Rule of Wolves (King of Scars #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,110

Willows bordered the paths, like women bent in mourning, their branches shod in ice and brushing the soft white ground like strands of hair. Flowers and shrubs of every variety overflowed their beds, all of them white with frost, a world made of snow and glass, a garden of ghosts. Zoya had lit lanterns along the old stone walls and now she stood, her back to him, her figure still as an ornamental statue, as if she’d been part of this garden all along, a stone maiden waiting to be discovered at the center of a maze.

“I’m running out of room,” she said without turning to face him.

She’d known he was there all along. Had she wanted him to follow her?

“You tend this place?” He tried to imagine Zoya sweating in the sun, dirt beneath her nails.

“When my aunt was killed and I came back to the Little Palace to fight the Darkling … I needed someplace to be alone. I used to walk in the woods for hours. No one bothered me there. I don’t remember when I found the door, but I felt as if my aunt had left it here for me to discover, a puzzle for me to solve.”

She stood with her perfect profile turned to the glittering night sky, her hood sliding back. Snow was beginning to fall, and it caught in the dark waves of her hair. “I plant something new for every Grisha lost. Heartleaf for Marie. Yew for Sergei. Red Sentinel for Fedyor. Even Ivan has a place.” She touched her fingers to a frozen stalk. “This will blossom bright orange in the summer. I planted it for Harshaw. These dahlias were for Nina when I thought she’d been captured and killed by Fjerdans. They bloom with the most ridiculous red flowers in the summer. They’re the size of dinner plates.” Now she turned and he could see tears on her cheeks. She lifted her hands, the gesture half-pleading, half-lost. “I’m running out of room.”

This was where Zoya had been seen sneaking off to all those nights—not to a lover, but to this monument to grief. This was where she had shed her tears, away from curious eyes, where no one could see her armor fall. And here, the Grisha might live forever, every friend lost, every soldier gone.

“I know what I did is unforgivable,” she said.

Nikolai blinked, confused. “No doubt you deserve to be punished for your crimes … but for what precisely?”

She cast him a baleful look. “I lost our most valuable prisoner. I’ve allowed our most deadly enemy to regain his powers and … run amok.”

“‘Amok’ seems an overstatement. Wild, perhaps.”

“Don’t pretend to shrug this off. You’ve barely looked at me since I returned.”

Because I am greedy for the sight of you. Because the prospect of facing this war, this loss, without you fills me with fear. Because I find I don’t want to fight for a future if I can’t find a way to make a future with you.

But he was a king and she was his general and he could say none of those things.

“I’m looking at you now, Zoya.” Her eyes met his in the stillness of the garden, vibrant blue, deep as a well. “You need never ask forgiveness of me.” He hesitated. He didn’t want to tie himself more closely to the man she hated, but he also didn’t want there to be secrets between them. If they survived this war, if they somehow found a way to keep the Fjerdans from invading Ravka, he would need to forge a real marriage, a real alliance, with someone else. He would have to secure his peace with Fjerda by marrying from their nation, or soothe Kerch’s ruffled pride by binding himself forever to Hiram Schenck’s daughter. But that was a future that might never come. “I sensed it when the Darkling broke free. The demon … the demon knew somehow. And for a moment I was there in the room with you.”

He’d thought she might be repelled, even fearful, but Zoya just said, “I wish you’d been there.”

“You do?”

Now she looked nothing but annoyed. “Of course I do. Who else would I rather have my back in a fight?”

Nikolai struggled not to break out in song. “That may be the greatest compliment I’ve ever been paid. And I was once told I waltz like an angel by the lead dancer of the royal ballet.”

“Maybe if you’d been there…” Her voice trailed off. But they both