* * *
IT TOOK DAVID almost two more weeks to get his dishes operational, but when he was finally ready, I had the Grisha gather on the Little Palace roof to watch the demonstration. Tolya and Tamar were there, alert as always, scanning the crowd. Mal was nowhere to be seen. I’d stayed up the previous night in the common room, hoping to catch him and ask him personally to attend. It was long past midnight when I gave up and went to bed.
The two huge dishes were positioned on opposite sides of the roof, on the flat lip that extended between the domes of the eastern and western wings. They could be rotated through a system of pulleys, and each was manned by a Materialnik and a Squaller, outfitted in goggles to protect against the glare. I saw that Zoya and Paja had been teamed together, and Nadia had been paired with a Durast on the second dish.
Even if this is a total failure, I thought anxiously, at least they’re working together. Nothing like a fiery explosion to build camaraderie.
I took my place at the center of the roof, directly between the dishes.
With a jolt of nervousness, I saw that Nikolai had invited the captain of the palace guard to observe, along with two generals and several of the King’s advisers. I hoped they weren’t expecting anything too dramatic. My power tended to show best in full darkness, and the long Belyanoch days made that impossible. I’d asked David if we should schedule the demonstration for later in the evening, but he’d just shaken his head.
“If it works, it will be plenty dramatic. And I suppose that if it doesn’t work, it will be even more dramatic, what with the blast.”
“David, I think you just made a joke.”
He frowned, utterly perplexed. “Did I?”
At Nikolai’s suggestion, David had chosen to take his cue from the Volkvolny and use a whistle to signal us. He gave a shrill blast, and the onlookers backed up against the domes, leaving us plenty of room. I raised my hands. David blew on the whistle again. I called the light.
It entered me in a golden torrent and burst from my hands in two steady beams. They struck the dishes, reflecting off them in a blinding glare. It was impressive, but nothing spectacular.
Then David whistled again, and the dishes rotated slightly. The light bounced off their mirrored surfaces, multiplying upon itself and focusing into two blazing white shafts that pierced the early twilight.
An ahhhh went up from the crowd as they shielded their eyes. I guess I didn’t have to worry about drama.
The beams sliced through the air, sending off waves of cascading brilliance and radiant heat, as if they were burning through the sky itself. David gave another short blast on the whistle, and the beams fused into a single molten blade of light. It was impossible to look directly at it. If the Cut was a knife in my hand, then this was a broadsword.
The dishes tilted, and the beam descended. The crowd gasped in astonishment as the light slashed through the edge of the woods below, leveling the treetops.
The dishes tilted further. The beam seared into the lakeshore and then into the lake itself. A wave of steam billowed into the air with an audible hiss, and for a moment, the entire surface of the lake seemed to boil.
David gave a panicked blast on the whistle. Hastily, I dropped my hands, and the light vanished.
We ran to the edge of the roof and gaped at the sight before us.
It was as if someone had taken a razor and lopped off the top of the woods in a clean diagonal cut from the tip of the tree line to the shore. Where the beam had touched down, the ground was marked by a glowing trench that ran all the way to the waterline.
“It worked,” David said in a dazed voice. “It actually worked.”
There was a pause and then Zoya burst out laughing. Sergei joined her, then Marie and Nadia. Suddenly, we were all laughing and cheering, even moody Tolya, who swept a befuddled David up on his enormous shoulders. Soldiers were hugging Grisha, the King’s advisers were hugging the generals, Nikolai was dancing a begoggled Paja around the roof, and the captain of the guard caught me up in a giddy embrace.
We whooped and screamed and bounced up and down, so that the whole palace seemed to shake. When the Darkling decided to march, the nichevo’ya would have quite a surprise waiting for them.
“Let’s go see it!” someone shouted, and we raced down the stairs like children at the sound of the school bell, giggling and careening off the walls.
We charged through the Hall of the Golden Dome and flung open the doors, tumbling down the steps and outside. As everyone sprinted down to the lake, I skidded to a halt.
Mal was coming up the path from the wooded tunnel.
“Go on,” I said to Nikolai. “I’ll catch up.”