ZOYA DID NOT SCREAM. She stifled her panic as the sap rose over her rib cage and ceased her pounding on the golden sphere. She could not comprehend what she was seeing. Three years ago, she had watched the Darkling’s body burn to ash. She had whispered her aunt’s name as he had vanished in the heat of Inferni flames beside the body of Sankta Alina.
But it had not been Alina Starkov who lay on that pyre, only a girl tailored to look like her. Had the Darkling’s supporters used the same trick?
She did not understand the extent of what Elizaveta intended, only that Nikolai would not live through it. And that Yuri had betrayed them, the pious little wart. You always knew what he was, she scolded herself. You knew at which altar he chose to worship. But she had ignored him, dismissed him, because she had never truly seen him as a threat. And maybe because she hadn’t wanted to see her own foolish idealism reflected in his fervent eyes.
She watched Yuri approach the shadow creature that hovered like a strange ghost in front of Nikolai. She had sensed the Darkling’s presence that night in the bell tower, but she hadn’t wanted to believe he could return.
Blind. Naive. Selfish. Zoya held her breath as Yuri reached for the glowing thorn—but suddenly the monster was attacking the monk. She looked at Nikolai’s body splayed against the thorn wood like an insect pinned to a page. His eyes were closed. Could he be controlling the creature?
There was no time to think on it. Zoya had tried to batter the sphere with the power of the storm to no avail. Now she focused on the sap that
made up its walls, sensing the small parts that comprised it, the way its matter was formed. She was no Tidemaker. Before Juris this would have been beyond her. But now … Are we not all things? She concentrated on forcing those tiny particles to vibrate faster, raising the temperature of the sap, disrupting the structure of the sphere. Sweat poured from her brow as the heat rose and she feared she’d cook in her own skin.
In a single moment, the sphere’s structure gave way. Zoya cast the scalding liquid away on a gust of air before it could burn her skin, and then she was running, letting the wind carry her over the sands to the palace.
What are you running to, little witch? To Juris. To help. But what if the dragon already knew what Elizaveta intended? What if he was watching her from his black spire even now and laughing at her naiveté?
The wind faltered. Zoya’s steps slowed. She gazed up at the black rock. How long could Nikolai use the monster’s form to keep Yuri and the Saint at bay? Was Zoya racing toward an ally or walking into a trap, squandering valuable time? Another betrayal. She wasn’t sure she could bear it. But she would have to. She wasn’t powerful enough to face Elizaveta on her own. She needed the dragon’s wrath.
There was no time to trouble with the palace’s winding passages, and she doubted she could find her way. Instead she let the storm lob her up, high into the sky and the mouth of Juris’ cavern.
The room was empty. The fire in the grate had gone out.
That was when she saw the body. Juris lay on the floor in his human form, his broadsword discarded next to him. The gleam of his black scale armor seemed dull in the flat twilight.
“Juris!” she cried. She slid to her knees beside him.
He opened his eyes. They flickered silver, the pupils slitting. “That Elizaveta,” he said on a wheezing gasp. “Such an actress.” “What happened? What did she do to you?”
He released a sound that might have been a laugh or a moan. “She offered me wine. After hundreds of years. Honey mead made from fruit born of her vines. She said she had been saving it. It was sweet, but it was not wine.”
She looked at his charred lips, his blackened tongue, and understood. “It was fuel.”
“Only our own power can destroy us. My flames burned me from the inside.”
“No,” Zoya said. “No.” Her heart was too full of loss. “I’ll get Grigori.
He can heal you.”
“It’s too late.” Juris seized her wrist with surprising force. “Listen to me. We thought we had convinced Elizaveta to give up her power, but that was never her intent. If she breaks free of the bounds of the Fold, nothing will be able to control her. You must stop her.”
“How?” Zoya pleaded.
“You know what you must do, Zoya. Wear my bones.” She recoiled, but he did not release his grip. “Kill me. Take my scales.”
Zoya shook her head. All she could think of was her aunt’s resolute face. Zoya had been responsible for her death. She could have stopped the Darkling, if she’d looked closer, if she’d understood, if she hadn’t been consumed by her own ambition. “He doesn’t get to take you from me too.”
“I am not your aunt,” Juris growled. “I am your teacher. You were an able student. Prove to me that you are a great one.”
She could not do it. “You said it was a corruption.” “Only if you give nothing of yourself in return.”
The truth of that hit her, and Zoya knew she was afraid. “A little faith, Zoya. That is all this requires.”
A bitter laugh escaped her. “I don’t have it.”
“There is no end to the power you may obtain. The making at the heart of the world has no limit. It does not weaken. It does not tire. But you must go to meet it.”
“What if I get it wrong all over again?” What if she failed Juris as she had failed the others? Her life was crowded with too many ghosts.
“Stop punishing yourself for being someone with a heart. You cannot protect yourself from suffering. To live is to grieve. You are not protecting yourself by shutting yourself off from the world. You are limiting yourself, just as you did with your training.”
“Please,” Zoya said. She was the thing she’d always feared becoming: a lost girl, helpless, being led up the aisle of the chapel in Pachina. “Don’t leave me. Not you too.”
He nudged his broadsword with one hand. “Zoya of the lost city. Zoya of the garden. Zoya bleeding in the snow. You are strong enough to survive the fall.”
Juris released a cry that began as a scream and became a roar as his body shifted from man to dragon, bones cracking, scales widening, until
each was nearly the size of her palm.
He enfolded her in his wings, so gently. “Now, Zoya. I can hold on no longer.”
Zoya released a sob. To live is to grieve. She was a lost girl—and a general too. She hefted the broadsword in her hands and, with the power of the storm in her palms, drove the blade into his heart.
At the same instant, Zoya felt the dragon’s claws pierce her chest. She cried out, the pain like the fork of a lightning bolt, splitting her open. She felt her blood soaking the silk against her body, a sacrifice. Juris released a heavy sigh and shut his glowing eyes. Zoya pressed her face to his scales, listening to the heavy thud of his heart, of her own. Was this death, then? She wept for them both as the rhythm began to slow.
A moment passed. An age. Juris’ claws retracted. She could hear only one heartbeat now, and it was her own.
Zoya felt no pain. When she looked down, she saw her kefta was torn, but the blood flowed no longer. She touched her fingers to her skin. The wounds Juris had made had already healed.
There was no time for mourning, not if Juris’ sacrifice was to mean something, not if she had any hope of saving Nikolai and stopping Elizaveta. Zoya would have her revenge. She would save her king.
She grabbed a dagger from the wall. Before her tears could begin anew, she scraped the scales from the ridge that ran over Juris’ back.
But what was she to do now? She wasn’t a Fabrikator. That was Elizaveta’s gift.
Are we not all things?
Zoya had broken the boundaries within her order, but did she dare challenge the limits of the orders themselves?
Anything worth doing always starts as a bad idea. Nikolai’s words. Terrible advice. But perhaps it was time to heed it. She focused on the scales in her hand, sensed their edges, the particles that comprised them. It felt alien and wrong, and she knew instantly that this work would never be natural to her, but in this moment her meager skill would have to be enough. Zoya let the scales guide her. She could feel the shape they wanted to take, could see it burning clearly in her mind like a black wheel—no, a crown. Juris. Pushy to the last. She shoved the image aside and forced the scales to form two cuffs around her wrists instead.
As soon as the scales touched, sealing the bond, she felt Juris’ strength flow through her. But this was different than it had been with the tiger.
Open the door. She could feel his past, the eons both he and the dragon had lived flooding through her, threatening to over-whelm the short speck of her life.
Take it, then, she told him. I am strong enough to survive the fall.
She felt Juris’ restraint, felt him draw back, protecting her and guiding her as he had done over the past weeks. As he always would.
The dragon was with her. And they would fight.
