Blood and Water - The Darkling

Chapter 23: No Thanks

*Unedited

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𝕴 only got a few hours of real sleep before we set out the next day. The soldiers are wary as we enter the Fold, but I expected them to be far worse, clutching icons and chanting prayers. When we take our first steps into the darkness and I let the light burst forth in a flood around us, I understand: they don't need to plead with their Saints. They have the Starkov twins.

The Starling drifts high above us, well within the roof of the bright bubble Alina and I created, but we choose to travel on the sands so that we can practice bending light within the confines of the Fold. To the Soldat Sol i Zvezda, this new display of power is one more miracle, further proof that we are living Saints. I remember the Apparat's claim: There is no greater power than faith, and there will be no greater army than one driven by it. I pray that he is right, that my sister and I are not just another set of leaders taking their loyalty and repaying them with useless, honorable deaths.

It takes us the better part of the day and night to cross the Fold and escort all of the Soldat Sol i Zvezda up the western shore. By the time we arrive back at Tomikyana, David and Genya completely take over. The kitchen looks like a storm has blown through. Bubbling pots cover the cookstove, and a huge kettle has been brought in from the cider press to serve as a cooling tub. David perches on a stool at the big wooden table where the servants had probably rolled dough only weeks before. Now it's littered with glass and metal, smears of some tarlike substance, and countless little bottles of foul-smelling yellow sludge.

"Is this entirely safe?" Alina asks him. Though I don't have the heart to tell her it's a stupid question.

"Nothing is entirely safe."

David apparently does.

"How reassuring."

He smiles. "I'm glad."

Sweet David.

In the dining room, Genya has set up her own workspace, where she's helping to construct canisters for the lumiya and slings that will carry them. The others can activate them as late as they dare during the attack, and if something happens to Alina or me on the Fold, they might still have enough light to get out. All of the farm owner's glassware has been conscripted—goblets, snifters, wine and liqueur glasses, an elaborate collection of vases, and a chafing dish in the shape of a fish.

The tea set has been filled with screws and grommets, and Misha sits cross-legged on a silk-cushioned chair, gleefully deconstructing saddles and organizing the strips and bits of leather into careful piles while his mother sews more slings at his side.

Harshaw is dispatched to steal whatever food he can find from nearby estates, work he seems disturbingly adept at.

I labor beside Genya, Misha, Vera, and my sister for most of the day. Out in the gardens, the Squallers practice creating an acoustic blanket. It's a variation on how I used the night to smother my heartbeat and footsteps, and we hope it will allow us to enter the Fold and take up our positions in darkness without attracting the attention of the volcra. It will be a temporary measure at best, but we just need it to last long enough to enable the ambush. Periodically, my ears will crackle, and all sound will seem to dampen, then I'll hear Ziva as clearly as if she were standing in the room with me, or Adrik's voice booming in my ear.

The pop of gunfire floats back to us from the orchard where Mal and the twins are choosing the best marksmen from the Soldat Sol i Zvezda. We have to be cautious with our ammunition, so they use their bullets sparingly. Later I hear them in the parlor, sorting through weapons and supplies.