That was it: two volleys, the last of their missiles. In the trenches, he saw Leoni’s troops reloading, but he knew those shells were steel, not titanium, and empty of explosives. If any Fjerdan scouts were watching, Nikolai didn’t want them to know just how vulnerable Ravka was.

Most battles were waged over weeks, long slogs through bullets and blood. But Ravka couldn’t fight that kind of war. They didn’t have the funds, the flyers, the bodies to sacrifice. So this would be their stand. If the Saints were watching, he hoped they were on Ravka’s side. He hoped that they had protected Zoya in the south. He hoped they’d fight beside him now.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” said Tolya. “Put down that gun.”

Nikolai checked the sights on his rifle. “I can’t very well plunge heroically into battle unarmed.”

“We need you alive to issue commands, not blown apart by Fjerdan repeaters.”

“I have officers to issue commands. This is our last chance to make a real charge. If we lose, Ravka won’t need a king anyway.”

Tolya sighed. “Then I suppose you won’t need bodyguards. We go together.”

As they drew closer to the front lines, the noise was overwhelming, the thunder of tanks and artillery like a hammer to the head. They pushed forward through the ranks, past the injured and those preparing to be called into battle.

“Korol Rezni!” soldiers shouted when they caught sight of him.

King of Scars. He didn’t mind the name so much anymore.

“Who fights beside me?” he called back.

And they bellowed their names in response, falling into step behind him.

Nikolai smelled gunpowder, burning flesh, turned earth—as if the whole field had been dug as a grave. He remembered Halmhend, the bodies spread out before him, the spatter of red on Dominik’s lips as he died. This country gets you in the end, brother. Don’t forget it. Nikolai had promised to do better, to build something new. But in the end, all his inventions and diplomacy had come down to this: a brawl in the dirt.

He was walking, then running, and then he was in the thick of it. Nikolai’s world narrowed to smoke and blood, the sounds of gunfire, the roar of tanks. Figures emerged in flashes, and there was only the briefest moment to tell friend from foe. The Fjerdan helmets helped—a design Nikolai had never seen before but distinct from what the Ravkan soldiers wore. He shot, shot again, reloaded. Someone ran at him from his left—a gray uniform. He yanked the knife from his belt and plunged it into a soft belly. This was a feeling he had been happy to forget, the knowledge that death walked with you, breathing down your neck, guiding your hand but ready to turn the blade on you in the space of a moment.