Crooked Kingdom (The Six of Crows Duology #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,76

off and make unseemly advances toward hapless Fjerdans.”

“Now that sounds like a party.” Matthias shook his head, but she could see a smile tugging at his lips. She decided to push the advantage. “We could play,” she murmured, quietly enough so that no one around them could hear.

“We most certainly could not.”

“At one point he bathes her.”

Matthias’ steps faltered. “Why would he—”

“She’s tied up, so he has to.”

“Be silent.”

“Already giving orders. That’s very barbarian of you. Or we could mix it up. I’ll be the barbarian and you can be the princess. But you’ll have to do a lot more sighing and trembling and biting your lip.”

“How about I bite your lip?”

“Now you’re getting the hang of it, Helvar.”

“You’re trying to distract me.”

“I am. And it’s working. You haven’t so much as glared at anyone for almost two blocks. And look, we’re here.”

“Now what?” Matthias asked, scanning the crowd.

They’d arrived at a somewhat ramshackle-looking tavern. A man stood out front with a wheeled cart, selling the usual icons and small statues of Sankta Alina rendered in the new style—Alina with fist raised, rifle in hand, the crushed bodies of winged volcra beneath her boots. An inscription at the statue’s base read Rebe dva Volkshiya , Daughter of the People.

“Can I help you?” the man asked in Ravkan.

“Good health to young King Nikolai,” Nina replied in Ravkan. “Long may he reign.”

“With a light heart,” the man replied.

“And a heavy fist,” said Nina, completing the code.

The peddler glanced over his shoulder. “Take the second table to your left as you enter. Order if you like. Someone will be with you shortly.”

The tavern was cool and dark after the brightness of the plaza, and Nina had to blink to make out the interior. The floor was sprinkled with sawdust and at a few of the small tables, people were gathered in conversation over glasses of kvas and dishes of herring.

Nina and Matthias took a seat at the empty table.

The tavern door slammed shut behind them. Immediately, the other customers shoved away from their tables, chairs clattering to the floor, guns pointed at Nina and Matthias. A trap.

Without pausing to think, Nina and Matthias leapt to their feet and positioned themselves back to back, ready to fight—Matthias with pistol raised and Nina with hands up.

From the back of the tavern, a hooded girl emerged, her collar drawn up to cover most of her face. “Come quietly,” she said, golden eyes flashing in the dim light. “There’s no need for a fight.”

“Then why all the guns?” Nina asked, stalling for time.

The girl lifted her hand and Nina felt her pulse beginning to drop.

“She’s a Heartrender!” Nina shouted.

Matthias yanked something from his pocket. Nina heard a pop and a whoosh , and a moment later the air filled with a dark red haze. Had Wylan made a duskbomb for Matthias? It was a drüskelle technique for obscuring the sight of Grisha Heartrenders. In the cover of the haze, Nina flexed her fingers, hoping her power would respond. She felt nothing from the bodies surrounding them, no life, no movement.

But from the edges of her consciousness she sensed something else, a different kind of awareness, a pocket of cold in a deep lake, a bracing shock that seemed to wake her cells. It was familiar—she’d felt something similar when she’d brought down the guard the night they’d kidnapped Alys, but this was much stronger. It had shape and texture. She let herself dive into the cold, reaching for that sense of wakefulness blindly, greedily, and arced her arms forward in a movement that was as much instinct as skill.

The tavern windows crashed inward in a hail of glass. Fragments of bone shot through the air, peppering the armed men like shrapnel. The relics from the vendors’ carts , Nina realized in a flash of understanding. She’d somehow controlled the bones.

“They have reinforcements!” one of the men yelled.

“Open fire!”

Nina braced for the impact of the bullets, but in the next second she felt herself yanked off her feet. One moment she was standing on the floor of the tavern and the next her back was slamming against the roof beams as she gazed down at the sawdust far below. All around her, the men who’d attacked her and Matthias hung aloft, also pinned to the ceiling.

A young woman stood at the doorway to the kitchen, black hair shining nearly blue in the dim light.

“Zoya?” Nina gasped as she stared down, trying to catch her breath.

Zoya stepped into the