“She’s beautiful,” Brum said, “in an exaggerated way. You were strong not to be lured by her.”
I was lured, though, thought Matthias. And it wasn’t just her beauty.
“The alarm—” Matthias said. “Her compatriots, no doubt.” “But—”
“Matthias, my men will take care of it. The Ice Court is secure.” He glanced back at Nina’s cell. “We could press the button right now.”
“Won’t she be a threat?”
“We’ve combined the jurda parem with a sedative that makes them more biddable. We’re still working out the correct ratios, but we’ll get there. Besides¸ by the second dose, the addiction does the work of controlling them.”
“Not the first dose?” “Depends on the Grisha.”
“How many times have you done this?”
Brum laughed. “I haven’t counted. But trust me, she’ll be so desperate for more jurda parem, she won’t dare act against us. It’s a remarkable transformation. I think you’ll enjoy it.”
Matthias’ stomach clenched. “You’ve kept the scientist alive then?”
“He’s done his best to replicate the process of creating the drug, but it’s a complicated thing. Some batches work; others are no better than dust. As long as he can be of service, he lives.” Brum placed his hand on Matthias’ shoulder, his harsh gaze softening. “I can scarcely believe you’re really here, alive, standing before me. I thought you were dead.”
“I believed the same of you.”
“When I saw you in that ballroom, I barely recognised you, even in that uniform. You are so changed—”
“I had to let the witch tailor me.”
Brum’s revulsion was obvious. “You allowed her to—”
Somehow, seeing that response in someone else made Matthias ashamed of the way he’d reacted to Nina.
“It had to be done,” he said. “I needed her to believe I was committed to her cause.”
“That’s all over now, Matthias. You are finally safe and among your own kind.” Brum frowned. “Something is troubling you.”
Matthias looked into the cell next to Nina’s, then another, and another, moving down the hall as Brum followed. Some of the captive Grisha were agitated, pacing. Others had their faces pressed up against the glass. Others simply lay on the floor. “You can’t have known about parem for more than a month. How long has this facility been here?”
“I had it built almost fifteen years ago with the blessing of the king and his council.”
Matthias drew up short. “Fifteen years? Why?”
“We needed somewhere to put the Grisha after the trials.”
“After? When Grisha are found guilty, they’re sentenced to death.”
Brum shrugged. “It is still a death sentence, just one a little longer in the making. We discovered long ago that the Grisha could prove a useful resource.”
A resource. “You told me they were to be eradicated. That they were a blight on the natural world.”
“And they are – when they attempt to masquerade as men. They aren’t capable of right thinking, of human morality. They are meant to be controlled.”
“That’s why you wanted parem?” Matthias asked incredulously. “We have tried our own methods for years with limited success.”
“But you’ve seen what jurda parem can do, what Grisha can do when in its grip—”
“A gun is not evil. Nor is a blade. Jurda parem ensures obedience. It makes Grisha what they were always meant to be.”
“A Second Army?” Matthias asked, his voice thick with scorn.
“An army is made of soldiers. These creatures were born to be weapons. They were born to serve the soldiers of Djel.” Brum squeezed his shoulder. “Ah, Matthias, how I’ve missed you. Your faith was always so pure. I’m glad you’re reluctant to embrace this measure, but this is our chance to strike a deathblow. Do you know why Grisha are so hard to kill? Because they’re not of this world. But they are very good at killing each other. They call it ‘like calls to like’. Wait until you see all we’ve achieved, the weapons their Fabrikators have helped us develop.”
Matthias looked back down the hall. “Nina Zenik spent a year in Kerch trying to bargain for my freedom. I’m not sure those are the actions of a monster.”
“Can a viper lie still before it strikes? Can a wild dog lick your hand before it snaps at your neck? A Grisha may be capable of kindness, but that does not change her fundamental nature.”
Matthias considered this. He thought of Nina standing terrified in that cell as the door slammed shut. He had longed to see her made captive, punished as he had been punished. And yet, after everything they’d been through, he was not surprised by the pain he felt at seeing it come to pass.
“What is the Shu scientist like?” he asked Brum. “Stubborn. Still grieving his father.”
Matthias knew nothing of Yul-Bayur’s father, but there was a more important question to ask. “Is he secure?”
“The treasury is the safest place on the island.” “You keep him here with the Grisha?”
Brum nodded. “The main vault was converted to a laboratory for him.”
“And you’re sure it’s safe?”
“I have the master key,” said Brum, patting the disk hanging from his neck, “and he’s guarded night and day. Only a select few even know he’s here. It’s late, and I need to make sure Black Protocol has been addressed, but if you like, I’ll take you to see him tomorrow.” Brum placed his arm around Matthias. “And tomorrow we’ll deal with your return and reinstatement.”
“I still stand accused of slave trading.”
“We’ll get the girl to sign a statement recanting the slaving charges easily enough. Believe me, once she’s had her first taste of jurda parem, she’ll do anything you ask and more. There will be a hearing, but I swear you will wear drüskelle colours again, Matthias.”
Drüskelle colours. Matthias had worn them with such pride. And the things he’d felt for Nina had caused him so much shame. It was still with him, maybe it always would be. He’d spent too many years full of hate for it to vanish overnight. But now the shame was an echo, and all he felt was regret – for the time he’d wasted, for the pain he’d caused, and yes, even now, for what he was about to do.
He turned to Brum, this man who had become father and mentor to him. When he’d lost his family, it had been Brum who had recruited him for the drüskelle. Matthias had been young, angry, completely unskilled. But he’d given what was left of his broken heart to the cause. A false cause. A lie. When had he seen it? When he’d helped Nina bury her friend? When he’d fought beside her? Or had it been long before – when she’d slept in his arms that first night on the ice? When she’d saved him from the shipwreck?
Nina had wronged him, but she’d done it to protect her people. She’d hurt him, but she’d attempted everything in her power to make things right. She’d shown him in a thousand ways that she was honourable and strong and generous and very human, maybe more vividly human than anyone he’d ever known. And if she was, then Grisha weren’t inherently evil. They were like anyone else – full of the potential to do great good, and also great harm. To ignore that would make Matthias the monster.
“You taught me so much,” Matthias said. “You taught me to value honour and strength. You gave me the tools for vengeance when I needed them most.”
“And with those tools we will build a great future, Matthias. Fjerda’s time has finally come.”
Matthias returned his mentor’s embrace.
“I don’t know if you’re wrong about the Grisha,” he said gently. “I just know you’re wrong about her.”
He held Brum tight, in a hold Matthias had learned in the echoing training rooms of the drüskelle stronghold, rooms he would never see again. He held Brum as he struggled briefly and as his body went slack.
When Matthias pulled away, Brum had slipped into unconsciousness, but Matthias did not think he imagined the rage that lingered on his
mentor’s features. He made himself memorise it. It was right that he should remember that look. He was a true traitor at last, and he should carry the burden of it.
When they’d entered the great ballroom, Matthias and Kaz had staked out a shadowy nook near the stairs. They’d watched Nina enter in that outrageous gown of shimmering scales – and then Matthias had spotted Brum. The shock of seeing his mentor alive had been followed by the terrible realisation that Brum was following Nina.
“Brum knows,” he’d said to Kaz. “We have to help her.”
“Be smart, Helvar. You can save her and get us Yul-Bayur, too.”
Matthias had nodded and plunged into the crowd. “Decency,” he’d heard Kaz mutter behind him. “Like cheap cologne.”
He’d waylaid Brum by the stairs. “Sir—” “Not now.”
Matthias had been forced to step right in front of him. “Sir.”
Brum had halted then. His face had shown anger at being stopped, then confusion, and then wondering disbelief. “Matthias?” he’d whispered.
“Please, sir,” Matthias had said hurriedly. “Just give me a moment to explain. There is a Grisha here tonight intent on assassinating one of your prisoners. If you’ll bear with me, I can explain the plot and how it can be stopped.”
Brum had signalled to another drüskelle to watch Nina, and shepherded Matthias into an alcove beneath the stairs. “Speak,” he’d said, and Matthias had told him the truth – a bare sliver of it: his escape from the shipwreck, his near drowning, Nina’s false charge of slavery, his captivity in Hellgate, and then the promise of the pardon. He’d blamed it all on Nina, and said nothing of Kaz or the others. When Brum had asked if Nina was alone in her mission, he’d simply said he didn’t know.
“She believes I’m waiting to escort her over the secret bridge. I broke away as soon as I could and came to find you.”
A part of him was disgusted by how easily the lies came to his lips, but he would not leave Nina at Brum’s mercy.
He looked at Brum now, mouth slightly open in sleep. One of the things he’d respected most in his mentor was his mercilessness, his willingness to do hard things for the sake of the cause. But Brum had taken pleasure in what he’d done to these Grisha, what he would have
gladly done to Nina and Jesper. Maybe the hard things had never been difficult for Brum the way they’d been for Matthias. They had not been a sacred duty, performed reluctantly for the sake of Fjerda. They had been a joy.
Matthias slipped the master key from around Brum’s neck and dragged him into an empty cell, propping him up against the wall in a seated position. Matthias hated to leave him there, chin flopped on his chest, legs sprawled in front of him, without dignity. He hated the thought of the shame that would come to him, a warrior betrayed by someone to whom he’d given his trust and affection. He knew that pain well.
Matthias pressed his forehead once, briefly, against Brum’s. He knew his mentor could not hear him, but he spoke the words anyway. “The life you live, the hate you feel – it’s poison. I can drink it no longer.”
Matthias locked the cell door and hurried down the passage towards Nina, towards something more.
