“Nevsky is right,” he said, nodding toward the angry soldier. “Grisha or not, their first loyalty should have been to the King. They left their posts. Technically, they’re deserters.”

“That doesn’t make them traitors.”

“The real question is whether they’re spies.”

“So what do we do with them?”

“We could arrest them, have them questioned.”

I toyed with my sleeve, thinking.

“Talk to me,” Nikolai said.

“Don’t we want the Grisha to come back?” I asked. “If we arrest everyone who returns, I won’t have much of an army to lead.”

“Remember,” he said, “you’ll be eating with them, working with them, sleeping under the same roof.”

“And they could all be working for the Darkling.” I looked over my shoulder at Fedyor waiting patiently at the gate. “What do you think?”

“I don’t think these Grisha are any more or less trustworthy than the ones waiting at the Little Palace.”

“That’s not encouraging.”

“Once we’re behind the palace walls, all communication will be closely monitored. It’s hard to see how the Darkling can use his spies if he can’t reach them.”

I resisted the urge to touch the scars forming on my shoulder. I took a breath.

“All right,” I said. “Open the gates. I’ll speak to Fedyor and only him. The rest can camp outside the dacha tonight and join us on the way into Os Alta tomorrow.”

“You’re sure?”

“I doubt I’ll be sure of anything ever again, but my army needs soldiers.”

“Very good,” Nikolai said with a short nod. “Just be careful who you trust.”

I cast a pointed glance at him. “I will.”

CHAPTER 12

FEDYOR AND I talked late into the night, though we were never left alone. Mal or Tolya or Tamar was always there, keeping watch.

Fedyor had been serving near Sikursk on the southeastern border. When word of the destruction of Novokribirsk reached the outpost, the King’s soldiers had turned on the Grisha, pulling them from their beds in the middle of the night and mounting sham trials to determine their loyalty. Fedyor had helped to lead an escape.

“We could have killed them all,” he said. “Instead, we took our wounded and fled.”

Some Grisha hadn’t been so forgiving. There had been massacres at Chernast and Ulensk when the soldiers there had tried to attack members of the Second Army. Meanwhile, Mal and I had been aboard the Verrhader, sailing west, safe from the chaos we’d helped to unleash.

“A few weeks ago,” he said, “the stories started circulating that you’d returned to Ravka. You can expect more Grisha to seek you out.”

“How many?”

“There’s no way of knowing.”

Like Nikolai, Fedyor believed some Grisha had gone into hiding, waiting for order to be restored. But he suspected that most of them had sought out the Darkling.

“He’s strength,” said Fedyor. “He’s safety. That’s what they understand.”

Or maybe they just think they’ve chosen the winning side, I thought bleakly. But I knew it was more than that. I’d felt the pull of the Darkling’s power. Wasn’t that why the pilgrims flocked to a false Saint? Why the First Army still marched for an incompetent king? Sometimes, it was just easier to follow.