As Vladim moved to turn the locks, I heard Genya whisper. "You definitely owe me a kiss after all this, Don't think I won't hold you to it."
I laughed lightly. "We'll see."
"There is no seeing, you will, if I have to be the one to do it then so be...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
SUMMER DEPENDED, BRINGING WAVES OF balmy heat to Os Alta. The only relief to be found was in the lake, or in the cold pools of the banya that lay in the dark shade of birchwood grove beside the Little Palace. Whatever hostility the Ravkan court felt toward the Grisha, it didn't stop them from beckoning Squallers and Tidemakers to the Grand Palace to summon breezes and fashion massive blocks of ice to cool the stuffy room.
It was hardly a worthy use of Grisha talent, but I was eager to keep the King and Queen happy, and Alina and I'd already deprived them of several much-valued Fabrikators, who were hard at work on David's mysterious mirrored dishes.
Every morning, Alina and I met with our Grisha council— sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for hours— to discuss intelligence reports, troop movements, and what we were hearing from the northern and southern borders.
Nikolai still hoped to take fight to the Darkling before he'd assembled the full strength of his shadow army, but so far Ravka's network of spies and informants had been unable to discover his location. It was looking more and more likely that we'd have to make our stand in Os Alta. Our only advantage was that the Darkling couldn't simply send the Nichevo'ya against us. He had to stay close to his creatures, and that meant he would have to march to the capital with them. The big question was whether he would enter Ravka from Fjerda or from the Shu Han.
Standing in the war room before the Grisha council, Nikolai gestured to one of the massive maps along the wall.
"We took back most of this territory in the last campaign," he said, pointing to Ravka's northern border with Fjerda. "It's dense forest, almost impossible to cross when the rivers aren't frozen, and all the access roads have been blockaded."
"Aren't there Grisha stationed there?" asked Zoya.
"No," Nikolai said. "But there are lots of scouts based out of Ulensk. If he comes that way, we'll have plenty of warning."
"And he would have to deal with the Petrazoi," said Paja. "Whether he goes over or around them, it will buy us more time."
She'd come into her own over the last few weeks. Though David remained silent and fidgety, she actually seemed glad to have time away from the workrooms.
"I'm more concerned with the permafrost," Nikolai said, running his hand along the stretch of border that ran above Tsibeya. "It's heavily fortified. But that's a lot of territory to cover."
I nodded. Alina, Mal, and I had once walked those wild lands together, and I remembered how vast they'd felt.
