Chapter 4

Zoya grunted and gasped as she struggled against the flying beast-man, her legs dangling wildly in the open air. The thing had a vise-like grip on her wrists so she couldn't move her hands to summon. Nikolai's arms were around her waist and yanking downward by increments, which was stretching her diaphragm painfully. But if he let go or slipped, the king of Ravka would plummet to his death.

His own kicking legs, however, began to disrupt the mechanical man's flight, and the double weight seemed to be dragging him downward closer to the ground. Zoya wanted to strain and thrash harder, but she could feel Nikolai slipping and so she had to fight to hold still and not dislodge his grip.

One of his arms dropped away, and she jerked her gaze down in horror, but he was struggling to lift that arm and hand that still held a pistol. Zoya's heart lurched because she was in the way as he aimed straight up. The sharp reports cracked like thunder in her ears, and the bullets tore through the canvas wings instead of flesh or metal. Suddenly they started to spiral.

Neither Zoya nor Nikolai could hold back screams as they fell with the monster. But finally it released her in order to save itself, and Zoya could finally summon as strong a gust as she could muster. There was no way to slow their fall to a gradual or soft descent, but they were near a small lake, and she at least managed to push their trajectory right over it, and they went plunging into the frigid water.

The shock left her stunned senseless for a few moments, but then she was twisting and turning in the murky darkness, desperate to find the surface. But she couldn't. Up, down, she couldn't tell. She began to feel floaty and heavy at the same time. But then an arm brushed by her and it was like a static shock as she remembered the king.

Flailing for him, she grabbed a sleeve, then a shoulder, and managed to pull him against her before kicking her way to the surface. She broke through with a gasp and sputter of water. Nikolai was heavy in her arms but also coughing, so at least he was conscious. Zoya craned her head around in search of the shore, then began the arduous swim toward it. Nikolai recovered his senses and attempted to swim alongside her, though they were both half helping, half hindering each other. But they reached the shore and then crawled out of the lake to collapse on the rocky beach.

Zoya lay face down on the freezing bank, her heart pounding against her ribs and into the poking pebbles beneath her. But then Nikolai was pulling at her insistently. She tried to push herself up and look around, expecting a threat. But the lake was quiet and there was no sign of anyone or anything. So she let herself sink back down. Her gaze idly lolled across the sky, searching for the Kingfisher. But of course, it would have crashed. Where? Were the others okay?

"Zoya!" Nikolai snapped and patted her cheek sharply.

"What?" she retorted irritably.

"We need to get warm. Come on."

Oh, right. She was shivering and soaked, and so was he. She managed to pull herself together and get to her feet. Then together they staggered away from the water and into some woodland. Nikolai was mostly leading, and Zoya didn't know where he thought he was going. There were no towns nearby.

He came to an abrupt stop and started pushing dead leaves and mulch away, clearing a patch on the ground. Then he started fumbling with his coat buttons. "Take your clothes off," he said.

Zoya's spine straightened. "Excuse me?"

"We need t-to get out of th-these wet clothes."

He was stammering badly, which finally jolted Zoya into realizing how serious their situation was. So she fumbled with her own buttons on her waterlogged kefta to get it off. Nikolai got his coat off, then proceeded to remove his shirt and trousers as well, leaving just a pair of braies. Zoya's jaw was tight as she stripped off her trousers and long blouse but stopped short of her undergarments and lacy camisole.

Nikolai then reached to pull her against his bare chest, and she recoiled sharply.

"As beautiful and alluring as you are, I am not coming onto you," he said. "Sharing body heat is the quickest way to stave off hypothermia. I swear I won't offend your honor."

As much as she hated this, she knew he was right, so she relented and lay down on the ground with him, pressed close with limbs tangled. He reached back to push some of the mulch against them, which Zoya wrinkled her nose at, but it was a good insulator.

"You'd better not tell anyone about this," she muttered.

"I don't kiss and tell," he mumbled back.

Zoya scowled and thought that if he weren't the king, she'd slap him.

They were both shivering and miserable, but Nikolai was true to his word and didn't place his hands anywhere they shouldn't be. He was also keeping his eyes closed, which shut off any semblance of intimacy their proximity might have prompted.

But it was also awkward, as Zoya had her eyes open and senses peeled for threats that might catch them in such a vulnerable position. Thus, she found herself with a close-up look at the shadow wound in Nikolai's shoulder. The inky veins webbing out under his skin made her stomach roil.

"I trust you will also exercise discretion regarding this?" his shaky voice suddenly spoke. "It wouldn't do for the betrothed king of Ravka to be a common soldier's conquest."

Zoya snorted. "Who are you calling common?"

His lips quirked. "My apologies, you are far from common."

Zoya rolled her eyes, though he couldn't see. "You don't have to worry; I would never want such an association attached to my name."

"Ouch," he said. "I think that hurt more than the fall."

"The fall doesn't hurt at all," she rejoined. "It's the landing."

His mouth curved upward again. "Fair point. How about we just agree that should anyone ask, this never happened?"

"Agreed."

They fell silent as they shivered, half naked in the woods and dead leaves, their skin-to-skin contact like ice. Zoya could usually keep her peace in uncomfortable situations, but this one was more uncomfortable than most.

"What in the name of all Saints were those things?" she said, mostly just to fill the awkward space between them.

"I'd heard rumors of an experimental program in Shu Han," Nikolai replied. "But I'd never seen evidence it had succeeded—until now."

Zoya looked at him in surprise. "You know what they are?"

He finally opened his eyes to look at her. "Khergud. Biologically augmented Shu soldiers. Last I heard, they were developed to hunt Grisha. I suppose after Mal and I disrupted the supply chain of Grisha into Shu Han, they decided to send out their science experiments to kidnap more for themselves."

Zoya was horrified and disgusted, and it reminded her of the righteous anger she used to feel toward otkazat'sya…the kind of anger Kirigan had fueled and fostered. She tried to shake it off.

"We need to get back and find the Kingfisher," she said. "Could they have corrected their landing without a Squaller?"

Nikolai grimaced at the mention of his prized ship. "Possibly," he said. "But if they continued to take fire…" He fell silent.

Their friends could have crashed and been killed. They could have been taken. Zoya and Nikolai needed to get up and get moving. But they weren't in any shape to yet. Zoya wished she was an Inferni in that moment so she could speed things along.

As it was, all they could do was wait for their temperatures to stabilize so they could then work out what to do next.


Mal struggled to climb over the broken mast as he tried to get to Alina. He slipped on some pine branches and went down hard, banging his knee and shoulder into the side of the bulwark. The Kingfisher lay on its side among the copse of battered trees it had crashed into.

Alina grabbed one of the ropes and hauled herself upright. "Mal!"

"Here!" he called, lurching to his feet again.

She turned toward the sound of his voice. A cut over her brow was spilling blood into her eye, and when she tried to wipe it away, she just ended up smearing it all over the right side of her face. Mal lumbered across the deck to her and grabbed her shoulders. She reached up to cling to him as well, both of them leaning against the other for balance on the upended ship.

Mal looked around. "Tolya! Tamar!" he shouted but couldn't see them.

Alina gasped. "Saints, Nikolai and Zoya."

Mal's jaw tightened. He hadn't seen what had happened to them after the monster had taken them; as soon as Zoya was grabbed, the ship had lost its ability to stay in the air. But they'd have to deal with their own situation first before they could attempt to find out what had become of those two.

Mal and Alina hobbled carefully over the slanted deck, yelling for the twins. A figure suddenly launched over the rim of the bulwark, but it wasn't one of the Heartrenders; one of those mechanical men lashed a hand out to seize them, and Mal and Alina both fell backward with a startled yell. They landed in a tangle, Alina's arms getting caught and prohibiting her from summoning. But then a narrow sword punched through the monster's chest from the back. With a deft twist and yank, the man fell, revealing Tolya. He was cut up and breathing heavily, and he abruptly staggered on an injured leg.

Mal managed to get up and surged forward to catch him.

"Tamar?" Tolya asked urgently.

"We'll find her," Mal promised.

She didn't appear to be on the deck, so the three of them struggled to climb down from the wreckage. Once on level ground, Mal eased Tolya down and checked his leg, which was swollen around the knee.

"Can you fix that?" Mal asked.

Tolya nodded.

"Okay, you work on that and we'll look for Tamar."

Mal and Alina set off to search the area. They found Tamar around the back of the ship, unconscious on the ground. Mal reached her first and quickly felt for a pulse. To his immense relief, she had one.

"Tamar," he urged, clasping her shoulder with a significant amount of pressure but not shaking her in case she was injured.

She moaned as she returned to consciousness.

"Hey," Mal coaxed. "Easy. Is anything broken?"

Her brows knitted together as she considered it. "No."

Satisfied, Mal helped her sit up.

"Tolya?" she asked in alarm.

"He's okay," Alina said, reaching out to lend her support as they got Tamar on her feet.

They helped her back to her brother where she immediately dropped down beside him, the two reaching for each other's faces and pressing their foreheads together.

Mal stepped back and cupped Alina's face, angling her head to look at the gash over her brow. It had stopped bleeding but had left a mess.

"I'm fine," Alina said, gently pushing his arm down. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

"Just banged up." They were lucky.

Her gaze shifted past him to the dead body of the thing that had attacked them. She furrowed her brows. "They were Shu."

"Khergud," Tamar spoke up. "Dead soldiers that have been pieced back together and augmented with Grisha steel. Products of experimentation." Her eyes darkened, disturbed. "I didn't think Shu Han would have deployed them over the border."

Reanimated dead soldiers, Saints, Mal thought with a dismayed head shake.

"How soon can you be on your feet?" he asked them.

"Soon," Tamar replied. "Tolya's knee needs a little more attention, but we'll tend your injuries first." She got up and went to Alina to address the laceration.

Mal turned to scan the horizon. "Do you think those khergud would have taken Nikolai and Zoya all the way back to Shu Han?"

"I don't know," Tamar said. "But if Shu Han ends up with the king of Ravka in their hands…" She didn't finish; she didn't have to. It would be disastrous.

"Without the Kingfisher, we'll never catch up to them," Tolya put in.

"There are plenty of troops stationed along the border," Mal replied. "Maybe we can secure help."

Curious, he focused his senses, like he had done when tracking the Stag and Sea Whip. Granted, he'd only been able to do that because he was the Firebird, which he wasn't anymore. Maybe. But the merzost still ran in his bloodline, so perhaps he could sense the merzost infection in Nikolai and track its frequency…

When a strange ping thrummed back at him, similar to the frequency of the amplifiers but altogether different, he knew his instincts were right.

"I can track them," he said. "Or at least Nikolai."

The three looked at him in surprise but readily accepted his declaration. The twins finished their healing, and then they all collected what supplies they could from the ship before setting off on foot.

There was no good time to bring it up, but Tolya and Tamar were a few paces behind Mal and Alina, so Mal inched closer to her and kept his voice low.

"Did you intentionally summon shadow up there or was it an unconscious act?"

She quirked a confused brow at him. "What do you mean? It's instinct…"

"But did you even think before doing it?" he pressed. "You damaged the ship."

Alina pulled up short. "I can't believe you're blaming me for crashing after what attacked us," she hissed.

"I'm not blaming you. I'm just pointing out how it wasn't a help."

She shook her head in irritation. "That's a control issue, not a shadow one. I had to learn to control my sun summoning too, and I did. Why can't you have faith in me?"

"Why can't you see this is changing you?" he retorted. "What about what you did to that First Army soldier?"

"Maybe this is who I was all along, who I was meant to be. Strong, powerful. If I'm going to lead the Second Army and Ravka, I need to be those things."

Mal just stared at her in dismay and heartbrokenness. She couldn't see what he saw, or maybe she just didn't want to. So he dropped it. Maybe after they found a cure for Nikolai, Mal could set off on his own to find something to help Alina, whether she wanted it or not.


Once they'd stopped shivering, Nikolai finally extracted himself from Zoya and started a fire so they could dry the rest of their clothes. They also needed to figure out what to do. He stared up at the tall trees, debating whether he should attempt climbing one to get a better vantage point, hopefully spot the Kingfisher. But his limbs were still stiff with cold and his shoulder hurt so fiercely he wasn't sure he could even lift that one arm if he tried.

"How are you at climbing trees?" he asked Zoya.

She gave him another one of her dubious looks.

"Never mind," he said, then heaved a sigh. "I hope the others survived the attack and landing."

"We don't need to wait for our clothes to fully dry," Zoya responded. "Only until they're not sopping wet and then they'll finish drying on the go."

Nikolai nodded. "I'll get some more firewood."

He set off a little ways from their campsite to find some larger branches. He had just gathered an armful when the khergud from before jumped him out of nowhere. It was half busted up, with a broken wing and twisted limbs, but it was still on its feet as it lashed out and grabbed Nikolai by the throat. He dropped the firewood and fought to prize the metallic fingers off, but they closed off his airway and lifted his feet clear off the ground.

"Nikolai!" Zoya's voice rang through the woods.

A gust of wind slammed into the mechanical soldier, but it remained unaffected. Spots were bursting across Nikolai's vision when his shoulder exploded with a surge of molten lava. Without thinking, he stopped trying to free himself and instead clamped his palms on the side of the khergud's face. Then with a crank so swift and fast that the soldier didn't even have time to react, Nikolai broke its neck. The khergud dropped, and so did Nikolai, his lungs heaving for oxygen. But he couldn't catch his breath because the pain in his shoulder was coursing through him, searing him from the inside.

Zoya stood across from him, eyes wide and horrified. "Saints," she breathed.

Nikolai fell onto his side with a sharp cry of agony.

Zoya ran over and dropped down next to him. "What do I do?" she asked urgently.

He shook his head and pressed his face into the cold earth, shuddering violently. He couldn't see them, but he knew the shadow veins were squirming beneath his skin, branching out all across his body.

"Hold on, Nikolai," Zoya begged. "Hold on."

He choked on a garbled sob as he found himself repeating the same mantra in his head, pleading for Nikolai the man to hold on and for the Shadow not to take him.