Rule of Wolves (King of Scars #2) - Leigh Bardugo Page 0,42

this city, the countryside that surrounded it. She had flown over it before.

No. Not her. The dragon. It had a name, one known only to itself and long ago to the others of its kind, but she couldn’t quite remember what it was. It was right on the tip of her tongue. Infuriating.

“I am eager for company,” said the Darkling.

Zoya felt a sudden rush of his resentment, his rage at this captivity—the Darkling’s anger. The dragon’s presence in her head had left her vulnerable. She drew in a breath, grounding herself, here, in this strange glass cell, the stone floor beneath her boots. What might you learn—Juris’ voice, or was it her own?—what might you know, if only you would open the door?

Another breath. I am Zoya Nazyalensky and I am getting truly sick of the cocktail party in my head, you old lizard. She could have sworn she heard Juris chuckle in reply.

Nikolai leaned against the wall. “I’m sorry we don’t visit more often. There’s a war on and, well, no one likes you.”

The Darkling touched a hand to his chest. “You wound me.”

“All in due time,” said Zoya.

The Darkling raised a brow. A faint smile touched his lips—there in that expression, there was the man she remembered. “She’s afraid of me, you know.”

“I’m not.”

“She doesn’t know what I may do. Or what I can do.”

Nikolai gestured to one of the Sun Soldiers for chairs to be brought in. “Maybe she’s afraid of being spoken of as if she’s not standing right in front of you.”

They all sat. The Darkling somehow managed to make his rickety old chair look like a throne. “I knew that you would come.”

“I hate to be predictable.” Nikolai turned to Zoya. “Maybe we should go? Keep him on his toes?”

“He knows we won’t. He knows we need something.”

“I’ve felt it,” said the Darkling. “The blight coming on. The Fold is expanding. And you feel it too, don’t you, Lantsov? It’s the power that resides in my bones, the power still seeping black in your blood.”

A shadow passed over Nikolai’s face. “The power that created the Fold in the first place.”

“I’m told some people consider it a miracle.”

Zoya pursed her lips. “Don’t let it go to your head. There are miracles everywhere these days.”

The Darkling tilted his head to the side, watching them both. The weight of his gaze made Zoya want to leap through one of the glass walls, but she refused to show it. “I’ve had a lot of time to think in this place, to look back on a long life. I made countless mistakes, but always I found a new path, a new chance to work toward my goal.”

Nikolai nodded. “Until that little bump in the road when you died.”

Now the Darkling’s expression soured. “When I look back on where things went wrong, where my plans all unraveled, I can trace the moment of disaster to the trust I placed in a pirate named Sturmhond.”

“Privateer,” said Nikolai. “And I wouldn’t know, but if the privateer you’ve hired is entirely trustworthy, he’s probably not much of a privateer.”

Zoya couldn’t just brush past with a joke. “That’s the moment? Not in manipulating a young girl and trying to steal her power, or destroying half a city of innocent people, or decimating the Grisha, or blinding your own mother? None of those moments feel like an opportunity for self-examination?”

The Darkling merely shrugged, his hands spread as if indicating he had no more tricks to play. “You list off atrocities as though I’m meant to feel shame for them. And perhaps I would, were there not a hundred that preceded those crimes, and another hundred before those. Human life is worth preserving. But human lives? They come and go like so much chaff, never tipping the scales.”

“What a remarkable calculation,” said Nikolai. “And a convenient one for a mass murderer.”

“Zoya understands. The dragon knows how small human lives are, how wearying. They are fireflies. Sparks that dwindle in the night, while we burn on and on.”

There were not enough deep breaths in the world to keep a leash on Zoya’s anger. How did Nikolai maintain that air of glib composure? And why did they bother trying to prick the Darkling’s conscience? Her aunt, her friends, the people he had sworn to protect meant nothing in the long expanse of his life.

She leaned forward. “You are stolen fire and stolen time. Don’t look to me for support.” She turned to Nikolai. “Why are we here? Being