Ruin and Rising

^CHAPTER 15

MY STOMACH LURCHED. “What?”

“There are… there are rumors that he put it to the torch.”

“Alina—” Mal said.

“The students,” I said, panic creeping in on me. “What happened to the students?”

“We don’t know,” said Tamar.

I pressed my hands to my eyes, trying to think. “Your key,” I said, my breath coming in harsh gasps.

“There’s no reason to believe—”

“The key,” I repeated, hearing the quaking edge in my voice.

Tamar handed it to me. “Third on the right,” she said softly.

I took the stairs two at a time. Near the top, I slipped and banged my knee hard on one of the steps. I barely felt it. I stumbled down the hall, counting the doors. My hands were shaking so badly, it took me two tries to fit the key in the lock and get it to turn.

The room was painted in reds and blues, just as cheerful as the rest of the place. I saw Tamar’s jacket thrown over a chair by the tin basin, the two narrow beds pushed together, the rumpled wool blankets. The window was open, and autumn sunlight flooded through. A cool breeze lifted the curtains.

I slammed the door behind me and walked to the window. I gripped the sill, vaguely registering the rickety houses at the edge of the settlement, the spindles in the distance, the mountains beyond. I felt the pull of the wound in my shoulder, the creep of darkness inside me. I launched myself across the tether, seeking him, the only thought in my mind: What have you done?

With my next breath, I was standing before him, the room a blur around me.

“At last,” the Darkling said. He turned to me, his beautiful face coming into focus. He was leaning against a scorched mantel. Its outline was sickeningly familiar.

His gray eyes were empty, haunted. Was it Baghra’s death that had left him this way or some horrific crime he’d committed here?

“Come,” the Darkling said softly. “I want you to see.”

I was trembling, but I let him take my hand and place it in the crook of his arm. As he did, the blurriness of the vision cleared and the room came to life around me.

We were in what had been the sitting room at Keramzin. The shabby sofas were stained black with soot. Ana Kuya’s treasured samovar lay on its side, a tarnished hulk. Nothing remained of the walls but a charred and jagged skeleton, the ghosts of doorways. The curving metal staircase that had once led to the music room had buckled from the heat, its steps fusing together. The ceiling was gone. I could see straight through the wreck of the second story. Where the attic should have been, there was only gray sky.

Strange, I thought stupidly. The sun is shining in Dva Stolba.

“I’ve been here for days,” he said, leading me through the wreckage, over the piles of debris, through what had once been the entry hall, “waiting for you.”

The stone steps that led to the front door were smeared with ash but intact. I saw the long, straight gravel drive, the white pillars of the gate, the road that led to town. It had been nearly two years since I’d seen this view, but it was just as I remembered.

The Darkling placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me slightly.

My legs gave way. I fell to my knees, my hands clasped over my mouth. A sound tore from me, too broken to be called a scream.

The oak I’d once climbed on a dare still stood, untouched by the fire that had taken Keramzin. Now its branches were full of bodies. The three Grisha instructors hung from the same thick limb, their kefta fluttering slightly in the wind—purple, red, and blue. Beside them, Botkin’s face was nearly black above the rope that had dug into his neck. He was covered in wounds. He’d died fighting before they’d strung him up. Next to him, Ana Kuya swayed in her black dress, her heavy key ring at her waist, the toes of her button boots nearly scraping the ground.

“She was, I think, the closest thing you had to a mother,” murmured the Darkling.

The sobs that shook me were like the lashes of a whip. I flinched with each one, bent double, collapsing into myself. The Darkling knelt before me. He took me by the wrists, pulling my hands free from my face, as if he wanted to watch me weep.

“Alina,” he said. I kept my eyes on the steps, my tears clouding my vision. I would not look at him. “Alina,” he repeated.

“Why?” The word was a wail, a child’s cry. “Why would you do this? How can you do this? Don’t you feel any of it?”

“I have lived a long life, rich in grief. My tears are long since spent. If I still felt as you do, if I ached as you do, I could not have borne this eternity.”

“I hope Botkin killed twenty of your Grisha,” I spat at him, “a hundred.”

“He was an extraordinary man.”

“Where are the students?” I made myself ask, though I wasn’t sure I could bear the answer. “What have you done?”

“Where are you, Alina? I felt sure you would come to me when I moved against West Ravka. I thought your conscience would demand it. I could only hope that this would draw you out.”

“Where are they?” I screamed.

“They are safe. For now. They will be on my skiff when I enter the Fold again.”

“As hostages,” I said dully.

He nodded. “In case you get any thoughts of attack rather than surrender. In five days, I will return to the Unsea, and you will come to me—you and the tracker—or I will drive the Fold all the way to West Ravka’s coast, and I will march those children, one by one, to the mercy of the volcra.”

“This place… these people, they were innocent.”

“I have waited hundreds of years for this moment, for your power, for this chance. I have earned it with loss and with struggle. I will have it, Alina. Whatever the cost.”

I wanted to claw at him, to tell him I’d see him torn apart by his own monsters. I wanted to tell him I would bring all the power of Morozova’s amplifiers down on him, an army of light, born of merzost, perfect in its vengeance. I might be able to do it, too. If Mal gave up his life.

“There will be nothing left,” I whispered.

“No,” he said gently as he folded me in his arms. He pressed a kiss to the top of my hair. “I will strip away all that you know, all that you love, until you have no shelter but me.”

In grief, in horror, I let myself break apart.

I WAS STILL ON MY KNEES, my hands clutching the windowsill, my forehead pressed against the wooden slats of the boardinghouse wall. Outside, I could hear the faint jingle of prayer bells. Inside, there was no sound but the hitch of my breath, the rasp of my sobs as the whip continued to fall, as I bent my back and wept. That was where they found me.

I didn’t hear the door open, or their steps as they approached. I just felt gentle hands take hold of me. Zoya sat me down on the edge of the bed, and Tamar settled beside me. Nadia took a comb to my hair, carefully working through the tangles. Genya washed first my face, then my hands with a cool cloth she’d wetted in the basin. It smelled faintly of mint.

We sat there, saying nothing, all of them clustered around me.

“He has the students,” I said flatly. “Twenty-three children. He killed the teachers. And Botkin.” And Ana Kuya, a woman they’d never known. The woman who had raised me. “Mal—”

“He told us,” said Nadia softly.

I think some part of me expected blame, recrimination. Instead, Genya rested her head on my shoulder. Tamar squeezed my hand.

This wasn’t just comfort, I realized. They were leaning on me—as I was leaning on them—for strength.

I have lived a long life, rich in grief.

Had the Darkling had friends like this? People whom he’d loved, who had fought for him, and cared for him, and made him laugh? People who had become little more than sacrifices to a dream that outlived them?

“How long do we have?” Tamar asked.

“Five days.”

A knock came at the door. It was Mal. Tamar made room for him beside me.

“Bad?” he asked.

I nodded. I couldn’t yet stand to tell him what I’d seen. “I have five days to surrender, or he’ll use the Fold again.”

“He’ll do it anyway,” said Mal. “You said so yourself. He’ll find a reason.”

“I might buy us some time—”

“At what cost? You were willing to give up your life,” he said quietly. “Why won’t you let me do the same?”

“Because I can’t bear it.”

His face went hard. He seized my wrist and again I felt that jolt. Light cascaded behind my eyes, as if my whole body were ready to crack open with it. Unspeakable power lay behind that door, and Mal’s death would open it.

“You will bear it,” he said. “Or all of these deaths, all we’ve given up, will be for nothing.”

Genya cleared her throat. “Um. The thing is, you may not have to. David has an idea.”

“ACTUALLY, IT WAS Genya’s idea,” David said.

We were crowded around a table beneath an awning, a little way down the street from our boardinghouse. There were no real restaurants in this part of the settlement, but a kind of makeshift tavern had been set up in a burned-out lot. There were lanterns strung over the rickety tables, a wooden keg of sweet fermented milk, and meat roasting in two metal drums like the one we’d seen that first day at the market. The air was thick with the smell of juniper smoke.

Two men were shooting dice at a table near the keg while another plucked his way through a shapeless tune on a battered guitar. There was no discernible melody, but Misha seemed satisfied. He’d taken up an elaborate dance that apparently required clapping and a great deal of concentration.

“We’ll make sure to put Genya’s name on the plaque,” said Zoya. “Just get on with it.”

“Remember how you disguised the Bittern?” David asked. “The way you bent the light around the ship instead of letting it bounce off of it?”

“I was thinking,” said Genya. “What if you did that with us?”

I frowned. “You mean—”

“It’s the exact same principle,” said David. “It’s a greater challenge because there are more variables than just blue sky, but curving light around a soldier is no different than curving light around an object.”

“Wait a minute,” said Harshaw. “You mean we’d be invisible?”

“Exactly,” said Genya.

Adrik leaned forward. “The Darkling will launch from the drydocks in Kribirsk. We could sneak into his camp. Get the students out that way.” His fist was clenched, his eyes alight. He knew those children better than any of us. Some of them were probably his friends.

Tolya frowned. “There’s no way we’d get into camp and free them without being noticed. Some of those kids are younger than Misha.”

“Kribirsk will be too complicated,” said David. “Lots of people, interrupted sight lines. If Alina had more time to practice—”

“We have five days,” I repeated.

“So we attack on the Fold,” said Genya. “Alina’s light will keep the volcra at bay—”

I shook my head. “We’d still have to fight the Darkling’s nichevo’ya.”

“Not if they can’t see us,” said Genya.

Nadia grinned. “We’d be hiding in plain sight.”

“He’ll have oprichniki and Grisha too,” said Tolya. “They won’t be short on ammunition like we will. Even if they can’t see their targets, they may just open fire and hope they get lucky.”

“So we stay out of range.” Tamar moved her plate to the center of the table. “This is the glass skiff,” she said. “We place marksmen around the perimeter and use them to thin the Darkling’s ranks. Then we get close enough to sneak onto the skiff, and once we get the kids to safety—”

“We blow it to bits,” said Harshaw. He was practically salivating at the prospect of the explosion.

“And the Darkling with it,” Genya finished.

I gave Tamar’s plate a turn, considering what the others were suggesting. Without the third amplifier, my power was no match for the Darkling’s in a head-on confrontation. He’d proved that in no uncertain terms. But what if I came at him unseen, using light for cover the way others used darkness? It was sneaky, even cowardly, but the Darkling and I had left honor behind long ago. He’d been in my head, waged war on my heart. I wasn’t interested in a fair fight, not if there was a chance I could save Mal’s life.

As if he could read my mind, Mal said, “I don’t like it. Too many things can go wrong.”

“This isn’t just your choice,” said Nadia. “You’ve been fighting beside us and bleeding with us for months now. We deserve the chance to try and save your life.”

“Even if you’re a useless otkazat’sya,” added Zoya.

“Careful,” said Harshaw. “You’re talking to the Darkling’s… wait, what are you? His cousin? His nephew?”

Mal shuddered. “I have no idea.”

“Are you going to start wearing black now?”

Mal gave a very firm “No.”

“You’re one of us,” said Genya, “whether you like it or not. Besides, if Alina has to kill you, she may go completely crazy and she’ll have the three amplifiers. Then it will be up to Misha to stop her with the power of awful dancing.”

“She is pretty moody,” said Harshaw. He tapped his temple. “Not totally there, if you know what I mean.”

They were kidding, but they might also have been right. You were meant to be my balance. What I felt for Mal was messy and stubborn and might leave me heartbroken in the end, but it was also human.

Nadia reached out and nudged Mal’s hand. “At least consider the plan. And if it all goes wrong—”

“Alina gets a new bracelet,” finished Zoya.

I scowled. “How about I slice you open and see how your bones fit?”

Zoya fluffed her hair. “I bet they’re just as gorgeous as the rest of me.”

I gave Tamar’s plate another turn, trying to imagine what this kind of maneuver might require. I wished I had Nikolai’s mind for strategy. One thing I was sure of. “It will take more than an explosion to kill the Darkling. He survived the Fold and the destruction of the chapel.”

“Then what?” asked Harshaw.

“It has to be me,” I said. “If we can separate him from his shadow soldiers, I can use the Cut.” The Darkling was powerful, but I doubted even he could bounce back from being torn in half. And though I had no claim to Morozova’s name, I was the Sun Summoner. I’d hoped for a grand destiny, but I would settle for a clean kill.

Zoya released a brief, giddy laugh. “This actually might work.”

“It’s worth thinking about,” I said to Mal. “The Darkling will expect an attack, but he won’t expect this.”

Mal was silent for a long moment. “All right,” he said. “But if it does go wrong… we all agree what has to happen.”

He looked around the table. One by one they nodded. Tolya’s face was stoic. Genya dropped her gaze. Finally, only I remained.

“I want your word, Alina.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I’ll do it.” The words tasted like iron on my tongue.

“Good,” he said. He grabbed my hand. “Now, let’s show Misha how bad dancing’s done.”

“Kill you, dance with you. Any other requests?”

“Not at the moment,” he said, pulling me close. “But I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

I tucked my head against Mal’s shoulder and breathed in his scent. I knew I shouldn’t let myself believe in this possibility. We didn’t have an army. We didn’t have the resources of a king. We only had this ragged crew. I will strip away all that you know, all that you love. If he could, I knew the Darkling would use these people against me, but it had never occurred to him that they might be more than liabilities. Maybe he’d underestimated them, and maybe he’d underestimated me too.

It was stupid. It was dangerous. But Ana Kuya used to tell me that hope was tricky like water. Somehow it always found a way in.

WE STAYED UP LATE that night, talking through the logistics of the plan. The realities of the Fold complicated everything—where and how we would enter, whether or not it was even possible for me to cloak myself, let alone the others, how to isolate the Darkling and get the students clear. We had no blasting powders, so we’d have to make our own. I also wanted to ensure that the others had some way out of the Fold if anything happened to me.

We left early the next morning and crossed back through Dva Stolba to retrieve the Bittern from the quarry. It was strange to see it sitting where we’d left it, tucked safely away like a pigeon in the eaves.

“Saints,” said Adrik as we clambered into the hulls. “Is that my blood?”

The stain was nearly as big as he was. We’d all been so tired and beaten after our long escape from the Spinning Wheel that no one had even thought to deal with it.

“You made the mess,” said Zoya. “You clean it up.”

“Need two hands to swab,” Adrik retorted, taking a place at the sails instead.

Adrik seemed to relish Zoya’s taunts over Nadia’s constant fussing. I’d been relieved to learn that he could still summon, though it would take some time for him to be able to control strong currents with just one arm. Baghra could teach him. The thought came at me before I remembered that was no longer possible. I could almost hear her voice in my head: Should I cut off your other arm? Then you’d have something to whine about. Do it again and do it better. What would she have made of all of this? What would she have made of Mal? I pushed the thought away. We’d never know, and there was no time for mourning.

Once we were in the air, the Squallers set a gentle pace and I used the time to practice bending the light as I camouflaged the ship from below.

The journey took only a few hours, and we landed in a marshy pasture west of Caryeva. The town was the site of the summer horse sales every year. It wasn’t known for anything but its racing track and its breeding stables, and even without the war, this late in the year, it would have been all but deserted.

The missive to the Apparat had proposed that we meet at the racecourse. Tamar and Harshaw would scout the track on foot to make sure we weren’t walking into a trap. If anything felt wrong, they’d circle back to meet us, and we’d decide what to do from there. I didn’t think the Apparat would turn us over to the Darkling, but there was also the possibility that he’d struck some kind of new bargain with the Shu Han or Fjerda.

We were a day early, and the pasture was the perfect place to practice cloaking moving targets. Misha insisted on being first.

“I’m smaller,” he said. “That will make it easier.”

He ran out into the center of the field.

I raised my hands, gave a twist of my wrists, and Misha disappeared. Harshaw gave an appreciative whistle.

“Can you see me?” Misha shouted. As soon as he started waving, the light around him rippled and his skinny forearms appeared as if suspended in space.

Focus. They vanished.

“Misha,” instructed Mal, “run toward us.”

He appeared, then disappeared again as I adjusted the light.

“I can see him from the side,” Tolya called from across the pasture.

I blew out a breath. I had to think about this more carefully. Disguising the ship had been easier because I’d only been altering the reflection of the light from below. Now I had to think about every angle.

“Better!” said Tolya.

Zoya yelped. “That little brat just kicked me.”

“Smart kid,” said Mal.

I lifted a brow. “Smarter than some.”

He had the good grace to blush.

I spent the rest of the afternoon vanishing one, then two, then five Grisha at a time in the field.

It was a different kind of work, but Baghra’s lessons still applied. If I concentrated too hard on projecting my power, variables overwhelmed me. But if I thought about the light being everywhere, if I didn’t try to prod it and just let it bend, it got much easier.

I thought of the times I’d seen the Darkling use his power to blind soldiers in a battle, taking on multiple enemies at once. It was easy for him, natural. I know things about power that you can barely guess at.

I practiced that night, then started up again the next morning after Tamar and Harshaw set out, but my concentration kept faltering. With more marksmen, our attack on the Darkling’s skiff might actually stand a chance. What would be waiting at the racecourse? The priest himself? No one at all? I’d imagined a serf army, protected by three amplifiers, marching beneath the banner of the firebird. That wasn’t the war we were waging anymore.

“I can see him!” Zoya singsonged at me. And sure enough, Tolya’s big shape was flickering in and out as he jogged to my right.

I dropped my hands. “Let’s break for a bit,” I suggested.

Nadia and Adrik unfurled one of the sails so she could help him learn to manage updraft, and Zoya sprawled lazily on the deck to offer less than helpful critique.

Meanwhile, David and Genya bent their heads over one of his notebooks, trying to figure out where they could extract the components for a batch of lumiya. It turned out Genya didn’t just have a gift for poisons. Her talents had always lain somewhere between Corporalnik and Materialnik, but I wondered what she might have become, what path she might have chosen, if not for the Darkling’s influence. Mal and Misha headed to the far side of the field with arms full of pinecones and set them along the fence as targets so Misha could learn to shoot.

That left me and Tolya with nothing to do but worry and wait. He sat down beside me on one of the hulls, legs dangling over.

“Do you want to practice some more?” he asked.

“I probably should.”

A long moment passed and then he said, “Can you do it? When the time comes?”

I was eerily reminded of Mal asking me if I could bring down the firebird. “You don’t think the plan will work.”

“I don’t think it matters.”

“You don’t—”

“If you defeat the Darkling, the Fold will remain.”

I kicked my heels against the hull. “I can deal with the Fold,” I said. “My power will make crossings possible. We can eliminate the volcra.” I didn’t like to think about that. As monstrous as they were, the volcra had once been human. I leaned back and studied Tolya’s face. “You’re not convinced.”

“You asked me once why I didn’t let you die in the chapel, why I let Mal go to you. Maybe there was a reason you both lived. Maybe this is it.”

“It was a supposed Saint who started all of this, Tolya.”

“And a Saint will end it.”

He slid from the hull to the ground and looked up at me. “I know you don’t believe as Tamar and I do,” he said, “but no matter how this ends, I’m glad our faith brought us to you.”

He headed off across the field to join Mal and Misha.

Whether it was coincidence or providence that had made Tolya and Tamar my friends, I was grateful for them. And if I was honest with myself, I envied their faith. If I could believe I had been blessed by some divine purpose, it might make the hard choices easier.

I didn’t know if our plan would work, and if it did, there were still too many unknowns. If we bested the Darkling, what would become of his shadow soldiers? And what about Nikolai? What if killing the Darkling caused his death? Should we be trying to capture the Darkling instead? If we survived, Mal would have to go into hiding. His life would be forfeit if anyone learned what he was.

I heard the sound of hoofbeats. Nadia and I climbed up on the captain’s platform to get a better look, and as the party came into view, my heart sank.

“Maybe there are more, back at the racecourse,” said Nadia.

“Maybe,” I said. But I didn’t believe it.

I made a quick count. Twelve soldiers. As they drew closer, I saw they were all young and most bore the sun tattoo on their faces. Ruby was there, with her pretty green eyes and blond braid, and I saw Vladim among them with two other bearded men I thought I recognized from the Priestguards.

I hopped down from the platform and went to greet them. When the party spotted me, they slipped from their horses and each dropped to one knee, heads bowed.

“Ugh,” said Zoya. “This again.”

I cast her a warning look, though I’d had the exact same thought. I’d nearly forgotten how much I dreaded the burden of Sainthood. But I took on the mantle, playing my part.

“Rise,” I said, and when they did, I gestured Vladim forward. “Is this all of you?”

He nodded.

“And what excuse does the Apparat send?”

He swallowed. “None. The pilgrims say daily prayers for your safety and for the destruction of the Fold. He claims that your last command was for him to watch over your flock.”

“And my plea for aid?”

Ruby shook her head. “The only reason we knew that you and Nikolai Lantsov had requested help was because a monk loyal to you retrieved the message from the Church of Sankt Lukin.”

“So how do you come to be here?”

Vladim smiled and those absurd dimples appeared in his cheeks again. He exchanged a glance with Ruby.

“We escaped,” she said.

I’d known the Apparat wasn’t to be trusted, and yet some part of me had hoped he might offer me more than prayers. But I’d told him to tend to my followers, to keep them from harm, and they were certainly safer in the White Cathedral than marching into the Fold. The Apparat would do what he did best: wait. When the dust cleared, either I would have defeated the Darkling or found my martyrdom. Either way, men would still take up arms in my name. The Apparat’s empire of the faithful would rise.

I laid my hands on Vladim’s and Ruby’s shoulders. “Thank you for your loyalty. I hope you won’t be sorry for it.”

They bowed their heads and murmured, “Sankta Alina.”

“Let’s move,” I said. “You’re a big enough group that you may have attracted attention, and those tattoos can’t have helped.”

“Where are we going?” asked Ruby, pulling up her scarf to hide her tattoo.

“Into the Fold.”

I saw the new soldiers shift uneasily. “To fight?” she asked.

“To travel,” Mal replied.

No army. No allies. We had only three more days until we were to face the Darkling. We would take our chances, and if we failed, there would be no more options. I would murder the only person I’d ever loved and who had ever loved me. I’d dive back into battle wearing his bones.