Rule of Wolves (King of Scars #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,133
it quiet and bloodless. If you’re willing to take out a few guards or let Wylan blow a hole in this thing—”
“No,” said Nikolai firmly. “Ravka’s relationship with Kerch is strained enough. I don’t want to give them an excuse to ditch their neutrality and use the izmars’ya to help Fjerda break my blockade.”
“If Inej were here—” said Jesper.
Kaz’s gaze was hard as flint. “You can keep saying that, but she isn’t. The best we can do is wait. I can get two more Dregs here by tomorrow. Anika. Rotty, maybe.”
A high wail sounded from somewhere in the distance, a shrill cry that might be human or animal or something else entirely. Zoya felt a chill pass through her that had nothing to do with the cold. This place isn’t meant for us. She felt it in her bones.
“Saints,” said Jesper, “what was that?”
Another wail followed, long and piercing. The fog seemed to seethe around them, forming shapes that melted into nothing before Zoya could truly make them out.
Jesper set his hands on his revolvers. “These cliffs are supposed to be haunted.”
“You don’t actually believe that,” said Wylan.
“I believe in all kinds of things. Ghosts. Gnomes. True love.”
Now another sound—a low hiss—seemed to crawl up from the sea, rising and falling in undulating waves. Zoya felt it like fingers brushing up her spine, making the hair on her arms rise.
“Enough,” she snapped. She’d had all she could stand of this Saintsforsaken country. She lifted her hands and the fog rolled back in a gust—revealing a circle of people around them, some of them in jackal masks, others with dark scarves pulled up to hide their faces. Moonlight glinted off the barrels of their guns.
“Suli,” whispered Jesper.
“You’re not welcome in this place,” said a gruff voice. It was impossible to tell which side of the circle it had come from. That same low, crawling hiss followed.
“We don’t mean any harm,” Jesper began.
“That’s why you snuck up on our camp in the dead of night?”
“We should let the sea have them,” said another voice. “Send them screaming over the cliff tops.”
“My apologies,” Nikolai said, stepping forward. “We had no intention of—”
Click click click. Like fingers snapping. The sound of triggers being cocked.
“No,” said Zoya, putting a hand out to stop him. “Don’t apologize. That will only make it worse.”
“I see,” said Nikolai. “Then what is protocol for an ambush?”
Zoya turned to the circle. “Our goal is to stop a war. But this place was not ours to trespass on.”
“Perhaps you came looking for death,” said another voice.
Zoya reached for the words her father had taught her, that she hadn’t spoken since she was a child. Even then, they had only been whispered. Her mother hadn’t wanted Suli spoken in their house. “Mati en sheva yelu.”
This action will have no echo. The phrase felt sticky and unfamiliar on her tongue. She sensed Nikolai’s surprise, felt the stares of the others.
“You speak Suli like a tax collector,” said a man’s voice.
“Hush,” said a woman in a jackal mask, stepping forward. “We see you, zheji.”
Zheji. Daughter. The word knocked the breath from her, an unexpected blow. The mask was the type worn all over the Barrel, but those were cheap knockoffs, souvenirs for tourists who didn’t know what they meant. Among the Suli, the jackal mask was sacred and worn only by true seers. Daughter. It wasn’t a word she’d wanted from the mother who had betrayed her, so why should it mean so much from the lips of a stranger?
“We see the walls raised round your heart,” the woman continued. “That’s what comes of living far from home.” The jackal turned, surveying them. “Shadows all around.”
“What did you say?” Nikolai asked Zoya beneath his breath. “How do you know those words?”
A hundred lies came to her lips, a hundred easy ways to walk away from this, to keep being the person she’d always been.
“Because I’m Suli.” Simple words, but she’d never said them aloud. She could feel her mother’s hands combing out her hair, placing a hat on her head to keep her out of the sun. You’re pale like me. You have my eyes. You can pass. The family had kept her mother’s name so that they wouldn’t draw attention. Nabri, her father’s name, was rubbed away like a stain.
It was as if the woman in the jackal mask had heard her thoughts. “Your father faded as we all do when we don’t live among our own.”