Ruin and Rising (The Grisha Trilogy)(63)

“I thought we’d stay tonight,” he said, “make a fire. We can leave for Dva Stolba in the morning.”

“All right,” I said, though I was eager to get moving.

He must have sensed it because he said, “Adrik could use the rest. We all could. I’m afraid if we keep pushing, one of them will break.”

I nodded. He was right. We were all grieving and frightened and tired. “I’ll bring some kindling down.”

He touched my arm. “Alina—”

“I won’t be long.” I pushed past him. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want words of comfort. I wanted the firebird. I wanted to turn my pain into anger and bring it to the Darkling’s door.

I made my way up to the woods that surrounded the mine. This far south, the trees were different, taller and more sparse, their bark red and porous. I was on my way back to the mine, my arms full of the driest branches I could find, when I got the eerie feeling I was being watched. I stopped, the hair rising on the back of my neck.

I peered between the sunlit trunks, waiting. The silence was dense, as if every small creature were holding its breath. Then I heard it—a soft rustling. My head jerked up, following the sound into the trees. My eyes fastened on a flicker of movement, the silent beat of a shadowy wing.

Nikolai was perched in the branches of a tree, his dark gaze fastened on me.

His chest was bare and lined in black as if darkness had shattered beneath his skin. He’d lost his boots somewhere, and his bare feet gripped the bark. His toes had become black talons.

He had dried blood on his hands. And near his mouth.

“Nikolai?” I whispered.

He flinched back.

“Nikolai, wait—”

But he leapt into the air, dark wings shaking the branches as he broke through them to the blue sky beyond.

I wanted to scream, so I did. I tossed my kindling to the ground, pressed my fist to my mouth, and screamed until my throat was raw. I couldn’t stop. I’d managed not to weep on the Bittern or at the mine, but now I sank to the forest floor, my screams turning to sobs, silent, racking gasps. They hurt, as if they might crack my ribs open, but emerged soundless from my lips. I kept thinking of Nikolai’s torn trousers and had the foolish thought that he’d be mortified to see his clothes in such a state. He’d followed us all the way from the Spinning Wheel. Could he tell the Darkling of our whereabouts? Would he? How much of him was left inside that tortured body?

I felt it then, the vibration along that invisible tether. I pushed away from it. I would not go to the Darkling now. I wouldn’t go to him ever again. But still, I knew wherever he was, he was grieving.

* * *

MAL FOUND ME THERE, head buried in my arms, coat covered in green needles. He offered me his hand, but I ignored it.

“I’m all right,” I said, though nothing could have been less true.

“It’s getting dark. You shouldn’t be out here alone.”

“I’m the Sun Summoner. It gets dark when I say it does.”

He crouched down in front of me and waited for me to meet his eyes. “Don’t shut them out, Alina. They need to grieve with you.”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

“Then let them talk.”

I had no solace or encouragement to offer. I didn’t want to share this hurt. I didn’t want them to see how frightened I was. But I made myself get up and brush the needles from my coat. I let Mal lead me back to the mine.

By the time we got all the way down to the crater floor, it was full dark and the others had lit lanterns beneath the overhang.

“Took your time, didn’t you?” said Zoya. “Did we have to freeze while you two frolicked around in the woods?”

There was no point to hiding my tearstained face so I just said, “Turned out I needed a good cry.”

I braced myself for an insult, but all she said was, “Next time invite me. I could use one too.”

Mal dropped the kindling I’d gathered into the firepit someone had made, and I plucked Oncat from Harshaw’s shoulder. She gave a brief hiss, but I didn’t care. Right now, I needed to cuddle something soft and furry.

They’d already cleaned and spitted the game Mal had caught, and soon, despite my sadness and worry, the smell of roasting meat had my mouth watering.

We sat around the fire, eating and passing around a flask of kvas, watching the flames play over the hull of the Bittern as the branches crackled and popped. We had a lot to talk about—who would go with us into the Sikurzoi and who would remain in the valley, whether or not people even wanted to stay. I rubbed my wrist. It helped to focus on the firebird, to think of that instead of the black sheen of Nikolai’s eyes, the dark crust of blood near his lips.

Abruptly, Zoya said, “I should have known Sergei couldn’t be trusted. He was always a weakling.” That seemed unfair, but I let it pass.

“Oncat never liked him,” Harshaw added.

Genya fed a branch to the fire. “Do you think he was planning it all along?”

“I’ve been wondering that,” I admitted. “I thought he’d be better once we got out of the White Cathedral and the tunnels, but he almost seemed worse, more anxious.”

“That could have been anything,” said Tamar. “Cave-in, militia attack, Tolya’s snoring.”