Chapters (60)
“Maybe that’s what we need to be,” said Zoya. “This is a world where villains thrive.” Where men like David died buried beneath a heap of stone in their wedding clothes while the Darkling and the Apparat somehow still drew breath.
“Does that mean we become villains too?” Tolya asked, and Zoya could hear the pleading in his voice.
“You’ve never been the weakest person in the room, Tolya. Mercy means nothing if we can’t protect our own.”
“But where does it end?”
Zoya didn’t have an answer to that. Nikolai had said it enough times: Once the river was loosed, it could not be called back.
Genya touched her hand gently to Tolya’s arm. “David hated making war. He was an inventor, a creator. He dreamed of a time when he could build wonders instead of weapons.” She reached out to Zoya, and reluctantly Zoya took her hand, feeling an unwelcome ache in her throat. “But he also knew that we couldn’t forge peace alone. The Fjerdans have shown us who they are. It’s up to us to decide who we want to become.”
“And who is that?” Zoya asked, because she truly didn’t know. All she’d ever had was anger.
“We build the rockets,” said Genya. “We make them understand what we can do. We give them a choice.”
Zoya wondered who would get to make that choice. Parents who didn’t wish to send their children off to die? Jarl Brum and his hateful drüskelle? Royals eager to keep their position at any cost?
“This has always been about stopping a war,” said Nikolai. “If the Fjerdans don’t think we can hold back the tide, they’ll roll right over us.”
Nadia shifted in her chair. “But without titanium—”
“We’ll have the titanium,” said Nikolai.
Zoya couldn’t hide her surprise. “The Zemeni have agreed to provide it?”
“No,” he said. “They don’t have it to sell, not processed. But the Kerch do.”
Adrik snorted. “There’s no way they’ll sell it to us, not at any kind of price we can afford.”
“That’s why I don’t intend to ask. I happen to know someone who can help with this particular kind of negotiation.”
Tolya frowned. “Negotiation?”
“He means we’re going to steal it,” said Zoya.
Genya’s cup clattered in her saucer. “If the Kerch find out we’re involved in something like this, it will be a diplomatic disaster.”
Nikolai gave Genya’s shoulder a brief squeeze and stood. He looked less a king with a country to rule than a privateer about to unleash his cannons on an enemy ship.
“Maybe so,” he said. “But Ketterdam is the right place to gamble.”