Ruin and Rising (The Grisha Trilogy)(58)

“This was unexpected,” he said weakly.

“You’re okay,” I said. “It’s okay.”

“I appreciate your optimism.”

I caught movement from the corner of my eye and saw two blots of shadow slip free of the Darkling’s hands. They slithered over the lip of the balcony, undulating like serpents, heading directly toward us. I raised my hands and slashed out with the Cut, obliterating one side of the terrace, but I was too slow. The shadows slithered lightning fast across the stone and darted into Nikolai’s mouth.

His eyes widened. His breath hitched in surprise, drawing whatever the Darkling had released into his lungs. We stared at each other in shock.

“What—what was that?” he choked.

“I—”

He coughed, shuddered. Then his fingers flew to his chest, tearing open the remains of his shirt. We both looked down, and I saw shadow spreading beneath his skin in fragile black lines, splintering like veins in marble.

“No,” I groaned. “No. No.”

The cracks traveled across his stomach, down his arms.

“Alina?” he said helplessly. The darkness fractured beneath his skin, climbing his throat. He threw his head back and screamed, the tendons flexing in his neck as his whole body contorted, his back bowing. He shoved up to his knees, chest heaving. I reached for him as he convulsed.

He released another raw scream, and two black shards burst from his back. They unfurled. Like wings.

His head shot up. He looked at me, face beaded in sweat, gaze panicked and desperate. “Alina—”

Then his eyes—his clever, hazel eyes—went black.

“Nikolai?” I whispered.

His lips curled back, revealing teeth of black onyx. They had formed fangs.

He snarled. I stumbled backward. His jaws snapped closed a bare inch from me.

“Hungry?” the Darkling asked. “I wonder which one of your friends you’ll eat first.”

I raised my hands, reluctant to use my power. I didn’t want to hurt him. “Nikolai,” I begged. “Don’t do this. Stay with me.”

His face spasmed in pain. He was in there, fighting himself, battling the appetite that had taken hold of him. His hands flexed—no, his claws. He howled, and the noise that came from him was desperate, shrieking, completely inhuman.

His wings beat the air as he rose from the terrace, monstrous, but still beautiful, still somehow Nikolai. He looked down at the dark veins coursing over his torso, at the razor-sharp talons that had pushed from his blackened fingertips. He held out his hands as if pleading with me for an answer.

“Nikolai,” I cried.

He turned in the air, wrenching himself away, and raced upward, as if he could somehow outpace the need inside him, his black wings carrying him higher as he cut through the nichevo’ya. He looked back once, and even from a distance, I felt his anguish and confusion.

Then he was gone, a black speck in the gray sky, while I remained trembling below.

“Eventually,” said the Darkling, “he will feed.”

I’d warned Nikolai of the Darkling’s vengeance, but even I couldn’t have foreseen the elegance of this, the perfect cruelty. Nikolai had made a fool of the Darkling, and now the Darkling had taken my polished, brilliant, noble prince and made him into a monster. Death would have been too kind.

A sound came from me, something guttural, animal, a noise I didn’t recognize. I raised my hands and brought the Cut blazing down in two furious arcs. They struck the whirring shapes that surrounded the Darkling and I saw some burst apart into nothing, only to have others take their place. I didn’t care. I struck him again and again. If I could knock the top off a mountain, surely my power was good for something in this battle.

“Fight me!” I screamed. “Let’s end this now! Here!”

“Fight you, Alina? There is no fight to be had.” He gestured to the nichevo’ya. “Seize them.”

They swarmed down from every direction, a seething black mass. Beside me, Mal opened fire. I could smell gunpowder and hear the clink of empty cartridges as bullets hit the ground. I was focusing every bit of power I had, nearly pinwheeling my arms, cutting through five, ten, fifteen shadow soldiers at a time, but it was no good. There were simply too many of them.

Then suddenly they stopped. The nichevo’ya hung in the air, bodies limp, wings moving in silent rhythm.

“Did you do that?” Mal asked.

“I—I don’t think so…”

Silence descended on the terrace. I could hear the wail of the wind, the sounds of the battle raging behind us.

“Abomination.”

We turned. Baghra stood inside the doorway, her hand on Misha’s shoulder. The boy was shaking, his eyes so wide I could see more white than iris. Behind them, our soldiers were fighting not just nichevo’ya but oprichniki and the Darkling’s own Grisha in their blue and red kefta. He’d had his creatures bring them all to the mountaintop.

“Guide me,” Baghra told Misha. What courage it must have taken for him to lead her out onto the terrace, past the nichevo’ya, who shifted and bumped up against each other, following her passage like a field of glistening black reeds. Only those closest to the Darkling remained moving, clinging to their master, their wings beating in unison.

The Darkling’s face was livid. “I should have known I’d find you cloistered with the enemy. Go back inside,” he ordered. “My soldiers will not harm you.”