Tamar knelt beside a Shu girl with a dagger in her chest. Genya was crying. Tolya, David, and Nikolai, still dressed in his prisoner’s shroud, stood around another body—a corpse that looked very much like the king. Everyone was shouting at once.
Zoya silenced them with a thunderclap.
As one the group turned to her, and instantly they had their hands up, ready to fight.
“How do we know it’s really you?” said Genya.
“It’s really her,” said Nikolai.
“How do we know it’s really you?” Tamar growled, not interrupting her work on the Shu girl. It seemed a hopeless cause. The girl still had color in her cheeks, but the dagger looked as if it had pierced her heart. Zoya refused to look more closely at the other body. It was too hard not to think of Nikolai pinned to the thorn wood, his blood watering the sands of the Fold.
“Genya,” said Zoya calmly. “I once got drunk and insisted you make me blond.”
“Intriguing!” said Nikolai. “What were the results?”
“She looked glorious,” said Genya.
Zoya plucked a bit of dust from her sleeve. “I looked cheap.”
Genya dropped her hands. “Stand down. It’s her.” Then she was hugging Zoya fiercely as Tolya clasped Nikolai in his massive arms and lifted him off his feet. “Where the hell have you been?”
“It’s a long story,” said Nikolai, and demanded Tolya set him down.
Zoya wanted to hold tight to Genya, take in the flowery scent of her hair, ask her a thousand questions. Instead, she stepped back and said, “What happened here?”
“The dagger is Fjerdan,” said Tolya.
“Maybe so,” said Nikolai. “But it was wielded by a Shu girl.”
“What do you mean?” said Tamar as she worked frantically to restore the girl’s pulse. “She was attacked too.”
“Is it her heart?” Zoya asked.
“No,” said Tamar. “That would be beyond my skill. The dagger struck a little too far to the right.”
“Can you save her?” asked Genya.
“I don’t know. I’m just trying to stabilize her. It will be up to our Healers to do the rest.”
“I saw it all happen,” said Nikolai. “She attacked him—me? Him. Then turned the blade on herself.”
“So the Shu are trying to frame Fjerda?” said Tolya.
Genya’s tears began anew. She knelt and put her hand to the impostor’s cheek. “Isaak,” she murmured.
“Who?” said Zoya.
“Isaak Andreyev,” Nikolai said quietly, kneeling by the body. “Private first class. Son of a schoolteacher and a seamstress.”
Tolya brushed his hand over his eyes. “He didn’t want any of this.”
“Can you restore his features?” asked Nikolai.
“It’s harder without blood flow,” said Genya. “But I can try.”
“We owe that at least to his mother.” Nikolai shook his head. “He survived the front. He was meant to be past harm.”
Genya bit back a sob. “We … we knew we were putting him in danger’s way. We thought we were doing what was right.”
“The princess is breathing,” Tamar said. “I need to get her to the Corporalki in the Little Palace.”
“This makes no sense,” said Genya. “Why not just murder the king—or the man she believed was king? Why try to kill herself too? And why would a princess sacrifice herself to do the job?”
“She didn’t,” said Nikolai. “Get me fresh clothes. I’ll return to the party to close out the festivities. I want to have a word with Hiram Schenck. He’s the highest-ranking member of the Kerch Merchant Council here, yes?”
“Yes,” said Genya. “But he isn’t happy with you.”
“He’s about to be. For a time. Keep the doors to the conservatory locked, and leave Isaak’s body here.”
“We shouldn’t—” Tolya began, but Nikolai held up a hand.
“Just for now. I swear he will have the burial he deserves. Bring the Shu delegation to me in my father’s rooms in one hour’s time.”
“What if Princess Ehri’s guards raise the alarm?” asked Genya.
“They won’t,” said Zoya. “Not until they know their plan has succeeded and the king is dead.”
Nikolai rose, as if his wounds no longer pained him, as if the horrors of the last few days had never been, as if the demon inside him had been conquered after all. “Then long live the king.”
Two hours later, the festivities had dwindled to a few happy drunks singing songs in the double-eagle fountain. Most of the guests had gone to their beds to sleep off their indulgences or had snuck off to some quiet corner of the gardens to indulge in more.
Zoya and the others had returned to the conservatory, and when Nikolai entered he was dragging along a terrified-looking Shu guard. She had a pinched, homely face and wore the uniform of the Tavgharad, her long black hair tied in a topknot.
“Mayu Kir-Kaat,” said Tamar. “What is she doing here?”
At the sight of the body on the floor beside the lemon trees, the guard began to shake. “But he …” she said, staring at the dead king and then back at Nikolai. “But you—where is the princess?”
“What a fascinating question,” said Nikolai. “I assume you’re referring to the girl we found with a dagger in her chest just half an inch shy of her aorta—due to luck or a lack of follow-through, you be the judge. She is currently recovering with our Healers.”
“You must return the royal princess to our care,” sputtered the guard.
“She is no such thing,” said Nikolai sharply. “And the time has come and gone for such deceptions. An innocent man died tonight, all so you could start a war.”
“Is he going to explain any of this?” whispered Genya. Zoya was wondering the same thing.
“Gladly,” said Nikolai. He gestured toward the guard. “I’d like all of you to meet the real Princess Ehri Kir-Taban, favored daughter of the Shu, second in line to their throne.”
“Lies,” hissed the guard.
Nikolai seized her hand. “First of all, no member of the Tavgharad would allow a man to snatch her wrist like the last sugared plum.” The guard gave a belated tug to try to get her hand free. “Second, where are her calluses? A soldier should have them on the pads of her palms, like Isaak. Instead, they’re on the tips of her fingers. These are the calluses you would get from playing—”
“The khatuur,” said Zoya. “Eighteen strings. Princess Ehri is a master.”
“So they planted an assassin in place of the princess in order to get close to the king,” said Tamar. “But why would she try to kill herself off too?”
“To cast more suspicion on the Fjerdans?” asked Genya.
“Yes,” said Nikolai, “and to give the Shu a reason to go to war. Ravka’s monarch dead, a member of the Shu royal family slain. The Shu would have every excuse they needed to march their armies into our leaderless country and use it as a base to launch an attack on Fjerda’s southern border. They would arrive in force with no intention of ever leaving.”
Now the guard—or rather the princess—closed her eyes as if in defeat. But she did not weep and she did not tremble.
“What was to become of you, Princess?” Nikolai asked, releasing her hand.