Shadow and Bone gt-1 Read online

  I looked down at our clasped hands. “Mal, what the Darkling said in the glade about… about him and me. I didn’t… I never…”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  I looked up at him. “It doesn’t?”

  “No,” he said a little too fiercely.

  “I don’t think I believe you.”

  “So maybe I don’t believe it yet either, not completely, but it’s the truth.” He clutched my hands more tightly, holding them close to his heart. “I don’t care if you danced naked on the roof of the Little Palace with him. I love you, Alina, even the part of you that loved him.”

  I wanted to deny it, to erase it, but I couldn’t. Another sob shook me. “I hate that I ever thought… that I ever—”

  “Do you blame me for every mistake I made? For every girl I tumbled? For every dumb thing I’ve said? Because if we start running tallies on stupid, you know who’s going to come out ahead.”

  “No, I don’t blame you.” I managed a small smile. “Much.”

  He grinned and my heart flip-flopped the way it always had. “We found our way back to each other, Alina. That’s all that matters.”

  He kissed me through the bars, the cold iron pressing against my cheek as his lips met mine.

  We stayed together that last night. We talked about the orphanage, the angry rasp of Ana Kuya’s voice, the taste of stolen cherry cordial, the smell of the new-mown grass in our meadow, how we’d suffered in the heat of summer and sought out the cool comfort of the music room’s marble floors, the journey we’d made together on the way to do our military service, the Suli violins we’d heard our first night away from the only home either of us could remember.

  I told him the story of the day I’d been mending pottery with one of the maids in the kitchen at Keramzin, waiting for him to return from one of the hunting trips that had taken him from home more and more frequently. I’d been fifteen, standing at the counter, vainly trying to glue together the jagged pieces of a blue cup. When I saw him crossing the fields, I ran to the doorway and waved. He caught sight of me and broke into a jog.

  I had crossed the yard to him slowly, watching him draw closer, baffled by the way my heart was skittering around in my chest. Then he’d picked me up and spun me in a circle, and I’d clung to him, breathing in his sweet, familiar smell, shocked by how much I’d missed him. Dimly, I’d been aware that I still had a shard of the blue cup in my hand, that it was digging into my palm, but I didn’t want to let go.

  When he finally set me down and ambled off to the kitchen to find his lunch, I had stood there, my palm dripping blood, my head still spinning, knowing that everything had changed.

  Ana Kuya had scolded me for getting blood on the clean kitchen floor. She’d bandaged my hand and told me it would heal. But I knew it would just go on hurting.

  In the creaking silence of the cell, Mal kissed the scar on my palm, the wound made so long ago by the edge of that broken cup, a fragile thing I’d thought beyond repair.

  We fell asleep on the floor, cheeks pressed together through the bars, hands clasped tight. I didn’t want to sleep. I wanted to savor every last moment with him. But I must have dozed off because I dreamed again of the stag. This time, Mal was beside me in the glade, and it was his blood in the snow.

  The next thing I knew, I was waking to the sound of the gate being opened above us and Ivan’s footsteps on the stairs.

  Mal had made me promise not to cry. He’d said it would only make it harder on him. So I swallowed my tears. I kissed him one last time and let Ivan lead me away.

  CHAPTER 22

  DAWN WAS CREEPING over Kribirsk as Ivan brought me back to my tent. I sat down on my cot and stared unseeingly at the room. My limbs felt strangely heavy, my mind a blank. I was still sitting there when Genya arrived.

  She helped me wash my face and change into the black kefta I’d worn to the winter fete. I looked down at the silk and thought of tearing it to shreds, but somehow I couldn’t manage to move. My hands stayed limp at my sides.

  Genya steered me into the painted chair. I sat still as she arranged my hair, piling it onto my head in loops and coils that she secured with golden pins, the better to show off Morozova’s collar.

  When she had finished, she pressed her cheek against mine and led me to Ivan, placing my hand on his arm like a bride. Not a word had passed between us.

  Ivan led me to the Grisha tent, where I took my place by the Darkling’s side. I knew that my friends were watching me, whispering, wondering what was wrong. They probably thought I was nervous about entering the Fold. They were wrong. I wasn’t nervous or frightened. I wasn’t anything anymore.

  The Grisha followed us in an ordered processional all the way to the drydocks. There, only a select few were permitted to board the sandskiff. It was larger than any I’d seen and equipped with three enormous sails emblazoned with the Darkling’s symbol. I scanned the crowd of soldiers and Grisha on the skiff. I knew Mal must be on board somewhere, but I couldn’t see him.

  The Darkling and I were escorted to the front of the skiff, where I was introduced to a group of elaborately dressed men with blond beards and piercing blue eyes. With a start, I realized they were Fjerdan ambassadors. Beside them, in crimson silks, stood a delegation from the Shu Han, and next to them, a group of Kerch tradesmen in shortcoats with curiously belled sleeves. An envoy of the King stood with them in full military dress, his pale blue sash bearing a golden double eagle, a stern expression on his weathered countenance.

  I studied them curiously. This must be why the Darkling had delayed our trip into the Fold. He’d needed time to assemble the proper audience, witnesses who would attest to his newfound power. But just how far did he intend to go? A feeling of foreboding stirred inside me, disturbing the lovely numbness that had held me in its grip all morning.

  The skiff shuddered and began to slide over the grass and into the eerie black mist of the Fold. Three Summoners raised their arms and the great sails snapped forward, swelling with wind.

  The first time I’d entered the Fold, I’d feared the darkness and my own death. Now, darkness was nothing to me, and I knew that soon death would seem like a gift. I’d always known I would have to return to the Unsea, but as I looked back, I realized that some part of me had anticipated it. I had welcomed the chance to prove myself and—I cringed when I thought of it—to please the Darkling. I had dreamed of this moment, standing by his side. I had wanted to believe in the destiny he’d laid out for me, that the orphan no one wanted would change the world and be adored for it.

  The Darkling stared ahead, radiating confidence and ease. The sun flickered and began to disappear from view. A moment later, we were in darkness.

  For a long while, we drifted in the black, the Grisha Squallers driving the skiffs forward over the sand.

  Then, the Darkling’s voice rang out. “Burn.”

  Huge clouds of flame burst from the Inferni on either side of the skiff, briefly illuminating the night sky. The ambassadors and even the guards around me stirred nervously. The Darkling was announcing our location, calling the volcra directly to us.

  It didn’t take long for them to answer, and a tremor ran up my spine as I heard the distant beat of leathery wings. I felt fear spread through the passengers on the skiff and heard the Fjerdans begin to pray in their lilting tongue. In the flare of Grisha fire, I saw the dim shapes of dark bodies flying toward us. The volcras’ shrieks split the air.

  The guards reached for their rifles. Someone began to weep. But still the Darkling waited as the volcra drew closer.

  Baghra had claimed that the volcra had once been men and women, victims of the unnatural power unleashed by the Darkling’s greed. It might have been my mind playing tricks, but I thought I heard something not just horrible, but human in their cries.

  When they were almost upon us, the Darkling gripped my arm and simply said, “Now.”

  That invisible hand took hold of the power inside me, and I felt it stretch, reaching th
rough the darkness of the Fold, seeking the light. It came to me with a speed and fury that nearly knocked me from my feet, breaking over me in a shower of brilliance and warmth.

  The Fold was alight, as bright as noon, as if its impenetrable darkness had never been. I saw a long reach of blanched sand, hulks of what looked like shipwrecks dotting the dead landscape, and above it all, a teeming flock of volcra. They screamed in terror, their writhing gray bodies gruesome in the bright sunlight. This is the truth of him, I thought as I squinted in the dazzling light. Like calls to like. This was his soul made flesh, the truth of him laid bare in the blazing sun, shorn of mystery and shadow. This was the truth behind the handsome face and the miraculous powers, the truth that was the dead and empty space between the stars, a wasteland peopled by frightened monsters.

  Make a path. I wasn’t sure if he spoke or simply thought the command that reverberated through me. Helpless, I let the Fold close in around us as I focused the light, making a channel through which the skiff could pass, bordered on both sides by walls of rippling darkness. The volcra fled into the dark, and I could hear them crying in rage and confusion as if from behind an impenetrable curtain.

  We sped over the colorless sands, the sunlight spreading in glimmering waves before us. Far ahead, I saw a flash of green, and I realized I was seeing the other side of the Shadow Fold. We were looking into West Ravka, and as we drew closer, I saw their meadow, their drydocks, the village of Novokribirsk nestled behind it. The towers of Os Kervo gleamed in the distance. Was it my imagination, or could I smell the salt tang of the True Sea on the air?

  People were streaming from the village and crowding onto the drydocks, pointing at the light that had split the Fold open before them. I saw children playing in the grass. I could hear the dockworkers calling to each other.

  At a signal from the Darkling, the skiff slowed, and he lifted his arms. I felt a spike of horror as I understood what was about to happen.

  “They’re your own people!” I cried desperately.

  He ignored me and brought his hands together with a sound like a clap of thunder.

  It all seemed to happen slowly. Darkness rippled out from his hands. When it met the darkness of the Fold, a rumbling sound rose up out of the dead sands. The black walls of the path I’d created pulsed and swelled. It’s like it’s breathing, I thought in terror.

  The rumble grew to a roar. The Fold shook and trembled around us and then burst forward in a terrible cascading tide.

  A frightened wail went up from the crowd on the docks as darkness rushed toward them. They ran, and I saw their fear, heard their screams as the black fabric of the Fold crashed over the drydocks and the village like a breaking wave. Darkness enveloped them, and the volcra set upon their new prey. A woman carrying a little boy stumbled, trying to outrun the grasping dark, but it swallowed her, too.

  I reached inside of myself desperately, trying to expand the light, to drive the volcra off, to offer some kind of protection. But I could do nothing. My power slid away from me, pulled from me by that invisible, taunting hand. I wished for a knife to drive into the Darkling’s heart, into my own heart, anything that would make this stop.

  The Darkling turned to look at the ambassadors and the King’s envoy. Their faces were identical masks of horror and shock. Whatever he saw there must have satisfied him, because he separated his hands and the darkness stopped pushing forward. The rumbling faded.

  I could hear the anguished cries of those lost in the dark, the shrieks of the volcra, the sounds of rifle fire. The drydocks were gone. The village of Novokribirsk was gone. We were staring into the new reaches of the Fold.

  The message was clear: Today it had been West Ravka. Tomorrow, the Darkling could just as easily push the Fold north to Fjerda or south to the Shu Han. It would devour whole countries and drive the Darkling’s enemies into the sea. How many deaths had I just helped to bring about? How many more would I be responsible for?

  Close the path, commanded the Darkling. I had no choice but to obey. I pulled the light back until it rested around the skiff like a glowing dome.

  “What have you done?” whispered the envoy, his voice shaking.

  The Darkling turned on him. “Do you need to see more?”

  “You were meant to undo this abomination, not enlarge it! You’ve slaughtered Ravkans! The King will never stand—”

  “The King will do as he’s told, or I’ll march the Shadow Fold to the walls of Os Alta itself.”

  The envoy sputtered, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. The Darkling turned to the ambassadors. “I think you understand me now. There are no Ravkans, no Fjerdans, no Kerch, no Shu Han. There are no more borders, and there will be no more wars. From now on, there is only the land inside the Fold and outside of it, and there will be peace.”

  “Peace on your terms,” said one of the Shu Han angrily.

  “It will not stand,” blustered a Fjerdan.

  The Darkling looked them over and said very calmly, “Peace on my terms. Or your precious mountains and your saintsforsaken tundra will simply cease to exist.”

  With crushing certainty, I understood that he meant every word. The ambassadors might hope it was an empty threat, believe that there were limits to his hunger, but they would learn soon enough. The Darkling would not hesitate. He would not grieve. His darkness would consume the world, and he would never waver.

  The Darkling turned his back on their stunned and angry expressions and addressed the Grisha and soldiers on the skiff. “Tell the story of what you’ve seen today. Tell everyone that the days of fear and uncertainty are over. The days of endless fighting are over. Tell them that you saw a new age begin.”

  A cheer went up from the crowd. I saw a few soldiers muttering to each other. Even some of the Grisha looked unnerved. But most of their faces were eager, triumphant, shining.

  They’re hungry for this, I realized. Even after they’ve seen what he can do, even after watching their own people die. The Darkling wasn’t just offering them an end to war, but an end to weakness. After all these long years of terror and suffering, he would give them something that had seemed permanently beyond their grasp: victory. And despite their fear, they loved him for it.

  The Darkling signaled to Ivan, who stood behind him, waiting for orders. “Bring me the prisoner.”

  I looked up sharply, a fresh bolt of fear shooting through me as Mal was led through the crowd to the railing, his hands bound.

  “We return to Ravka,” said the Darkling. “But the traitor stays.”

  Before I even knew what was happening, Ivan shoved Mal over the edge of the skiff. The volcra screeched and beat their wings. I ran to the railing. Mal was on his side in the sand, still within the protective circle of my light. He spat sand from his mouth and pushed himself up with his bound hands.

  “Mal!” I cried.

  Without thinking, I turned on Ivan and punched him hard in the jaw. He stumbled back against the railing, stunned, and then lunged at me. Good, I thought as he grabbed me. Throw me over, too.

  “Hold,” said the Darkling, his voice like ice. Ivan scowled, his face red with embarrassment and anger. He relaxed his grip but didn’t let go.

  I could see the confusion of the people on the skiff. They didn’t know what this show was about, why the Darkling was troubling with a deserter or why his most valued Grisha had just punched his second-in-command.

  Pull it back. The command rang through me and I looked at the Darkling in horror.

  “No!” I said. But I couldn’t stop it; the dome of light began to contract. Mal looked at me as the circle shrank closer to the skiff, and if Ivan hadn’t had hold of me, the look of regret and love in his blue eyes would have sent me to my knees. I fought with everything inside me, every bit of strength I had, everything Baghra had taught me, and it was nothing in the face of the Darkling’s power over me. The light inched closer to the skiff.

  I gripped the railing and cried out in rage, in misery, the tears streamin
g down my cheeks. Mal was standing at the edge of the gleaming circle now. I could see the shapes of the volcra in the swirling dark, feel the beat of their wings. He could have run, could have wept, could have clung to the sides of the skiff until the darkness took him, but he did none of those things. He stood unflinching before the gathering dark.

  Only I had the power to save him—and I was powerless to save him. In the next breath, the darkness swallowed him. I heard him scream. The memory of the stag reared up before me, so vivid that for a moment the snowy glade swam in my vision, the image of it transposed over the barren landscape of the Fold. I smelled the pines, felt the chill air on my cheeks. I remembered the stag’s dark, liquid eyes, the plume of his breath in the cold night, the moment when I knew that I would not take his life. And finally, I understood why the stag had come to me every night in my dreams.

  I’d thought the stag was haunting me, a reminder of my failure and the price my weakness would exact. But I was wrong.

  The stag had been showing me my strength—not just the price of mercy but the power it bestowed. And mercy was something the Darkling would never understand.

  I had spared the stag’s life. The power of that life belonged to me as surely as it belonged to the man who had taken it.

  I gasped as understanding flooded through me, and I felt that invisible grip falter. My power slid back into my hands. Once more, I stood in Baghra’s hut, calling the light for the first time, feeling it rush toward me, taking possession of what was rightfully mine. This was what I had been born for. I would never let anyone separate me from it again.

  Light exploded from me, pure and unwavering, flooding over the dark place where Mal had stood only moments before. The volcra that had hold of him shrieked and released its grip. Mal fell to his knees, blood streaming from his wounds as my light enveloped him and drove the volcra back into the darkness.

  The Darkling looked momentarily confused. He narrowed his eyes, and I felt his will descend on me again, felt that invisible hand grasping. I shrugged it off. It was nothing. He was nothing.