She gazed out the open frame of the window to the flat gray expanse of the sky. “When it was all over, the Darkling had me brought to his tent and said, ‘So, Zoya, you freed the tiger cubs. You did the selfless thing. And yet somehow you are the one who has finished the day with greater power. More than any of your betters who have patiently waited their turn. What do you say to that?’
“His disapproval was more painful than any wound from a tiger’s claws. Some part of me always feared that he would send me away, banish me forever from the Little Palace. I told him I was sorry.
“But the Darkling saw me clearly even then. ‘Is that really what you wish to say?’ he asked.”
Zoya pushed a dark strand of her hair behind her ear. “So I told him the truth. I put my chin up and said, ‘They can all hang. It was my blood in the snow.’”
Nikolai stifled a laugh and a smile played over Zoya’s lips. It dwindled almost instantly, replaced by a troubled frown. “That pleased him. He told me it was a job well done. And then he said … ‘Beware of power, Zoya. There is no amount of it that can make them love you.’”
The weight of the words settled over Nikolai. Is that what we’re all searching for? Was that what he’d hunted in all those library books? In his restless travels? In his endless pursuit to seize and then keep the throne? “Was it love you wanted, Zoya?”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so. I wanted … strength. Safety. I never wanted to feel helpless again.”
“Again?” It was impossible to conceive of Zoya as anything less than mighty.
But all she said was, “When Juris broke that fetter, it was like he’d torn a limb from my body. You cannot imagine it.”
He couldn’t. And he couldn’t imagine what words might bring her comfort. “What became of the cubs?”
Zoya ran her finger over the window ledge, sand trailing from it in a glittering fall. “He told me … The Darkling said that because they had my scent on them, their mother wouldn’t raise them.” Her voice wobbled slightly. “He said that I’d doomed them as surely as if I’d taken a knife to their throats myself. That she’d leave them to die in the snow. But I don’t believe that, do you?”
Her face was composed, but her eyes were imploring. Nikolai felt as if he were looking at the young girl she’d been on that cold and bloody night.
“No,” he said. “I don’t believe that at all.”
“Good,” she said. “Good …” She gave her cuffs a firm tug, seeming to return to herself. “Every lover I’ve taken has asked about those scars. I make up a new story for each of them.”
He found he did not want to think of Zoya’s lovers. “And what did I do to earn the truth?”
“Offered me a country and faced imminent death?”
“It’s important to have standards, Nazyalensky.”
Zoya bobbed her chin toward the sealed order that still lay on the floor. “It’s not too late to burn that.”
Nikolai thought of the smooth planes of her back striped by those furrowed scars. He thought of the stubborn tilt of her chin. He imagined her huddled in the snow, risking her position with the mentor she worshipped, risking her very life to save those cubs.
“The more I know of you,” he said, “the more I am sure you are exactly what Ravka needs.”
In that moment, he wished things might have been different. That he might not die tomorrow. That he could be led by his heart instead of duty.
Because Zoya was not kind and she was not easy.
But she was already a queen.
NINA HAD NEVER SAT THROUGH such a long, strange dinner. One of the prettier rooms off the chapel had been set with a private meal for Brum, his daughter, and her new language teacher. The food was a marked improvement on the simple fare of the convent: seared perch served with mussels, cabbage shoots and cream, smoked eel, pickled mushrooms, and braised leeks. Nina tucked two tiny quail eggs into her skirts in case Trassel had a taste for the finer things, and found herself wondering if they might finish with sugared almond cookies. One could plot violent espionage and still hope for dessert.
Brum had questioned Adrik and Leoni that afternoon, and apparently their answers had satisfied him. Nina had expected Adrik to refuse to continue on with their plan now that they were facing the drüskelle commander’s scrutiny, but he’d surprised her.
“I always figured I’d die young,” Adrik said, gloomy as ever. “Why not do it shoving my boot up that murderer’s ass?”
Tonight, she was Nina Zenik, seated across from her greatest enemy—Matthias’ former mentor and the architect of some of the worst crimes against her people. But she was also Mila Jandersdat, a poor girl dining with those high above her station, all while watching her friend suffer.
And Hanne was her friend. She thought of Hanne sneaking away from the convent to deliver an unwanted child. She thought of her crouched over the neck of her horse, racing through the fields, of her standing in the classroom, hands raised in fighting stance, cheeks flushed. A warrior born. She had a wild, generous streak that could bloom into something magical if it was only allowed to flourish. That might happen in Ravka. It was definitely not going to happen at this table.
Brum subjected Hanne to endless questions about her comportment classes and her plans for the next year.
“Your mother and I miss you, Hanne. You’ve been gone too long from Djerholm.”
“I miss you too, Papa.”
“If you would only set aside these unseemly pursuits and apply yourself, I know you would be welcome back at court. Just think of how good it would be to all be together again.”
“Yes, Papa.”
“I don’t like the idea of you remaining out here, especially with the foreign influences encroaching in these small towns. The Wellmother tells me a novitiate was caught with an icon of some heathen Saint tucked beneath her pillow. You belong at the Ice Court.”
“Yes, Papa.”
Hanne’s attempts to discuss her studies were dismissed with the wave of a hand. “You’ve always been smart, Hanne. But that will not garner you a powerful husband.”
“Would he not wish for a wife with whom he can discuss politics and matters of state?”
Brum sighed. “A man who spends all day handling the country’s business does not want to converse about such things with his wife. He wishes to be soothed, entertained, reminded of the gentler things in this world, the things we fight so hard to protect.”
Nina stifled a gag. She wasn’t sure she was going to be able to keep her excellent dinner down.
As the argument between Hanne and her father became heated, she discreetly excused herself. Brum was staying at the factory, and they would hold their attack until he left in the morning.
Nina used the washroom, then checked the pockets of the coat Brum had left neatly folded on the chair in the sitting room. She found a letter full of talk of “the little Lantsov” and someone named Vadik Demidov. She did her best to commit the rest of the information to memory, but she couldn’t afford to be gone from the table long.
Nina snuffed the candle and slipped out of the sitting room. Jarl Brum was standing in the dimly lit hall.
“Oh!” she cried, letting her hand flutter to the neckline of her dress. “You startled me.”