Rule of Wolves

by Leigh Bardugo

  Nina trembled. How would she kill him? A dart to his throat? A corpse to tear him in two? Maybe she would strangle him with her bare hands. The prince thought he was dealing with another vulnerable girl, someone kind and good. Someone gentle like Hanne.

  She forced herself to curtsy. She would bear his presence, his smugness, until she could get him alone. Then Nina would end his life. She would be hung for it, she knew. Maybe burned alive on a pyre. And she didn’t care. I was a soldier before I was a spy, and I am done with lies. She fell into step beside the crown prince of Fjerda. I will leave this world on a hammer blow.

  45

  NIKOLAI

  NIKOLAI HAD BEEN INSIDE Os Kervo’s city hall many times, had fought not to fall asleep beneath its stained-glass dome through countless meetings. Yet the audience chamber looked different today, the light filtering through the colored glass from above seemed brighter.

  The chamber was built like an amphitheater, its terraced walls lined with long, curving benches, and Ravka’s nobles had already assembled. But the Ravkan and Fjerdan delegations were conducted inside through the northern and southern doors at the same time, so that neither country was seen to take precedence.

  “Something happened to Nina,” Zoya whispered. “When I left her she was shining, ready to take on the world.”

  It took Nikolai a moment to realize whom she meant. He’d nearly forgotten Nina had been tailored. She was in the prince’s retinue, which Nikolai hoped was a good sign. But that hope was dashed by her expression. Her eyes were too wide, her lips slightly parted.

  Nikolai had to agree with Zoya. “She looks like she’s in shock.”

  The prince himself was mostly what Nikolai had expected based on intelligence reports—young, of about average height for a Fjerdan. His eyes were bright and there was a nervous energy radiating from him, but that was to be expected of an inexperienced leader when the stakes were so high.

  Brum looked nothing but calm, despite the defeat and near mutiny he’d suffered. This would be his attempt to resurrect his reputation and take control once more. He was flanked by drüskelle.

  “He brought his wolf pups,” Nikolai noted in some surprise.

  “He wants to show he still has command,” said Zoya. “He must have chosen them carefully. A calculated risk.”

  “He should have checked his math. They only have eyes for my general.”

  And who could blame them? Grisha were enlivened by their power. It fed them, extended their lives. Zoya’s face was still flushed. Her hair framed her face in thick black waves, slightly damp from the sea mist. The armor she wore was less like battle gear than a clinging skin of glittering scales. She didn’t look like a Grisha, or a military commander, or even quite human.

  What must they make of us? he wondered as he and Zoya took their places gazing up at the seated noblemen and diplomats, surrounded on all sides. The demon and the dragon. At least Nikolai had the grace to put on proper clothes.

  The people trailing Brum were like a punch to the gut. His father. His mother. And the man Nikolai instantly knew to be Vadik Demidov.

  “He looks just like the old king,” whispered Zoya.

  “A tragedy for everyone involved,” Nikolai replied. But it hurt to see Demidov flanked by his parents.

  Nikolai had known it was likely the Fjerdans would involve his mother and father—or the man he’d once believed to be his father—and the Kerch had made it possible. Yet seeing them here was still hard to accept. He could feel his father’s contempt from across the chamber, see it in the bitter lines of his haggard face. His mother looked frail and tired, and he wondered if she wanted to be here to speak against him or if she had been coerced. Perhaps that was wishful thinking, the hope of a wayward son who had exiled his own parents. She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  Is this where all of it ends? He’d asked that question more than once over the last few days. He looked around the room at the Fjerdan delegates, the Ravkan noblemen, and the Kerch and Zemeni ambassadors stationed in Os Kervo who had joined the summit as mediators. The Apparat and his Priestguard had made their way here too, though they hadn’t arrived with the Fjerdans and they stood high up in the gallery. The priest’s face looked bruised.

  Nikolai didn’t know whom he could rely upon. He had allies among Ravka’s first families, though many had opposed his reforms. Plenty of the nobles from West Ravka would have been happy to see him deposed, particularly if it meant secession for the west. But after the Fjerdan betrayal and invasion, he hoped he could count a few more friends among them. Nikolai was popular with the people, but the people weren’t gathered here. They had no voice in this chamber.

  Not entirely true, he considered. Dense crowds had thronged the square outside the city hall and he could hear the distant sounds of their chanting, even if it was hard to make out what they were saying through the closed shutters.

  He felt curiously light. Whether or not he kept the Ravkan throne seemed almost incidental now that he might see his country and his people free. He didn’t know Demidov, but he might not be the most terrible choice, especially since Zoya had the power to combat the Apparat’s influence. She could remain to counsel the Little Lantsov as a voice to oppose Fjerda. And to keep the king from doing anything ridiculous. She’d essentially be occupying the same role she always had.

  And Nikolai? He would be banished. There was no way that Demidov could allow him to remain as a member of the cabinet. He wouldn’t be permitted to resume his experiments at Lazlayon nor take up some position in the Ravkan government. Maybe there was some freedom in that. He could return to the sea. He could become Sturmhond again and join forces with the legendary Wraith, terrify slavers, become the scourge of … something. It all sounded reasonable, exciting even, except when he considered leaving behind the woman beside him.

  The floor of the audience chamber was set with benches like those above. But no one sat. Instead they all stood—the Zemeni, the Ravkans, the Fjerdans, the Kerch—all facing each other beneath the dome, as if about to begin a dance.

  The Zemeni ambassador stepped forward. “Both nations have submitted their list of concessions for peace. His Most Royal Highness, King Nikolai Lantsov of Ravka, has the floor.”

  Nikolai could only handle so much pomp, so he decided to dispense with it.

  “I read your list of proposed concessions, Commander Brum. They’re absurd. I think intentionally so, because you don’t want peace at all.”

  “Why would we?” Brum shot back. It seemed he was done with pomp as well.

  “It wouldn’t be unprecedented, given the crushing defeat you just suffered.” He turned to Zoya. “This is awkward. Does he know they lost?”

  Brum cut his hand through the air in dismissal. “A battle is not a war, and I do not believe Ravka has the stomach for a prolonged conflict. If you did, you would press your advantage instead of waving the flag of truce.”

  True, alas. “Are you so eager to see more blood spilled?”

  “I am eager to see Fjerda’s sovereignty protected from witches and demons and those who would see the work of Djel corrupted. We all witnessed the monster you became on the battlefield.”

  “I am both man and monster. Something I imagine you know quite a lot about.”

  “And this creature”—Brum pointed at Zoya—“the Stormwitch or whatever abomination she’s become. No one should have such power.”

  “I’ll wager the same thing was said of the first man who held a gun in his hand.”

  A murmur rose from the benches. To Nikolai’s hopeful ears, it sounded approving. I haven’t lost them entirely. Whatever reports of demons his countrymen had heard from the battlefield, the king who stood before them in polished boots and gilded epaulets was every inch the civilized ruler.

  “You may offer all the fine talk you like,” said Brum. “It won’t change the size of your army or the odds that favor us.”

  “Forgive my indelicacy,” said Hiram Schenck, the Kerch delegate, who had drunk
Count Kirigin’s excellent wine and denied Ravka aid. “But can you even speak for Ravka, Nikolai … well, whoever you are?”

  A gasp went up from the crowd. This was not the polite allusion to Nikolai’s parentage some had expected. It was a blatant insult—reprisal for preserving Zemeni trade routes and handing the Kerch what amounted to worthless technology.

  Nikolai only smiled. “I’m the man who still wears the double-eagle crown and the demon who just tore apart a battlefield. Let me know if you need your memory refreshed.”

  Brum seized his chance. “We reject this pretender, the bastard king, as the true ruler of Ravka. He cannot speak for his country when he has no right to hold the throne.”

  “That may well be,” the Zemeni ambassador said grimly. “But who are you to speak for Fjerda? Why do we not hear from Fjerda’s crown prince?”

  Oh friend, thought Nikolai ruefully, we’ll find no luck in that quarter.

  There was a long pause as all eyes turned to Prince Rasmus. He had a strong, sharp jaw and unusually full lips.

  The prince shrugged. “Who rules Ravka will be decided by Ravkans,” he drawled. “I came here to make peace.”

  “What?” Nina said, stunned.

  The prince gave her the faintest smile and—it was so fast Nikolai thought he might have imagined it—reached out to brush his hand against hers. Nina recoiled. She had managed the impossible: She had delivered the prince and a promise of peace. So why did she look so shocked?

  Her surprise was nothing compared to the confounded fury on Brum’s face.

  “That is not … We agreed—”

  “We?” the prince asked, turning hard blue eyes on him. “We are Fjerda. You are a military commander who cannot control his own men. Tell me, if we return to the battlefield, are you so sure your soldiers will take up arms against a woman they call Saint?”

  Brum’s nostrils flared alarmingly. “They will or I will cut their hearts from their chests.”

  “All on your own?” Prince Rasmus surveyed the drüskelle, then bobbed his chin at the bodyguard beside him. “Joran, will you take up arms against your brothers then? Will you cut out their hearts for Fjerda?”

  The young drüskelle shook his head. “Never.”

  Brum stared. “You are a traitor and will die as such at the end of a rope.”

  Despite his height, the boy couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Yet he didn’t flinch.

  “I deserve nothing less,” said the prince’s bodyguard. “I committed horrible crimes for the sake of my country, because I believed I was doing what had to be done to save Fjerda’s soul. So hang me. I will die with more honor than I’ve lived.”

  Brum’s face flushed dark red. “I will not cede my country’s right to protect its borders and its sovereignty just because a few naive boys have had their minds tampered with by Grisha witches.” He wagged a finger at Zoya. “That woman is not a Saint. She is corruption walking. And this man,” he seethed, whirling on Nikolai, “is just as unnatural. Let the dowager queen give testimony. She is witness to the fact that he is not royal born.”

  “We will hear what she has to say,” said Hiram Schenck.

  “No,” said Nikolai. He’d known the conversation would come to this. He’d understood that he was out of options as soon as he’d seen his parents enter the audience chamber with the “pretender.” He thought of Magnus Opjer, dressed as a beggar but still standing proud, who had journeyed all the way to the capital to try to save his son and a city full of innocent people. He was an inventor, a builder. Like Nikolai.

  I’ve never been a king, he realized. It was never the throne or a crown he had sought. All he’d wanted was to fix his country, and now, at last, he thought he knew how.

  He caught his mother’s faded blue eyes and smiled. “There’s no reason to put Queen Tatiana through this ordeal. You will have the proof you seek in my confession. I am a bastard. I have always known it and I am not sorry. I have never wanted to be a Lantsov.”

  “What are you doing?” Zoya whispered furiously.

  “What I must,” said Nikolai.

  “The Lantsovs are descended of the blood of the first kings!” seethed his father. “Of Yaromir himself!”

  “Once-great men do not always remain great. It was a Lantsov king who failed to keep the Black Heretic in check and allowed him to create the Fold. It was a Lantsov king who all but abdicated rule of Ravka to the Darkling and the Apparat, and let his country and his people languish in their care. I’m sorry I cannot claim Ravka’s crown, but I’m happy I cannot claim Lantsov blood.”

  “Nikolai—” protested Zoya.

  He gestured to Vadik Demidov. “But this man has no more right to the throne than I.” Nikolai cast his gaze around the chamber, gathering every bit of authority he had earned through blood and trial, on the seas as Sturmhond, on the battlefield as Nikolai Lantsov. He might have no true name, but he had victories enough. “Fjerda imposed on Ravka’s noble families to come to this place. So we will do those nobles the courtesy of letting them decide who should rule this nation.”

  “Are you so arrogant you think they’ll choose a bastard?” his father said on a cackle.

  Zoya turned to him and whispered, “This is exactly what Fjerda wants. You can’t let them vote and give legitimacy to such a body. You must stop.”

  But Nikolai didn’t intend to stop. And if Zoya was angry now, he suspected he’d have to take cover momentarily.

  He strode to the windows. “Yaromir, the first king, had no claim to royalty until he united Ravka’s warring noblemen beneath his banner. He had the help of Sankt Feliks to do it. Only one person can unite this country and bring peace to our nations. Soldier, Summoner, and Saint.”

  He threw open the shutters. The winter wind blew through and on it, the sounds of the people chanting below. Sankta Zoya. Rebe Dva Urga. Saint Zoya. Daughter of the Wind. The only person to whom he could entrust this country he had fought and bled for, who might finally bring them an age of peace.

  “I will kneel to only one ruler, and I will see only one person crowned this day. The age of the Lantsovs is over.” He sank to one knee. “Let the Nazyalensky dynasty begin. All hail the Dragon Queen.”

  The words hung in the room like insects suspended in amber. Nikolai could hear the pounding of his heart, the chanting outside.

  What happens if no one speaks? he wondered. What if they all get up and leave? Do I just stay here?

  Then he heard a throat being cleared, and all the sweet Saints, a voice: “All hail the Dragon Queen! Moya Tsaritsa!”

  Count Kirigin. The man did come through in a pinch.

  Another voice shouted, “The Dragon Queen!”

  Nikolai couldn’t be sure who that was … Raevsky? Radimov? It had come from the left side of the room. And then he couldn’t keep track of the voices because they crowded together, one on top of the other, as the men and women of Ravka’s noble families shouted Zoya’s name.

  It would not be all of them, he knew that. There were voices raised in anger too, men already shuffling out the door and off to make trouble. And he knew not all of those who knelt now liked this idea, or believed in it. They would begin fomenting revolution before they ever left the building. Nikolai might have doomed both the Lantsov and the Nazyalensky dynasties in a single move. But he didn’t think that was the case. The nobles of Ravka didn’t want to be ruled by a Fjerdan puppet.

  He glanced up and met Zoya’s furious gaze.

  “I am going to murder you in your sleep,” she seethed.

  Nikolai winked. “Go on. Say something grand.”

  46

  ZOYA

  “WHAT SAY YOU, Zoya Nazyalensky? General of the Second Army?”

  The Zemeni ambassador had asked her the question, but she had no idea how to answer. She only knew that as soon as she was alone with Nikolai, she was going to throttle him. When had he decided on this ridiculous, utterly nonsensical plan?

  She remembered the image Juris had thrust into
her head when she’d taken his scales as amplifiers: a crown. She’d thought it was the dragon’s arrogance, his wish for a Grisha queen, but now she had to wonder. Had Juris predicted this moment, just as he’d seen what would happen in the observation tower?

  He’d hinted at it again and again, but she’d misunderstood at every turn. You cannot tell me you have not contemplated what it would mean to be a queen.

  Zoya had. Of course she had. When her foolish, dreaming mind had gone wandering. But this was something different. I can’t do this.

  Can’t you? She was no humble girl plucked from obscurity. She was no young princess far from home. Her life had been given in service to the Grisha, to her country, to her king. Was this any different?

  Of course it was different. She wasn’t thinking rationally.

  We are the dragon and this is our time.

  Zoya felt the eyes of everyone in the audience chamber assessing her. She could hear people chanting outside the city hall far below. All right. She was no queen and she certainly wasn’t a Saint, but she was a general. She would attack this the way she would any other strategic campaign. If these were her allies, let them say so.

  “I am a soldier,” she said. “I’ve been a soldier since I was a child. Would you have a girl who has spent her life down in the trenches of battle wear a crown? Will you have a soldier queen?”

  It was Pensky, general of the First Army, who stepped forward. They had been forced to work together since Nikolai had taken the throne. He’d never particularly liked Zoya, but she hoped he respected her.

  He straightened his jacket, stroked his voluminous white mustache. “Better a queen who knows the cost of battle. I will have a soldier queen.”

  Zoya kept herself to a short, dignified nod, showing the barest fraction of the gratitude she felt. Cold sweat had coated her body, but she forced herself to continue.