Tolya and Tamar stepped in front of Nikolai, but the soldier’s target was not the king—she had come for the king’s Heartrender guards. She had come to hunt Grisha. In a single movement the khergud released a metallic net that glittered in the air, then collapsed over the twins with enough weight to knock them to the ground. The khergud dragged them over the earth, gathering speed to lift them skyward.
Nikolai didn’t hesitate. There were times for subtlety and times when there was nothing to do but charge. He ran straight for the khergud, clambering over the struggling bodies of Tolya and Tamar, who grunted as his boots connected. He opened fire with both pistols.
The khergud barely flinched, her skin reinforced with that marvelously effective alloy of Grisha steel and ruthenium. Nikolai would solve that problem later.
He cast his weapons aside but did not let his stride break. He drew his dagger and launched himself onto the khergud’s back. The soldier bucked with the force of a wild horse. Nikolai had read the files. He knew strength and gunpowder were no match for this kind of power. So precision it would have to be.
“I hope some part of you is still flesh and blood,” Nikolai bit out. He seized the khergud’s collar and aimed the dagger into the notch between the soldier’s jaw and throat, praying for accuracy as he drove the blade home.
The khergud stumbled, losing momentum, trying to dislodge the dagger. Nikolai did not relent, twisting the blade deeper, feeling hot blood spurt over his hand. At last the soldier collapsed.
Nikolai didn’t wait to see Tolya and Tamar free themselves; he was already searching the skies for Zoya and her captor.
They were locked in a struggle high above the earth as Zoya kicked and fought the khergud who had hold of her. The soldier wrapped a massive arm around her throat. He was going to choke her into submission.
Abruptly, Zoya went still—but that was too fast for her to have lost consciousness. Nikolai felt the air around him crackle. The khergud had assumed Zoya was like other Grisha, who couldn’t summon with their arms bound. But Zoya Nazyalensky was no ordinary Squaller.
Lightning crackled over the metal wings of the Shu soldier. He shuddered and shook. The khergud’s body went limp. He and Zoya plummeted to the ground. No no no. Nikolai raced toward them, his mind constructing and casting aside plans. Useless. Hopeless. There was no way to reach her in time. A snarl ripped from his chest. He leapt, the air rushing against his face, and then he had her in his arms. Impossible. The physics wouldn’t permit …
Nikolai glimpsed his own shadow beneath him—too far beneath him, a dark blot bracketed by wings that curled from his own back. The monster is me and I am the monster. He flinched, as if he could somehow escape himself, and watched the monster’s shadow twitch.
“Nikolai?” Zoya was looking at him, and all he saw on her face was terror.
“It’s me,” he tried to say, but only a growl emerged. In the next second a shock was traveling through his body—Zoya’s power vibrating through his bones. He cried out, the sound a ragged growl, and felt his wings curl in on themselves, vanishing.
He was falling. They were both going to die.
Zoya thrust her free arm down, and a cushion of air pillowed beneath them, halting their momentum with a jolt. They rolled off it and hit the ground in a graceless heap. In a breath, she was scrambling away from him, arms raised, blue eyes wide.
He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “It’s me,” he repeated, and when he heard the words emerge from his lips, human and whole, he wanted to weep with gratitude. He’d never tasted anything so sweet as language returning to his tongue.
Zoya’s nostrils flared. She turned her attention to the khergud soldier who had attacked her, looming over his body, looking for a place to unleash her fear. The fall should have killed him, but he was already pushing to his feet. Zoya flipped her palms up and thunder boomed, lightning sparking at her fingertips. The strands of her hair writhed like a halo of serpents around her face. She slammed her hands down on the soldier’s chest. He convulsed as his flesh turned red and smoke rose from his torso, his body catching fire as it burned from within.
“Zoya!” shouted Nikolai. He lurched to his feet, but he didn’t dare touch her, not with that kind of current running through her. “Zoya, look at me, damn it.”
She raised her head. Her skin was pale, her eyes wild with rage. For a moment, she didn’t seem to recognize him. Then her lips parted, her shoulders dropped. Zoya pulled her hands away, and the khergud’s charred body collapsed. She sat back on her knees and drew in a long breath.
The smell emanating from the khergud’s roasted corpse was sickly sweet. So much for an interrogation.
Tolya and Tamar had freed themselves from the net. They stood with Yuri, who was trembling so badly Nikolai thought he might be having some kind of seizure. Had the boy never seen combat? It had been a brutal exchange but a brief one, and it wasn’t as if he’d been a target. Then Nikolai realized …
“You … he …” sputtered Yuri.
“Your Highness,” said Tolya.
Nikolai looked down at his hands. His fingers were still stained black, curled into talons. They had torn through his gloves. Nikolai took a deep breath. A long moment passed, then another. At last, the claws receded.
“I know, Yuri,” he said as steadily as he could manage. “Quite a party trick. Are you going to faint?”
“No. Possibly. I don’t know.”
“You’ll be all right. We all will.” The words were so patently untrue that Nikolai had to struggle not to laugh. “I need you to keep silent. Tolya, Tamar, you’re uninjured?” They both nodded. Nikolai forced himself to look at Zoya. “You’re not hurt?”
She drew in a shuddering breath. She nodded, flexed her fingers, and said, “A few bruises. But the priest …” She bobbed her chin toward where the man lay, blood trickling from his temple into his snowy beard. He’d been knocked unconscious by a piece of Lizabeta’s stone veil.
Nikolai knelt beside him. The priest’s pulse was steady, though he probably had a bad concussion.
“No outcry from the village,” said Tamar as she used her power to check the priest’s vitals. “No alarm. If someone spotted the khergud, they would have come running.”
Hopefully the attack had been far enough from town to avoid drawing notice.
“I don’t want to try to explain soldiers with mechanical wings,” said Nikolai. “We’ll have to hide the bodies.”
“Give them to the roses,” said Tamar. “I’ll send two riders back to get them out after sunset.”
When the corpses were hidden from view in the heaps of Lizabeta’s red roses, they staged the area around the statue to their liking, and then Tamar brought the priest back to consciousness. As always, taking some kind of action helped to ease the tension thrumming through Nikolai. But he knew he couldn’t rely on this illusion of control. It was a balm, not a cure. The monster had come calling in broad daylight. And it had allowed him to save Zoya. Nikolai didn’t know what that meant. He hadn’t commanded the demon. It had pushed to the fore. At least he thought it had. What if it happens again? His mind felt like enemy territory.