Siege and Storm (4 page)

They brought me to a hatch that led to the deck above. Ivan clambered up the ladder, and I scrambled hastily after him, eager to be out of the dark bowels of the ship and free of that rotting stench. It was hard climbing with my hands in irons, and Ivan quickly lost patience. He hooked my wrists to haul me up the last few feet. I took in great gulps of cold air and blinked in the bright light.

The whaler was lumbering along at full sail, driven forward by three Grisha Squallers who stood by the masts with arms raised, their blue
kefta
flapping around their legs. Etherealki, the Order of Summoners. Just a few short months ago, I’d been one of them.

The ship’s crew wore roughspun, and many were barefoot, the better to grip the ship’s slippery deck.
No uniforms
, I noted. So they weren’t military, and the ship flew no colors that I could see.

The rest of the Darkling’s Grisha were easy to pick out among the crew, not just because of their brightly colored
kefta
, but because they stood idly at the railings, gazing out at the sea or talking while the regular sailors worked. I even saw a Fabrikator in her purple
kefta
, propped up against a coil of rope, reading.

As we passed by two massive cast-iron kettles set into the deck, I got a fierce whiff of the stink that had been so powerful below.

“The try-pots,” Genya said. “Where they render the oil. They haven’t been used on this voyage, but the smell never fades.”

Grisha and crewmen alike turned to stare as we walked the length of the ship. When we passed beneath the mizzenmast, I looked up and saw the dark-haired boy and girl from my dream perched high above us. They hung from the rigging like two birds of prey, watching us with matching golden eyes.

So it hadn’t been a dream at all. They’d been in my cabin.

Ivan led me to the prow of the ship, where the Darkling was waiting. He stood with his back to us, staring out over the bowsprit to the blue horizon beyond, his black
kefta
billowing around him like an inky banner of war.

Genya and Ivan made their bows and left us.

“Where’s Mal?” I rasped, my throat still rusty.

The Darkling didn’t turn, but shook his head and said, “You’re predictable, at least.”

“Sorry to bore you. Where is he?”

“How do you know he isn’t dead?”

My stomach lurched. “Because I know you,” I said with more confidence than I felt.

“And if he were? Would you throw yourself into the sea?”

“Not unless I could take you with me. Where is he?”

“Look behind you.”

I whirled. Far down the stretch of the main deck, through the tangle of rope and rigging, I saw Mal. He was flanked by Corporalki guards, but his focus was trained on me. He’d been watching, waiting for me to turn. I stepped forward. The Darkling seized my arm.

“No farther,” he said.

“Let me talk to him,” I begged. I hated the desperation in my voice.

“Not a chance. You two have a bad habit of acting like fools and calling it heroic.”

The Darkling lifted his hand, and Mal’s guards started to lead him away. “Alina!” he yelled, and then grunted as a guard cuffed him hard across the face.

“Mal!” I shouted as they dragged him, struggling, belowdecks. “Mal!”

I flinched out of the Darkling’s grip, my throat choked with rage. “If you hurt him—”

“I’m not going to hurt him,” he said. “At least not while he can be of use to me.”

“I don’t want him harmed.”

“He’s safe for now, Alina. But don’t test me. If one of you steps out of line, the other will suffer. I’ve told him the same.”

I shut my eyes, trying to push back the fury and hopelessness I felt. We were right back where we’d started. I nodded once.

Again, the Darkling shook his head. “You two make it so easy. I prick him, you bleed.”

“And you can’t begin to understand that, can you?”

He reached out and tapped Morozova’s collar, letting his fingers graze the skin of my throat. Even that faint touch opened the connection between us, and a rush of power vibrated through me like a bell being struck.

“I understand enough,” he said softly.

“I want to see him,” I managed. “Every day. I want to know he’s safe.”

“Of course. I’m not cruel, Alina. Just cautious.”

I almost laughed. “Is that why you had one of your monsters bite me?”

“That’s not why,” he said, his gaze steady. He glanced at my shoulder. “Does it hurt?”

“No,” I lied.

The barest hint of a smile touched his lips. “It will get better,” he said. “But the wound can never be fully healed. Not even by Grisha.”

“Those creatures—”

“The
nichevo’ya.
”

Nothings.
I shuddered, remembering the skittering, clicking sounds they’d made, the gaping holes of their mouths. My shoulder throbbed. “What are they?”

His lips tilted. The faint tracery of scars on his face was barely visible, like the ghost of a map. One ran perilously close to his right eye. He’d almost lost it. He cupped my cheek with his hand, and when he spoke, his voice was almost tender.

“They’re just the beginning,” he whispered.

He left me standing on the foredeck, my skin still alive with the touch of his fingers, my head swimming with questions.

Before I could begin to sort through them, Ivan appeared and began yanking me back across the main deck. “Slow down,” I protested, but he just gave another jerk on my sleeve. I lost my footing and pitched forward. My knees banged painfully on the deck, and I barely had time to put up my shackled palms to break my fall. I winced as a splinter dug into my flesh.

“Move,” Ivan ordered. I struggled to my knees. He nudged me with the toe of his boot, and my knee slipped out from beneath me, sending me back down to the deck with a loud thud. “I said
move
.”

Then a large hand scooped me up and gently set me on my feet. When I turned, I was surprised to see the giant and the dark-haired girl.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“This is none of your concern,” Ivan said angrily.

“She’s Sturmhond’s prisoner,” replied the girl. “She should be treated accordingly.”

Sturmhond. The name was familiar. Was this his ship, then? And his crew? There’d been talk of him aboard the
Verrhader
. He was a Ravkan privateer and a smuggler, infamous for breaking the Fjerdan blockade and for the fortune he’d made capturing enemy ships. But he wasn’t flying the double eagle flag.

“She’s the
Darkling’s
prisoner,” said Ivan, “and a traitor.”

“Maybe on land,” the girl shot back.

Ivan gabbled something in Shu that I didn’t understand. The giant just laughed.

“You speak Shu like a tourist,” he said.

“And we don’t take orders from you in any language,” the girl added.

Ivan smirked. “Don’t you?” His hand twitched, and the girl grabbed at her chest, buckling to one knee.

Before I could blink, the giant had a wickedly curved blade in his hand and was lunging at Ivan. Lazily, Ivan flicked his other hand out, and the giant grimaced. Still, he kept coming.

“Leave them alone,” I protested, tugging helplessly at my irons. I could summon light with my wrists bound, but I had no way to focus it.

Ivan ignored me. His hand tightened into a fist. The giant stopped in his tracks, and the sword fell from his fingers. Sweat broke out on his brow as Ivan squeezed the life from his heart.

“Let’s not get out of line,
ye zho
,” Ivan chided.

“You’re killing him!” I said, panicked now. I rammed my shoulder into Ivan’s side, trying to knock him down.

At that moment, a loud double
click
sounded.

Ivan froze, his smirk evaporating. Behind him stood a tall boy around my age, maybe a few years older—ruddy hair, a broken nose. The too-clever fox.

He had a cocked pistol in his hand, the barrel pressed against Ivan’s neck.

“I’m a gracious host, bloodletter. But every house has rules.”

Host.
So this must be Sturmhond. He looked too young to be a captain of anything.

Ivan dropped his hands.

The giant sucked in air. The girl rose to her feet, still clutching her chest. They were both breathing hard, and their eyes burned with hate.

“That’s a good fellow,” Sturmhond said to Ivan. “Now, I’ll take the prisoner back to her quarters, and you can run off and do … whatever it is you do when everyone else is working.”

Ivan scowled. “I don’t think—”

“Clearly. Why start now?”

Ivan’s face flushed in anger. “You don’t—”

Sturmhond leaned in close, the laughter gone from his voice, his easy demeanor replaced by something with a sword’s edge. “I don’t care who you are on land. On this ship, you’re nothing but ballast. Unless I put you over the side, in which case you’re shark bait. I like shark. Cooks up tough, but it makes for a little variety. Remember that the next time you have a mind to threaten anyone aboard this vessel.” He stepped back, his jolly manner restored. “Go on now, shark bait. Scurry back to your master.”

“I won’t forget this, Sturmhond,” Ivan spat.

The captain rolled his eyes. “That’s the idea.”

Ivan turned on his heel and stomped off.

Sturmhond holstered his weapon and smiled pleasantly. “Amazing how quickly a ship feels crowded, no?” He reached out and gave the giant and the girl each a pat on the shoulder. “You did well,” he said quietly.

Their attention was still on Ivan. The girl’s fists were clenched.

“I don’t want trouble,” the captain warned. “Understood?”

They exchanged a glance, then nodded grudgingly.

“Good,” said Sturmhond. “Get back to work. I’ll take her belowdecks.” They nodded again. Then, to my surprise, they each sketched a quick bow to me before they departed.

“Are they related?” I asked, watching them go.

“Twins,” he said. “Tolya and Tamar.”

“And you’re Sturmhond.”

“On my good days,” he replied. He wore leather breeches, a brace of pistols at his hips, and a bright teal frock coat with gaudy gold buttons and enormous cuffs. It belonged in a ballroom or on an opera stage, not on the deck of a ship.

“What’s a pirate doing on a whaler?” I asked.

“Privateer,” he corrected. “I have several ships. The Darkling wanted a whaler, so I got him one.”

“You mean you stole it.”

“Acquired it.”

“You were in my cabin.”

“Many women dream of me,” he said lightly as he steered me down the deck.

“I saw you when I woke up,” I insisted. “I need—”

He held up a hand. “Don’t waste your breath, lovely.”

“But you don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“You were about to plead your case, tell me you need my help, you can’t pay me but your heart is true, the usual thing.”

I blinked. That was exactly what I’d been about to do. “But—”

“Waste of breath, waste of time, waste of a fine afternoon,” he said. “I don’t like to see prisoners mistreated, but that’s as far as my interest goes.”

“You—”

He shook his head. “And I’m notoriously immune to tales of woe. So unless your story involves a talking dog, I don’t want to hear it. Does it?”

“Does it what?”

“Involve a talking dog.”

“No,” I snapped. “It involves the future of a kingdom and everyone in it.”

“A pity,” he said, and took me by the arm, leading me to the aft hatch.

“I thought you worked for Ravka,” I said angrily.

“I work for the fattest purse.”

“So you’d sell your country to the Darkling for a little gold?”

“No, for a
lot
of gold,” he said. “I assure you, I don’t come cheap.” He gestured to the hatch. “After you.”

With Sturmhond’s help, I made it back down to my cabin, where two Grisha guards were waiting to lock me inside. The captain bowed and left me without another word.

I sat down on my bunk, resting my head in my hands. Sturmhond could play the fool all he wanted. I knew he’d been in my cabin, and there had to be a reason. Or maybe I was just grasping at any little bit of hope.

When Genya brought me my dinner tray, she found me curled up on my bunk, facing the wall.

“You should eat,” she said.

“Leave me alone.”

“Sulking gives you wrinkles.”

“Well, lying gives you warts,” I said sourly. She laughed, then entered and set down the tray. She crossed to the sidescuttle and glanced at her reflection in the glass. “Maybe I should go blond,” she said. “Corporalki red clashes horribly with my hair.”

I cast a glance over my shoulder. “You know you could wear baked mud and outshine every girl on two continents.”

“True,” she said with a grin.

I didn’t return her smile. She sighed and studied the toes of her boots. “I missed you,” she said.

I was surprised at how much those words hurt. I’d missed her, too. And I’d felt like a fool for it.

“Were you ever my friend?” I asked.

She sat down at the edge of the bunk. “Would it make a difference?”

“I like to know just how stupid I’ve been.”

“I loved being your friend, Alina. But I’m not sorry for what I did.”

“And what the Darkling did? Are you sorry for that?”

“I know you think he’s a monster, but he’s trying to do what’s right for Ravka, for all of us.”

I shoved up to my elbows. I’d lived with the knowledge of the Darkling’s lies so long that it was easy to forget how few people knew what he really was. “Genya, he created the Fold.”

“The Black Heretic—”

“There is no Black Heretic,” I said, revealing the truth that Baghra had laid out before me months ago at the Little Palace. “He blamed his ancestor for the Fold, but there’s only ever been one Darkling, and all he cares about is power.”

“That’s impossible. The Darkling has spent his life trying to free Ravka from the Fold.”

“How can you say that after what he did to Novokribirsk?” The Darkling had used the power of the Unsea to destroy an entire town, a show of strength meant to cow his enemies and mark the start of his rule. And I’d made it possible.

“I know there was … an incident.”