Ruin and Rising (The Grisha Trilogy)(43)

I whirled. Mal was leaning against the archway, his arms crossed.

“That peak is over five miles away,” I protested.

“More like six,” he said breezily, a challenge in his eyes. It was as if we were back at Keramzin, and he was daring me to steal a bag of sweet almonds or luring me out onto Trivka’s pond before the ice had set. I can’t, I’d say. Of course you can, he’d reply, gliding away from me on borrowed skates, the toes stuffed with paper, never turning his back, making sure I would follow.

As the crowd hooted and placed wagers, Baghra spoke to me in a low voice. “We say like calls to like, girl. But if the science is small enough, then we are like all things. The light lives in the spaces between. It is there in the soil of that mountain, in the rock and in the snow. The Cut is already made.”

I stared at her. She’d as good as quoted Morozova’s journals that time. She’d said the Darkling had been obsessed with them. Was she telling me something more now?

I pushed up my sleeves and raised my hands. The crowd went silent. I focused on the peak in the distance, so far away I couldn’t make out its details.

I called the light to me and then released it, letting myself go with it. I was in the clouds, above them, and for a brief moment, I was in the dark of the mountain, feeling myself compressed and breathless. I was the spaces between, where light lived even if it could not be seen. When I brought my arm down, the arc I made was infinite, a shining sword that existed in a moment and in every moment beyond it.

There was an echoing crack, like thunder from a distance. The sky seemed to vibrate.

Silently, slowly, the top of the far mountain began to move. It didn’t tip, just slid inexorably to the side, snow and rock cascading down its face, leaving a perfect diagonal line where a peak had once been, a ledge of exposed gray rock, jutting just above the cloud bank.

Behind me, I heard shrieking and whooping. Misha was jumping up and down, crowing, “She did it! She did it!”

I glanced over my shoulder. Mal gave me the barest nod, then started rounding everyone up and back into the Spinning Wheel. I saw him point to one of the rogues and mouth, “Pay up.”

I turned back to the broken mountain, my blood fizzing with power, my mind reeling from the reality, the permanence of what I’d just done. Again, clamored a voice inside me, hungry for more. First a man, then a mountain. There and gone. Easy. I shivered in my kefta, comforted by the soft brush of the fox fur.

“Took your time,” grumbled Baghra. “At this rate, I’ll lose both my feet to frostbite before you make any progress at all.”





CHAPTER

8

SERGEI LEFT THAT NIGHT on the Ibis, the cargo barge that had been pressed into service while the Pelican was being repaired. Nikolai had offered him a place at a quiet way station near Duva where he could recuperate and be of some help to the smugglers passing through. He’d even offered to let Sergei wait and take shelter in West Ravka, but Sergei had simply been too anxious to leave.

The next morning, Nikolai and I met with Mal and the twins to figure out the logistics of pursuing the firebird in the southern Sikurzoi. The rest of the Grisha didn’t know the location of the third amplifier, and we intended to keep it that way as long as we could.

Nikolai had spent the better part of two nights studying Morozova’s journals, and he was just as concerned as I was, convinced that there must be books missing or in the Darkling’s possession. He wanted me to pressure Baghra, but I had to be careful how I approached the subject. If I provoked her, we’d have no new information and she’d stop my lessons.

“It’s not just that the books are unfinished,” Nikolai said. “Does Morozova strike anyone as a little … eccentric?”

“If by eccentric you mean insane, then yes,” I admitted. “I’m hoping he can be crazy and right.”

Nikolai contemplated the map tacked to the wall. “And this is still our only clue?” He tapped a nondescript valley on the southern border. “That’s a lot riding on two skinny pieces of rock.”

The unmarked valley was Dva Stolba, home to the settlements where Mal and I had been born, and named for the ruins that stood at its southern entrance—slender, wind-eroded spires that someone had decided were the remnants of two mills. But we believed they were actually the ruins of an ancient arch, a signpost to the firebird, the last of Ilya Morozova’s amplifiers.

“There’s an abandoned copper mine located at Murin,” said Nikolai. “You can land the Bittern there and enter the valley on foot.”

“Why not fly right into the Sikurzoi?” Mal asked.

Tamar shook her head. “Could be tricky maneuvering. There are fewer landing sites, and the terrain is a lot more dangerous.”

“All right,” agreed Mal. “Then we set down in Murin and come over the Jidkova Pass.”

“We should have good cover,” Tolya said. “Nevsky claims a lot of people are traveling through the border cities, trying to get out of Ravka before winter arrives and the mountains become impossible to cross.”

“How long will it take you to find the firebird?” Nikolai asked.

Everyone turned to Mal.

“No way of knowing,” he said. “It took me months to find the stag. Hunting the sea whip took less than a week.” He kept his eyes on the map, but I could feel the memory of those days rising up between us. We’d spent them in the icy waters of the Bone Road with the threat of torture hanging over us. “The Sikurzoi cover a lot of territory. We need to get moving as quickly as possible.”