Ruin and Rising (The Grisha Trilogy)(77)

The stone steps that led to the front door were smeared with ash but intact. I saw the long, straight gravel drive, the white pillars of the gate, the road that led to town. It had been nearly two years since I’d seen this view, but it was just as I remembered.

The Darkling placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me slightly.

My legs gave way. I fell to my knees, my hands clasped over my mouth. A sound tore from me, too broken to be called a scream.

The oak I’d once climbed on a dare still stood, untouched by the fire that had taken Keramzin. Now its branches were full of bodies. The three Grisha instructors hung from the same thick limb, their kefta fluttering slightly in the wind—purple, red, and blue. Beside them, Botkin’s face was nearly black above the rope that had dug into his neck. He was covered in wounds. He’d died fighting before they’d strung him up. Next to him, Ana Kuya swayed in her black dress, her heavy key ring at her waist, the toes of her button boots nearly scraping the ground.

“She was, I think, the closest thing you had to a mother,” murmured the Darkling.

The sobs that shook me were like the lashes of a whip. I flinched with each one, bent double, collapsing into myself. The Darkling knelt before me. He took me by the wrists, pulling my hands free from my face, as if he wanted to watch me weep.

“Alina,” he said. I kept my eyes on the steps, my tears clouding my vision. I would not look at him. “Alina,” he repeated.

“Why?” The word was a wail, a child’s cry. “Why would you do this? How can you do this? Don’t you feel any of it?”

“I have lived a long life, rich in grief. My tears are long since spent. If I still felt as you do, if I ached as you do, I could not have borne this eternity.”

“I hope Botkin killed twenty of your Grisha,” I spat at him, “a hundred.”

“He was an extraordinary man.”

“Where are the students?” I made myself ask, though I wasn’t sure I could bear the answer. “What have you done?”

“Where are you, Alina? I felt sure you would come to me when I moved against West Ravka. I thought your conscience would demand it. I could only hope that this would draw you out.”

“Where are they?” I screamed.

“They are safe. For now. They will be on my skiff when I enter the Fold again.”

“As hostages,” I said dully.

He nodded. “In case you get any thoughts of attack rather than surrender. In five days, I will return to the Unsea, and you will come to me—you and the tracker—or I will drive the Fold all the way to West Ravka’s coast, and I will march those children, one by one, to the mercy of the volcra.”

“This place … these people, they were innocent.”

“I have waited hundreds of years for this moment, for your power, for this chance. I have earned it with loss and with struggle. I will have it, Alina. Whatever the cost.”

I wanted to claw at him, to tell him I’d see him torn apart by his own monsters. I wanted to tell him I would bring all the power of Morozova’s amplifiers down on him, an army of light, born of merzost, perfect in its vengeance. I might be able to do it, too. If Mal gave up his life.

“There will be nothing left,” I whispered.

“No,” he said gently as he folded me in his arms. He pressed a kiss to the top of my hair. “I will strip away all that you know, all that you love, until you have no shelter but me.”

In grief, in horror, I let myself break apart.

* * *

I WAS STILL ON MY KNEES, my hands clutching the windowsill, my forehead pressed against the wooden slats of the boardinghouse wall. Outside, I could hear the faint jingle of prayer bells. Inside, there was no sound but the hitch of my breath, the rasp of my sobs as the whip continued to fall, as I bent my back and wept. That was where they found me.

I didn’t hear the door open, or their steps as they approached. I just felt gentle hands take hold of me. Zoya sat me down on the edge of the bed, and Tamar settled beside me. Nadia took a comb to my hair, carefully working through the tangles. Genya washed first my face, then my hands with a cool cloth she’d wetted in the basin. It smelled faintly of mint.

We sat there, saying nothing, all of them clustered around me.

“He has the students,” I said flatly. “Twenty-three children. He killed the teachers. And Botkin.” And Ana Kuya, a woman they’d never known. The woman who had raised me. “Mal—”

“He told us,” said Nadia softly.

I think some part of me expected blame, recrimination. Instead, Genya rested her head on my shoulder. Tamar squeezed my hand.

This wasn’t just comfort, I realized. They were leaning on me—as I was leaning on them—for strength.

I have lived a long life, rich in grief.

Had the Darkling had friends like this? People whom he’d loved, who had fought for him, and cared for him, and made him laugh? People who had become little more than sacrifices to a dream that outlived them?

“How long do we have?” Tamar asked.

“Five days.”

A knock came at the door. It was Mal. Tamar made room for him beside me.

“Bad?” he asked.

I nodded. I couldn’t yet stand to tell him what I’d seen. “I have five days to surrender, or he’ll use the Fold again.”