He led me back to the stream, to a shallow bend where we were able to slog across. I cringed as the icy water poured into my boots again. When we emerged on the other side, he circled back to cover our tracks.
I was bursting with questions, and my mind kept jumping from one thought to the next. How had Mal found me? Had he been tracking me with the other soldiers? What did it mean that he was helping me? I wanted to reach out and touch him to make sure he was real. I wanted to throw my arms around him in gratitude. I wanted to punch him in the eye for the things he’d said to me that night at the Little Palace.
We walked for hours in complete silence. Periodically, he would gesture for me to stop, and I would wait as he disappeared into the underbrush to hide our tracks. Sometime in the afternoon, we began climbing a rocky path. I wasn’t sure where the stream had spit me out, but I felt fairly certain that he must be leading me into the Petrazoi.
Each step was agony. My boots were still wet, and fresh blisters formed on my heels and toes. My miserable night in the woods had left me with a pounding headache, and I was dizzy from lack of food, but I wasn’t about to complain. I kept quiet as he led me up the mountain and then off the trail, scrabbling over rocks until my legs were shaking with fatigue and my throat burned with thirst. When Mal finally stopped, we were high up the mountain, hidden from view by an enormous outcropping of rock and a few scraggly pines.
“Here,” he said, dropping his pack. He slid sure-footed back down the mountain, and I knew he was going to try to cover the traces of my clumsy progress over the rocks.
Gratefully, I sank to the ground and closed my eyes. My feet were throbbing, but I was worried that if I took my boots off, I would never get them back on again. My head drooped, but I couldn’t let myself sleep. Not yet. I had a thousand questions, but only one couldn’t wait until morning.
Dusk was falling by the time Mal returned, moving silently over the terrain. He sat down across from me and pulled a canteen from his pack. After taking a swig, he swiped his hand over his mouth and passed the water to me. I drank deeply.
“Slow down,” he said. “That has to last us through tomorrow.”
“Sorry.” I handed the canteen back to him.
“We can’t risk a fire tonight,” he said, gazing out into the gathering dark. “Maybe tomorrow.”
I nodded. My coat had dried during our trek up the mountain, though the sleeves were still a little damp. I felt rumpled, dirty, and cold. Mostly, I was just reeling over the miracle that was sitting in front of me. That would have to wait. I was terrified of the answer, but I had to ask.
“Mal.” I waited for him to look at me. “Did you find the herd? Did you capture Morozova’s stag?”
He tapped his hand on his knee. “Why is it so important?”
“It’s a long story. I need to know, does he have the stag?”
“No.”
“They’re close, though?”
He nodded. “But …”
“But what?”
Mal hesitated. In the remnants of the afternoon light, I saw a ghost of the cocky smile I knew so well playing on his lips. “I don’t think they’ll find it without me.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Because you’re just that good?”
“No,” he said, serious again. “Maybe. Don’t get me wrong. They’re good trackers, the best in the First Army, but … you have to have a feel for tracking the herd. They aren’t ordinary animals.”
And you’re no ordinary tracker, I thought but didn’t say. I watched him, thinking of what the Darkling had once said about not understanding our own gifts. Could there be more to Mal’s talent than just luck or practice? He’d certainly never suffered from a lack of confidence, but I didn’t think this was about conceit.
“I hope you’re right,” I murmured.
“Now you answer a question for me,” he said, and there was a harsh edge to his voice. “Why did you run?”
For the first time, I realized that Mal had no idea why I’d fled the Little Palace, why the Darkling was searching for me. The last time I’d seen him, I’d essentially ordered him out of my sight, but still he’d left everything behind and come for me. He deserved an explanation, but I had no idea where to begin. I sighed and rubbed a hand over my face. What had I gotten us into?
“If I told you that I’m trying to save the world, would you believe me?”
He stared at me, his eyes hard. “So this isn’t some kind of lovers’ quarrel where you turn around and go running back to him?”
“No!” I exclaimed in shock. “It’s not … we’re not …” I was at a loss for words and then I just had to laugh. “I wish it were something like that.”
Mal was quiet for a long time. Then, as if he’d reached some kind of decision, he said, “All right.” He stood up, stretched, and slung his rifle over his shoulder. Then he drew a thick wool blanket from his pack and tossed it to me.
“Get some rest,” he said. “I’ll take the first watch.” He turned his back on me, looking out at the moon rising high over the valley we had left behind.
I curled up on the hard ground, pulling the blanket tight around me for warmth. Despite my discomfort, my eyelids felt heavy and I could feel exhaustion dragging me under.
“Mal,” I whispered into the night.
“What?”
“Thanks for finding me.”
I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming, but somewhere in the dark, I thought I heard him whisper, “Always.”
I let sleep take me.
CHAPTER 17
MAL TOOK BOTH watches and let me sleep the night through. In the morning, he handed me a strip of dried meat and said simply, “Talk.”
I wasn’t sure where to begin, so I started with the worst of it. “The Darkling plans to use the Shadow Fold as a weapon.”
Mal didn’t even blink. “How?”
“He’ll expand it, spread it through Ravka and Fjerda and anywhere else he meets resistance. But he can’t do it without me to keep the volcra at bay. How much do you know about Morozova’s stag?”
“Not much. Just that it’s valuable.” He looked out over the valley. “And that it was intended for you. We were supposed to locate the herd and capture or corner the stag, but not harm it.”
I nodded and tried to explain the little bit I knew about the way amplifiers worked, how Ivan had to slay the Sherborn bear, and Marie had to kill the northern seal. “A Grisha has to earn an amplifier,” I finished. “The same thing is true for the stag, but it was never meant for me.”
“Let’s walk,” Mal said abruptly. “You can tell me the rest while we’re moving. I want to get us deeper into the mountains.”
He shoved the blanket into his pack and did his best to hide any signs that we’d ever made camp there. Then he led us up a steep and rocky trail. His bow was tied to his pack, but he kept his rifle at the ready.
My feet protested every step, but I followed and did my best to tell the rest of the story. I told him everything that Baghra had told me, about the origins of the Fold, about the collar that the Darkling intended to fashion so that he could use my power, and finally about the ship waiting in Os Kervo.
When I finished, Mal said, “You shouldn’t have listened to Baghra.”
“How can you say that?” I demanded.
He turned suddenly, and I almost ran right into him. “What do you think will happen if you make it to the Fold? If you make it onto that ship? Do you think his power stops at the shore of the True Sea?”
“No, but—”
“It’s just a question of time before he finds you and slaps that collar around your neck.”
He turned on his heel and marched up the trail, leaving me standing, dazed, behind him. I made my legs move and hurried to catch up.
Maybe Baghra’s plan was a weak one, but what choice had either of us had? I remembered her fierce grip, the fear in her feverish eyes. She’d never expected the Darkling would really locate Morozova’s herd. The night of the winter fete, she’d
been genuinely panicked, but she’d tried to help me. If she’d been as ruthless as her son, she might have dispensed with risk and slit my throat instead. And maybe we all would have been better off, I thought dismally.
We walked in silence for a long time, moving up the mountain in slow switchbacks. In some spots, the trail was so narrow that I could do little more than cling to the mountainside, take tiny, shuffling steps, and hope the Saints were kind. Around noon, we descended the first slope and started up the second, which was, to my misery, even steeper and taller than the first.
I stared at the trail in front of me, putting one foot in front of the other, trying to shake my sense of hopelessness. The more I thought about it, the more I worried that Mal might be right. I couldn’t lose the feeling that I’d doomed both of us. The Darkling needed me alive, but what might he do to Mal? I’d been so focused on my own fear and my own future that I hadn’t given much thought to what Mal had done or what he’d chosen to give up. He could never go back to the army, to his friends, to being a decorated tracker. Worse, he was guilty of desertion, maybe of treason, and the penalty for that was death.
By dusk, we’d climbed high enough that the few scraggling trees had all but disappeared and winter frost still lay on the ground in places. We ate a meager dinner of hard cheese and stringy dried beef. Mal still didn’t think it was safe to build a fire, so we huddled beneath the blanket in silence, shivering against the howling wind, our shoulders barely touching.
I had almost dozed off when Mal suddenly said, “I’m taking us north tomorrow.”
My eyes flew open. “North?”
“To Tsibeya.”
“You want to go after the stag?” I said in disbelief.
“I know I can find it.”
“If the Darkling hasn’t found it already!”
“No,” he said, and I felt him shake his head. “He’s still out there. I can feel it.”
His words reminded me eerily of what the Darkling had said on the path to Baghra’s cottage. The stag was meant for you, Alina. I can feel it.
“And what if the Darkling finds us first?” I asked.
“You can’t spend the rest of your life running, Alina. You said the stag could make you powerful. Powerful enough to fight him?”
“Maybe.”
“Then we have to do it.”
“If he catches us, he’ll kill you.”
“I know.”
“All Saints, Mal. Why did you come after me? What were you thinking?”
He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his short hair. “I didn’t think. We were halfway back to Tsibeya when we got orders to turn back around and hunt you. So that’s what I did. The hard part was leading the others away from you, especially after you basically announced yourself in Ryevost.”
“And now you’re a deserter.”
“Yes.”
“Because of me.”
“Yes.”
My throat ached with unshed tears, but I managed to keep my voice from shaking. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“I’m not afraid to die, Alina,” he said in that cold, steady voice that seemed so alien to me. “But I’d like to give us a fighting chance. We have to go after the stag.”
I thought about what he said for a long while. At last, I whispered, “Okay.”
All I got back was a snore. Mal was already asleep.
* * *
HE KEPT A BRUTAL PACE over the next few days but my pride, and maybe my fear, wouldn’t let me ask him to slow down. We saw an occasional goat skittering down the slopes above us and spent one night camped by a brilliant blue mountain lake, but those were rare breaks in the monotony of leaden rock and sullen sky.
Mal’s grim silences didn’t help. I wanted to know how he’d ended up tracking the stag for the Darkling and what his life had been like for the last five months, but my questions were met with terse one-word replies, and sometimes he just ignored me completely. When I was feeling particularly tired or hungry, I’d glare resentfully at his back and think about giving him a good whack over the head to get his attention. Most of the time, I just worried. I worried that Mal regretted his decision to come after me. I worried about the impossibility of finding the stag in the vastness of Tsibeya. But more than anything, I worried about what the Darkling might do to Mal if we were captured.
When we finally began the northwest descent out of the Petrazoi, I was thrilled to leave the barren mountains and their cold winds behind. My heart lifted as we descended below the tree line and into a welcoming wood. After days of scrabbling over hard ground, it was a pleasure to walk on soft beds of pine needles, to hear the rustle of animals in the underbrush and breathe air dense with the smell of sap.
We camped by a burbling creek, and when Mal began gathering twigs for a fire, I nearly broke out in song. I summoned a tiny, concentrated shaft of light to start the flames, but Mal didn’t seem particularly impressed. He disappeared into the woods and brought back a rabbit that we cleaned and roasted for dinner. With a bemused expression, he watched as I gobbled down my portion and then sighed, still hungry.
“You’d be a lot easier to feed if you hadn’t developed an appetite,” he groused, finishing his food and stretching out on his back, his head pillowed on his arm.
I ignored him. I was warm for the first time since I’d left the Little Palace, and nothing could spoil that bliss. Not even Mal’s snores.
* * *
WE NEEDED TO RESTOCK our supplies before we headed farther north into Tsibeya, but it took us another day and a half to find a hunting trail that led us to one of the villages that lay on the northwest side of the Petrazoi. The closer we got to civilization, the more nervous Mal got. He would disappear for long stretches, scouting ahead, keeping us moving parallel to the town’s main road. Early in the afternoon, he appeared wearing an ugly brown coat and a brown squirrel hat.
“Where did you find those?” I asked.
“I grabbed them from an unlocked house,” he said guiltily. “But I left a few coins. It’s eerie, though—the houses are all empty. I didn’t see anyone on the road either.”
“Maybe it’s Sunday,” I said. I had lost track of the days since I’d left the Little Palace. “They could all be at church.”
“Maybe,” he conceded. But he looked troubled as he buried his old army coat and hat beside a tree.
We were a half mile out from the village when we heard the drums. They got louder as we crept closer to the road, and soon we heard bells and fiddles, clapping and cheering. Mal climbed a tree to get a better view, and when he came down, some of the worry had gone from his face.
“There are people everywhere. There must be hundreds walking the road, and I can see the dom cart.”
“It’s butter week!” I exclaimed.
In the week before the spring fast, every nobleman was expected to ride out among his people in a dom cart, a cart laden with sweets and cheeses and baked breads. The parade would pass from the village church all the way back to the noble’s estate, where the public rooms would be thrown open to peasants and serfs, who were fed on tea and blini. The local girls wore red sarafan and flowers in their hair to celebrate the coming of spring.
Butter week had been the best time at the orphanage, when classes were cut short so that we could clean the house and help with the baking. Duke Keramsov had always timed his return from Os Alta to coincide with it. We would all ride out in the dom cart, and he would stop at every farm to drink kvas and pass out cakes and candies. Sitting beside the Duke, waving to the cheering villagers, we’d felt almost like nobility ourselves.
“Can we go look, Mal?” I asked eagerly.
He frowned, and I knew his caution was wrestling with some of our happiest memories from Keramzin. Then a little smile appeared on his lips. “All right. There are certainly enough people for us to blend in.”
We joined the crowds parading down the road, slipping in with the fiddlers and drummers, the little girls clutching branches tied wit
h bright ribbons. As we passed through the village’s main street, shopkeepers stood in their doorways ringing bells and clapping their hands with the musicians. Mal stopped to buy furs and stock up on supplies, but when I saw him shove a wedge of hard cheese into his pack, I stuck out my tongue. If I never saw another piece of hard cheese again, it would be too soon.
Before Mal could tell me not to, I darted into the crowd, snaking between people trailing behind the dom cart where a red-cheeked man sat with a bottle of kvas in one chubby hand as he swayed from side to side, singing and tossing bread to the peasants crowding around the cart. I reached out and snatched a warm golden roll.
“For you, pretty girl!” the man shouted, practically toppling over.
The sweet roll smelled divine, and I thanked him, prancing my way back to Mal and feeling quite pleased with myself.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me down a muddy walkway between two houses. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Nobody saw me. He just thought I was another peasant girl.”
“We can’t take risks like that.”
“So you don’t want a bite?”
He hesitated. “I didn’t say that.”
“I was going to give you a bite, but since you don’t want one, I’ll just have to eat the whole thing myself.”
Mal grabbed for the roll, but I danced out of reach, dodging left and right, away from his hands. I could see his surprise, and I loved it. I wasn’t the same clumsy girl he remembered.
“You are a brat,” he growled and took another swipe.
“Ah, but I’m a brat with a sweet roll.”
I don’t know which of us heard it first, but we both stood up straight, suddenly aware that we had company. Two men had snuck up right behind us in the empty alleyway. Before Mal could even turn around, one of the men was holding a dirty-looking knife to his throat, and the other had clapped his filthy hand over my mouth.
Grishaverse 01 - Shadow and Bone Page 19
