“And our monk friend? Is Yuri easily managed as well?”
“Yuri is a true believer. Either that or he’s the greatest actor who ever lived, which I know isn’t possible.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I managed to smile through that choir concert, so clearly I am the greatest actor who ever lived.” Nikolai nudged his horse with his heels. “On to the next town, Nazyalensky. We hope or we falter.”
Zoya was grateful when they rode into Adena, their last stop before the Fold. Soon they would have answers or they would be headed home. At least she’d be free of the anticipation and the fear of what they might find when they reached the Unsea.
The village was like all the others except for the pretty lake it overlooked. This time they’d been greeted by an off-key band and a parade of livestock and giant vegetables.
“That squash is as wide as I am tall,” Nikolai said beneath his breath as he smiled and waved.
“And twice as handsome.”
“Half as handsome,” he protested.
“Ah,” said Zoya, “but the squash doesn’t talk.”
At last they rose from their seats on the bandstand and made their way to the church. For once, the locals did not follow. Zoya, Nikolai, Yuri, and the twins were left to walk the path out of town with only the local priest for company.
“Are there no pilgrims?” Tolya asked him as they left the outskirts of town.
“The pilgrims are kept to the confines of the village,” said the priest. He was an older man with a tidy white beard and spectacles much like Yuri’s. “Visitors are only permitted access to the site under supervision and at certain hours. The cathedral is being repaired, and we wish to preserve Sankta Lizabeta’s work.”
“Is it so very fragile?” asked Yuri.
“It is extraordinary and not something to be picked apart for souvenirs.”
Zoya felt a chill creep over her. Something was different in the air here. The insects had gone silent. She heard no call of birds from the surrounding trees as they moved through the cool shadows of the wood and farther from the town. She met Tamar’s gaze and they exchanged a nod. Even at a supposed holy site, the king could be at risk of assassination.
They emerged at the top of a high, mounded hill next to a cathedral surrounded by scaffolding, its golden domes gleaming in the late-afternoon sun. A statue of Sankta Lizabeta stood before the entrance. A riot of red roses had burst through the stone, cracking open her veiled skull. The flowers tumbled over the statue in wild profusion, surrounding its marble skirts in a wide circle like a pool of blood. Their sweet smell pulsed in a thick, syrupy wave that seemed to glow with summer heat.
Yuri’s face was ecstatic. “I wanted to believe. I did believe, but this …”
Zoya realized he was weeping. “Be silent,” she bit out. “Or I’ll stuff you back into the coach myself.”
“Look,” said Tolya, and she heard new reverence in his voice.
Black tears ran from Lizabeta’s eyes. They gleamed hard as obsidian, as if they’d frozen there or been cast in stone themselves.
In the valley below, Zoya could just glimpse the sprawl of Kribirsk in the distance and the glimmer of the dead white sands that had once been the Shadow Fold beyond. They were close.
Nikolai hissed in a breath, and Zoya looked at him sharply. The others’ eyes were locked on the statue, but before Nikolai could yank the cuff of his glove back into place, Zoya glimpsed the dark veining at his wrist pulse black, as if … as if whatever was inside him had recognized something familiar here and woken. Part of her wanted to draw away, afraid that she would see the demon emerge, but she was a soldier and she would not waver.
“What was Lizabeta’s story?” Nikolai asked. His voice was taut, but the others didn’t seem to notice.
“It is both beautiful and tragic,” Yuri said enthusiastically.
Zoya wanted to knock him into the roses. “Aren’t all martyrdoms built to look that way?”
But Yuri ignored her or simply didn’t hear. “She was only eighteen when raiders came to West Ravka’s shore, pillaging and burning every village they encountered. While the men of her town cowered, Lizabeta faced the soldiers in a field of white roses and begged them to show mercy. When they charged her, she fell to her knees in prayer, and it was the bees that answered, rising from the blossoms to attack the soldiers in a swarm. Lizabeta’s town was saved.”
Zoya folded her arms. “Now tell our king how the people rewarded young Lizabeta for this miracle.”
“Well,” Yuri said, fiddling with a loose thread on his sleeve. “The villagers to the north demanded Lizabeta repeat this miracle and save their town too, but she could not.” He cleared his throat. “They had her drawn and quartered. It was said the roses turned red with her blood.”
“And this is the woman who is supposed to be answering the people’s prayers.” Zoya snapped a rose from its stem, ignoring the horrified gasp of the local priest. Its scent was cloying. Everything about this place set her teeth on edge. It felt as if something was watching her from the domes of the cathedral, from the shadows of the trees. “Why must all of your Saints be martyred?”
Yuri blinked. “Because … because it shows a willingness to sacrifice.”
“Do you think Lizabeta was willing to be pulled apart? How about Demyan when he was stoned to death? Or Ilya, chained and thrown into a river to drown?” She was tired of these miracles, tired of the dread riding with her daily, and utterly sick of stories that ended in suffering for those who dared to be brave or strange or strong. “If I were Lizabeta, I wouldn’t waste my time listening to the whining of—”
Movement on the roof of the cathedral caught Zoya’s eye. She looked up in time to see something massive rushing toward her. It smashed through Lizabeta’s statue, sending petals and shards of stone flying. Huge hands grasped Zoya’s shoulders, digging into her flesh, lifting her from the ground. She kicked her feet, feeling the terrible sensation of nothing beneath her.
Zoya screamed as she was pulled skyward, the rose still clutched in her hand.
“ZOYA!”
Something had hold of her—something with wings, and for a moment Nikolai wondered if somehow the demon had leapt from his very skin. But no, her captor’s wings were vast mechanical marvels of engineering that beat the sky as they rose higher.
Another winged soldier was wheeling toward Nikolai—this one female, black hair bound in a topknot, biceps armored in bands of gray metal. Khergud. The Shu had dared to attack the royal procession.