The first Fjerdan tank burst into flames. The second capsized, rolling onto its side, its huge treads whirring helplessly. Boom. Another exploded in a plume of fire as its driver and crew tried to escape.

Fjerda had assumed their tanks would roll through the basin, that their attack would be quick and decisive, that Ravka would have no chance to mount any real opposition. They would occupy key northern cities and drive the front south as Nikolai’s troops scrambled to meet them in the field.

They would have done just that—if not for Nina Zenik’s warning. Hours before dawn, Fjerdan bombs had begun to fall on Ravkan military targets, places where they believed Ravkan flyers were grounded, a munitions factory, a shipyard. There had been nothing Nikolai could do about the shipyard; there simply wasn’t time. But everywhere else, flyers and airships and personnel had been moved to new locations.

And while the Fjerdans were unleashing their bombs, Nikolai’s special soldiers, his Nolniki—Grisha and First Army troops working together—had crept through the darkness of Nezkii and Ulensk, planting anti-tank mines under cover of night, an ugly surprise for an enemy who had believed it would face no resistance. The mines had been carefully mapped. One day Nikolai hoped they could call the Fjerdans friends, and he didn’t want to render all their borderlands useless.

The battlefield was a grim site: smoke and mud, Fjerdan tanks reduced to hunks of still-burning metal. But the mines had slowed the enemy, not stopped them. The tanks that survived the explosions charged ahead.

“Masks on!” He heard the call go down the line from his First Army captains and Second Army commanders. They had every reason to believe those tanks wouldn’t just be firing mortars but shells full of jurda parem, the gas that could kill ordinary men and instantly addict Grisha. “Prepare to engage!”

Nikolai looked to the skies. High above, Ravka’s flyers patrolled the clouds, making sure the Fjerdans couldn’t bomb their forces from the air and taking any opportunity to strafe the Fjerdan lines. Ravka’s flyers were lighter, more agile. If only they had the money for more machines.

“Hold the line!” Adrik shouted. “Let them come to us.”

“For Ravka!” Nikolai yelled.

“For the double eagle!” came the reply, soldiers’ voices raised in solidarity.

Fjerdan troops armed with repeating rifles followed behind the tanks that had made it through the minefield, cutting a swath through the smoke and haze. They were met by Ravkan soldiers fighting side by side with Grisha.