CHAPTER
7
THE WINDS WARMED, and the waters turned from gray to blue as the Volkvolny carried us southeast to Ravka. Sturmhond’s crew was made up of sailors and rogue Grisha who worked together to keep the ship running smoothly. Despite the stories that had spread about the power of the second amplifier, they didn’t pay Mal or me much attention, though they occasionally came to watch me practice at the schooner’s stern. I was careful, never pushing too hard, always summoning at noon, when the sun was high in the sky and there was no chance of my efforts being spotted. Mal was still wary, but I’d spoken the truth: The sea whip’s power was a part of me now. It thrilled me. It buoyed me. I didn’t fear it.
I was fascinated by the rogues. They all had different stories. One had an aunt who had spirited him away rather than let him be turned over to the Darkling. Another had deserted the Second Army. Another had been hidden in a root cellar when the Grisha Examiners arrived to test her.
“My mother told them I’d been killed by the fever that had swept through our village the previous spring,” the Tidemaker said. “The neighbors cut my hair and passed me off as their dead otkazat’sya son until I was old enough to leave.”
Tolya and Tamar’s mother had been a Grisha stationed on Ravka’s southern border when she met their father, a Shu Han mercenary.
“When she died,” Tamar explained, “she made my father promise not to let us be drafted into the Second Army. We left for Novyi Zem the next day.”
Most rogue Grisha ended up in Novyi Zem. Aside from Ravka, it was the only place where they didn’t have to fear being experimented on by Shu doctors or burned by Fjerdan witchhunters. Even so, they had to be cautious about displaying their power. Grisha were valued slaves, and less scrupulous Kerch traders were known to round them up and sell them in secret auctions.
These were the very threats that had led so many Grisha to take refuge in Ravka and join the Second Army in the first place. But the rogues thought differently. For them, a life spent looking over their shoulders and moving from one place to the next to avoid discovery was preferable to a life in service to the Darkling and the Ravkan King. It was a choice I understood.
After a few monotonous days on the schooner, Mal and I asked Tamar if she would show us some Zemeni combat techniques. It helped ease the tedium of shipboard life and the awful anxiety of returning to West Ravka.
Sturmhond’s crew had confirmed the disturbing rumors we’d picked up in Novyi Zem. Crossings of the Fold had all but ceased, and refugees were fleeing its expanding shores. The First Army was close to revolt, and the Second Army was in tatters. I was most frightened by the news that the Apparat’s cult of the Sun Saint was growing. No one knew how he’d managed to escape the Grand Palace after the Darkling’s failed coup, but he had resurfaced somewhere in the network of monasteries spread across Ravka.
He was circulating the story that I’d died on the Fold and been resurrected as a Saint. Part of me wanted to laugh, but turning through the bloody pages of the Istorii Sankt’ya late at night, I couldn’t summon so much as a chuckle. I remembered the Apparat’s smell, that unpleasant combination of incense and mildew, and pulled my coat tighter around me. He had given me the red book. I had to wonder why.
Despite the bruises and bumps, my practices with Tamar helped to dull the edge of my constant worry. Girls were drafted right along with boys into the King’s Army when they came of age, so I’d seen plenty of girls fight and had trained alongside them. But I’d never seen anyone, male or female, fight the way Tamar did. She had a dancer’s grace and a seemingly unerring instinct for what her opponent would do next. Her weapons of choice were two double-bit axes that she wielded in tandem, the blades flashing like light off water, but she was nearly as dangerous with a saber, a pistol, or her bare hands. Only Tolya could match her, and when they sparred, all the crew stopped to watch.
The giant spoke little and spent most of his time working the lines or standing around looking intimidating. But occasionally, he stepped in to help with our lessons. He wasn’t much of a teacher. “Move faster” was about all we could get out of him. Tamar was a far better instructor, but my lessons got less challenging after Sturmhond caught us practicing on the foredeck.
“Tamar,” Sturmhond chided, “please don’t damage the cargo.”
Immediately, Tamar snapped to attention and gave a crisp, “Da, kapitan.”
I shot him a sour look. “I’m not a package you’re delivering, Sturmhond.”
“More’s the pity,” he said, sauntering past. “Packages don’t talk, and they stay where you put them.”
But when Tamar started us on rapiers and sabers, even Sturmhond joined in. Mal improved daily, though Sturmhond still beat him easily every time. And yet, Mal didn’t seem to mind. He took his thumpings with a kind of good humor I never seemed able to muster. Losing made me irritable; Mal just laughed it all off.
“How did you and Tolya learn to use your powers?” I asked Tamar one afternoon as we watched Mal and Sturmhond sparring with dulled swords on deck. She’d found me a marlinspike, and when she wasn’t pummeling me, she was trying to teach me knots and splices.
“Keep your elbows in!” Sturmhond berated Mal. “Stop flapping them like some kind of chicken.”
Mal let out a disturbingly convincing cluck.
Tamar raised a brow. “Your friend seems to be enjoying himself.”
I shrugged. “Mal’s always been like that. You could drop him in a camp full of Fjerdan assassins, and he’d come out carried on their shoulders. He just blooms wherever he’s planted.”
“And you?”
“I’m more of a weed,” I said drily.
Tamar grinned. In combat, she was cold and silent fire, but when she wasn’t fighting, her smiles came easily. “I like weeds,” she said, pushing herself off from the railing and gathering her scattered lengths of rope. “They’re survivors.”
I caught myself returning her smile and quickly went back to working on the knot that I was trying to tie. The problem was that I liked being aboard Sturmhond’s ship. I liked Tolya and Tamar and the rest of the crew. I liked sitting at meals with them, and the sound of Privyet’s lilting tenor. I liked the afternoons when we took target practice, lining up empty wine bottles to shoot off the fantail, and making harmless wagers.
It was a bit like being at the Little Palace, but with none of the messy politics and constant jockeying for status. The crew had an easy, open way with each other. They were all young, and poor, and had spent most of their lives in hiding. On this ship, they’d found a home, and they welcomed Mal and me into it with little fuss.
I didn’t know what was waiting for us in West Ravka, and I felt fairly sure it was madness to be going back at all. But aboard the Volkvolny, with the wind blowing and the white canvas cutting crisp lines across a broad blue sky, I could forget the future and my fear.
And I had to admit, I liked Sturmhond, too. He was cocky and brash, and always used ten words when two would do, but I was impressed with the way he led his crew. He didn’t bother with any of the tricks I’d seen the Darkling employ, yet they followed him without hesitation. He had their respect, not their fear.
“What’s Sturmhond’s real name?” I asked Tamar. “His Ravkan name?”
“No idea.”
“You’ve never asked?”
“Why would I?”
“But where in Ravka is he from?”
She squinted up at the sky. “Do you want to go another round with sabers?” she asked. “We should have time before my watch starts.”
She always changed the subject when I brought up Sturmhond. “He didn’t just drop out of the sky onto a ship, Tamar. Don’t you care where he came from?”
Tamar picked up the swords and handed them over to Tolya, who served as the ship’s Master of Arms. “Not particularly. He lets us sail, and he lets us fight.”
“And he doesn’t make us dress up in red silk and play lapdog,” said Tolya, unlocking the rack with the key he wore around his thick neck.
“A sorry lapdog you’d make.” Tamar laughed.
“Anything’s better than following orders from some puffed-up cully in black,” Tolya grumbled.
“You follow Sturmhond’s orders,” I pointed out.
“Only when he feels like it.”
I jumped. Sturmhond was standing right behind me.
“You try telling that ox what to do and see what happens,” the privateer said.
Tamar snorted, and she and Tolya began stowing the rest of the weapons.
Sturmhond leaned in and murmured, “If you want to know something about me, lovely, all you need to do is ask.”
“I was just wondering where you’re from,” I said defensively. “That’s all.”
“Where are you from?”
“Keramzin. You know that.”
“But where are you from?”
A few dim memories flashed through my mind. A shallow dish of cooked beets, the slippery feel of them between my fingers as they stained my hands red. The smell of egg porridge. Riding on someone’s shoulders—maybe my father’s—down a dusty road. At Keramzin, even mentioning our parents had been considered a betrayal of the Duke’s kindness and a sign of ingratitude. We’d been taught never to speak of our lives before we arrived at the estate, and eventually most of the memories just disappeared.
“Nowhere,” I said. “The village I was born in was too small to be worth a name. Now, what about you, Sturmhond? Where did you come from?”
The privateer grinned. Again I was struck by the thought that there was something off about his features.
“My mother was an oyster,” he said with a wink. “And I’m the pearl.”
He strolled away, whistling an off-key tune.
* * *
TWO NIGHTS LATER, I woke to find Tamar looming over me, shaking my good shoulder.
“Time to go,” she said.
“Now?” I asked blearily. “What time is it?”
“Coming on three bells.”
“In the morning?” I yawned and threw my legs over the side of my hammock. “Where are we?”
“Fifteen miles off the coast of West Ravka. Come on, Sturmhond is waiting.” She was dressed and had her canvas ditty bag slung over her shoulder.
I had no belongings to gather, so I pulled on my boots, patted the inner pocket of my coat to make sure I had the red book, and followed her out the door.
On deck, Mal stood by the ship’s starboard rail with a small group of crewmen. I had a moment of confusion when I realized Privyet was wearing Sturmhond’s garish teal frock coat. I wouldn’t have recognized Sturmhond himself if he hadn’t been giving orders. He was swaddled in a voluminous greatcoat, the collar turned up, a wool hat pulled low over his ears.
A cold wind was blowing. The stars were bright in the sky, and a sickle moon sat low on the horizon. I peered across the moonlit waves, listening to the steady sigh of the sea. If land was nearby, I couldn’t see it.
Mal tried to rub some warmth into my arms.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“We’re going ashore.” I could hear the wariness in his voice.
“In the middle of the night?”
“The Volkvolny will raise my colors near the Fjerdan coast,” said Sturmhond. “The Darkling doesn’t need to know that you’re back on Ravkan soil just yet.”
As Sturmhond bent his head in conversation with Privyet, Mal drew me over to the portside rail. “Are you sure about this?”
“Not at all,” I admitted.
He rested his hands on my shoulders and said, “There’s a good chance I’ll be arrested if we’re found, Alina. You may be the Sun Summoner, but I’m just a soldier who defied orders.”
“The Darkling’s orders.”
“That may not matter.”
“I’ll make it matter. Besides, we’re not going to be found. We’re going to get into West Ravka, meet Sturmhond’s client, and decide what we want to do.”
Mal pulled me closer. “Were you always this much trouble?”
“I like to think of myself as delightfully complex.”
As he bent to kiss me, Sturmhond’s voice cut through the dark. “Can we get to the cuddling later? I want us ashore before dawn.”
Mal sighed. “Eventually, I’m going to punch him.”
“I will support you in that endeavor.”
He took my hand, and we returned to the group.
Sturmhond gave Privyet an envelope sealed with a blob of pale blue wax, then clapped him on the back. Maybe it was the moonlight, but the first mate looked like he might cry. Tolya and Tamar slipped over the railing, holding tight to the weighted ladder secured to the schooner.
I peered over the side. I’d expected to see an ordinary longboat, so I was surprised at the little craft I saw bobbing alongside the Volkvolny. It was like no boat I’d ever seen. Its two hulls looked like a pair of hollowed-out shoes, and they were held together by a deck with a giant hole in its center.
Mal and I followed, stepping gingerly onto one of the craft’s curved hulls. We picked our way across it and descended to the central deck, where a sunken cockpit was nestled between two masts. Sturmhond leapt down after us, then swung up onto a raised platform behind the cockpit and took his place at the ship’s wheel.
“What is this thing?” I asked.
“I call her the Hummingbird,” he said, consulting some kind of chart that I couldn’t see, “though I’m thinking of renaming her the Firebird.” I drew in a sharp breath, but Sturmhond just grinned and ordered, “Cut anchor and release!”
Tamar and Tolya unhitched the knots of the grapples that held us to the Volkvolny. I saw the anchor line slither like a live snake over the Hummingbird’s stern, the end slipping silently into the sea. I would have thought we’d need an anchor when we made port, but I supposed Sturmhond knew what he was doing.
“Make sail,” called Sturmhond.
The sails unfurled. Though the Hummingbird’s masts were considerably shorter than those aboard the schooner, its double sails were huge, rectangular things, and required two crewmen each to maneuver them into position.
A light breeze caught the canvas, and we pulled farther from the Volkvolny. I looked up and saw Sturmhond watching the schooner slip away. I couldn’t see his face, but I had the distinct sense that he was saying goodbye. He shook himself, then called out, “Squallers!”
A Grisha was positioned in each hull. They raised their arms, and wind billowed around us, filling the sails. Sturmhond adjusted our course and called for more speed. The Squallers obliged, and the strange little boat leapt forward.
“Take these,” said Sturmhond. He dropped a pair of goggles into my lap and tossed another pair to Mal. They looked similar to those worn by Fabrikators in the workshops of the Little Palace. I glanced around. All of the crew seemed to be wearing them, along with Sturmhond. We pulled them over our heads.
I was grateful for them seconds later, when Sturmhond called for yet more speed. The sails rattled in the rigging above us, and I felt a twinge of nervousness. Why was he in such a hurry?
The Hummingbird sped over the water, its shallow double hulls skating from wave to wave, barely seeming to touch the surface of the sea. I held tight to my seat, my stomach floating upward with every jounce.
“All right, Squallers,” commanded Sturmhond, “take us up. Sailors to wings, on my count.”
I turned to Mal. “What does that mean, ‘take us up’?”
“Five!” shouted Sturmhond.
The crewmen started to move counterclockwise, pulling on the lines.
“Four!”
The Squallers spread their hands wider.
“Three!”
A boom lifted between the two masts, the sails gliding along its length.
“Two!”
“Heave!” cried the sailors. The Squallers lifted their arms in a massive swoop.
“One!” yelled Sturmhond.
The sails billowed up and out, snapping into place high above the deck like two gigantic wings. My stomach lurched, and the unthinkable happened: The Hummingbird took flight.
I gripped my seat, mumbling old prayers under my breath, squeezing my eyes shut as the wind buffeted my face and we rose into the night sky.
Sturmhond was laughing like a loon. The Squallers were calling out to each other in a volley, making sure they kept the updraft steady. I thought my heart would pound right through my chest.
Oh, Saints, I thought queasily. This can’t be happening.
“Alina,” Mal yelled over the rush of the wind.
“What?” I forced the word through tightly clenched lips.
“Alina, open your eyes. You’ve got to see this.”
I gave a terse shake of my head. That was exactly what I did not need to do.
Mal’s hand slid into mine, taking hold of my frozen fingers. “Just try it.”
I took a trembling breath and forced my lids open. We were surrounded by stars. Above us, white canvas stretched in two broad arcs, like the taut curves of an archer’s bow.
I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t stop myself from craning my neck over the cockpit’s edge. The roar of the wind was deafening. Below—far below—the moonlit waves rippled like the bright scales of a slow-moving serpent. If we fell, I knew we would shatter on its back.
A little laugh, somewhere between elation and hysteria, burbled out of me. We were flying. Flying.
Mal squeezed my hand and gave an exultant shout.
“This is impossible!” I yelled.
Sturmhond whooped. “When people say impossible, they usually mean improbable.” With the moonlight gleaming off the lenses of his goggles and his greatcoat billowing around him, he looked like a complete madman.
I tried to breathe. The wind was holding steady. The Squallers and the crew seemed focused, but calm. Slowly, very slowly, the knot in my chest loosened, and I began to relax.
“Where did this thing come from?” I shouted up to Sturmhond.
“I designed her. I built her. And I crashed a few prototypes.”
I swallowed hard. Crash was the last word I wanted to hear.
Mal leaned over the lip of the cockpit, trying to get a better view of the gigantic guns positioned at the foremost points of the hulls.
“Those guns,” he said. “They have multiple barrels.”
“And they’re gravity fed. No need to stop to reload. They fire two hundred rounds per minute.”
“That’s—”
“Impossible? The only problem is overheating, but it isn’t so bad on this model. I have a Zemeni gunsmith trying to work out the flaws. Barbaric little bastards, but they know their way around a gun. The aft seats rotate so you can shoot from any angle.”
“And fire down on the enemy,” Mal shouted almost giddily. “If Ravka had a fleet of these—”
“Quite an advantage, no? But the First and Second Armies would have to work together.”
I thought of what the Darkling had said to me so long ago. The age of Grisha power is coming to an end. His answer had been to turn the Fold into a weapon. But what if Grisha power could be transformed by men like Sturmhond? I looked over the deck of the Hummingbird, at the sailors and Squallers working side by side, at Tolya and Tamar seated behind those frightening guns. It wasn’t impossible.
He’s a privateer, I reminded myself. And he’d stoop to war profiteer in a second. Sturmhond’s weapons could give Ravka an advantage, but those guns could just as easily be used by Ravka’s enemies.
I was pulled from my thoughts by a bright light shining off the port bow. The great lighthouse at Alkhem Bay. We were close now. If I craned my neck, I could just make out the glittering towers of Os Kervo’s harbor.
Sturmhond did not make directly for it but tacked southwest. I assumed we’d set down somewhere offshore. The thought of landing made me queasy. I decided to keep my eyes shut for that, no matter what Mal said.
Soon I lost sight of the lighthouse beam. Just how far south did Sturmhond intend to take us? He’d said he wanted to reach the coast before dawn, and that couldn’t be more than an hour or two away.
My thoughts drifted, lost to the stars around us and the clouds scudding across the wide sky. The night wind bit into my cheeks and seemed to cut right through the thin fabric of my coat.
I glanced down and gulped back a scream. We weren’t over the water anymore. We were over land—solid, unforgiving land.
I tugged on Mal’s sleeve and gestured frantically to the countryside below us, painted in moonlit shades of black and silver.
“Sturmhond!” I shouted in a panic. “What are you doing?”
“You said you were taking us to Os Kervo—” Mal yelled.
“I said I was taking you to meet my client.”
“Forget that,” I wailed. “Where are we going to land?”
“Not to worry,” said Sturmhond. “I have a lovely little lake in mind.”
“How little?” I squeaked. But then I saw that Mal was climbing out of the cockpit, his face furious. “Mal, sit down!”
“You lying, thieving—”
“I’d stay where you are. I don’t think you want to be jostling around when we enter the Fold.”
Mal froze. Sturmhond began to whistle that same off-key little tune. It was snatched away by the wind.
“You can’t be serious,” I said.
“Not on a regular basis, no,” said Sturmhond. “There’s a rifle secured beneath your seat, Oretsev. You may want to grab it. Just in case.”
“You can’t take this thing into the Fold!” Mal bellowed.
“Why not? From what I understand, I’m traveling with the one person who can guarantee safe passage.”
I clenched my fists, rage suddenly driving fear from my mind. “Maybe I’ll just let the volcra have you and your crew for a late-night snack!”
Sturmhond kept one hand on the wheel and consulted his timepiece. “More of an early breakfast. We really are behind schedule. Besides,” he said, “it’s a long way down. Even for a Sun Summoner.”
I glanced at Mal and knew his fury must be mirrored on my own face.
The landscape was unrolling beneath us at a terrifying pace. I stood up, trying to get a sense for where we were.
“Saints,” I swore.
Behind us lay stars, moonlight, the living world. Ahead of us, there was nothing. He was really going to do it. He was taking us into the Fold.
“Gunners, at your stations,” Sturmhond called. “Squallers, hold steady.”
“Sturmhond, I’m going to kill you!” I shouted. “Turn this thing around right now!”
“Wish I could oblige. I’m afraid if you want to kill me, you’ll just have to wait until we land. Ready?”
“No!” I shrieked.
But the next moment, we were in darkness. It was like no night ever known—a perfect, deep, unnatural blackness that seemed to close around us in a suffocating grip. We were in the Fold.