She rested her head against the cool stone of the window casement. Some part of her had been glad to leave the king. To avoid Tamar’s knowing gaze. She could still hear the Suli woman’s voice, still see her standing fearless beneath the cedar tree. Khaj pa ve. We see you. Zoya was a warrior, a general, a Grisha who wore the scales of a dragon around her wrists. So why did those words fill her with so much fear?

She consulted the timepiece she wore on a jeweled fob, clipped to the sash of her kefta. It was a gift from the king, the silver lid shaped like a dragon curled around a quince. When she flipped it open, the abalone face caught the light, shimmering with faint rainbows. The silver hands ticked away.

“He’s late,” she bit out.

“Perhaps he got lost,” offered Count Kirigin nervously. He was always nervous around her. It was tiresome. But he was very wealthy, and his interminably jolly mood made him a perfect foil. When Kirigin was in the room, it was impossible to take anything too seriously. Besides, his father had been a war profiteer, which made him a villain in Ravka but quite popular among the noblemen of West Ravka who had enriched themselves with the help of the elder Kirigin. “My watch says he’s still got two minutes until he’s strictly considered late.”

“Our king needs every minute.”

Kirigin’s cheeks flushed. He tapped his fingers on the table. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

Zoya turned back toward the window.

She felt his shame, his eagerness, his longing. They came on like a sudden storm, a gust that swept her off solid ground and into free fall. One moment she was standing, sure-footed in a sunlit room in Os Kervo, looking out at the sea. The next she was gazing at a beautiful girl before her, raven-haired, her blue eyes distant. She reached out to touch the girl’s smooth cheek.

“Zoya?”

Zoya slammed back into her own consciousness just in time to smack Kirigin’s hand away. “I did not give you leave to touch me.”

“My apologies,” he said, cradling his hand as if she’d broken one of his fingers. “You just looked so … lost.”

And she had been lost. She glanced down at the shimmering black fetters on her wrists. They looked like shackles but they felt natural, as if they’d always been meant to lie cool against her skin. Power. The hunger for it like a heartbeat, steady and unrelenting. It was the temptation of all Grisha, and the acquisition of an amplifier only made it worse. Open the door, Zoya.