She snagged her friend’s hand. “I wish he could be here with us.”
Genya brushed a tear from her cheek and they stood together, as they had in the mountains. “David would have hated every minute of this. But I wish it too.”
* * *
The chapel would never be a place of celebration for Zoya. She had seen Nikolai crowned in this room, but she had also stood beside Alina here, behind this very altar on the night the Darkling had laid waste to the Little Palace and murdered half the people Zoya had ever known. They had gone underground that night, but it had been years before Zoya had really let herself emerge into the light. The wounds had been too deep, the fear too profound. She hadn’t believed she could ever feel safe again.
And now? She let Vadik Demidov, the last of the Lantsovs, who had been granted a glorious estate and a considerable amount of treasure—most of it courtesy of Count Kirigin—settle Sankt Grigori’s bear skin around her shoulders. She listened to Vladim Ozwal, the priest who would serve as her Apparat, preach the words of the old Saints and the new. Work had begun on a small chapel in the lush quince grove that had once been the Fold, and it was said that little altars to the Starless One had already begun to spring up in the places where the blight had struck, but that were now blooming. Zoya wasn’t sure that she could make peace with the Darkling as a Saint, but she had tried to fulfill her vow.
When the time was right, she let Vladim place a crown upon her head. It was a crown born of battle—forged from their remaining scraps of titanium, set with sapphires, and formed into the shape of curving dragon’s wings.
She looked out at this crowd of strangers and friends, at Genya with her single amber eye, her red kefta now emblazoned with a golden dragon; at Leoni, the Fabrikator David had so admired—now one of the Grisha Triumvirate—holding hands with Adrik, who had not abandoned their demon king after all, and who would take Zoya’s place to represent the Etherealki.
Dignitaries had come from all over the world: delegates from the Kerch Merchant Council, including that oaf Hiram Schenck, who had done all he could to give Ravka’s throne to Fjerda; the marshal from the Wandering Isle; Zemeni’s ministers, without whom Ravka would not have survived the war; and even the Shu princesses and their guards—Ehri and Mayu, who had embraced Nikolai as an old friend, and Makhi, who had taken one look at the white flowers festooning the palace balustrades, the glittering courtiers at every doorway, the banners snapping in the winter wind, and said, “All the Heavens, do none of you understand ceremony?”
They had made sure Tamar and the khergud were long gone before the Shu delegation arrived. Zoya would never feel easy in their presence, but she was grateful to them nonetheless. They had been engineered to hunt and capture Grisha, but that meant they were perfectly suited to saving Grisha as well. Locust, Harbinger, Scarab, and Nightmoth had agreed to join with Bergin, a Fjerdan Grisha, to locate Jarl Brum’s secret laboratories, all under Tamar’s command.
Fjerda’s crown prince had sanctioned the covert operation, and he was in attendance at the wedding too—along with the woman who would be his bride, Mila Jandersdat. She wore a gown of cream silk with a neckline that could only be described as scandalous and opals the size of walnuts at her throat.
“Fjerda suits you,” Zoya had whispered to Nina when they’d managed to steal a few moments alone outside the chapel.
“The food is still terrible, but we manage.”
“Your prince isn’t at all what I expected from our intelligence. Far kinder and less arrogant.”
“He is all that Fjerda or I could want in a ruler.”
Zoya didn’t need to let her dragon’s eye open to sense the conviction in Nina’s words. “I’m sending you back to that Saintsforsaken country with a gift.”
“A chef and two pounds of toffees?”
“A plant. It’s from my garden.”
“Your … garden? Zoya Nazyalensky likes to root around with worms?”
“Wretched girl,” said Zoya. “I hope it will bloom for you. And I hope you bloom too.”
She knew Nina wouldn’t return to them. At least not for a long time. Zoya would miss the sight of the dahlias in the summer, but maybe they were meant for different soil.
Among the other honored guests in the chapel were a group of Suli, dressed in silks. Some wore the jackal mask. Others wore their hair braided and decorated with flowers. They were seated beside Nikolai at the front of the room, along with a couple in simple peasant clothes, the woman’s gleaming white hair hidden beneath a beaded shawl.
There were ghosts in this room, phantoms who would never be laid to rest. They would walk this new path with her—Liliyana, David, Isaak, Harshaw, Marie, Paja, Fedyor, Sergei. The list was long and would only grow longer.
You cannot save them all.
No, but she could try to be a good queen. The little girl would always be there, frightened and angry, and Zoya would never forget her, or how it felt to be powerless and alone, even if she was not alone now. She had her soldiers, her Grisha, her friends, her prince, and, she supposed, she had her subjects now too.
Zoya of the lost city. Zoya of the garden. Zoya bleeding in the snow.
“Rise, Zoya, queen of Ravka,” the priest said, “wearer of the dragon crown.”
Zoya stood. She raised the scepter in her hand. She listened to the people cheer, watched her dragon banner, wrought in Ravka’s pale blue and gold, unfurl. The task before her felt overwhelming.
None of this had been fated; none of it foretold. There had been no prophecies of a demon king or a dragon queen, a one-eyed Tailor, Heartrender twins. They were just the people who had shown up and managed to survive.
But maybe that was the trick of it: to survive, to dare to stay alive, to forge your own hope when all hope had run out.
For the survivors then, Zoya whispered to herself as the people before her knelt and chanted her name. And for the lost.
* * *
The rest of the morning was a whirlwind of greetings and congratulations, wishes for the future, and even a few veiled threats from the Kerch. The throne room was packed with guests and miserably hot, a fact not helped by the weight of her velvet gown, but Zoya endured it all with Nikolai and Genya to help her.
Still, there was something on her mind. “Genya, will you find Alina before she vanishes with her tracker? I need to talk to you both. Meet me in the king’s chambers.”
Genya planted a kiss on her cheek. “Your chambers.”
Nikolai appeared at Zoya’s side as Genya disappeared into the crowd. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
He was accompanied by a Suli girl, tiny in stature, her hair worn in a thick braid.
She curtsied with a dancer’s grace. “Queen Zoya, it’s an honor.”
Zoya studied her a moment, noted the glint of knives discreetly hidden in her pockets and beneath her embroidered vest. “Captain Ghafa,” she said quietly, making sure her voice didn’t carry in the busy room.
Inej grinned. “You know my name.”
Zoya glanced at where the Kerch dignitaries had gathered in a corner. “A great many people are looking for you.”
The gleam in the tiny girl’s eye was wicked. “They’d best pray they don’t find me.”
“If there’s anything you need—”
“She will have it,” said Nikolai, with a smart bow.
“It’s been my dream to visit this place,” Inej said, “to walk the same paths as the Sun Saint.”
“Then we’ll have to show you the Little Palace, where she trained to use her power.”
Inej’s grin widened. “Bhashe.”
“Merema,” Zoya replied in Suli. “You’re welcome.”
A crease appeared between Inej’s brows. Her dark eyes focused on someone moving through the crowd. “That woman,” she said, “in the shawl. Her hair—”
“Friends from the country,” said Nikolai briskly. “Now let me introduce you to my sister Linnea. She’ll want to hear of these new cann
ons you’re using.”
Zoya would have liked to follow along and listen to them talk ships and sailing and whatever else privateers and pirates liked to discuss, but Tolya was already whisking her off to meet with a group of Kaelish aristocrats. The Zemeni followed, then powerful merchants from West Ravka, Fjerdan nobility, and Count Kirigin, who had dressed in vibrant tangerine, his tiepin a gold dragon with a lump of turquoise in its claws.
Zoya wasn’t sure how much time had passed or how many people she’d met when at last she glimpsed Genya across the room.
She excused herself and hurried through one of the palace’s many passages to Nikolai’s chambers—her chambers, damn it. Genya and Alina were waiting in the sitting room, both of them seated by an open window, the cool air a blessing after the heat of the ballroom.
“Well,” said Alina, setting down her glass of kvas as Zoya closed the door. “It does look good on you.”
“Was there ever any doubt?”
Genya laughed. “I told you she’s the same Zoya.”
“You looked so serene up there,” Alina protested.
“All an act,” said Zoya. “Mostly I was hoping I wouldn’t faint. This dress weighs more than I do.”
“Beauty isn’t supposed to be easy,” Genya said with little sympathy.
Alina nodded. “The real question is how you’re going to outdo this gown for the royal wedding.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Zoya said. “Nikolai hasn’t asked.”
“Can you blame him?” Genya said. “He hasn’t had much luck with proposals.”
Alina snorted. “Maybe he should have offered me a dynasty and not a piddly little emerald.”
“Poor boy,” said Zoya. “But I do intend to dangle the possibility of my hand in marriage in front of every eligible politician, merchant, and minor aristocrat while we forge our new trade agreements and treaties.”
Genya rolled her eye. “Very romantic.”
“I can’t just stop being a general,” said Zoya. “It’s good strategy.” Her romance with Nikolai would never be bouquets of flowers and pretty declarations of love. It lived in the quiet they’d found in each other, in the hours of peace they were stringing together one by one.
“But you will get married,” Genya insisted.
“I can’t help but notice,” Alina said. “The too-clever fox gave up his throne, but still managed to stay a king.”
“A prince,” Genya corrected. “Prince consort. Or is he your general?”
Zoya didn’t really care what title he took. He was hers, and that was all that mattered. Her eye caught on the blueprints she’d found waiting for her on her desk that morning, designs for an extraordinary structure Nikolai had designed to protect her garden. The plans had been bound with her blue velvet ribbon and accompanied by a note that read, I will always seek to make it summer for you. Zoya had been courted by men of wealth and power, offered jewels, palaces, the deed to a diamond mine. This was a different kind of treasure, one she could not believe she’d been lucky enough to find.
She turned back to Genya and Alina, and leaned against her desk. She wanted to sit and rest her feet, but she was too nervous about what she had to say. “You know what we did in the mountains.”
“Yes,” said Alina. “You saved the world and doomed Ravka’s most deadly enemy to an eternity of torture.”
“Very efficient questing,” said Genya.
Zoya tapped her fingers against the desk. “I’ve … I’ve been having nightmares, about the monastery, the thorn wood.” When she had touched the ancient tree, she had felt the Darkling’s pain. The dragon hadn’t let her forget it.
“What happens in the dreams?” Alina asked.
“I become him.”
Genya worried her lip. “You’re being tortured?”
“Worse than that … I have everything he wanted. The crown. The power. I’m a conqueror of cities, an empress, a killer.” In her dreams, she stood on the prow of a ship with a beautiful city before her. She raised her hands and the Fold rushed forward in a black tide, drowning Novokribirsk. She woke each night bathed in sweat, hearing her aunt’s screams. “I’m not certain we can just leave him there.”
Genya crossed her arms. “No?”
“Not if we want to rule justly. Not if the future is meant to be better than the past.”
“Do you have a fever?” Genya asked.
But Alina’s expression was knowing. “You’re afraid you’ll become him. You’re afraid you’ll be the avalanche.”
Immortal and unstoppable, another tragedy to befall Ravka.
“What are we meant to do?” Genya said. “Free him? Forgive him?”
“Grant him death,” said Zoya.
Genya stood and walked to the mantel. “Does he deserve it?”
“That’s not my choice to make,” said Zoya. “Not on my own.”
Alina rested her head on the back of the couch. “Why are we even discussing this? From what I understand, the Darkling knew the bargain he made. He stands at the doorway between worlds. If he dies, the Fold ruptures again and the void comes pouring through.”
“Yes,” said Zoya. “But the monk told me that a heart as strong as his could free him.” She’d spoken Liliyana’s words. She’d wanted Zoya to listen.
Genya looked aghast. “Someone to take his place? Unless you’re volunteering Jarl Brum—”
“No, I think it was a riddle. Not someone, something. The first heart to be pierced by the thorn wood. The heart of Sankt Feliks.”
“You’re talking about a relic.” Alina sounded skeptical. “As someone whose finger bones are on sale in villages right now, let me tell you, they’re all fake.”
“She’s right,” said Genya. “If Sankt Feliks really existed and his heart was somehow preserved, no one knows where it is.”
“True,” said Zoya. “And whoever has it won’t be eager to part with an object of so much power.”
Genya made a kind of humming noise. “So, if we decide he deserves the mercy of death, where does that leave us?”
Zoya touched her fingers to the little wire ship on her desk. “A priceless object, impossible to find, no doubt under lock and key, and most certainly in need of stealing? I know a thief who might be up to the task.”
Genya groaned. “You can’t be serious. You can’t stand the man!”
“Because he’s insufferably rude and utterly without morals. But he has his uses.”
“You think he’ll do it?” asked Genya.
“For the right reward.”
There was a long silence in the room. At last Genya reached for Alina’s glass and took a long sip. “I don’t believe the Darkling has earned forgiveness. I don’t know how many years of pain buys that, or when we become the monsters and he becomes the victim. But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life doing that math. If there’s really a way to accomplish it, let’s be rid of this burden once and for all.”
“All right,” said Alina.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Zoya rang for a servant to fetch Nikolai.
“Has a decision been reached?” he asked. “I can’t decide if you all look ruthless or beneficent. Maybe just hungry.”
“Is Captain Ghafa still here?”
“I believe she left an hour ago in the company of Prince Rasmus and his betrothed.”
“Perhaps that’s a sign,” Zoya ventured.
“Zoya,” Alina said warningly. “We did agree.”
“Oh, all right,” Zoya said. “I need Sturmhond to take a message to Ketterdam for me.”
“I hear he’s very busy these days.”
“I think he’ll appreciate the reward.”
He lowered his voice. “If it involves you out of that dress, I have no doubt I can convince him.”
“You won’t stop until you’ve created a scandal, will you?”
“The demon made me do it. What vital message will the world’s most handsome privateer be taking to Ketterdam?”
Zoya
sighed. Tragic to think a woman might have everything she desired and still have need of a thief.
“Get a message to the Crow Club,” she said. “Tell Kaz Brekker the queen of Ravka has a job for him.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Rule of Wolves is the seventh novel I’ve written in the Grishaverse, a story that began with a girl trying to find her way through the dark. As Zoya would say, it’s not a metaphor. But I’m still grateful to all the generous people who helped light the way.
Thank you to everyone at Imprint: Dawn Ryan, Hayley Jozwiak, David Briggs, Raymond E. Colón, the meticulous John Morgan, Camille Kellogg, my talented editor Erin Stein, who lets me pitch her wild ideas, and Natalie Sousa, who has worked so hard to make these books beautiful. I’m deeply grateful to the wonderful marketing, publicity, and subrights teams at MCPG: Kathryn Little, Melissa Zar, Teresa Ferraiolo, Julia Gardiner, Lucy Del Priore, Allison Verost, Mariel Dawson, Kristin Dulaney, Kaitlin Loss, Jordan Winch, and Team Triple M: Molly Ellis, Morgan Kane, and Madison Furr. Thank you to the remarkable sales team of Jennifer Edwards, Jessica Brigman, Jasmine Key, Jennifer Golding, Mark Von Bargen, Matthew Mich, Rebecca Schmidt, Sofrina Hinton, and Taylor Armstrong. Also to Jon Yaged, who didn’t fit into any of these lists.
As always, I am glad and lucky to be a part of the New Leaf Literary family. Thank you to Hilary Pecheone, Joe Volpe, Veronica Grijalva, Victoria Hendersen, Meredith Barnes, Abigail Donoghue, Jenniea Carter, Katherine Curtis, Kate Sullivan, the always on- point Jordan Hill, the relentless Pouya Shahbazian, and my agent, Joanna Volpe, who somehow saw the destination before I did—and managed to get us there.
Sarah Rees Brennan and Holly Black lent me their extraordinary brains and helped to shape the earliest drafts of this book. Marie Lu and Daniel José Older steered me through to the end with kindness and insight. Thank you to Kyle Lukoff and Jesse Deshays, who aided me in telling Hanne’s story. Robyn, Rachael, Ziggy, Morgan, Michelle, Sarah, Theodora, Jimmy, the Platinum Patties and the Pajama Pals—united in alliteration, all kept me going with humor, smarts, and the occasional delivery of ceramic ghosts. Thanks and love to Christine, Sam, Emily, Ryan, my beautiful mother, and Wally, who makes everything better. And E, I know you don’t like me to make a fuss, but thank you for being my friend, my familiar, and the only person I could love more after eleven hours in the car. A final thank-you to Jean, who is loved and remembered.
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