Siege and Storm

AFTER

AGAIN, THE GIRL dreamed of ships, but this time, they flew. They had white wings made of canvas, and a clever-eyed fox stood behind the wheel. Sometimes the fox became a prince who kissed her lips and offered her a jeweled crown. Sometimes he was a red hellhound, foam on his muzzle, snapping at her heels as she ran.

Every so often, she dreamed of the firebird. It caught her up in wings of flame and held her as she burned.

Long before word came, she knew the Darkling had survived and that she had failed once more. He had been rescued by his Grisha and now ruled Ravka from a throne wreathed in shadows, surrounded by his monstrous horde. Whether he’d been weakened by what she’d done in the chapel, she didn’t know. He was ancient, and power was familiar to him as it had never been to her.

His oprichniki guards marched into monasteries and churches, tore up tiles and dug down through floors, seeking the Sun Summoner. Rewards were offered, threats were made, and once again the girl was hunted.

The priest swore that she was safe in the sprawling web of passages that crisscrossed Ravka like a secret map. There were those who claimed the tunnels had been made by armies of the faithful, that it had taken hundreds of years with picks and axes to carve them. Others said they were the work of a monster, a great worm who swallowed soil, rock, root, and gravel, who hollowed out the underground roads that led to the old holy places, where half-remembered prayers were still said. The girl only knew that no place would keep them safe for long.

She looked into the faces of her followers: old men, young women, children, soldiers, farmers, convicts. All she saw were corpses, more bodies for the Darkling to lay at her feet.

The Apparat wept, shouting his gratitude that the Sun Saint still lived, that she had once again been spared. In his wild black gaze, the girl saw a different truth: A dead martyr was less trouble than a living Saint.

The prayers of the faithful rose around the boy and the girl, echoing and multiplying beneath the earth, bouncing off the soaring stone walls of the White Cathedral. The Apparat said it was a holy place, their haven, their sanctuary, their home.

The boy shook his head. He knew a cell when he saw one.

He was wrong, of course. The girl could tell from the way the Apparat watched her struggle to her feet. She heard it in each fragile thump of her heart. This place was no prison. It was a tomb.

But the girl had spent long years being invisible. She’d already had a ghost’s life, hidden from the world and from herself. Better than anyone, she knew the power of things long buried.

At night, she heard the boy pacing outside her room, keeping watch with the golden-eyed twins. She lay quiet in her bed, counting her breaths, stretching toward the surface, seeking the light. She thought of the broken skiff, of Novokribirsk, of red names crowding a crooked church wall. She remembered little human heaps slumped beneath the golden dome; Marie’s butchered body; Fedyor, who had once saved her life. She heard the pilgrims’ songs and exhortations. She thought of the volcra and of Genya huddled in the dark.

The girl touched the collar at her neck, the fetter at her wrist. So many men had tried to make her a queen. Now she understood that she was meant for something more.

The Darkling had told her he was destined to rule. He had claimed his throne, and a part of her too. He was welcome to it. For the living and the dead, she would make herself a reckoning.

She would rise.