” If
they simply released the cable, the anchor would be trapped inside the yard, evidence that someone had been where they shouldn’t be. An investigation could lead back to Ravka.

  Nikolai saw lights moving along the western side of the building. The guards were coming.

  “How long do I have?”

  “Two minutes. Maybe three. Take your medicine, Sturmhond. They won’t be able to prove the cable is Ravkan. Not right away.”

  “I can’t let that happen.” Nikolai glanced up at the airship, at the faces of the soldiers and Grisha looking down. He wished he could order them to avert their eyes. There was no way to disguise what he was about to do. “Tell me, Brekker, do you believe in monsters?”

  “Of all kinds.”

  “Prepare to meet another.”

  He closed his eyes and let the demon uncoil. It wasn’t hard. The monster was always waiting for its chance.

  Kaz raised his cane as the shadow emerged, taking shape in the air before them. “All the Saints and their ugly mothers.”

  The demon spread its black wings and hurtled toward the opening in the hull doors. Nikolai’s hands still clung to the cable, but he couldn’t do much more than that. He was seeing through the demon’s eyes. He felt its arms—his arms—extend, muscles flexing, claws reaching. A moment later the monster wrenched the anchor free. The cable recoiled with sudden force and slammed against one of the carefully stacked pallets of aluminum with a reverberating clang, sending bars of metal sliding.

  “So much for leaving no trace,” said Kaz, though his eyes were big as moons as he watched the demon soar upward back to them.

  “They might not notice,” Nikolai said hopefully.

  The anchor cleared the crack in the hull a bare breath before the shell clamped shut. But the demon was trapped inside.

  “Now what?” said Kaz.

  Nikolai could feel the demon speeding toward the shell. No. He tried to command it, slow its progress, force it back into shadow, but it was too wild with its own freedom. It slammed through the metal shell, leaving a gaping hole in its wake.

  “Think they won’t notice that?” Kaz asked.