Rule of Wolves (King of Scars #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,179

thought that none of this was real, that when that poor, drugged Heartrender had begun torturing her, she’d simply passed out from the pain, her mind splintering and creating this wild scenario to hide in. It seemed more plausible than that her friend and mentor had become a creature from a storybook.

The dragon laid down a trail of silver lightning, creating a wall of fire, and as they banked east, Nina understood why. She’d cut off the Fjerdan retreat. Their forces were wedged between a wall of silver flame and Ravka’s soldiers.

The Fjerdan tanks turned their mighty guns on the dragon and Nina gasped as Zoya banked hard to the right, dodging their shells. Again she unleashed her lightning, the current sparking on Fjerda’s war machines, melting their gun barrels and sending men diving for safety.

The dragon’s vast wings beat the air. A roar thundered through her scaled body, and Nina felt it shudder through her too. She could see the corpses of fallen soldiers, Grisha with their gas masks on. She saw the Cult of the Starless Saint in their tunics emblazoned with the sun in eclipse. And there, not far from the king’s forces, a line of black uniforms, a mass of drüskelle with their whips and guns raised, moving toward King Nikolai.

She didn’t see Brum among them. Had he known Fjerda planned to bomb the battlefield with their own soldiers still in play? Maybe he’d given the order himself.

Nina kept her body pressed against Zoya’s neck. She didn’t know if she could be recognized from this distance, but she was taking no chances.

“Open fire!” the drüskelle commander shouted. But they stood dazed, petrified, heads tilted to the sky, mouths wide open.

Nina felt a rush of power. She had spent so many months frightened and unsure, wondering what would become of her country, scraping by on hope, not knowing if she and Hanne would find a way to survive. All Saints, it felt good to be the strong one, to be unafraid at last. With a mighty breath, a single exhalation of lightning, Zoya could destroy them—hundreds of Fjerdan troops and the witchhunter monsters Brum had trained. It would be done. What soldier would dare to march against Ravka, against the Grisha, again?

Nina looked into the faces below as they craned their necks, shielded their eyes, gaping at death borne aloft on black wings. They’d always feared the Grisha, and now, in this moment, from this height, she could admit they’d had a right to that fear—Grisha were born with gifts that made them more deadly than any ordinary soldier. Fjerda had let that fear overtake them, drive them, shape their nation.

But wasn’t there awe in those faces too? Awe Nina had fostered with her phony miracles, her small attempts to sway Fjerdan thought. What had that all been for if it only ended in annihilation?

Save some mercy for my people.

Damn it, Helvar.

There has to be a Fjerda worth saving. Promise me.

She had promised. And in the end, she could not let go of that vow. When she’d spoken those words, when she’d made that oath, she hadn’t been speaking just to Matthias, but to the boy who had killed him, and to the men who cowered in the field below them now.

“Zoya!” she cried, unsure if Zoya could even hear her, if this creature was Zoya Nazyalensky anymore. “Zoya, please. If you destroy them, Brum’s cause will never die. They will always fear us. There will never be an end to it!”

The dragon shrieked and spread its jaws wide.

“Zoya, please!”

Nina smelled ozone on the air. Heard the crackle of lightning.

She pressed her face against the dragon’s scales. She didn’t want to see what came next.

42

NIKOLAI

JURIS.

That was Nikolai’s first thought when the dragon appeared, sunlight glinting blue off its black scales. Until lightning sparked in jagged streaks across the sky. He knew Zoya’s power, recognized it instantly.

He drew the demon back to him. He had long since stopped thinking of what the soldiers around him had seen or if they would damn him for the monster he’d become. Somehow, impossibly, Ravka had seized the advantage. Zoya’s lightning had ignited walls of flame, blocking retreat for the Fjerdan forces, and now she hovered above them, ready to pass judgment.

The Age of Saints. Yuri had predicted it and now, in this trembling moment, it had come. Not with Elizaveta or the Darkling, but on the wings of a dragon. Nikolai thought of all the stories, of Sankt Feliks who had