“Then shoot at that thing.”
Nikolai opened fire at the grotesque. His bullets struck its shifting body—a head, an arm, another arm, a distended chest. Now that the thing was closer, he glimpsed claws, jaws thick with canines, the dense brown pelt of what looked like a bear. All of his bullets were absorbed in the grotesque’s body, then emerged a second later as if the writhing flesh had simply spat them out.
High above, the dragon roared and spread its enormous wings. A fountain of flame erupted from the beast’s mouth and blasted toward them.
Zoya’s hands shot upward, and a dome of air formed over their heads. The flames beat at the barrier. Nikolai could feel the heat singeing his brows.
The blast relented and the dragon shrieked again, wheeling above them.
“I think it’s fair to say we’re outgunned,” said Nikolai.
“Lay down your arms,” the grotesque said in a chorus of voices from a hundred mouths.
“In a moment,” replied Nikolai. “I’m finding them very reassuring right now. Yuri, get off of your damned knees and at least try to look like you can fight.”
“You don’t understand,” said Yuri, his eyes full of tears.
“That is entirely correct.”
“I’m going to raise the sands again,” said Zoya. “If I bring a big enough storm, we’ll have cover to get … somewhere. You’ll need to work the sails; I won’t be able to control the storm and direct the skiff.”
“Do it,” said Nikolai, eyeing the lines. They were primitive at best, but he had managed rockier seas than these.
He opened fire, trying to lend Zoya cover as she swept her arms forward and the sands of the Fold—or wherever they were—rose with a whoosh. There was no subtlety now, no need to mask her actions to fool the pilgrims. Instead the storm came to life with a start like a man waking from a bad dream, a sudden wall of force that thrust the creatures back, the sands forming a whirling wall to hide the skiff’s escape.
Nikolai holstered his revolvers and seized the lines, releasing the sail. The canvas snapped, filling with air, driving them east and back toward what he hoped were still the borders of the Fold. Whatever these creatures were, their power had to be tied to this place.
Suddenly the ground beneath them seemed to buckle. The skiff listed precariously starboard as one of its runners peeled away from the sand. Zoya and Yuri lost their footing, but Zoya did not falter. Even on her back, she kept the winds in motion. Nikolai held tight to the lines, trying to use the storm to help right the skiff. But the ground was bucking like a wild animal, as if the very sands beneath them had life.
The skiff tilted higher on its single runner. “We’re going over!” Nikolai shouted. He had the uncanny sense that a giant hand was deliberately tipping them out onto the sands.
They landed in an unceremonious heap. Nikolai was on his feet in an instant, grabbing for Zoya and Yuri to roll all of them to safety. But the skiff thumped harmlessly down to its other side, and the sands instantly calmed.
Without Zoya’s storm raging, the skies were clear again. A shape emerged out of the sand before them, then another, then another—a regiment of sand soldiers. They were faceless, but their uniforms were elaborately detailed. They looked like the paintings of ancient Ravkan soldiers, the army of Yaromir the Determined, dressed in furs and bronze, but all of it wrought in sand. Zoya raised her hands and sent a fierce gust of wind slamming into the ranks of soldiers, but they stood solid and unmoving.
“What are they?” Zoya asked.
The soldiers continued to emerge in a rippling wave, an army that stretched to the horizon, where the castle still loomed.
“I think we’re being shown just how overmatched we are,” Nikolai said.
“By whom?”
The sand soldiers stepped forward as one, and the sound was like a shotgun blast. Zoya and Nikolai stood back-to-back, surrounded. Next to them, Yuri remained on his knees, his face filled with a kind of manic elation.
“I don’t know how to fight this,” Zoya said. She’d somehow steadied her voice, but he could hear the fear in it anyway. “Is this the part where we die well?”
The dragon was wheeling overhead. If these creatures wanted Nikolai dead, they’d chosen an elaborate means of making it happen, so something else had to be in play—hopefully something that would allow him to negotiate for Zoya’s and Yuri’s safety.
“No, this is the part where the king of Ravka surrenders himself, and the love we never had lives on in ballads and song.”
“Nikolai,” snapped Zoya, “don’t you dare.”
“Give me another option, Nazyalensky. One of us needs to survive this.” Then he lowered his voice. “Get back to the capital and rally the Grisha.” Assuming she could even get back to Os Alta from here.
He tossed his revolvers to the sand and raised his hands, scanning the rows of sand soldiers, the figures in the sky, the mountainous body of the grotesque hovering behind their ranks. “I’m not sure who I’m surrendering to—”
The dragon turned sharply in the air and dove for them. Maybe they did intend to kill him, after all.
“Zoya, get down!” Nikolai shouted, lunging for her.
“Like hell,” she muttered, and knocked him into the sands, bracing before him with her feet planted and her arms raised.
The dragon unleashed its fire and Zoya let loose the storm. For a moment they seemed evenly matched—a golden cascade of flame buffeted by a wall of wind. Then Zoya swept her arms in a loop and cast them to the sides like a conductor concluding a symphony. For a moment Nikolai didn’t understand, but then the flames collapsed. The dragon reared back, a choked wheeze emerging from its throat. Zoya had stolen its breath; she’d banished the air from the fire, depriving it of fuel, and left the dragon gasping.
Nikolai leapt for his guns, ready to seize the opportunity she’d offered, but before he could even aim, the dragon released a deafening roar. Its jaws opened and fire spurted forth. This time the flame burned blue, brighter and hotter than before, hot enough to melt stone—or sand.
“Zoya!” Nikolai shouted, but Zoya had already fisted her hands and raised them again, driving an icy wind against the dragon’s onslaught.
Blue fire lit her face. Her hair rose like a black crown around her head, and her eyes blazed cobalt as if she too burned with the dragon’s fire.
Zoya screamed as the dragon’s flames pounded against the force of her power. She gritted her teeth, and Nikolai saw beads of sweat bloom on her brow. He opened fire on the dragon, but his bullets seemed to melt before they even came near the creature’s scales. Ice crystalized on the fallen skiff, coated Nikolai’s hands and the ranks of the sand soldiers surrounding them.
And then Zoya collapsed. She fell to her knees, and the winter storm evaporated, leaving nothing but a thin shell of melting frost in its wake.