Rule of Wolves

by Leigh Bardugo

  The thorn wood. But its shape felt different this time.

  “It looks like Djel’s ash tree,” said Zoya.

  “All stories begin somewhere.” The voice came from the shadows of one of the niches. A woman appeared, her body swathed in crimson silk, her black hair in three long braids thrown over her shoulder. She was Shu, her eyes the vibrant green of new quince, and her feet were bare despite the snow. “All gods are the same god.” She turned to Zoya. “Nae brenye kerr, eld ren.”

  Zoya bowed.

  Nikolai looked from Zoya to the monk. “Beg pardon?”

  “It’s Kaelish,” said the Darkling. “Ancient Kaelish. A language I didn’t realize Zoya knew.”

  Zoya didn’t spare him a glance. “It means ‘good to see you, old friend.’ Juris was here before.”

  “Long ago,” said the monk. “He wanted to be human again and thought we could help him. Do you fear that fate?”

  Zoya looked surprised. “I’m still human.”

  “Are you?”

  Genya reached out and took Zoya’s hand. “She’s human enough.”

  But Nikolai supposed they were all in somewhat hazy territory where that was concerned.

  “We know what you’re here for,” said the monk. “But there’s no help to be found in the thorn wood.”

  We? Nikolai realized that figures in crimson stood beneath every arch, staring down at them. They looked to be unarmed, but they held the high ground.

  “You’re aware of the blight?” he asked, trying to make a count of the people in the arches. There were over fifty of them.

  “It has come to our mountains once already. We’re only grateful it didn’t strike the thorn wood.”

  “As are we,” said Nikolai, since the tree was their only hope. Or had been. “You’re saying we can’t stop the spread of the Fold?”

  “Not with the obisbaya. The Shadow Fold is a tear in the fabric of the universe, the fabric of the first making.”

  “The making at the heart of the world,” Zoya murmured.

  “Before the making, there was nothing, and that is what seeps into our world now.”

  Nikolai rubbed his hands together. “So how do we fix it?” The question he would always ask. What was broken could be repaired. What was torn could be mended. “How do we close the tear?”

  “You can’t,” said the monk. “Someone must hold it closed.”

  Genya frowned. “What?”

  “Someone must stand at the doorway between worlds, between the void and creation.”

  “For how long exactly?” asked Nikolai.

  “Forever.”

  “I see.”

  “What do you see?” Zoya said sharply.

  “It has to be someone.”

  “Don’t be absurd,” she snapped.

  The monk drew closer. He couldn’t tell how old she was. “Is it the shadow inside you that makes you brave?”

  “I should hope not. I was making bad decisions long before that thing showed up.”

  Zoya grabbed his sleeve. “Nikolai, you can’t be serious. I won’t let you do this.”

  “You haven’t been crowned. I’m not sure you can forbid anything just yet.”

  “You told me you’d stay by my side.”

  There was nothing he wanted more. They’d stopped a war together, and he’d begun to believe they could build a life together, but this was something he would have to do alone. He turned to the monk. “What do I have to do?”

  “Nikolai—”

  “The thorn will pierce your heart, just as in the obisbaya, but there you will remain, in agony, courting madness. If the thorn is removed, the blight will return and the universe will crumble.”

  Nikolai swallowed. That sounded far less palatable than a quick and heroic death. “I understand.”

  “But Nikolai,” Genya said. “What happens when … well, when you die?”

  “The blight will return,” said the monk.

  “Just as I thought.” The Darkling leaned against one of the tree’s gargantuan roots. He looked bored, as if he encountered an ancient order of monks every other day. “Your grand gesture has been noted, boy king—”

  “Not a king,” corrected Nikolai.

  “Consort or king, you’re not up to the task.”

  Zoya looked at the thorn wood. “Is this my martyrdom then?”

  “Absolutely not,” said Genya.

  The Darkling just laughed. “Look at the way you march to the gallows. One with heroic zeal, one with grim determination. No, Sankta Zoya, you’re not powerful enough to play martyr either. It has to be me, of course.”

  Zoya’s eyes narrowed. “Of course. A man known for selfless acts. You do nothing without first calculating your own gain. Why would you start now?”

  “Because I’m the only one who can.”

  “Is it my imagination,” asked Nikolai, “or do you sound smug about that?”

  “I am immortal,” said the Darkling with a shrug. “You possess a bare scrap of my power. Zoya is only just learning how to master hers. I am the linchpin. I am the lodestone. I move the tide.”

  “You did cause all of this,” Nikolai said. “Remember?”

  “Is this meant to be your redemption then?” Genya asked. “Your great sacrifice?”

  Nikolai had been surprised that she wanted to accompany them, but she’d held firm. I’m not letting him out of my sight again, she’d said. No more escapes. She and the Darkling hadn’t exchanged a single word or glance until now.

  “No forgiveness for me, little Genya?”

  Zoya whirled on him. “Show her respect or I will gut you where you stand.”

  “No, Zoya,” Genya said. “He and I are due for a chat. I forgive you for these scars.” He couldn’t hide his surprise, and she laughed. “You didn’t expect that, did you? I don’t regret them. I found my way to who I was meant to be through the pain I endured. I’m stronger for it.”

  “Consider it my gift to you.”

  Nikolai saw Zoya’s fists clench. It was taking everything in her not to skewer the Darkling on a bolt of lightning.

  “But the rest I can’t forgive,” Genya said. “You gave me to the queen’s household because you needed a spy. You knew the old king’s gaze would turn to me. You knew what I would endure.” She shut her eye, remembering. “You told me I was your soldier, that all of my suffering would be worth some future glory. It wasn’t.”

  “The cost—”

  “Do not speak of costs.” Her voice rang through the clearing, her red hair burning like autumn fire. The patch she wore was emblazoned with Alina’s symbol. It shone like a star. “If the cost was so necessary, then you should have been the one to pay it. I was a child and you offered me up as a sacrifice for your centuries-old war.” She laughed, a sad, small sound. “And the worst part is that no one remembers. When people speak of your crimes, they talk of the slaughter of Novokribirsk, your murder of the Grisha who were once under your care. What I lived through stayed hidden. I thought it was my shame to bear. Now I know it’s yours. You were father and friend and mentor. You were supposed to protect me.”

  “I had a nation to protect, Genya.”

  “A nation is its people,” Zoya said. “Genya, me, my aunt.”

  The Darkling raised a brow. “When you are queen, you may find such calculations more difficult to make.”

  “There will be no redemption for you,” Genya said. “The woman I am can forgive you for the punishment you dealt me. But for the sake of the child I was, there is no penance you can perform, no apology you can speak that will make me open my heart to you.”

  “I don’t remember asking you to.”

  Zoya’s eyes had gone silver, the pupils slitted. “Can I kill him before we shove him in the tree?”

  Nikolai didn’t doubt that the Darkling deserved that and much worse, but he hesitated. “Something’s off here. What’s the catch?”

  The Darkling lifted one shoulder. “An eternity of suffering as penance for my cri
mes. I ask but one thing.”

  “Here it comes.”

  “Build me an altar, so that I may be remembered.”

  Zoya scowled. “As a tyrant? A killer?”

  “As the Starless One. Give me a place in your books. When night comes, let there be one more candle lit for one more Saint. Can you agree to that, merciful queen?” he drawled.

  The Darkling seemed almost disinterested, but the demon in Nikolai sensed it was a pose.

  “He means it,” Nikolai said in disbelief. “He’s willing to die.”

  “It is not death,” said the monk. “Death would be a kindness.”

  Genya tilted her head to the side. She was watching the Darkling closely. “But it’s not death you fear, is it? He’s afraid he’ll disappear.”

  Nikolai remembered what Genya had said. All the Darkling ever wanted was to be loved by this country. He knew that feeling well. He’d had to face it when he’d stared down his demon. There were few men Ravka loved. Saints were another matter.

  “Zoya?” Nikolai asked. The Darkling wanted them to raise an altar in his name, to write his story and his legacy anew, but it was not Nikolai’s choice to make. “Genya?”

  Zoya and Genya stood hand in hand, and as they looked at each other, he knew they were remembering every loss they’d endured at this man’s whims. He had seen Zoya’s torment when she’d witnessed the Starless at their worship, when they’d stood on the Fold that had devoured her aunt and cost countless others their lives, praising his name. The woman she’d been in that moment could not have bent to this request.

  “Do we let him play the hero?” Zoya asked.

  Genya nodded once. “Let him do it. Let our suffering have meant something.”

  Zoya stood framed by red blossoms and thorns, a queen who needed no crown. “It will be done.”

  The Darkling turned to the monk. “Where do we begin?”

  The monk studied them for a while. Then she gestured to the thorn wood, as the monks descended the walls, surrounding the trunk in a sea of red silk, men and women, old and young, Ravkan, Zemeni, Suli, Shu. Even a few flaxen Fjerdan heads.

  The Darkling held up his hands. “Unbind me.”

  Nikolai and Zoya exchanged a glance. If this was all a ploy, he would make his move now.

  “Fan out,” Nikolai said to the Sun Soldiers. “Be ready.”

  “As long as I live, the demon will remain inside you,” said the Darkling as Nikolai used a knife to saw through the ropes at his wrists.

  “We’ve made our peace.”

  “Some treaties do not last.”

  “You do love a dire prophecy, don’t you?”

  “Zoya will live a very long life,” the Darkling said. “Despite the demon, you may not do the same.”

  “Then I will love her from my grave.”

  A smile touched the Darkling’s lips. “Brave words. Time may tell a different tale.”

  Nikolai almost laughed. “I’m really not going to miss you.”

  He sheathed his knife and stepped away.

  The Darkling rubbed at his wrists, taking his time, as if enjoying the fear of those forced to watch and wait to see what he would do.

  He shucked off his robe, letting it drop to the snowy ground, then stripped off his shirt and strode to the base of the tree. He stood in trousers and boots, his skin white as driftwood, his long hair black as the feathers of a crow.

  “Go on,” said the monk with the three braids. “If this is your wish. If you dare it.”

  The Darkling took a deep breath.

  “My name is Aleksander Morozova,” he said, his voice echoing through the clearing. “But I have had a hundred names and I have committed a thousand crimes.”

  The monks placed their hands upon the roots of the tree, the trunk, the hanging boughs.

  The Darkling spread his arms wide, his lean body pale in the winter light. “I am not sorry.”

  The great tree’s bark began to move and shift. They’re Fabrikators, Nikolai realized, watching the monks concentrate. All of them.

  “I do not repent!” said the Darkling.

  One of the branches of the thorn wood began to twist, writhing like a snake, a single spike protruding from its tip. Zoya took Nikolai’s hand. Now they were all joined together: Nikolai, Zoya, and Genya.

  The thorn-wood bough moved back and forth, back and forth, a serpent staring down its prey.

  “All I did, I did for Ravka,” shouted the Darkling. “And now, I do this too. For Ravka!”

  The bough struck in a sudden, sinuous lunge.

  The thorn pierced the Darkling’s chest and he screamed, his head thrown back, the sound pure, human, and terrible. Nikolai gripped Zoya’s hand as the demon inside him screamed too, the pain like a brand, a fire in his heart.

  The thorn-wood tree drew the Darkling closer, its branches wrapping around him, lifting his helpless body, a mother cradling her son, calling him home. The massive trunk parted, and the thorn wood pulled him into the dark.

  The tree closed around him, silencing his scream. Its branches stilled. The monks stood silent. Nikolai pressed his hand to his heart. The pain was gone; the demon lay quiet.

  Faintly, in the pattern of the bark, Nikolai could see the shape of a hand—the Darkling’s hand, pressing at the bars of his prison for eternity.

  One by one the Sun Soldiers knelt.

  Zoya walked slowly to the tree, her footsteps quiet in the snow. She rested her hand against the mark the Darkling had made and bowed her head.

  “I didn’t really think he’d do it.”

  “He stands at the doorway between worlds,” said the monk. “Look with your dragon’s eye. What do you see?”

  Zoya shut her eyes, lifted her face to the sky. “The Fold … the Fold is blooming.”

  “Tell us,” said Genya.

  “Green grasses. An orchard in blossom. Quince trees. Their boughs are full of white flowers. They look like sea-foam.”

  “The blight is over,” said the monk. “Do you see him too?”

  Zoya hissed in a breath. “His pain…” She shuddered and withdrew her hand, touching it to her chest as if she felt the thorn in her own heart.

  The monk nodded slowly. “You will have to decide what you can and can’t forgive, eld ren.”

  Zoya looked at her. “And if I could?”

  “Some hearts beat stronger than others,” said the monk, and Zoya seemed to startle at the words. “Only a heart as strong as his could free him from his suffering and give him the release of death.”

  * * *

  They thanked the monks, but there was no offer of hospitality, and Nikolai had no desire to stay in this place any longer. Whatever the Darkling had been, this clearing had become a place of mourning.

  Without a word, they made their way beneath the arched entry and through the crack in the rock. Spring would come soon. The world would be made green and new. But for now, all was ice and wind and gray stone, as if the land wore a veil and spoke only words of loss. Nikolai couldn’t feel sorrow for the man the Darkling had become, but he could regret the loss of someone who had begun with so much promise, so much belief in what might be accomplished if only he was clever enough, strong enough, brave enough to risk it all. Who might he have been if the world had been kinder? If Ravka had been better to its people all along?

  The past lay shattered and bleak, torn by trenches, thick with mines. But the future was rolling hills and untouched forest, an open sea, a fair-weather sky.

  Nikolai followed his queen through the mountains and knew hope would lead them home.

  49

  ZOYA

  THE MORNING OF ZOYA’S CORONATION, Genya sent the servants away and insisted on doing Zoya’s hair herself. Zoya felt strange letting her friend wait on her, but she was grateful for her presence and for her skills.

  “You haven’t been sleeping,” Genya said, tailoring away the dark circles beneath Zoya’s eyes.

  “Nothing new.”

  But that wasn’
t entirely true. Her responsibilities weighed heavy on her, but in the weeks since their journey to the mountains, she’d been troubled by new nightmares.

  She and Genya took their time over breakfast, looking out at the palace gardens, watching the mist burn away in the morning sun. They’d propped their feet on the windowsill, their plates in their laps.

  “I don’t mind the view,” Zoya said, reaching for another blini.

  Genya wriggled her toes. “The Little Palace is short on windows. Secrecy over scenery.”

  Nikolai had insisted that Zoya take his chambers.

  “They belong to Ravka’s ruler,” he’d told her. “Go on, it’s an opportunity to complain about my horrible taste.”

  Zoya did hate the rooms, but not because of the way they were decorated. She simply missed her chambers in the Little Palace. Everything was so new, she couldn’t help but long for the familiar. But on the day she’d moved in, she’d found a little wire ship on her desk, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. From its mast flew a tiny flag emblazoned with two stars. She was glad to have a reminder of Nikolai and of Liliyana with her always.

  Genya helped her dress in a gown of darkest blue velvet, the skirt and bodice embroidered with silver thread in a pattern of dragon scales. It was reminiscent of a kefta, but no kefta like this had ever been seen.

  “It’s perfection,” Zoya said. She’d entrusted Genya with its design. “Thank you.”

  “Oh, we’re not done yet.”

  Genya vanished into the dressing room and emerged with what looked like a mile of spangled silver lace.

  Zoya lifted it in her hands. It was nearly weightless and glinted like captured lightning. “Did you actually skin a dragon?”

  “Didn’t have to,” said Genya, attaching the cape to the shoulders of Zoya’s gown. “I told him it was for the queen of Ravka and he shrugged right out of it.”

  “You’re absurd.”

  “I’m delightful.”

  “The train is too long.”

  “Someone once told me the chapel demands spectacle.” Her tone was all mirth, but Zoya could see Genya’s sad smile in the mirror.