Less than a meek later, I spotted the first ice floes. We were far north, where the sea darkened and ice bloomed from its depths in perilous spikes. Though it was early summer, the wind bit into our skin. In the morning, the ropes were hard with frost.
I spent hours pacing my cabin and staring out at the endless sea. Each morning, I was brought above deck, where I was given a chance to stretch my legs and see Mal from afar. Always, the Darkling stood by the railing, scanning the horizon, searching for something. Sturmhond and his crew kept their distance.
On the seventh day, we passed between two slate stone islands that I recognized from my time as a mapmaker: Jelka and Vilki, the Fork and Knife. We had entered the Bone Road, the long stretch of black water where countless ships had wrecked on the nameless islands that appeared and disappeared in its mists. On maps, it was marked by sailors’ skulls, wide-mouthed monsters, mermaids with ice-white hair and the deep black eyes of seals. Only the most experienced Fjerdan hunters came here, seeking skins and furs, chancing death to claim rich prizes. But what prize did we seek?
Sturmhond ordered the sails trimmed, and our pace slowed as we drifted through the mist. An uneasy silence blanketed the ship. I studied the whaler’s longboats, the racks of harpoons tipped in Grisha steel. It wasn’t hard to guess what they were for. The Darkling was after some kind of amplifier. I surveyed the ranks of Grisha and wondered who might be singled out for another of the Darkling’s “gifts.” But a terrible suspicion had taken root inside me.
It’s madness, I told myself. He wouldn’t dare attempt it. The thought brought me little comfort. He always dared.
* * *
THE NEXT DAY, the Darkling ordered me brought to him.
“Who is it for?” I asked as Ivan deposited me by the starboard rail.
The Darkling just stared out into the waves. I considered shoving him over the railing. Sure, he was hundreds of years old, but could he swim?
“Tell me you’re not contemplating what I think you are,” I said. “Tell me the amplifier is for some other stupid, gullible girl.”
“Someone less stubborn? Less selfish? Less hungry for the life of a mouse? Believe me,” he said, “I wish I could.”
I felt sick. “A Grisha can have only one amplifier. You told me that yourself.”
“Morozova’s amplifiers are different.”
I gaped at him. “There’s another like the stag?”
“They were meant to be used together, Alina. They are unique, just as we are.”
I thought of the books I’d read on Grisha theory. Every one of them had said the same thing: Grisha power was not meant to be limitless; it had to be held in check.
“No,” I said. “I don’t want this. I want—”
“You want,” the Darkling mocked. “I want to watch your tracker die slowly with my knife in his heart. I want to let the sea swallow you both. But our fates are entwined now, Alina, and there’s nothing either of us can do about that.”
“You’re mad.”
“I know it pleases you to think so,” he said. “But the amplifiers must be brought together. If we have any hope of controlling the Fold—”
“You can’t control the Fold. It has to be destroyed.”
“Careful, Alina,” he said with a slight smile. “I’ve had the same thought about you.” He gestured to Ivan, who was waiting a respectful distance away. “Bring me the boy.”
My heart leapt into my throat. “Wait,” I said. “You told me you wouldn’t hurt him.”
He ignored me. Like a fool, I looked around. As if anyone on this saintsforsaken ship would hear my appeal. Sturmhond stood by the wheel, watching us, his face impassive.
I snatched at the Darkling’s sleeve. “We had a deal. I haven’t done anything. You said—”
The Darkling looked at me with cool quartz eyes, and the words died on my lips.
A moment later, Ivan appeared with Mal in tow and steered him over to the rail. He stood before us, squinting in the sunlight, hands bound. It
was the closest we’d been in weeks. Though he looked tired and pale, he appeared unharmed. I saw the question in his wary expression, but I had no answer.
“All right, tracker,” the Darkling said. “Track.”
Mal glanced from the Darkling to me and back again. “Track what?
We’re in the middle of the ocean.”
“Alina once told me that you could make rabbits out of rocks. I questioned the crew of the Verrhader myself, and they claim that you’re just as capable at sea. They seemed to think you could make some lucky captain very rich with your expertise.”
Mal frowned. “You want me to hunt whales?”
“No,” said the Darkling. “I want you to hunt the sea whip.” We stared at him in shock. I almost laughed.
“You’re looking for a dragon?” Mal said incredulously. “The ice dragon,” said the Darkling. “Rusalye.”
Rusalye. In the stories, the sea whip was a cursed prince, forced to take the form of a sea serpent and guard the frigid waters of the Bone Road. That was Morozova’s second amplifier?
“It’s a fairy tale,” Mal said, voicing my own thoughts. “A children’s story. It doesn’t actually exist.”
“There have been sightings of the sea whip in these waters for years,” said the Darkling.
“Along with mermaids and white selkies. It’s a myth.” The Darkling arched a brow. “Like the stag?”
Mal glanced at me. I gave an infinitesimal shake of my head.
Whatever the Darkling was doing, we weren’t going to help.
Mal peered out at the waves. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.” “For her sake, I hope that’s not true.” The Darkling pulled a slender
knife from the folds of his kefta. “Because every day we don’t find the sea whip, I’ll peel away a piece of her skin. Slowly. Then Ivan will heal her, and the next day, we’ll do it all over again.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“You won’t hurt her,” Mal said, but I could hear the fear in his voice. “I don’t want to hurt her,” said the Darkling. “I want you to do as I
ask.”
“It took me months to find the stag,” Mal said desperately. “I still don’t know how we did it.”
Sturmhond stepped forward. I’d been so focused on Mal and the Darkling, I’d nearly forgotten him. “I won’t have a girl tortured on my ship,” he said.
The Darkling turned his cold gaze on the privateer. “You work for me, Sturmhond. You’ll do your job or getting paid will be the least of your worries.”
An ugly ripple of disquiet passed over the ship. Sturmhond’s crew were sizing up the Grisha, and their expressions were not friendly. Genya had a hand pressed over her mouth, but she did not say a word.
“Give the tracker some time,” Sturmhond said quietly. “A week. At least a few days.”
The Darkling slid his fingers up my arm, pushing back my sleeve to reveal bare white flesh. “Shall I start with her arm?” he asked. He dropped the sleeve, then brushed his knuckles over my cheek. “Or with her face?” He nodded to Ivan. “Hold her.”
Ivan clasped the back of my head. The Darkling lifted the knife. I saw it glittering from the corner of my eye. I tried to cringe back, but Ivan held me in place. The blade met my cheek. I sucked in a frightened breath.
“Stop!” Mal shouted. The Darkling waited. “I … I can do it.”
“Mal, no,” I said with more courage than I felt.
Mal swallowed and said, “Tack southwest. Back the way we came.”
I stayed very still. Had he seen something? Or was he just trying to keep me from getting hurt?
The Darkling cocked his head to one side and studied him. “I think you know better than to play games with me, tracker.”
Mal gave a sharp nod. “I can do it. I can find it. Just … just give me time.”
The Darkling sheathed his knife. I exhaled slowly and tried to suppress a shiver.
“You have a week,” he said, turning away and disappearing into the hatch. “Bring her,” he called to Ivan.
“Mal—” I began as Ivan grasped my arm.
Mal lifted his bound hands, reaching for me. His fingers grazed mine briefly, then Ivan was hauling me back toward the hatch.
My mind was racing as we descended into the dank belly of the ship. I stumbled along behind Ivan, trying to make sense of everything that had just happened. The Darkling had said that he wouldn’t harm Mal as long as he needed him. I’d assumed he just meant to use him to keep me in line, but now it was clear there was more to it than that. Did Mal really think he could find the sea whip, or was he stalling for time? I wasn’t
sure what I wanted to be true. I didn’t savor the idea of being tortured, but what if we did find the ice dragon? What would a second amplifier mean?
Ivan pulled me into a spacious cabin that looked like the captain’s quarters. Sturmhond must have been squeezed in with the rest of his crew. A bed was pushed into one corner, and the deeply curved aft wall was studded with a row of thick-paned windows. They shed watery light on a desk behind which the Darkling seated himself.
Ivan bowed and darted from the room, closing the door behind him. “He can’t wait to get away from you,” I said, hovering by the door.
“He’s afraid of what you’ve become. They all are.” “Do you fear me, Alina?”
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
The Darkling shrugged. “Fear is a powerful ally,” he said. “And loyal.”
He was watching me in that cold, assessing way that always made me feel as if he were reading me like words on a page, his fingers moving over the text, gleaning some secret knowledge that I could only guess at. I tried not to fidget, but the irons at my wrists chafed.
“I’d like to free you,” he said quietly.
“Free me, flay me. So many options.” I could still feel the press of his knife at my cheek.
He sighed. “It was a threat, Alina. It accomplished what it needed to.” “So you wouldn’t have cut me?”
“I didn’t say that.” His voice was pleasant and matter-of-fact, as always. He might have been threatening to carve me up or ordering his dinner.
In the dim light, I could just make out the fine traces of his scars. I knew I should stay quiet, force him to speak first, but my curiosity was too great.
“How did you survive?”
He ran his hand over the sharp line of his jaw. “It seems the volcra did not care for the taste of my flesh,” he said, almost idly. “Have you ever noticed that they do not feed on each other?”
I shuddered. They were his creations, just like the thing that had buried its teeth in my shoulder. The skin there still pulsed. “Like calls to like.”
“It’s not an experience I’d care to repeat. I’ve had my fill of the volcra’s mercy. And yours.”
I crossed the room, coming to stand before the desk. “Then why give me a second amplifier?” I asked desperately, grasping for an argument that would somehow make him see sense. “In case you’ve forgotten, I tried to kill you.”
“And failed.”
“Here’s to second chances. Why make me stronger?”
Again, he shrugged. “Without Morozova’s amplifiers, Ravka is lost. You were meant to have them, just as I was meant to rule. It can be no other way.”
“How convenient for you.”
He leaned back and folded his arms. “You have been anything but convenient, Alina.”
“You can’t combine amplifiers. All the books say the same thing—” “Not all the books.”
I wanted to scream in frustration. “Baghra warned me. She said you were arrogant, blinded by ambition.”
“Did she now?” His voice was ice. “And what other treason did she whisper in your ear?”
“That she loved you,” I said angrily. “That she believed you could be redeemed.”
He looked away then, but not before I saw the flash of pain on his face. What had he done to her? And what had it cost him?
“Redemption,” he murmured. “Salvation. Penance. My mother’s quaint ideas. Perhaps I should have paid closer attention.” He reached into the desk and drew out a slender red volume. As he held it up, light glinted off the gold lettering on its cover: Istorii Sankt’ya. “Do you know what this is?”
I frowned. The Lives of Saints. A dim memory came back to me. The Apparat had given me a copy months ago at the Little Palace. I’d thrown it in the drawer of my dressing table and never spared it another thought.
“It’s a children’s book,” I said. “Have you read it?”
“No,” I admitted, suddenly wishing I had. The Darkling was watching me too closely. What could be so important about an old collection of religious drawings?
“Superstition,” he said glancing down at the cover. “Peasant propaganda. Or so I thought. Morozova was a strange man. He was a bit like you, drawn to the ordinary and the weak.”
“Mal isn’t weak.”
“He’s gifted, I grant you, but no Grisha. He can never be your equal.”
“He’s my equal and more,” I spat.
The Darkling shook his head. If I hadn’t known better, I might have mistaken the look on his face for pity. “You think you’ve found a family with him. You think you’ve found a future. But you will grow powerful, and he will grow old. He will live his short otkazat’sya life, and you will watch him die.”
“Shut up.”
He smiled. “Go on, stamp your foot, fight your true nature. All the while, your country suffers.”
“Because of you!”
“Because I put my trust in a girl who cannot stand the thought of her own potential.” He rose and rounded the desk. Despite my anger, I took a step back, banging into the chair behind me.
“I know what you feel when you’re with the tracker,” he said. “I doubt that.”
He gave a dismissive wave. “No, not the absurd pining you’ve yet to outgrow. I know the truth in your heart. The loneliness. The growing knowledge of your own difference.” He leaned in closer. “The ache of it.”
I tried to hide the shock of recognition that went through me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, but the words sounded false to my ears.
“It will never fade, Alina. It will only grow worse, no matter how many scarves you hide behind or what lies you tell, no matter how far or how fast you run.”
I tried to turn away, but he reached out and took hold of my chin, forcing me to look at him. He was so close I could feel his breath. “There are no others like us, Alina,” he whispered. “And there never will be.”
I lurched away from him, knocking the chair over, nearly losing my balance. I pounded on the door with my iron-bound fists, calling out to Ivan as the Darkling looked on. He didn’t come until the Darkling gave the order.
Dimly, I registered Ivan’s hand at my back, the stench of the corridor, a sailor letting us pass, then the quiet of my narrow cabin, the door locking behind me, the bunk, the scratch of rough fabric as I pressed my face into the covers, trembling, trying to drive the Darkling’s words from my head. Mal’s death. The long life before me. The pain of otherness that would never ease. Each fear sank into me, a barbed talon burrowing deep into my heart.
I knew he was a practiced liar. He could fake any emotion, play on any human failing. But I couldn’t deny what I’d felt in Novyi Zem or the truth of what the Darkling had shown me: my own sadness, my own longing, reflected back to me in his bleak gray eyes.
* * *
THE MOOD HAD changed aboard the whaler. The crew had grown restless and watchful, the slight to their captain still fresh in their minds. The Grisha muttered amongst themselves, their nerves worn thin by our slow progress through the waters of the Bone Road.
Each day, the Darkling had me brought above deck to stand beside him at the prow. Mal was kept well guarded at the other end of the ship. Sometimes, I heard him call out bearings to Sturmhond or saw him gesture to what looked like deep scratches just above the waterline on the large ice shelves we passed.
I peered at the rough grooves. They might be claw marks. They might be nothing at all. Still, I’d seen what Mal was capable of in Tsibeya. When we were tracking the stag, he had shown me broken branches, trampled grass, signs that seemed obvious once he pointed them out but that had been invisible moments before. The crewmen seemed skeptical. The Grisha were outright contemptuous.
At dusk, when another day had come and gone, the Darkling would parade me across the deck and down through the hatch directly in front of Mal. We weren’t permitted to speak. I tried to hold his gaze, to tell him silently that I was all right, but I could see his fury and desperation growing, and I was powerless to reassure him.
Once, when I stumbled by the hatch, the Darkling caught me up against himself. He might have let me go, but he lingered, and before I could pull away, he let his hand graze the small of my back.
Mal surged forward, and it was only the grip of his Grisha guards that kept him from charging the Darkling.
“Three more days, tracker.” “Leave her alone,” Mal snarled.
“I’ve kept my end of the bargain. She’s still unharmed. But perhaps that isn’t what you fear?”
Mal looked frayed to the point of snapping. His face was pale, his mouth a taut line, the muscles of his forearms knotted as he strained against his bonds. I couldn’t bear it.
“I’m fine,” I said softly, risking the Darkling’s knife. “He can’t hurt me.” It was a lie, but it felt good on my lips.
The Darkling looked from me to Mal, and I glimpsed that bleak, yawning fissure within him. “Don’t worry, tracker. You’ll know when our deal is up.” He shoved me belowdecks, but not before I heard his parting words to Mal—“I’ll be certain you hear it when I make her scream.”
* * *
THE MEEK MORE ON, and on the sixth day, Genya woke me early. As I gathered my wits, I realized it was barely dawn. Fear sliced through me. Maybe the Darkling had decided to cut short my reprieve and make good on this threats.
But Genya was beaming.
“He found something!” she crowed, bouncing on the soles of her feet, practically dancing as she helped me from the bunk. “The tracker says we’re close!”
“His name is Mal,” I muttered, pulling away from her. I ignored her stricken look.
Can it be true? I wondered as Genya led me above. Or did Mal simply hope to buy me more time?
We emerged into the dim gray light of early morning. The deck was crowded with Grisha gazing out at the water while the Squallers worked the winds, and Sturmhond’s crew managed the sails above.
The mist was heavier than the day before. It clung thick against the water and crawled in damp tendrils over the ship’s hull. The silence was broken only by Mal’s directions and the orders Sturmhond called.
When we entered a wide, open stretch of sea, Mal turned to the Darkling and said, “I think we’re close.”
“You think?”
Mal gave a single nod.
The Darkling considered. If Mal was stalling, his efforts were doomed to be short-lived, and the price would be high.
After what felt like an eternity, the Darkling nodded to Sturmhond. “Trim the sails,” commanded the privateer, and the topmen moved to
obey.
Ivan tapped the Darkling’s shoulder and gestured to the southern horizon. “A ship, moi soverenyi.”
I squinted at the tiny smudge.
“Are they flying colors?” the Darkling asked Sturmhond.
“Probably fishermen,” Sturmhond said. “But we’ll keep an eye on her just in case.” He signaled to one of his crewmen, who went scurrying up
the main royal with a long glass in hand.
The longboats were prepared and, in minutes, they were being lowered over the starboard side, loaded with Sturmhond’s men and bristling with harpoons. The Darkling’s Grisha crowded by the rail to view the boats’ progress. The mist seemed to magnify the steady slap of the oars against the waves.
I took a step toward Mal. Everyone’s attention was focused on the men in the water. Only Genya was watching me. She hesitated, then deliberately turned and joined the others at the railing.
Mal and I faced forward, but we were close enough that our shoulders touched.
“Tell me you’re all right,” he murmured, his voice raw.
I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I’m fine,” I said softly. “Is it out there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. There were times when I was tracking the stag that I thought we were close and … Alina, if I’m wrong—”
I turned then, not caring who saw us or what punishment I might receive. The mist was rising off the water now, creeping along the deck. I looked up at him, taking in every detail of his face: the bright blue of his irises, the curve of his lip, the scar that ran the length of his jaw. Behind him, I glimpsed Tamar scampering up the rigging, a lantern in her hands.
“None of this is your fault, Mal. None of it.”
He lowered his head, setting his forehead against mine. “I won’t let him hurt you.”
We both knew he was powerless to stop it, but the truth of that was too painful, so I just said, “I know.”
“You’re humoring me,” he said with the hint of a grin. “You require a lot of coddling.”
He pressed his lips to the top of my head. “We’ll find a way out of this, Alina. We always do.”
I rested my ironbound hands against his chest and closed my eyes. We were alone on an icy sea, prisoners of a man who could literally make monsters, and yet somehow I believed. I leaned into him, and for the first time in days, I let myself hope.
A cry rang out: “Two points off the starboard bow!”
As one, our heads turned, and I stilled. Something was moving in the mist, a shimmering, undulating white shape.
“Saints,” Mal breathed.
At that moment, the creature’s back breached the waves, its body cutting through the water in a sinuous arch, rainbows sparking off the
iridescent scales on its back.
Rusalye.
