The Darkling rubbed at his wrists, taking his time, as if enjoying the fear of those forced to watch and wait to see what he would do.

He shucked off his robe, letting it drop to the snowy ground, then stripped off his shirt and strode to the base of the tree. He stood in trousers and boots, his skin white as driftwood, his long hair black as the feathers of a crow.

“Go on,” said the monk with the three braids. “If this is your wish. If you dare it.”

The Darkling took a deep breath.

“My name is Aleksander Morozova,” he said, his voice echoing through the clearing. “But I have had a hundred names and I have committed a thousand crimes.”

The monks placed their hands upon the roots of the tree, the trunk, the hanging boughs.

The Darkling spread his arms wide, his lean body pale in the winter light. “I am not sorry.”

The great tree’s bark began to move and shift. They’re Fabrikators, Nikolai realized, watching the monks concentrate. All of them.

“I do not repent!” said the Darkling.

One of the branches of the thorn wood began to twist, writhing like a snake, a single spike protruding from its tip. Zoya took Nikolai’s hand. Now they were all joined together: Nikolai, Zoya, and Genya.

The thorn-wood bough moved back and forth, back and forth, a serpent staring down its prey.

“All I did, I did for Ravka,” shouted the Darkling. “And now, I do this too. For Ravka!”

The bough struck in a sudden, sinuous lunge.

The thorn pierced the Darkling’s chest and he screamed, his head thrown back, the sound pure, human, and terrible. Nikolai gripped Zoya’s hand as the demon inside him screamed too, the pain like a brand, a fire in his heart.

The thorn-wood tree drew the Darkling closer, its branches wrapping around him, lifting his helpless body, a mother cradling her son, calling him home. The massive trunk parted, and the thorn wood pulled him into the dark.

The tree closed around him, silencing his scream. Its branches stilled. The monks stood silent. Nikolai pressed his hand to his heart. The pain was gone; the demon lay quiet.

Faintly, in the pattern of the bark, Nikolai could see the shape of a hand—the Darkling’s hand, pressing at the bars of his prison for eternity.

One by one the Sun Soldiers knelt.

Zoya walked slowly to the tree, her footsteps quiet in the snow. She rested her hand against the mark the Darkling had made and bowed her head.

“I didn’t really think he’d do it.”

“He stands at the doorway between worlds,” said the monk. “Look with your dragon’s eye. What do you see?”

Zoya shut her eyes, lifted her face to the sky. “The Fold … the Fold is blooming.”

“Tell us,” said Genya.