Page 165 of Rule of Wolves

Of course the Darkling had found his way to the field, surrounded by his followers. But what did he intend? Nikolai had said the Darkling had a gift for spectacle.

“The battle is just the backdrop for him,” she realized. “He’s going to stage his return with some kind of miracle.” She remembered what Alina had said to him. Why do you have to be the savior? The Darkling would wait for his moment, maybe even for Nikolai’s death, and then the Saint would appear to lead them all to—what? Freedom? He’d never had to face Fjerda’s new war machines. He couldn’t beat them on his own, no matter what he believed. And Zoya would dose herself with parem before she followed him again.

“General!” A soldier was running toward her with a note in his hand. “I was asked to deliver this to you.”

Genya plucked it from his fingers.

“By whom?” said Zoya.

“A man in monk’s robes. He came ashore a little ways up the coast.”

“Were his robes brown or black?”

“Brown and bearing the Sun Summoner’s symbol.”

Genya’s eyes moved over the paper. “Oh, Saints.”

“Give it to me.”

“Zoya, you must keep your head.”

“What the hell does it say?” She snatched it from Genya’s hand.

The note was brief and in Ravkan: I have Mila Jandersdat. Come to the eastern observation tower aboard Leviathan’s Mouth. She will await you in the cells.

Zoya crushed the note in her hand. The Apparat had Nina.

“This is a trap,” said Genya. “Not a negotiation tactic. He wants you to do something rash. Zoya? Zoya, what are you doing?”

Zoya stalked back to the tent. “Something rash.”

“We have a strategy,” Genya argued, hurrying to follow. “It’s working. We need to stick to it. And Nikolai needs you to help guide our rockets.”

Zoya hesitated. She didn’t want to leave her king without the resources he needed. And damn it, she wanted to be beside him in this fight. Every time she thought of him lying on the floor of the Cormorant, his arm cushioning his head as he spoke those words, those absurd, beautiful words … No prince and no power could make me stop wanting you. The memory was like drinking something sweet and poisonous. Even knowing the misery it would cause her, she couldn’t stop craving the taste.

You should have said yes, she thought for the hundredth time. You should have told him you loved him. But what good was that word to people like her? Nikolai deserved more. Ravka required more. But for an hour, for a day, he might have been hers. And if something happened to him on that battlefield? She’d been too afraid to say yes to him, to show him the truth of her longing, to admit that from the first time she’d seen him, she’d known he was the hero of all her aunt’s stories, the boy with the golden spirit full of light and hope. All Saints, Zoya wanted to be near that light, she wanted to feel the warmth of it for as long as she could.

She shook her head and plunged into the tent, stripping off the First Army uniform she’d worn to disguise her identity. “There are other Squallers,” she said as she dug through her trunk for something less recognizable. “Adrik can guide the missiles. And I’ll be back in plenty of time. With Nina Zenik in tow.”

“She may not even be alive.”

Zoya nearly tore the roughspun shirt she’d drawn from her trunk. “She is not dead. I forbid it.”

Genya planted her hands on her hips. “Don’t flash those dragon eyes at me, Zoya. Nina isn’t a child. She’s a soldier and a spy and she wouldn’t want you to sacrifice yourself for her.”

“She’s alive.”

“And if she isn’t?”

“I’ll kill every living thing Fjerda can throw at me.”

“Zoya, stop this. Please. I don’t want to lose you too!”

At the break in Genya’s voice, Zoya froze. The sound scraped against her heart, the pain sudden and overwhelming. There were tears in Genya’s single amber eye.

“Zoya,” she whispered. “I can’t do this alone. I … I can’t be the last of us.”

Zoya felt a tremor move through her. She could see her friend suffering, but she didn’t know how to fix it, who to be in this moment. Genya was the one who offered kindness, who wiped away tears, who soothed and mended. Give me something to fight. Something to swing at, to destroy. That was the only gift she had.