Rule of Wolves

by Leigh Bardugo

  The soldiers who remained around the king roared their response. “For all of us!”

  The shadow creature that hovered above him shrieked and leapt into the sky. He’s commanding it, Mayu realized. It was the king’s demon.

  Harbinger and Nightmoth launched themselves into the air. Maybe they were still human after all, or maybe they were just hungry for a fight.

  “Mayu?” said Reyem.

  He would run if she told him to. They could escape this place, go back home, back to their parents. Or they could try to save these people.

  This is penance, she realized. Penance for Isaak, for the innocent boy who might have loved her and who would never return.

  “Take their hearts,” she said to him.

  “I will.”

  He was gone, arcing upward on hinged wings, Harbinger and Nightmoth beside him. They joined the demon in the sky, locking into formation, an arrow aimed at the Fjerdan bombers. The king’s mortal body knelt on the tank, as if in prayer, all his attention focused on the attack.

  “Form up!” shouted Tamar. “Protect the king.”

  They surrounded the tank, watching as the demon and the khergud sped toward impact.

  “We’re going to watch them die,” said Tolya.

  “Everyone mourns the first blossom,” Mayu said softly. “Who will weep for the rest that fall?”

  “I will remain to sing for you,” Tamar continued the poem.

  Tolya placed a hand to his heart. “Long after the spring has gone.”

  Only they knew what this moment, this loss would mean.

  There were tears in Tolya’s eyes. “May the Saints watch over you, Nikolai,” he said. “You die a king.”

  Mayu watched the distance to impact narrow—two hundred yards, one hundred yards. She would not let herself look away. “Goodbye, brother,” she whispered.

  A roar split the air. A massive shape tore across the field, between the khergud and the Fjerdan bombers, sending them scattering. Silver lightning crackled through the sky.

  “What the—” Tamar began. But the words died on her tongue.

  They all stared at the sky and Mayu opened her mouth to scream.

  She was looking at a dragon.

  41

  NINA

  “PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DON’T DROP ME!”

  If Zoya had the power of speech, she wasn’t using it.

  Because she was a dragon.

  A dragon.

  One minute Nina had the scent of parem in her nostrils, and the next she was knocked backward with Zoya’s arms around her, smashing through the tower wall as if it were straw. They were falling, the air rushing past them. Nina squeezed her eyes shut, knowing her body would break when they struck the water, as surely as if they’d struck stone. And then—the fall became flight.

  She’d heard a voice in her head say … something. Open the door.

  Zoya’s body seemed to shift around her and Nina screamed, certain that at any moment she’d be plummeting toward the sea again. Her hands scrabbled for anything to cling to—and grabbed hold of gleaming black scales.

  What had happened to the Apparat and his monks? How was she going to get back to Hanne? She couldn’t hold a thought in her head for more than a moment. All logic and sense dissolved in a fizzing mix of fear and elation. She was flying. She was flying on a dragon’s back.

  They sped over the waves, and Nina saw the dragon’s shape reflected in glimpses on the water. It was huge, its wings wide and graceful. Salt spray stung her cheeks.

  “Where are you going?” Nina managed to gasp. “Where are you taking me?”

  But the answer quickly became clear—inland to the front.

  Nina smelled the battle before she saw it. Smoke from bombs and artillery lay over the field in a thick haze. She heard the buzz of flyers, the rumble of engines.

  A squadron of what looked like Fjerdan bombers circled the field, then came together in a V formation, a sky-borne spear of gray metal and destruction. She saw something moving through the air toward the enemy craft—small, winged shapes. One of them looked different, like shredded shadow. Khergud. Shu soldiers engineered to hunt and capture Grisha. So why were they throwing themselves into the path of Fjerdan flyers?

  And why was the dragon speeding directly toward them?

  “Zoya?” she said. “Zoya, what are you—”

  Nina flattened herself against Zoya’s back as they hurtled into the fray. She saw the khergud scatter, breaking their ranks. She heard the rattle of the Fjerdan guns. A bullet skimmed her thigh and she cried out, but the gunfire seemed to have no effect on Zoya—or whatever Zoya had become.

  The dragon shot skyward, whirled in the air, and dove back toward the bombers. Nina felt her stomach lurch. Zoya was going to kill her if she vomited.

  The dragon opened her jaws, and it was as if the storm had been brewing in her belly. Silver lightning spewed from somewhere deep inside her. It crackled through the air, snaring the flyers in current. They burst into flame, dropping from the sky like crumpled insects. Nina smelled something sweet, almost chemical—ozone.

  She clung to the dragon’s back, the scales pricking her skin, the ground impossibly far below. She could see their shadow on the battlefield, soaring over the ranks of Ravkans and Fjerdans, who looked up in terror.

  Nina had the sudden thought that none of this was real, that when that poor, drugged Heartrender had begun torturing her, she’d simply passed out from the pain, her mind splintering and creating this wild scenario to hide in. It seemed more plausible than that her friend and mentor had become a creature from a storybook.

  The dragon laid down a trail of silver lightning, creating a wall of fire, and as they banked east, Nina understood why. She’d cut off the Fjerdan retreat. Their forces were wedged between a wall of silver flame and Ravka’s soldiers.

  The Fjerdan tanks turned their mighty guns on the dragon and Nina gasped as Zoya banked hard to the right, dodging their shells. Again she unleashed her lightning, the current sparking on Fjerda’s war machines, melting their gun barrels and sending men diving for safety.

  The dragon’s vast wings beat the air. A roar thundered through her scaled body, and Nina felt it shudder through her too. She could see the corpses of fallen soldiers, Grisha with their gas masks on. She saw the Cult of the Starless Saint in their tunics emblazoned with the sun in eclipse. And there, not far from the king’s forces, a line of black uniforms, a mass of drüskelle with their whips and guns raised, moving toward King Nikolai.

  She didn’t see Brum among them. Had he known Fjerda planned to bomb the battlefield with their own soldiers still in play? Maybe he’d given the order himself.

  Nina kept her body pressed against Zoya’s neck. She didn’t know if she could be recognized from this distance, but she was taking no chances.

  “Open fire!” the drüskelle commander shouted. But they stood dazed, petrified, heads tilted to the sky, mouths wide open.

  Nina felt a rush of power. She had spent so many months frightened and unsure, wondering what would become of her country, scraping by on hope, not knowing if she and Hanne would find a way to survive. All Saints, it felt good to be the strong one, to be unafraid at last. With a mighty breath, a single exhalation of lightning, Zoya could destroy them—hundreds of Fjerdan troops and the witchhunter monsters Brum had trained. It would be done. What soldier would dare to march against Ravka, against the Grisha, again?

  Nina looked into the faces below as they craned their necks, shielded their eyes, gaping at death borne aloft on black wings. They’d always feared the Grisha, and now, in this moment, from this height, she could admit they’d had a right to that fear—Grisha were born with gifts that made them more deadly than any ordinary soldier. Fjerda had let that fear overtake them, drive them, shape their nation.

  But wasn’t there awe in those faces too? Awe Nina had fostered with her phony miracles, her small attempts to sway Fjerdan thought. What had that all been for if it only ended in annih
ilation?

  Save some mercy for my people.

  Damn it, Helvar.

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

  She had promised. And in the end, she could not let go of that vow. When she’d spoken those words, when she’d made that oath, she hadn’t been speaking just to Matthias, but to the boy who had killed him, and to the men who cowered in the field below them now.

  “Zoya!” she cried, unsure if Zoya could even hear her, if this creature was Zoya Nazyalensky anymore. “Zoya, please. If you destroy them, Brum’s cause will never die. They will always fear us. There will never be an end to it!”

  The dragon shrieked and spread its jaws wide.

  “Zoya, please!”

  Nina smelled ozone on the air. Heard the crackle of lightning.

  She pressed her face against the dragon’s scales. She didn’t want to see what came next.

  42

  NIKOLAI

  JURIS.

  That was Nikolai’s first thought when the dragon appeared, sunlight glinting blue off its black scales. Until lightning sparked in jagged streaks across the sky. He knew Zoya’s power, recognized it instantly.

  He drew the demon back to him. He had long since stopped thinking of what the soldiers around him had seen or if they would damn him for the monster he’d become. Somehow, impossibly, Ravka had seized the advantage. Zoya’s lightning had ignited walls of flame, blocking retreat for the Fjerdan forces, and now she hovered above them, ready to pass judgment.

  The Age of Saints. Yuri had predicted it and now, in this trembling moment, it had come. Not with Elizaveta or the Darkling, but on the wings of a dragon. Nikolai thought of all the stories, of Sankt Feliks who had become a beast to fight for the first king, of Juris who had bested the dragon only to take on its form. Zoya had become something the world hadn’t seen since before legends were written.

  The dragon’s jaws opened and released an angry shriek. In it, Nikolai heard all of Zoya’s sadness, her rage, the grief she’d endured for every soldier fallen, every friend lost, the deep loneliness of the life she’d been forced to live. The air seemed to come alive, the pressure dropping, lightning gathering.

  She was going to kill them all.

  Don’t, Nikolai prayed. Don’t give in to this. There has to be more to life, even for soldiers like us.

  For a moment, the dragon’s gaze met his and he saw her there, in that inhuman silver, those slitted pupils. He saw the girl who had rested her head against his shoulder in the garden and wept.

  There has to be more.

  She swiveled her scaled neck and lightning burst across the sky, crackling exclamations that scorched the air and lifted the hair on Nikolai’s arms. But the Fjerdans were still standing. Zoya had spared them.

  “Sankta!”

  Nikolai wasn’t sure where the shout came from. He turned his head and saw a figure in black, kneeling in the field.

  “Sankta Zoya!” the figure shouted again.

  He lifted his head, and Nikolai met the Darkling’s gray gaze. The bastard winked at him.

  “Sankta!” Another voice, wavering with tears.

  “Sënje!” This time from the Fjerdan side.

  “Sankta Zoya of the Storms!”

  One of the drüskelle threw down his gun. “Sënje Zoya daja Kerken- ning!” he cried, crumpling to his knees. “Me jer jonink. Me jer jonink!”

  Saint Zoya of the Lightning. Forgive me. Forgive me.

  The drüskelle captain strode forward, his pistol raised. Would he kill this kneeling boy? Blow his head open for daring to entertain heathen thoughts within it? If he did, what would happen?

  But two Fjerdan soldiers stepped into the captain’s path, seizing his arms and snatching away his pistol. The drüskelle captain shouted, face red, spittle flying from his mouth. Blasphemy, heresy, treason, abomination. All words that had been used against Grisha before. If the Fjerdans had been winning this battle, maybe those charges would have held sway. But these men didn’t want to die. One by one, the drüskelle went to their knees. Zoya had bought their fealty with mercy.

  Again, Nikolai looked to the Darkling. The Starless had surrounded him, praying. The field was full of kneeling soldiers, weeping troops, perplexed Grisha. From the north came the sound of a trumpet—the Fjerdans sounding retreat. The Darkling grinned at Nikolai as if he’d been the architect of it all.

  Above them, the dragon flapped her vast wings and he saw someone on her back, though he couldn’t tell who. The great beast roared and the clouds around her pulsed with light. Thunder boomed, rolling over the mountains, and lightning forked through the sky, so bright he had to avert his gaze.

  When he looked back, Zoya was gone.

  43

  ZOYA

  ZOYA COULDN’T THINK OVER the sound of Juris’ laughter in her head.

  Sankta Zoya.

  She was no Saint. It was podge-headed nonsense. But had she helped buy peace for Ravka? Had she done right by leaving the Fjerdans alive? She swooped down to the coast, searching for a place to land that would be out of sight of prying eyes. She needed a moment in the cool dark to pull her thoughts back together, to understand herself again. Her mind felt different, not just her body. She couldn’t grasp the shape of who she was. It was all too much—the soldiers’ panic on the field, the Darkling’s bemusement, the drüskelle commander’s wild rage, Nina’s anguish. Nikolai. She could still feel his fear for her. There has to be more to life, even for soldiers like us. In those brief seconds she had believed. We might shelter in each other. She was tied to all of them.

  Juris’ knowledge echoed through her—a cave just north of Os Kervo, hewn into the cliff wall. He had flown this coastline many times before. The cave was snug, but it would do.

  I should have killed the Fjerdans. I should have given them a wound from which they’d never recover. But that was an old voice, the voice of a hurt child who had no one to trust, who feared there would always be someone more powerful and more cruel than her. She would forever be a bloodthirsty, furious girl, but she might allow herself to be something else too. If she had helped to earn peace for Ravka, then maybe she could grant her own heart a bit of peace as well.

  She set down with an awkward thud, nearly crashing into the cave wall before she managed to stop her speed. Utterly graceless.

  “You have to take me back,” Nina said.

  Zoya gave a massive shrug. Climb off or I’ll throw you off.

  Nina yelped and half rolled off her, landing in a heap on the cave floor. Her clothes were soaked and her blond hair looked like someone had tried to style it with a pitchfork.

  “Are you in my head?” Nina squeaked, pressing her hands to her temples. “Can you read my mind?”

  Blessedly not. But she could feel. So much. It was terrifying. This was what she had always feared, this deep connection to the world. But she had opened the door. She’d burst right through it. There was no closing it now.

  Nina pushed to her feet. She was staring at Zoya with huge eyes, and Zoya wondered what she saw. Her own sight was keener, her sense of smell sharper. Each breath felt strange, her belly, her lungs. What had she become?

  “I … I still don’t … I can’t believe it’s you.”

  Zoya couldn’t quite believe it either. And yet, this was what Juris had wanted from her, it was the true gift that had come through his scales when she’d taken his life and he’d taken hers. But she didn’t know how long she could keep this form. It still felt wrong to her, unstable.

  She sought some kind of explanation to offer Nina. There was a time when soldiers became beasts, and when Grisha didn’t take amplifiers, they became them.

  “You didn’t become a bear or a hawk, Zoya. You’re a dragon. Can you … Is it permanent?”

  Zoya felt a shiver pass through her, an echo of Juris’ loneliness. He had been able to take human or dragon form at will. She hoped the same thing would be true for her.

  I don’t know.

  “Zoya, you ha
ve to take me back to Leviathan’s Mouth.”

  You will come home to Ravka.

  “No, I will not. My mission isn’t complete.”

  A deep growl rumbled through Zoya and she snapped her huge jaws at the air. Why must you be so stubborn?

  “I could ask the same of you!” Nina said, and she had the temerity to kick Zoya’s foreleg with her tiny foot.

  I put my life at risk to get you back, Nina. The Apparat could still be alive. Your cover may be worthless.

  “I’m going to take that chance. I have to.”

  Zoya huffed a breath and watched dust and pebbles billow through the cave. The cost of the dragon’s form was just as high as she’d suspected it would be. She felt Nina’s hurt, and it only made Zoya want to keep her closer, find a way to shield her from harm. It was unbearable.

  Promise you’ll come home to us.

  “I can’t.”

  Then promise you’ll be careful.

  “I can’t do that either.”

  Wretched girl.

  But she was going to let Nina go. Nina Zenik was a soldier. Zoya had trained her well. And she had the right to choose her own path.

  Climb on and hold tight, Zoya instructed.

  Nina laughed. “That I can do.”

  Zoya craned her neck back to look at Nina. She was beaming, her cheeks rosy. She looked nothing like the grieving girl Zoya had known. Happiness and anticipation shimmered around her as if they were her true shape, as if she wore a halo of gold.

  Zoya leapt from the mouth of the cave and let Nina’s joy carry her over the sea.