Rule of Wolves (King of Scars #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,150

she said, “You told the queen you died a thousand times.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “To have your heart stopped in your chest, your flesh torn from your bones, to fall into oblivion, then wake to nightmare again and again and again. All for the sake of being reborn as a weapon.”

“I started teaching him Fjerdan,” said Bergin. “To distract him from the pain. Swear words, mostly.”

“What did you say to get him to wake up?” asked Tamar.

Bergin grinned. “You don’t want to know. It was incredibly filthy.”

Ehri entered the lab. Her face had been washed clean, but she was still covered in sludge. “We can’t stay here any longer. It will be dawn soon. There’s a small summer palace between here and the city. Queen Leyti commands that we travel there. We can eat, bathe, change our clothes, and figure out what we’re going to do.”

Bergin struck his fist against the bunk. “There will be no punishment for Makhi, for any of them. Just watch.”

“Why not?” Mayu asked. She felt naive asking, like a child trying to keep pace with her brother once more.

“Because they’re all Taban,” said Reyem. “A mark against one is a mark against all of them.”

“Not Ehri,” said Mayu. “The people love her. And they know she would never do anything like this. There will be justice.”

She looked to the princess, but all Ehri did was gesture to the door. “Come. There will be time to talk when we’ve eaten and rested.”

It took a while to sort out the laboratory. Tamar brought the doctor back to consciousness and he, in turn, woke the other khergud as Queen Leyti and Ehri looked on. There were four including Reyem, but none of the others remembered their true names. They asked no questions, made no requests. They simply stood—some with wings, some with horns, some with claws—waiting for orders. Perfect soldiers. Had they been further along in their transformation than Reyem? Or had none of them had a Bergin, someone to remind them that they were more than pain and anger?

Mayu watched as they locked up the laboratory, and Bergin and Reyem took their last look at this nightmare place. It was evidence and would be left intact for now.

But I’ll come back, she promised herself. She might never banish the emptiness from her brother’s eyes, but she would pull this place apart piece by piece if she had to. She would watch it burn to the ground.

* * *

The journey to the summer palace didn’t take long. It was located in a green dell beside its own gleaming lake, a getaway for members of the royal family or important guests of the crown in the hot months.

Mayu sat with her brother and Bergin in one of the garden rooms, the windows framing the sun slowly rising over the lake. The other Grisha and the khergud had been placed in separate, heavily guarded chambers, but Bergin had been allowed to remain with Reyem.

“What happens now?” he asked. “I can’t return to Fjerda.”

Mayu didn’t know. She hadn’t thought past finding Reyem and freeing him. “We could go home,” she suggested. “Mother and Fath—”

“No,” Reyem said harshly. “I never want them to see me like this.”

“They think you’re dead.”

“Good. Let them mourn me.”

“Reyem,” pleaded Mayu. She needed to know they could take some part of their lives back. “They love you. More than anything. More than me. More than life. They’ll love you this way as they loved you before.”

“But I don’t know that I can love them back.”

Mayu looked away. She couldn’t bear to think of her sweet, laughing, generous brother, and know that he was gone.

A knock came at the door and Tamar appeared. “They want your testimony.”

Mayu rose and felt a brush of fingers against her hand.

Reyem was looking at her. “Sister. Kebben. Let this be enough.”

All she could do was nod and try to smile. He would forever be her brother, no matter what he’d been robbed of.

Queen Leyti was waiting in the temple hall, seated on a throne and bracketed by Tavgharad, Ehri to her right. Statues of the Six Soldiers glowed in sunlit niches on the walls. Makhi had been seated on a low cushion to the queen’s left, a position meant to humble her. But she sat with perfect poise, her face serene, as if she were the one on the throne.

“Mayu Kir-Kaat,” said Queen Leyti. “Will you tell us your story?”

Mayu couldn’t hide her surprise. She’d expected she would only have