CHAPTER 3

LESS THAN A WEEK LATER, I spotted the first ice floes. We were far north, where the sea darkened and ice bloomed from its depths in perilous spikes. Though it was early summer, the wind bit into our skin. In the morning, the ropes were hard with frost.

I spent hours pacing my cabin and staring out at the endless sea. Each morning, I was brought above deck, where I was given a chance to stretch my legs and see Mal from afar. Always, the Darkling stood by the railing, scanning the horizon, searching for something. Sturmhond and his crew kept their distance.

On the seventh day, we passed between two slate stone islands that I recognized from my time as a mapmaker: Jelka and Vilki, the Fork and Knife. We had entered the Bone Road, the long stretch of black water where countless ships had wrecked on the nameless islands that appeared and disappeared in its mists. On maps, it was marked by sailors’ skulls, wide-mouthed monsters, mermaids with ice-white hair and the deep black eyes of seals. Only the most experienced Fjerdan hunters came here, seeking skins and furs, chancing death to claim rich prizes. But what prize did we seek?

Sturmhond ordered the sails trimmed, and our pace slowed as we drifted through the mist. An uneasy silence blanketed the ship. I studied the whaler’s longboats, the racks of harpoons tipped in Grisha steel. It wasn’t hard to guess what they were for. The Darkling was after some kind of amplifier. I surveyed the ranks of Grisha and wondered who might be singled out for another of the Darkling’s “gifts.” But a terrible suspicion had taken root inside me.

It’s madness, I told myself. He wouldn’t dare attempt it. The thought brought me little comfort. He always dared.

* * *

THE NEXT DAY, the Darkling ordered me brought to him.

“Who is it for?” I asked as Ivan deposited me by the starboard rail.

The Darkling just stared out into the waves. I considered shoving him over the railing. Sure, he was hundreds of years old, but could he swim?

“Tell me you’re not contemplating what I think you are,” I said. “Tell me the amplifier is for some other stupid, gullible girl.”

“Someone less stubborn? Less selfish? Less hungry for the life of a mouse? Believe me,” he said, “I wish I could.”

I felt sick. “A Grisha can have only one amplifier. You told me that yourself.”

“Morozova’s amplifiers are different.”

I gaped at him. “There’s another like the stag?”

“They were meant to be used together, Alina. They are unique, just as we are.”

I thought of the books I’d read on Grisha theory. Every one of them had said the same thing: Grisha power was not meant to be limitless; it had to be held in check.

“No,” I said. “I don’t want this. I want—”

“You want,” the Darkling mocked. “I want to watch your tracker die slowly with my knife in his heart. I want to let the sea swallow you both. But our fates are entwined now, Alina, and there’s nothing either of us can do about that.”