Rule of Wolves (King of Scars #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,200

the demon in Nikolai sensed it was a pose.

“He means it,” Nikolai said in disbelief. “He’s willing to die.”

“It is not death,” said the monk. “Death would be a kindness.”

Genya tilted her head to the side. She was watching the Darkling closely. “But it’s not death you fear, is it? He’s afraid he’ll disappear.”

Nikolai remembered what Genya had said. All the Darkling ever wanted was to be loved by this country. He knew that feeling well. He’d had to face it when he’d stared down his demon. There were few men Ravka loved. Saints were another matter.

“Zoya?” Nikolai asked. The Darkling wanted them to raise an altar in his name, to write his story and his legacy anew, but it was not Nikolai’s choice to make. “Genya?”

Zoya and Genya stood hand in hand, and as they looked at each other, he knew they were remembering every loss they’d endured at this man’s whims. He had seen Zoya’s torment when she’d witnessed the Starless at their worship, when they’d stood on the Fold that had devoured her aunt and cost countless others their lives, praising his name. The woman she’d been in that moment could not have bent to this request.

“Do we let him play the hero?” Zoya asked.

Genya nodded once. “Let him do it. Let our suffering have meant something.”

Zoya stood framed by red blossoms and thorns, a queen who needed no crown. “It will be done.”

The Darkling turned to the monk. “Where do we begin?”

The monk studied them for a while. Then she gestured to the thorn wood, as the monks descended the walls, surrounding the trunk in a sea of red silk, men and women, old and young, Ravkan, Zemeni, Suli, Shu. Even a few flaxen Fjerdan heads.

The Darkling held up his hands. “Unbind me.”

Nikolai and Zoya exchanged a glance. If this was all a ploy, he would make his move now.

“Fan out,” Nikolai said to the Sun Soldiers. “Be ready.”

“As long as I live, the demon will remain inside you,” said the Darkling as Nikolai used a knife to saw through the ropes at his wrists.

“We’ve made our peace.”

“Some treaties do not last.”

“You do love a dire prophecy, don’t you?”

“Zoya will live a very long life,” the Darkling said. “Despite the demon, you may not do the same.”

“Then I will love her from my grave.”

A smile touched the Darkling’s lips. “Brave words. Time may tell a different tale.”

Nikolai almost laughed. “I’m really not going to miss you.”

He sheathed his knife and stepped away.

The Darkling rubbed at his wrists, taking his time, as if enjoying the fear of those forced to watch and wait to see what he would do.

He shucked off his robe, letting it drop to the snowy ground, then stripped off his shirt and strode to the base of the tree. He stood in trousers and boots, his skin white as driftwood, his long hair black as the feathers of a crow.

“Go on,” said the monk with the three braids. “If this is your wish. If you dare it.”

The Darkling took a deep breath.

“My name is Aleksander Morozova,” he said, his voice echoing through the clearing. “But I have had a hundred names and I have committed a thousand crimes.”

The monks placed their hands upon the roots of the tree, the trunk, the hanging boughs.

The Darkling spread his arms wide, his lean body pale in the winter light. “I am not sorry.”

The great tree’s bark began to move and shift. They’re Fabrikators, Nikolai realized, watching the monks concentrate. All of them.

“I do not repent!” said the Darkling.

One of the branches of the thorn wood began to twist, writhing like a snake, a single spike protruding from its tip. Zoya took Nikolai’s hand. Now they were all joined together: Nikolai, Zoya, and Genya.

The thorn-wood bough moved back and forth, back and forth, a serpent staring down its prey.

“All I did, I did for Ravka,” shouted the Darkling. “And now, I do this too. For Ravka!”

The bough struck in a sudden, sinuous lunge.

The thorn pierced the Darkling’s chest and he screamed, his head thrown back, the sound pure, human, and terrible. Nikolai gripped Zoya’s hand as the demon inside him screamed too, the pain like a brand, a fire in his heart.

The thorn-wood tree drew the Darkling closer, its branches wrapping around him, lifting his helpless body, a mother cradling her son, calling him home. The massive trunk parted, and the thorn wood pulled him into the dark.

The tree closed around him, silencing his scream. Its branches