Nina knew he was desperate, but his words had the ring of truth. “I believe you. And I’m going to help you get out of here. But you need to give me time to plan.”

“There isn’t time, they—”

“I’ll return as soon as I can. I promise.”

“No,” he said, and it was not the refusal of a weakened prisoner. It was a word of command. In it she heard the echo of a king. “You don’t understand. I must get a message to—”

Nina yanked his gag back into place. She needed to get to the courtyard. “I’ll return,” she vowed.

Opjer seized the bars, grunting as he attempted to shout around his gag.

She closed the door and hurried down the hall, trying not to think of the terror in his eyes.

17

ZOYA

“SOLDIERS!” ZOYA SHOUTED into the darkness.

“Where is he?” Misha cried.

Zoya heard footsteps, the door opening. She whirled and saw the Darkling silhouetted in the day’s sunlight, the snowy hill behind him, the Sun Soldiers running toward him.

She threw her hands forward, unleashing a gust of wind that knocked him down the stairs. The Sun Soldiers blasted him with light, but he was already on his feet, darkness surging from his body like water overflowing a dam.

Zoya summoned the storm, the clouds rolling in on a crash of thunder. Lightning spiked through the sky, bright daggers in her hands. But the bolts never reached the Darkling.

In a shower of sparks, the lightning broke against two writhing heaps of shadow—the nichevo’ya, shadow soldiers summoned from nothing in violation of all the rules of Grisha power. Merzost. Abomination.

“Thank you for bringing me here, Zoya,” the Darkling said as his winged soldiers took shape and lifted him from the ground. “My resurrection is complete.”

It had all been a ruse. His apology. His desire to see Alina. Even his wish to reenact the obisbaya. Were the monks and their thorn-wood seeds a lie too? Just another fairy tale he’d concocted to feed to them like bedtime stories? He was right. They were children, grasping for understanding, stumbling along, learning to walk as the Darkling sprinted ahead of them. They had been fools to think they could predict or control him. He had never intended to drive Yuri out. He needed Alina and Mal: the Sun Summoner who had slain him, and the amplifier who carried the blood of his ancestors. He’d felt no guilt, no shame. She’d been so wrong about what he wanted here.

“Signal the flyers!” she shouted to the Sun Soldiers, then turned her wrath on him. If only she’d had time to master the gifts Juris had granted her. “You have nowhere to go. The king’s soldiers will hunt you to the ends of the earth and so will I.”