THE NEXT MORNING wasn’t as bad as I’d expected. Zoya was already in the domed hall when I entered. She sat by herself at the end of the Summoners’ table, eating her breakfast in silence. She didn’t look up as Marie and Nadia called their greetings to me, and I did my best to ignore her, too.
I savored every step of my walk down to the lake. The sun was bright, the air cold on my cheeks, and I wasn’t looking forward to the stuffy, windowless confines of Baghra’s hut. But when I climbed the steps to her door, I heard raised voices.
I hesitated and then knocked softly. The voices quieted abruptly, and after a moment, I pushed the door open and peeked inside. The Darkling was standing by Baghra’s tile oven, his face furious.
“Sorry,” I said, and began to back out the door.
But Baghra just snapped, “In, girl. Don’t let the heat out.”
When I entered and shut the door, the Darkling gave me a small bow. “How are you, Alina?”
“I’m fine,” I managed.
“She’s fine!” hooted Baghra. “She’s fine! She cannot light a hallway, but she’s fine.”
I winced and wished I could disappear into my boots. To my surprise, the Darkling said, “Leave her be.”
Baghra’s eyes narrowed. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
The Darkling sighed and ran his hands through his dark hair in exasperation. When he looked at me, there was a rueful smile on his lips, and his hair was going every which way. “Baghra has her own way of doing things,” he said.
“Don’t patronize me, boy!” Her voice cracked out like a whip. To my amazement, I saw the Darkling stand up straighter and then scowl as if he’d caught himself.
“Don’t chide me, old woman,” he said in a low, dangerous voice.
Angry energy crackled through the room. What had I walked into? I was thinking about slipping out the door and leaving them to finish whatever argument I’d interrupted when Baghra’s voice lashed out again.
“The boy thinks to get you an amplifier,” she said. “What do you think of that, girl?”
It was so strange to hear the Darkling called “boy” that it took me a moment to understand her meaning. But when I did, hope and relief rushed through me. An amplifier! Why hadn’t I thought of it before? Why hadn’t
they thought of it before? Baghra and the Darkling were able to help me call my power because they were living amplifiers, so why not an amplifier of my own like Ivan’s bear claws or the seal tooth I’d seen hanging around Marie’s neck?
“I think it’s brilliant!” I exclaimed more loudly than I’d intended. Baghra made a disgusted sound.
The Darkling gave her a sharp glance, but then he turned to me. “Alina, have you ever heard of Morozova’s herd?”
“Of course she has. She’s also heard of unicorns and the Shu Han dragons,” Baghra said mockingly.
An angry look passed over the Darkling’s features, but then he seemed to master himself. “May I have a word with you, Alina?” he inquired politely.
“Of … of course,” I stammered.
Baghra snorted again, but the Darkling ignored her and took me by the elbow to lead me out of the cottage, shutting the door firmly behind us. When we had walked a short distance down the path, he heaved a huge sigh and ran his hands through his hair again. “That woman,” he muttered.
It was hard not to laugh. “What?” he said warily.
“I’ve just never seen you so … ruffled.” “Baghra has that effect on people.” “Was she your teacher, too?”
A shadow crossed his face. “Yes,” he said. “So what do you know about Morozova’s herd?”
I bit my lip. “Just, well, you know …” He sighed. “Just children’s stories?”
I shrugged apologetically.
“It’s all right,” he said. “What do you remember from the stories?”
I thought back, remembering Ana Kuya’s voice in the dormitories late at night. “They were white deer, magical creatures that appeared only at twilight.”
“They’re no more magical than we are. But they are ancient and very powerful.”
“They’re real?” I asked incredulously. I didn’t mention that I certainly hadn’t been feeling very magical or powerful lately.
“I think so.”
“But Baghra doesn’t.”
“She usually finds my ideas ridiculous. What else do you remember?” “Well,” I said with a laugh. “In Ana Kuya’s stories, they could talk, and if a
hunter captured them and spared their lives, they granted wishes.”
He laughed then. It was the first time I’d ever heard his laugh, a lovely dark sound that rippled through the air. “Well, that part definitely isn’t true.”
“But the rest is?”
“Kings and Darklings have been searching for Morozova’s herd for centuries. My hunters claim they’ve seen signs of them, though they’ve never seen the creatures themselves.”
“And you believe them?”
His slate-colored gaze was cool and steady. “My men don’t lie to me.”
I felt a chill skitter up my spine. Knowing what the Darkling could do, I wouldn’t be keen on lying to him either. “All right,” I said uneasily.
“If Morozova’s stag can be taken, its antlers can be made into an amplifier.” He reached out and tapped my collarbone—even that brief contact was enough to send a jolt of surety through me.
“A necklace?” I asked, trying to picture it, still feeling the tap of his fingers at the base of my throat.
He nodded. “The most powerful amplifier ever known.” My jaw dropped. “And you want to give it to me?”
He nodded again.
“Wouldn’t it just be easier for me to get a claw or a fang or, I don’t know, pretty much anything else?”
He shook his head. “If we have any hope of destroying the Fold, we need the stag’s power.”
“But maybe if I had one to practice with—” “You know it doesn’t work that way.”
“I do?”
He frowned. “Haven’t you been reading your theory?” I gave him a look and said, “There’s a lot of theory.”
He surprised me by smiling. “I forget that you’re new to this.” “Well, I don’t,” I muttered.
“Is it that bad?”
To my embarrassment, I felt a lump well up in my throat. I swallowed it down. “Baghra must have told you I can’t summon a single sunbeam on my own.”
“It will happen, Alina. I’m not worried.” “You’re not?”
“No. And even if I were, once we have the stag, it won’t matter.”
I felt a surge of frustration. If an amplifier could make it possible for me to be a real Grisha, then I didn’t want to wait for some mythical antler. I wanted a real one. Now.
“If no one’s found Morozova’s herd in all this time, what makes you think you’ll find it now?” I asked.
“Because this was meant to be. The stag was meant for you, Alina. I can feel it.” He looked at me. His hair was still a mess, and in the bright morning sunlight, he looked more handsome and more human than I’d ever seen him.
“I guess I’m asking you to trust me,” he said.
What was I supposed to say? I didn’t really have a choice. If the Darkling wanted me to be patient, I would have to be patient. “Okay,” I said finally. “But hurry it up.”
He laughed again, and I felt a pleased flush creep up my cheeks. Then his expression became serious. “I’ve been waiting for you a long time, Alina,” he said. “You and I are going to change the world.”
I laughed nervously. “I’m not the world-changing type.”
“Just wait,” he said softly, and when he looked at me with those gray quartz eyes, my heart gave a little thump. I thought he was going to say something more, but abruptly he stepped back, a troubled look on his face. “Good luck with your lessons,” he said. He gave me a short bow and turned on his heel to walk up the path to the lakeshore. But he’d only gone a few steps before he turned back to me. “Alina,” he said. “About the stag?”
“Yes?”
“Please keep it to yourself. Most people think it’s just a children’s story, and I’d hate to look a fool.”
“I won’t say anything,” I promised.
He nodded once and, without another word, strode away. I stared after him.
I felt a little dazed, and I wasn’t sure why.
When I looked up, Baghra was standing on the porch of her cottage, watching me. For no reason at all, I blushed.
“Hmph,” she snorted, and then she turned her back on me, too.
AFTER MY CONVERSATION with the Darkling, I took my first opportunity to visit the library. There was no mention of the stag in any of my theory books, but I did find a reference to Ilya Morozova, one of the first and most powerful Grisha.
There was also plenty about amplifiers. The books were very clear on the fact that a Grisha could have only one amplifier in his or her lifetime and that once a Grisha owned an amplifier, it could be possessed by no one else: “The Grisha claims the amplifier, but the amplifier claims the Grisha, as well. Once it is done, there can be no other. Like calls to like, and the bond is made.”
The reason for this wasn’t entirely clear to me, but it seemed to have something to do with a check on Grisha power.
“The horse has speed. The bear has strength. The bird has wings. No creature has all of these gifts, and so the world is held in balance. Amplifiers are part of this balance, not a means of subverting it, and each Grisha would do well to remember this or risk the consequences.”
Another philosopher wrote, “Why can a Grisha possess but one amplifier?
I will answer this question instead: What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men.”
Sitting beneath the library’s glass dome, I thought of the Black Heretic. The Darkling had said that the Shadow Fold was the result of his ancestor’s greed. Was that what the philosophers meant by consequences? For the first time, it occurred to me that the Fold was the one place where the Darkling was helpless, where his powers meant nothing. The Black Heretic’s descendants had suffered for his ambition. Still, I couldn’t help but think that it was Ravka that had been made to pay in blood.
FALL TURNED TO WINTER, and cold winds stripped the branches in the palace gardens bare. Our table was still laden with fresh fruit and flowers furnished from the Grisha hothouses, where they made their own weather. But even juicy plums and purple grapes did little to improve my appetite.
Somehow I’d thought that my conversation with the Darkling might change something in me. I wanted to believe the things he’d said, and standing by the lakeshore, I almost had. But nothing changed. I still couldn’t summon without Baghra’s help. I still wasn’t truly a Grisha.
All the same, I felt a bit less miserable about it. The Darkling had asked me to trust him, and if he believed that the stag was the answer, then all I could do was hope he was right. I still avoided practicing with the other Summoners, but I let Marie and Nadia drag me to the banya a couple of times and to one of the ballets at the Grand Palace. I even let Genya put a little color in my cheeks.
My new attitude infuriated Baghra.
“You’re not even trying anymore!” she shouted. “You’re waiting for some magical deer to come save you? For your pretty necklace? You might as well wait for a unicorn to put its head in your lap, you stupid thing.”
When she started railing at me, I just shrugged. She was right. I was tired of trying and failing. I wasn’t like the other Grisha, and it was time I accepted that. Besides, some rebellious part of me enjoyed driving her into a tizzy.
I didn’t know what punishment Zoya had received, but she continued to ignore me. She’d been barred from the training rooms, and I’d heard she would be returning to Kribirsk after the winter fete. Occasionally, I caught her glaring at me or giggling behind her hand with her little group of Summoner friends, but I tried not to let it get to me.
Still, I couldn’t shake the sense of my own failure. When the first snow came, I woke to find a new kefta waiting for me on my door. It was made of heavy midnight blue wool and had a hood lined in thick golden fur. I put it on, but it was hard not to feel like a fraud.
After picking at my breakfast, I made the familiar walk to Baghra’s cottage. The gravel paths, cleared of snow by Inferni, sparkled beneath the weak winter sun. I was almost all the way to the lake when a servant caught up with me.
She handed me a folded piece of paper and bobbed a curtsy before scurrying back up the path. I recognized Genya’s handwriting.
Malyen Oretsev’s unit has been stationed at the Chernast outpost in northern Tsibeya for six weeks. He is listed as healthy. You can write to him care of his regiment.
The Kerch ambassadors are showering the Queen with gifts. Oysters and sandpipers packed in dry ice (vile) and almond candies! I’ll bring some by tonight.—G
Mal was in Tsibeya. He was safe, alive, far from the fighting, probably hunting winter game.
I should be grateful. I should be glad.
You can write to him care of his regiment. I’d been writing to him care of his regiment for months.
I thought of the last letter I’d sent.
Dear Mal, I’d written. I haven’t heard from you, so I assume you’ve met and married a volcra and that you’re living comfortably on the Shadow Fold, where you have neither light nor paper with which to write. Or, possibly, your new bride ate both your hands.
I’d filled the letter with descriptions of Botkin, the Queen’s snuffling dog, and the Grisha’s curious fascination with peasant customs. I’d told him about beautiful Genya and the pavilions by the lake and the marvelous glass dome in the library. I’d told him about mysterious Baghra and the orchids in the hothouse and the birds painted above my bed. But I hadn’t told him about Morozova’s stag or the fact that I was such a disaster as a Grisha or that I still missed him every single day.
When I was done, I’d hesitated and then hastily scrawled at the bottom, I don’t know if you got my other letters. This place is more beautiful than I can describe, but I would trade it all to spend an afternoon skipping stones with you at Trivka’s pond. Please write.
But he had gotten my letters. What had he done with all of them? Had he even bothered to open them? Had he sighed with embarrassment when the fifth and the sixth and the seventh arrived?
I cringed. Please write, Mal. Please don’t forget me, Mal.
Pathetic, I thought, brushing angry tears away.
I stared out at the lake. It was starting to freeze. I thought of the creek that ran through Duke Keramsov’s estate. Every winter, Mal and I had waited for that creek to freeze so we could skate on it.
I crumpled Genya’s note in my fist. I didn’t want to think about Mal anymore. I wished I could blot out every memory of Keramzin. Mostly I wished I could run back to my room and have a good cry. But I couldn’t. I had to spend another pointless, miserable morning with Baghra.
I took my time making my way down the lake path, then stomped up the steps to Baghra’s hut and banged open the door.
As usual, she was sitting by the fire, warming her bony body by the flames.
I plunked myself down in the chair opposite her and waited.
Baghra let out a short bark of laughter. “So you’re angry today, girl? What do you have to be angry about? Are you sick of waiting for your magical white deer?”
I crossed my arms and said nothing. “Speak up, girl.”
On any other day, I would have lied, told her I was fine, said that I was tired. But I guess I’d reached my breaking point, because I snapped. “I’m sick of all of this,” I said angrily. “I’m sick of eating rye and herring for breakfast. I’m sick of wearing this stupid kefta. I’m sick of being pummeled by Botkin, and I’m sick of you.”
I thought she would be furious, but instead she just peered at me. With her head cocked to one side and her eyes glittering black in the firelight, she looked like a very mean sparrow.
“No,” she said slowly. “No. It’s not that. There’s something else. What is it? Is the poor little girl homesick?”
I snorted. “Homesick for what?”
“You tell me, girl. What’s so bad about your life here? New clothes, a soft bed, hot food at every meal, the chance to be the Darkling’s pet.”
“I’m not his pet.”
“But you want to be,” she jeered. “Don’t bother lying to me. You’re like all the rest. I saw the way you looked at him.”
My cheeks burned, and I thought about hitting Bahgra over the head with her own stick.
“A thousand girls would sell their own mothers to be in your shoes, and yet here you are, miserable and sulking like a child. So tell me, girl. What is your sad little heart pining for?”
She was right, of course. I knew very well that I was homesick for my best friend. But I wasn’t about to tell her that.
I stood up, knocking my chair back with a clatter. “This is a waste of time.” “Is it? What else do you have to do with your days? Make maps? Fetch
inks for some old cartographer?”
“There’s nothing wrong with being a mapmaker.”
“Of course not. And there’s nothing wrong with being a lizard either.
Unless you were born to be a hawk.”
“I’ve had enough of this,” I snarled, and turned my back on her. I was close to tears and I refused to cry in front of this spiteful old woman.
“Where are you going?” she called after me, her voice mocking. “What’s waiting for you out there?”
“Nothing!” I shouted at her. “No one!”
As soon as I said it, the truth of the words hit me so hard that it left me breathless. I gripped the door handle, feeling suddenly dizzy.
In that moment, the memory of the Grisha Examiners came rushing back to me.
I am in the sitting room at Keramzin. A fire is burning in the grate. The heavyset man in blue has hold of me and he is pulling me away from Mal.
I feel Mal’s fingers slip as his hand is torn from mine.
The young man in purple picks Mal up and drags him into the library, slamming the door behind him. I kick and thrash. I can hear Mal shouting my name.
The other man holds me. The woman in red slides her hand around my wrist. I feel a sudden rush of pure certainty wash over me.
I stop struggling. A call rings through me. Something within me rises up to answer.
I can’t breathe. It’s like I’m kicking up from the bottom of a lake, about to break the surface, my lungs aching for air.
The woman in red watches me closely, her eyes narrowed. I hear Mal’s voice through the library door. Alina, Alina.
I know then. I know that we are different from one another. Terribly, irrevocably different.
Alina. Alina!
I make my choice. I grab hold of the thing inside me and push it back down. “Mal!” I shout, and begin to struggle once more.
The woman in red tries to keep hold of my wrist, but I wriggle and wail until finally she lets me go.
I leaned against the door to Baghra’s hut, trembling. The woman in red had been an amplifier. That was why the Darkling’s call had felt familiar. But somehow I’d managed to resist her.
At last, I understood.
Before Mal, Keramzin had been a place of terrors, long nights spent crying in the dark, older children who ignored me, cold and empty rooms. But then Mal arrived and all of that changed. The dark hallways became places to hide and play. The lonely woods became places to explore. Keramzin became our
palace, our kingdom, and I wasn’t afraid anymore.
But the Grisha Examiners would have taken me from Keramzin. They would have taken me away from Mal, and he had been the only good thing in my world. So I’d made my choice. I’d pushed my power down and held it there each day, with all my energy and will, without ever realizing it. I’d used up every bit of myself to keep that secret.
I remembered standing at the window with Mal, watching the Grisha depart in their troika, how tired I’d felt. The next morning, I’d woken to find dark circles beneath my eyes. They’d been with me ever since.
And now? I asked myself, pressing my forehead against the cool wood of the door, my whole body shaking.
Now Mal had left me behind.
The only person in the world who truly knew me had decided I wasn’t worth the effort of a few words. But I was holding on still. Despite all the luxuries of the Little Palace, despite my newfound powers, despite Mal’s silence, I held on.
Baghra was right. I’d thought I was making such an effort, but deep down, some part of me just wanted to go home to Mal. Some part of me hoped that this had all been a mistake, that the Darkling would realize his error and send me back to the regiment, that Mal would realize how much he’d missed me, that we’d grow old together in our meadow. Mal had moved on, but I was still standing frightened before those three mysterious figures, holding tight to his hand.
It was time to let go. That day on the Shadow Fold, Mal had saved my life, and I had saved his. Maybe that was meant to be the end of us.
The thought filled me with grief, grief for the dreams we’d shared, for the love I’d felt, for the hopeful girl I would never be again. That grief flooded through me, dissolving a knot that I hadn’t even known was there. I closed my eyes, feeling tears slide down my cheeks, and I reached out to the thing within me that I’d kept hidden for so long. I’m sorry, I whispered to it.
I’m sorry I left you so long in the dark. I’m sorry, but I’m ready now.
I called and the light answered. I felt it rushing toward me from every direction, skimming over the lake, skittering over the golden domes of the Little Palace, under the door and through the walls of Baghra’s cottage. I felt it everywhere. I opened my hands and the light bloomed right through me, filling the room, illuminating the stone walls, the old tile oven, and every angle of Baghra’s strange face. It surrounded me, blazing with heat, more powerful and more pure than ever before because it was all mine. I wanted to laugh, to sing, to shout. At last, there was something that belonged wholly and completely to me.
“Good,” said Baghra, squinting in the sunlight. “Now we work.”
