Ruin and Rising (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #3)

by Leigh Bardugo

THE MONSTER’S NAME was Izumrud, the great worm, and there were those who claimed he had made the tunnels that ran beneath Ravka. Sick with appetite, he ate up silt and gravel, burrowing deeper and deeper into the earth, searching for something to satisfy his hunger, until he’d gone too far and lost himself in the dark.

it was easy to believe that Izumrud still lived somewhere, waiting to be woken by the call of heroes, dreaming of the fine meal he would have if only some hapless child would walk into his mouth. A beast like that rests; he does not die.

He would sit beside her bed, trying to get her to eat, listening to the pained whistle of her lungs, and he would tell the story of a river, tamed by a powerful Tidemaker and trained to dive through layers of rock, seeking a magic coin. He’d whisper of poor cursed Pelyekin, laboring for a thousand years with his magic pickaxe, leaving caverns and passages in his wake, a lonely creature in search of nothing but distraction, amassing gold and jewels he never intended to spend.

Locked in her cell, alone but for the drip of the water and the slow beat of her heart, the girl knew the stories of Izumrud were true. She had been swallowed whole, devoured, and in the echoing alabaster belly of the White Cathedral, only the Saint remained.

THE SAINT WOKE every day to the sound of her name being chanted, and each day her army grew, its ranks swollen with the hungry and the hopeless, with wounded soldiers and children barely large enough to carry rifles.

Few knew that she was broken. Whatever power had blessed her, divine or otherwise, was gone—or at least out of reach. Her followers were kept at a distance so they could not see that her eyes were dark hollows, that her breath came in frightened gasps. She walked slowly, tentatively, her driftwood bones fragile in her body, this sickly girl upon whom all their hopes rested.

On the surface, a new King ruled with his shadow army, and he demanded that his Sun Summoner be returned. He offered threats and rewards, but the answer he received came in the form of a challenge—from an outlaw the people had dubbed the Prince of the Air.

He struck along the northern border, bombing supply lines, forcing the Shadow King to renew trade and travel across the Fold with nothing but luck and Inferni fire to keep the monsters at bay. Some said this challenger was a Lantsov prince. Some said he was a Fjerdan rebel who refused...

The Saint rattled the bars of her underground cage. This was her war, and she demanded freedom to fight it. The priest refused. But he’d forgotten that before she’d become a Grisha and a Saint, she’d been a ghost of Keramzin. She and the boy had hoarded secrets as Pelyekin hoarded treasure. They knew how to be thieves and phantoms, how to hide strength as well as mischief. Like the teachers at the Duke’s estate, the priest thought he knew the girl and what she was capable of. He was wrong. He did not hear their hidden language, did no...

The Apparat smiled—the benevolent, indulgent smile that the pilgrims adored and that made me want to scream. “In times of trouble, many animals go to ground. That’s how they survive,” he said. “After fools wage their battles, it is the rats that rule the fields and towns.”

Again, rage coursed through me. From my first day in the White Cathedral, threat had hung heavy in the air, suffocating me with the steady press of fear. The Apparat never missed an opportunity to remind me of my vulnerability. Almost without thinking, I twitched my fingers in my sleeves. Shadows leapt up the walls of the chamber. The Apparat reared back in his chair. I frowned at him, feigning confusion. “What’s wrong?” I asked. He cleared his throat, eyes darting right and left. “It’s … it’s nothing,” he stammered. I let the shadows fall. His reaction was well worth the wave of dizziness that came when I used this trick. And that’s all it was. I could make the shadows jump and dance but nothing more. It was a sad little echo of the Darkling’s power, some remnant left behind in the wake of the confrontation that had nearly killed us both.

The White Cathedral took its name from the alabaster of its walls and the massive main cavern where we held services every morning and evening. But it was much more than that—a sprawling network of tunnels and caves, a city underground.

the only Heartrenders on the training floor were Tamar and her massive twin, Tolya. I owed them my life, but the debt didn’t rest easy with me. They were close to the Apparat, charged with the instruction of the Soldat Sol, and they’d lied to me for months at the Little Palace. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of them. Trust was a luxury I could ill afford.

Mal glanced at me, then back at the Apparat. “I save my faith for Saints,” he said evenly. “Not men who send children to die.”

The closest I’d come to seeing David lose his temper had been the first time he’d laid eyes on these little domed niches, some of them caved in, all of them lined with ancient books and manuscripts, their pages black with rot, their spines bloated with moisture. The caves were damp enough that puddles had seeped up through the floors. “You can’t … you can’t have kept Morozova’s journals in here,” he’d practically shrieked. “It’s a bog.”

The warning was clear, and finally I understood. Whether the Grisha plot was real or some subterfuge invented by the priest, this was the moment he had been hoping for, the chance to make my isolation complete. No more visits to the Kettle with Genya, no more stolen conversation with David. The priest would use this chance to separate me from anyone whose loyalties were tied more tightly to me than his cause. And I was too weak to stop him.

I’d come here every day, hoping the cooks might use more than a few fires so that the flue would open all the way. I’d tried to summon, hidden from the Priestguards by Genya’s thick shawl and their superstitious fear of her. I’d tried and failed. Now Mal had blown the flue wide open. I could only call and pray that the light would answer. I felt it, miles above me—so tentative, barely a whisper. Panic gripped me. The distance was too great. I’d been foolish to hope. Then it was as if something within me rose and stretched, like a creature that had lain idle for too long. Its muscles had gone soft from disuse, but it was still there, waiting. I called and the light answered with the strength of the antlers at my throat, the scales at my wrist. It came to me in a rush, triumphant and eager.

Men lay dead and bleeding, and a crowd was waiting outside the Kettle doors. I could hear Nikolai’s voice in my head: The people like spectacle. The show wasn’t over yet.

“Open your shirt,” I commanded. Not a loving mother now, but a different kind of Saint, a warrior wielding holy fire. His fingers fumbled with his buttons, but he didn’t hesitate. He pulled the fabric apart, baring the skin of his chest. I was tired, still weak. I had to concentrate. I wanted to make a point, not kill him. I felt the light in my hand. I pressed my palm to the smooth skin over his heart and let the power pulse. Vladim flinched when it connected, scorching his flesh, but he did not cry out. His eyes were wide and unblinking, his expression rapt. When I pulled my hand back, my palm print remained, the brand throbbing red and angry on his chest. Not bad, I thought grimly, for your first time mutilating a man.

“You are on your knees,” I said. “We are not negotiating.” His lips thinned, but after a moment, he dipped his chin in assent.

“Do you believe it?” I asked the priest. The question had plagued me since I’d first heard word of him gathering this cult. “Do you really think I’m a Saint?” “What I believe doesn’t matter,” he replied. “That’s what you’ve never understood. Do you know they’ve started building altars to you in Fjerda? In Fjerda, where they burn Grisha at the stake. There is a fine line between fear and veneration, Alina Starkov. I can move that line. That is the prize I offer you.”

Men fight for Ravka because the King commands it, because their pay keeps their families from starving, because they have no choice. They will fight for you because to them you are salvation. They will starve for you, lay down their lives and their children’s lives for you. They will make war without fear and die rejoicing. There is no greater power than faith, and there will be no greater army than one driven by it.”

MAL AND I LEFT the Apparat secured in his chambers and guarded by Tolya—with strict orders to make sure that the door stayed closed and that no one disturbed the priest’s prayers.

Harshaw was tall and rangy, his hair redder than Genya’s, nearly the color of blood. A scrawny orange tabby had somehow made her way down to the bowels of the White Cathedral and taken a liking to him. She followed him everywhere, slinking between his legs or clinging to his shoulder.

Nadia smiled. “And then we just hoped the whole kitchen wouldn’t fall in on us.” David’s frown deepened. “It was a controlled blast. The odds that the cave’s structure would hold were well above average.” “Ah. Above average,” said Genya. “Why didn’t you say so?” “I just did.”

You’re recognizable,” he said to Genya. “So is Tolya, for that matter.” Tamar’s lips twitched. “Would you like to be the one to tell him he can’t come?” Mal considered this. “Maybe we can disguise him as a really big tree.”

Harshaw rose and pushed off from the wall. “I’d prefer to stay,” he said with a yawn. “But Oncat says we go.” He hefted the tabby onto his shoulder with one hand. “Are you ever going to name that thing?” Zoya asked. “She has a name.” “Oncat is not a name. It’s just Kaelish for cat.” “Suits her, doesn’t it?”

“If anyone could make that escape, it’s Nikolai.” The too-clever fox. Even once he’d abandoned his disguise as Sturmhond, that’s who Nikolai had been to me, always thinking, always scheming. But he hadn’t predicted his brother’s betrayal. He hadn’t seen the Darkling coming.

I knew the moment the Darkling saw me. He came into sharp focus, though the room around him remained a murky blur. His self-control was so great that no one near him would have noticed the fleeting look of shock that passed over his perfect features. But I saw his gray eyes widen, his chest lock as his breath caught. His fingers clenched the arms of his chair—no, his throne. Then he relaxed, nodding along to whatever the person before him was saying.

“We would be equals until the day I dared to disagree with you, until the moment I questioned your judgment or didn’t do as I was bid. Then you would deal with me the way you dealt with Genya and your mother, the way you tried to deal with Mal.”

“I’ve never understood this taste for otkazat’sya. Is it because you thought you were one of them for so long?” “I had a taste for you, once.” His head snapped up. He hadn’t expected that. Saints, it was satisfying. “Why haven’t you visited me?” I asked. “In all these long months?”

I took another step. He stilled. Our bodies were almost touching now. I reached up and cupped his cheek with my hand. This time the flash of confusion on his face was impossible to miss. He held himself frozen, his only movement the steady rise and fall of his chest. Then, as if in concession, he let his eyes close. A line appeared between his brows. “It’s true,” I said softly. “You are stronger, wiser, infinite in experience.” I leaned forward and whispered, my lips brushing the shell of his ear. “But I am an apt pupil.” His eyes flew open. I caught the briefest glimpse of rage in his gray gaze before I severed the connection.

“You are not what I expected,” he admitted. “Not quite the Saint you bargained for?” “A lesser Saint,” he said. “But perhaps a better queen. I will pray for you, Alina Starkov.” The strange thing was I believed him.

An ache began in my throat. It wasn’t just the Apparat who had kept me isolated from these people. I’d distanced myself from them as well. I distrusted their faith, but mostly I feared their hope. The love and care in these tiny gestures was a burden I didn’t want.

After my escape from Os Alta, the Darkling’s men had tried to penetrate the network of tunnels beneath Ravka’s churches and holy sites. When their searches turned up empty, they’d begun bombing: closing off exit routes, trying to drive anyone seeking shelter to the surface. The Darkling’s Alkemi had created new explosives that collapsed buildings and forced combustible gases belowground. All it took was a single Inferni spark, and whole sections of the ancient network of tunnels collapsed. It was one of the reasons the Apparat had insisted I remain at the White Cathedral.

David and Genya kept falling behind, but he seemed to be the one responsible for the lag. Finally, Tolya hefted the huge pack from David’s narrow shoulders. He groaned. “What do you have in this thing?” “Three pairs of socks, one pair of trousers, an extra shirt. One canteen. A tin cup and plate. A cylindrical slide rule, a chrondometer, a jar of spruce sap, my collection of anticorrosives—” “You were only supposed to pack what you need.” David gave an emphatic nod. “Exactly.” “Please tell me you didn’t bring all of Morozova’s journals,” I said. “Of course I did.” I rolled my eyes. There had to be at least fifteen leather-bound books. “Maybe they’ll make good kindling.” “Is she kidding?” David asked, looking concerned. “I can never tell if she’s kidding.”

One of the essential tenets of Grisha theory was “like calls to like,” but Morozova seemed to believe that if the world could be broken down to the same small parts, each Grisha should be able to manipulate them. Are we not all things? he demanded, underlining the words for emphasis. He was arrogant, audacious—but still sane.

Harshaw was the last to cross. I had a moment of terror when he lost his footing and the tether nearly snapped free. Then he was up, gasping for breath, Oncat soaked to the skin and spitting mad. By the time Harshaw reached us, his face and neck were a patchwork of tiny scratches.

Mal set an unforgiving pace. To keep contact, he and the twins would whistle to each other from opposite ends of the column, making sure no one had drifted too far behind. Occasionally, he’d fall back to check on everyone. “I can tell what you’re up to,” I said once when he returned to the head of the line. “What’s that?” “You pop back there when someone’s lagging, start up a conversation. You ask David about the properties of phosphor or Nadia about her freckles—” “I have never asked Nadia about her freckles.” “Or something. Then gradually you start to pick up the pace so that they’re walking faster.” “It seems to work better than jabbing them with a stick,” he said. “Less fun.” “My jabbing arm is tired.”

The normally taciturn Tolya could recite entire cycles of epic poetry in Ravkan and Shu—even if no one wanted to hear them.

“Every poem is about a brave hero named Kregi,” she said. “Every single one. He always has a steed, and we have to hear about the steed and the three different kinds of swords he carried and the color of the scarf he wore tied to his wrist and all the poor monsters he slew and then how he was a gentle man and true. For a mercenary, Tolya is disturbingly maudlin.”

We stumbled into a series of little caves glittering with what might well have been real rubies. Genya dubbed it the Jewelbox,

There was the Orchard—a cavern full of stalactites and stalagmites that had fused together into slender columns. And less than a day later, we came across the Dancehall, a long cave of pink quartz with a floor so slippery we had to crawl over it, occasionally sliding to our bellies. Then there was the eerie, partially submerged iron portcullis we called the Angelgate. It was flanked by two winged stone figures, their heads bent, their hands resting on marble broadswords. The winch worked and we passed through it without incident, but why had it been put there? And by whom?

I tilted my head back, breathing deeply. It was a clear, moonless night, and after those long months underground, the sight of all that sky was dizzying. And so many stars—a glittering, tangled mass that seemed close enough to touch. I let their light fall over me like a balm, grateful for the air in my lungs, the night all around me. “Alina,” Mal said softly. I opened my eyes. The Grisha were staring. “What?” He took my hands and held them out in front of me, as if we were about to start a dance. “You’re glowing.” “Oh,” I breathed. My skin was silver, cocooned in starlight. I hadn’t even realized I was summoning. “Oops.”

The last person I wanted to talk to about Mal was Zoya, but that had sounded suspiciously like a compliment. I remembered her gripping my hand during the cave-in and how strong she’d stayed throughout it all. “Thanks,” I said. “For keeping us safe down there. For helping save Sergei and Stigg.” Even if I hadn’t meant a word of it, the look of shock on her face would have been worth it. “You’re welcome,” she managed. Then she stuck her perfect nose in the air and added, “But I won’t always be around to save your ass, Sun Summoner.” I grinned and followed her down the aisle of graves. At least she was predictable.

“Turn around,” I ordered. For a moment, he just stood there. Then he sighed and turned. A tattoo stretched across his broad back—something like a compass rose, but much more like a sun, the points reaching from shoulder to shoulder and down his spine. “Why?” I asked. “Why would you do this?” He shrugged and his muscles flexed beneath the intricate design. “Mal, why would you mark yourself this way?” “I have a lot of scars,” he said finally. “This is one I chose.”

“I think I may be able to build my own army.” “Soldiers of light?” “That’s the idea.” Nikolai was watching me. I could tell he was choosing his words carefully. “You once told me that merzost isn’t like the Small Science, that it carries a high price.” I nodded. “How high, Alina?” I thought of a girl’s body crushed beneath a mirrored dish, her goggles askew, of Marie torn open in Sergei’s arms, of Genya huddling in her shawl. I thought of church walls, like pieces of bloody parchment, crowded with the names of the dead. It wasn’t just righteous fury that guided me, though. It was my need for the firebird—banked, but always burning. “It doesn’t matter,” I said firmly. “I’ll pay it.”

I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret.”

I’d missed him. The way he talked. The way he attacked a problem. The way he brought hope with him wherever he went. For the first time in months, I felt the knot in my chest ease.

We rounded the mountain, drawing closer and closer to the rock. Just as I was about to call out in panic, we rolled hard to the right. Suddenly, we were between two frozen walls. The Pelican swerved and we entered an echoing stone hangar. Nikolai really had been busy. We crowded at the railing, gaping at the hectic bustle around us. Three other crafts were docked in the hangar: a second cargo barge like the Pelican, the sleek Kingfisher, and a similar vessel that bore the name Bittern.