“She’s all right?” he asked hopefully.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “She was when we escaped.” But if the Darkling knew that she’d as good as let us go, I didn’t know how he might have dealt with her. I hesitated. “I begged her to come with us.”
His face fell. “But she stayed?”
“I don’t think she felt like she had a choice,” I said. I couldn’t believe I was making excuses for Genya, but I didn’t like the idea of David thinking less of her.
“I should have…” He didn’t seem to know how to finish.
I wanted to say something comforting, something reassuring. But there were so many mistakes in my own past that I couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t ring false.
“We do the best we can,” I offered lamely.
David looked at me then, the regret plain on his face. No matter what I said, we both knew the hard truth. We do our best. We try. And usually, it makes no difference at all.
* * *
I CARRIED MY BLACK MOOD with me to the next meeting at the Grand Palace. Nikolai’s plan seemed to be working. Though Vasily still dragged himself to the council chamber for our meetings with the ministers, he arrived later and later, and occasionally I caught him dozing off. The one time he failed to appear, Nikolai hauled him from his bed, cheerfully insisting that he get dressed and that we simply couldn’t proceed without him. A clearly hungover Vasily had made it through half of the meeting, swaying at the head of the table, before he bolted into the hallway to vomit noisily into a lacquered vase.
Today, even I was having trouble staying awake. Any bit of breeze had vanished, and despite the open windows, the crowded council chamber was unbearably stuffy. The meeting plodded on until one of the generals announced the dwindling numbers from the First Army’s troop rolls. The ranks had been thinned by death, desertion, and years of brutal war, and given that Ravka was about to be fighting on at least one front again, the situation was dire.
Vasily waved a lazy hand and said, “Why all the gnashing of teeth? Just lower the draft age.”
I sat up straighter. “To what?” I asked.
“Fourteen? Fifteen?” Vasily offered. “What is it now?”
I thought of all the villages Nikolai and I had passed through, the cemeteries that stretched for miles. “Why not just drop it to twelve?” I snapped.
“One is never too young to serve one’s country,” Vasily declared.
I don’t know if it was exhaustion or anger, but the words were out of my mouth before I thought better of them. “In that case, why stop at twelve? I hear babies make excellent cannon fodder.”
A disapproving murmur rose from the King’s advisers. Beneath the table, Nikolai reached over and gave my hand a warning squeeze.
“Brother, bringing them in younger won’t stop them from deserting,” he said to Vasily.
“Then we find some deserters and make an example of them.”
Nikolai raised a brow. “Are you sure that death by firing squad is more terrifying than the prospect of being torn apart by nichevo’ya?”
“If they even exist,” Vasily scoffed.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
But Nikolai just smiled pleasantly. “I saw them myself aboard the Volkvolny. Surely you’re not calling me a liar.”
“Surely you’re not suggesting that treason is preferable to honest service in the King’s Army.”
“I’m suggesting that maybe these people are just as fond of life as you are. They’re ill-equipped, undersupplied, and short on hope. If you’d read the reports, you’d know that officers are having trouble keeping order in the ranks.”
“Then they should institute harsher punishments,” said Vasily. “It’s what peasants understand.”
I’d already punched one prince. What was one more? I was halfway out of my seat before Nikolai yanked me back down.
“They understand full bellies and clear directives,” he said. “If you would let me implement the changes I’ve suggested and open the coffers for—”
“You cannot always have your way, little brother.”
Tension crackled through the room.
“The world is changing,” said Nikolai, the steel edge emerging in his voice. “We change with it, or there will be nothing left to remember us but the dust.”
Vasily laughed. “I can’t decide if you’re a fearmonger or a coward.”
“And I can’t decide if you’re an idiot or an idiot.”
Vasily’s face turned purple. He shot to his feet and smacked his hands down on the table. “The Darkling is one man. If you’re afraid to face him—”
“I have faced him. If you’re not afraid—if any of you aren’t afraid—it’s because you lack the sense to understand what we’re up against.”