THEY WAITED BENEATH A FLAT gray sky. It might have been dawn. It might have been dusk. Magical things happened at the in- between times. Morozova’s sacred amplifiers had appeared at twilight. The stag. The sea whip. The firebird. Perhaps the Saints were the same.
Nikolai stood on the sands flanked by Zoya and Yuri above the spot where warrior priests had once come to be transformed, where the Darkling had torn the world open and created the Fold, and where, years later, he had finally been defeated. If there was power in this place, Nikolai could only hope that it was friendly and that it would help to destroy the remnants of the curse the Darkling had left behind.
Elizaveta’s gown of roses bloomed dark red around her, a high collar of blossoms and buds framing her face as her bees hummed in her hair. Grigori’s massive body folded and unfolded in a shifting mass of limbs. Nikolai wondered what form he would choose for his brief mortal life.
Juris was nowhere to be seen.
“The dragon couldn’t be bothered to attend?” he whispered to Zoya. “He wants this more than anyone,” she said, and glanced up at the
black stone of his spire in the distance. “I have no doubt he’s watching.” Elizaveta nodded at both of them as her insects buzzed and clicked.
“Are you ready, my king?” she asked Nikolai. “We cannot entertain the possibility of failure.”
“A shame,” Nikolai murmured. “My failures are so entertaining.” He raised his voice and said, “I’m ready.”
Yuri stood beside Zoya, his whole body vibrating with tension or fervor. In his shaking hands he held the pages of text he had continued to translate without Tolya’s help. Elizaveta had insisted he remain with Nikolai and recite the ceremony.
“Is that entirely necessary?” Zoya had demanded.
“The words are sacred,” Elizaveta had said. “They should be spoken as they once were. Yuri has his role to play in this too.”
The monk pressed the pages to his chest now. His eyes looked wide and startled behind the lenses of his spectacles. “I find … I find I do not know what to pray for.”
Nikolai gave his shoulder an encouraging squeeze. “Then pray for Ravka.”
The monk nodded. “You are a good man. I can have faith in the Starless One and have faith in that too.”
“Thank you,” said Nikolai. He wasn’t going to enjoy disappointing Yuri. But whether Nikolai lived or died this day, there would be no Sainthood for the Darkling. He would have to find some other way to appease the monk. Yuri was a boy in search of a cause, and that at least was something Nikolai could understand. He turned to Zoya. “You have the order? If the monster takes me—”
“I know what to do.”
“You needn’t sound quite so eager.”
To his surprise, Zoya seized his hand. “Come back,” she said. “Promise you’ll come back to us.”
Because he was most likely about to die, he let himself cup his hand briefly to her extraordinary face. Her skin felt cool against his fingers.
“Of course I’ll come back,” he said. “I don’t trust anyone else to deliver my eulogy.”
A smile curled her lips. “You’ve written it already?”
“It’s very good. You’d be surprised how many synonyms there are for
handsome.”
Zoya closed her eyes. She turned her face, letting her cheek rest against his palm. “Nikolai—”
The hum of Elizaveta’s insects rose. “It’s time,” she said, and lifted her hands. “Nikolai Lantsov, prepare yourself.”
Zoya released his hand and stepped away. He desperately wanted to pull her back into his arms and ask her what she’d intended to say.
This is not a goodbye, he told himself. But it certainly felt like one.
Thunder rumbled over the gray sky. A moment later, Nikolai realized it wasn’t coming from above but from below. The ground began to tremble, and a sound like distant hoofbeats rose from somewhere deep within the earth. It grew, an oncoming stampede that shook the sands.
Elizaveta grimaced, perspiration gleaming on her brow.
She loosed a shout and the thorn wood burst from the sand. The stalks surrounded Nikolai and Zoya, twining and twisting, the thicket growing up around them as if woven on an invisible loom. Yuri began to chant.
“Have you never wondered at the power of the woods?” asked Elizaveta, her face glowing as she drove the brambles higher. “The magic at the heart of so many stories. The prick of a thorn? The magic a single rose can carry? These trees are older than anything else in the world, sprung from the first making, before man and animal and anything else. They are old as the stars, and they belong to me.”
Gold seemed to drip from the thorn wood stalks, pooling at the bases of their trunks, then flowing in sinuous rivers toward Zoya. The sap formed a sphere around her, hardening into amber. Nikolai saw her press her hands to the sphere’s sides as liquid began to rise over her ankles. The stalks around them creaked, twining against each other, the sound merging with the jagged syllables of ancient Ravkan.
Save her. The impulse was always the same, one that somehow both he and the dark thing within him could agree upon. Maybe because the Darkling had once valued Zoya and fostered her power. But Nikolai had known it would not be difficult to call the beast this time. It had been waiting, barely leashed, gnashing its teeth.
“Draw your sword, my king!” cried Elizaveta.
Nikolai drew the saber at his side and felt the monster rise. Remember who you are. Claws shot from his hands and he roared as his wings burst from his back.
The demon’s hunger filled him, the desire to rend flesh, to feed, stronger than it had ever been. Before Nikolai could succumb and lose all sense, he slashed his sword through the nearest branch, slicing a thorn free of its stalk. It was nearly as long as his saber. He sheathed his blade and took the thorn in his taloned hands. Could he really do this? Could he really drive it into his own heart?
Both of their hearts. Slay the monster. Free himself.
He heard the creature scream as if understanding his intent. Only one of us will survive this, Nikolai vowed. It is time you met the will of a king.
What king? said a dark voice within him. It is a bastard I have come to kill.
Was it his hand that held the thorn blade? Or was it the monster that
kept the point poised above his heart?
Nikolai Nothing, said the voice. Liar. Fraud. Heir to no one. Pretender to the throne. I see who you are.
But Nikolai knew those cruelties. He’d borne them his whole life. It takes more than blood to make a king.
Tell me what it takes to rule, the thing said in that taunting voice.
Courage? Valor? Love for the people?
All of that. Nikolai strengthened his grip. He could feel the weight of the thorn in his palm. And a solid sense of style.
But the people don’t love you, bastard. Despite your constant striving. The voice sounded different now. Cool, familiar, smooth as glass. How long have you been begging for their love? Little Nikolai Lantsov playing the clown for his mother, the sycophant for his father, the handsome courtier for Alina? She was an orphan, a peasant, and even she didn’t want you. And yet you continue, pleading for scraps like the commoner you are.
Nikolai managed a laugh, but it did not come easy. I’ve met enough commoners and enough kings to not take that as an insult.
What do you think they saw in you to make you so unworthy? All of those medals earned, your fleet of ships, your heroic deeds, your earnest reforms. You know it will never be enough. Some children are born unlovable. Their mothers will not suckle them. They are left to die in the forest. And here you are, come to weep your last, alone in the thorn wood.
I’m not alone. He had Zoya, even Yuri for that matter, and Grigori and Elizaveta watching over them. I have your delightful company.
Now the dark voice laughed, low and long, mirth overflowing in a black tide. Go ahead and do it, then. Drive the thorn into your chest. Do you really think it will matter? Do you really think anything can make you the man you were before?
Before the war. Before the Darkling had set this curse upon him. Before Vasily’s murder, the revelation of his father’s crimes, the ambush at the Spinning Wheel, the countless battles that had cost so many lives.
How do you think I was able to take hold of your heart and burrow so deeply? You gave me fertile soil and so I took root. You will never be what you were. The rot has spread too far.
That’s a lie. Elizaveta had warned Nikolai that the demon would try to trick him. So why did the words ring true?
Oh, you make a good show of it. Compromise, patience, an endless performance of good works to prove you are still the confident prince, the brazen privateer, whole and happy and unafraid. All that work to hide the demon. Why?
The people … The people clung to superstition. They feared the strange. Ravka could not afford another disruption, another weak king.
Another weak king. The voice was knowing, almost pitying. You said it yourself.
I am not my father.
Of course not. You have no father. I’ll tell you why you hide the demon, why you cloak yourself in compromise and diplomacy and dribbling, desperate charm. It is because you know that if they saw you truly, they would turn away. They would see the nightmares that wake you, the doubts that plague you. They would know how very weak you are and they would turn their backs. Use the thorn, drive me out. You will still be a broken man—demon or not.
Was this the real fear that had chased him all these long months? That he would find no cure because the disease was not the demon? That the darkness inside him did not belong to something else but to him alone? He had been a fool. What he’d endured in the war, the choices he’d made, the lives he had ended with bullets and blades and bombs—there was no magic that could burn that away. He’d been human then. He had no demon to blame. He might purge the monster from his body, but the mess of shame and regret would remain. And what would happen when the fighting started up again? The thought made him impossibly weary.
The war was supposed to be over.
The demon’s laughter rolled over him. Not for you, said the voice. Not for Ravka. Not ever.
Nikolai knew he had come here with a purpose. Drive the monster out. Save his country. Save himself. But those were not necessarily the same thing. He could not go back. He could not heal himself. He could not take back the part of him that had been lost. So how was he to lead?
Lay down the thorn.
The thorn? Nikolai could no longer feel it in his hand.
Lay down the thorn. Not every day can end in victory. Not every soldier can be saved. This country won’t survive a broken king.
Nikolai had always understood that he and Ravka were the same. He just hadn’t understood how: He was not the crying child or even the
drowning man. He was the forever soldier, eternally at war, unable to ever lay down his arms and heal.
Lay down the thorn, boy king. Haven’t you earned a bit of rest? Aren’t you tired?
He was. Saints, he was. He thought he had grown used to his scars, but he had never grasped how much of his will it would take to hide them. He had fought and sacrificed and bled. He had gone long days without rest and long nights without comfort. All for Ravka, all for an ideal he would never attain and a country that would never care.
A bit of peace, whispered the demon. You have the right.
The right to wash his hands of this endless struggle and stop pretending he was somehow better than his father, more worthy than his brother. He was owed that much, wasn’t he?
Yes, crooned the demon. I will see Ravka safe to shore.
Zoya would never forgive him, but Zoya would keep marching on.
With losses and wounds of her own. Zoya would not rest.
Steel is earned, Your Highness, she had said, his ruthless general. What had he earned? What was he owed? What was his by right? He knew what Zoya would say: You are owed nothing.
Steel is earned. Remember who you are. Bastard, hissed the demon.
I am Nikolai Lantsov. I have no right to my name. Pretender, howled the dark voice.
I am Nikolai Lantsov. I have no right to my crown.
But each day he might endeavor to earn it. If he dared continue on with this wound in his heart. If he dared to be the man he was instead of praying to return to the man he’d once been.
Maybe everything the monster said was true. All Nikolai had done or would do for his people might never be enough. A part of him might always remain beyond repair. He might never be a truly noble man or a truly worthy king. In the end, he might be nothing more than a good head of hair and a gift for delusion.
But he knew this much: He would not rest until his country could too.
And he would never, ever turn his back on a wounded man—even if that man was him.
Nikolai Nothing, snarled the demon. Ravka will never be yours.
Perhaps not. But if you loved a thing, the work was never done.
Remember who you are.
Nikolai knew. He was a king who had only begun to make mistakes. He was a soldier for whom the war would never be over. He was a bastard left alone in the woods. And he was not afraid to die this day.
He seized the thorn and drove it into his heart.
The monster shrieked. But Nikolai felt no pain at all—just heat as if a blaze had ignited in his chest. For a second he thought he might be dead, but when he opened his eyes, the world remained—the thorn wood, the twilight sky, the golden sphere. He had a brief moment to wonder why Elizaveta hadn’t freed Zoya yet. And then he saw the monster.
It was a shape of pure shadow that hovered in front of him as if suspended in a mirror. Its wings beat gently at the air. In the place where the creature’s heart would be, a slender shard of light glowed. The thorn. So this was the demon. The dark thing that had driven him, played with him, stolen his will. I am the monster and the monster is me. They were not as separate as he would have liked to pretend, but he remembered Elizaveta’s words: Only one of you will survive.
It was time to slay the demon and put an end to this. He reached for his sword.
But he could not move his arms, could not move his legs. The thorn wood had grabbed hold of him, its stalks clinging tightly to his limbs, its spikes digging into his flesh.
Sap was still filling the golden sphere around Zoya despite the fact that he’d already called the monster. She was shouting and pounding her fists against its sides.
Something was very wrong.
He screamed as a sudden, searing bolt of pain shot through his hand. He looked to his left and saw a thorn impaling him through the palm. Another followed through his right hand and then each of his legs.
“I know the pain is bad,” said Elizaveta as she drifted through the thicket. “But the thorns will keep you from forcing the darkness to recede.”
“What is this?” Nikolai panted. Pain speared through him as he tried to break free.
“I had hoped you might simply let the monster overtake you. That your demon would win. It would have made all of this easier.”
Nikolai’s mind struggled to make sense of what Elizaveta was saying. “You’re a prisoner here,” Nikolai said. “After all this, you cannot mean to stay!”
“Certainly not. The boundaries of the Fold will remain intact, and here my brethren will be held captive still. But I will be free because I will be bound to him.”
Nikolai did not need to ask who she meant. “The Darkling.”
She nodded once. “The true king of Ravka. His spirit lived on with his power. It is only in need of a vessel.”
The thicket parted and Nikolai saw a pale body borne atop a bier of branches.
It cannot be. He had stood on the shores of the Fold and watched the Darkling burn—and yet here his body was, whole and uncorrupted. It had to be some kind of illusion, or a brilliant facsimile.
Yuri stood beside the bier, the pages of liturgical Ravkan discarded. He wore a robe of black roses emblazoned with the sun in eclipse. “Forgive me,” he said, his face contrite. “I wish it did not have to be so. I wish you could both survive this day. But the Starless One is Ravka’s greatest hope. He must return.” I find I do not know what to pray for.
“Go on, Yuri,” Elizaveta said. “This honor is yours.”
Nikolai remembered Yuri babbling when they had first come to the Saints’ Fold. All is as was promised. He thought of the curling vine Elizaveta had so soothingly laid across Yuri’s shoulders. She hadn’t been trying to comfort him. She’d been afraid of what else he might say. Yuri has his role to play in this too. He’d said the Darkling had come to him in a vision.
Yuri approached the shadow beast and reached for the glowing shard wedged within its heart. Nikolai knew with sudden surety that if he pulled the thorn from the monster’s chest first, it would be an end to everything.
“Don’t, Yuri.” He did not like the pleading in his voice. It did not become a king. “Don’t do this.”
“You are a good man,” said Yuri. “But Ravka needs more than a man.” He reached up and grabbed the thorn.
No. Nikolai would not allow it. He had opened the door. It was time to walk through. The monster was not the Darkling, not yet; it was something else still, something that longed for its own life, that had its own appetites, that he had lived with for three years.
Why do you hide the demon? Because it was angry, hungry, full of broken animal longing. And though Nikolai might not like it, those things were all a part of him still. Like calls to like. He had fought the
demon. Now he would feed it.
Nikolai shut his eyes and did what that dark voice had told him to do. He let go of the perfect prince, the good king. He reached for all the wounded, shameful things he’d been so sure he had to hide. In this moment, he was not kind or merciful or just. He was a monster.
He left his mortal body behind.
When Nikolai opened his eyes, he was looking at Yuri from a different angle—close enough to see the smudge on his glasses, the wiry hairs of his scrabbly beard. Nikolai felt his wings beat the air, felt his demon heart race. He released a snarl and launched himself at the monk.
