Ruin and Rising (The Grisha Trilogy)(33)

“What is this?” I asked.

Nikolai dropped a lever, and we let loose a collective scream as the room shot upward, taking my stomach with it.

We jolted to a halt. My gut slammed back down to my shoes, and the gate slid open. Nikolai stepped out, doubled over with laughter. “I never tire of that.”

We piled out of the box as fast as we could—all except for David, who lingered to fiddle with the lever mechanism.

“Careful there,” Nikolai called. “The trip down is bumpier than the trip up.”

Genya took David’s arm and yanked him clear.

“Saints,” I swore. “I forgot how often I want to stab you.”

“So I haven’t lost my touch.” He glanced at Genya and said quietly, “What happened to that girl?”

“Long story,” I hedged. “Please tell me there are stairs. I’d rather set up permanent house here than ever get back in that thing.”

“Of course there are stairs, but they’re less entertaining. And once you’ve dragged yourself up and down four flights of them enough, you’ll find you’re far more open-minded.”

I was about to argue, but as I took a good look around, the words died on my tongue. If the hangar had been impressive, then this was simply miraculous.

It was the biggest room I’d ever been in—twice, maybe three times as wide and as tall as the domed hall in the Little Palace. It wasn’t even a room, I realized. We were standing at the top of a hollowed-out mountain.

Now I understood what I had seen as we approached aboard the Pelican. The frost fingers were actually enormous bronze columns cast in the shapes of people and creatures. They towered above us, bracketing huge panels of glass that looked out on the ocean of cloud below. The glass was so clear that it gave the space an eerie sense of openness, as if a wind might blow through and send me tumbling into the nothingness beyond. My heart started to hammer.

“Deep breaths,” Nikolai said. “It can be overwhelming at first.”

The room was teeming with people. Some bunched in groups where drafting tables and bits of machinery had been set up. Others were marking crates of supplies in a kind of makeshift warehouse. Another area had been set aside for training; soldiers sparred with dulled swords while others summoned Squaller winds or cast Inferni flame. Through the glass, I saw terraces protruding in four directions, giant spikes like compass points—north, south, east, west. Two had been set aside for target practice. It was hard not to compare it to the damp, cloistered caverns of the White Cathedral. Everything here was bursting with life and hope. It all bore Nikolai’s stamp.

“What is this place?” I asked as we slowly made our way through.

“It was originally a pilgrimage site, back when Ravka’s borders extended farther north,” Nikolai replied. “The Monastery of Sankt Demyan.”

Sankt Demyan of the Rime. At least that explained the winding staircase we’d glimpsed. Only faith or fear could get anyone to make that climb. I remembered Demyan’s page from the Istorii Sankt’ya. He’d performed some kind of miracle near the northern border. I was pretty sure he’d been stoned to death.

“A few hundred years ago, it was turned into an observatory,” Nikolai continued. He pointed to a hulking brass telescope tucked into one of the glass niches. “It’s been abandoned for over a century. I heard about it during the Halmhend campaign, but it took some finding. Now we just call it the Spinning Wheel.”

Then it struck me: the bronze columns were constellations—the Hunter with his drawn bow, the Scholar bent in study, the Three Foolish Sons, huddled together, trying to share a single coat. The Bursar, the Bear, the Beggar. The Shorn Maiden wielding her bone needle. Twelve in all: the spokes of the Spinning Wheel.

I had to crane my neck all the way back to get a view of the glass dome high above us. The sun was setting and through it, I could see the sky turning a lush, deep blue. If I squinted, I could just make out a twelve-pointed star at the dome’s center.

“So much glass,” I whispered, my head reeling.

“But no frost,” Mal noted.

“Heated pipes,” David said. “They’re in the floor. Probably embedded in the columns too.”

It was hotter in this room. Still cold enough that I wouldn’t want to part with my coat or my hat, but my feet were warm through my boots.

“There are boilers beneath us,” Nikolai said. “The whole place runs on melted snow and steam heat. The problem is fuel, but I’ve been stockpiling coal.”

“For how long?”

“Two years. We started repairs when I had the lower caverns turned into hangars. It’s not an ideal vacation spot, but sometimes you just want to get away.”

I was impressed, but also unnerved. Being around Nikolai was always like this, watching him shift and change, revealing secrets as he went. He reminded me of the wooden nesting dolls I’d played with as a child. Except instead of getting smaller, he just kept getting grander and more mysterious. Tomorrow, he’d probably tell me he’d built a pleasure palace on the moon. Tough to get to, but quite a view.

“Have a look around,” Nikolai said to us. “Get a feel for the place. Nevsky’s unloading cargo in the hangar, and I need to take care of repairs to the hull.” I remembered Nevsky. He’d been a soldier in Nikolai’s old regiment, the Twenty-Second, and not particularly fond of Grisha.