Zoya hadn’t really. Grisha who were born amplifiers were rare and often served as Examiners, using their abilities to test for the presence of Grisha power in children. The Darkling had himself been an amplifier, as had his mother. It was one of the theories for why he had been so powerful. “No,” she admitted.

“They are connected to the making at the heart of the world. In the time before the word Grisha had ever been spoken, the lines that divided us from other creatures were less firm. We did not just take an animal’s life, we gave up a part of ourselves in return. But somewhere along the way, Grisha began killing, claiming a piece of the power of creation without giving anything of ourselves. This is the pathetic tradition of your amplifiers.”

“Should I feel shame for claiming an amplifier?” Zoya said. He had no right to these judgments. How often had Zoya cried? How many futile prayers had she spoken, unable to rid herself of that stubborn, stupid belief that someone would answer? “It must be easy to ponder the universe, safe in your palace, away from the petty, brutal dealings of man. Maybe you don’t remember what it is to be powerless. I do.”

“Maybe so,” said Juris. “But you still wept for the tiger.”

Zoya froze. He couldn’t know. No one knew what she had done that night, what she had seen. “What do you mean?”

“When you are tied to all things, there is no limit to what you may know. The moment that bracelet dropped from your wrist, I saw it all. Young Zoya bleeding in the snow, heart full of valor. Zoya of the lost city. Zoya of the garden. You could not protect them then, and you cannot protect them now, not you and not your monster king.”

Do not look back at me. The well within her had no bottom. She tossed a stone into the darkness and she fell with it, on and on. She needed to get out of this room, to get away from Juris. “Are we done here?”

“We haven’t yet begun. Tell me, storm witch, when you slew the tiger, did you not feel its spirit moving through you, feel it take the shape of your anger?”

Zoya did not want to speak of that night. The dragon knew things he could not know. She forced herself to laugh. “You’re saying I might have become a tiger?”

“Maybe. But you are weak, so who can be certain?”

Zoya curled her lip. She kept herself still though the rage inside her leapt. “Do you mean to goad me? It will take more than the slights of an old man.”

“You showed courage when we fought—ingenuity, nerve. And still you lost. You will continue to lose until you open the door.”

He turned suddenly and lunged toward her, his body growing larger, blotting out the light as his wings spread. His vast jaws parted and flame bloomed from somewhere inside him.

Zoya threw her arms over her head, cowering.

Abruptly the flames banked and Juris stood looking at her in his human form. “Have I chosen a weakling?” he said in disgust.

But now it was Zoya’s turn to smile. “Or maybe just a girl who knows how to look like one.”

Zoya stood and thrust her hands forward. The storm thundered toward him, a straight shot of wind and ire that knocked Juris from his feet and sent him tumbling, skating along the smooth stone floor and right out of the cave mouth. Weak. A fraction of the strength she had commanded with her amplifier. But he rolled over the edge and vanished, the surprise on his face like a balm to Zoya’s heart.

A moment later the dragon rose on giant wings. “Did I break your will when I broke your silly bauble?”

Had he? Without her amplifier, summoning her power was like reaching for something and misjudging the distance, feeling your fingers close over nothing but air. She had always been powerful, but it was the tiger’s life that had given her true strength. And now it was gone. What was she—who was she without it? If they ever got free of this place, how was she supposed to return to her command?

“Choose a weapon,” said Juris.

“I’m too tired for this.”

“Give me a worthy fight and you can go hide wherever you like. Choose a weapon.”

“I am the weapon.” Or she had been. “I don’t need a cudgel or a blade.”

“Very well,” said Juris, shifting smoothly into his human form. “I’ll choose one for you.” He grabbed a sword from the wall and tossed it to her.

She caught it awkwardly with both hands. It was far too heavy. But she had no time to think. He was already springing toward her, a massive broadsword in his hands.

“What is the point of this?” she asked as he struck her blade with a blow that reverberated up her arms. “I’ve never been any good at swordplay.”

“You’ve spent your life only choosing the paths at which you knew you could excel. It’s made you lazy.”

Zoya grimaced and parried, trying to remember her long-ago education with Botkin Yul-Erdene. They’d used knives and rapiers and even taken target practice with pistols. Zoya had enjoyed all of it, particularly the hand-to-hand combat, but she’d had little cause to practice her skills since. What was the point of using her fists when she could command a storm?

“Not bad,” he said as she succeeded in dodging one of his thrusts. “Using your power has become too easy for you. When you fight this way, you have to focus so entirely on surviving that you stop thinking about everything else. You cannot worry about what came before or what happens next, what has been lost or what you might gain. There is only this moment.”

“What possible advantage is that?” Zoya said. “Isn’t it better to be able to predict what comes next?”

“When your mind is free, the door opens.”

“What door?”

“The door to the making at the heart of the world.”

Zoya feinted right and stepped close to deny Juris the advantage of his longer reach. “That is already what I do when I summon,” she said, sweat beginning to drip from her brow. “That’s what all Grisha do when we use our power.”

“Is it?” he asked, bringing his sword down again. The clash of metal filled her ears. “The storm is still outside you, something you welcome and guard against all at once. It howls outside the door. It rattles the windows. It wants to be let in.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Let the storm in, Zoya. Do not summon. Do not reach for it. Let it come to you. Let it guide your movements. Give me a proper fight.”

Zoya grunted as his blade struck hers. She was already breathless, her arms aching from the weight of her weapon. “I’m not strong enough to beat you without using my power.”

“You do not use it. You are it. The storm is in your bones.”

“Stop. Talking. Nonsense,” she snarled. It wasn’t fair. He was forcing her to play a game she couldn’t win. And Zoya always won.

Very well. If he wanted her to fight without summoning, she would, and she would best him at it too. Then Juris could hang his big ugly head in shame. She charged him, giving in to the thrill of the fight, the challenge of it, ignoring the pain that shivered up her arms as his blade met hers again and again. She was smaller and lighter, so she kept to the balls of her feet and stayed well within his guard.

His blade hissed against the flesh of her arm, and she felt the pain like a burn. Zoya knew she was bleeding, but she didn’t care. She only wanted to know he could bleed too.

Lunge. Parry. Attack. React. React. React. Her heart pounded like thunder. In her blood she felt the roaring of the wind. She could feel her body move before she told it to, the air whistling past her, through her. Her blood was charged with lightning. She brought her sword down, and in it she felt the strength of the hurricane, tearing trees up by their roots, unstoppable.

Juris’ blade shattered.

“There she is,” he said with his dragon’s smile.

Zoya stood quaking, eyes wide. She had felt her strength double, treble, the strength of a whirlwind in her limbs. It shouldn’t have been possible, but she couldn’t deny what she’d felt—or what she’d done. The proof was in the broken weapon that lay at her feet. She flexed her hand around the grip of her sword. The storm is in your bones.

“I see I finally have your attention,” said the dragon.

She looked up at him. He’d stolen her amplifier, broken some part of her. She would repay him for that—and he would help her learn to do it.

“Is there more?” she asked.

“So much more,” said Juris.

Zoya dropped back into fighting stance and lifted her blade—light as air in her hands. “Then you’d better get yourself a new sword.”

ADRIK WAS FURIOUS—still glum, but furious. It was like being yelled at by a damp towel.

“What were you thinking?” he demanded the next morning. They’d walked out to the southern part of town, with Leoni and the sledge in tow, ostensibly to try to make sales to local hunters and trappers. But they’d stopped near an old tanning shed so that Adrik would have privacy to let Nina know just how disastrously she’d behaved. “I gave you direct orders. You were not to engage, certainly not on your own. What if you’d been captured?”

“I wasn’t.”

Leoni leaned against the cart. “If Hanne hadn’t stepped in to help, you would have been. Now you’re in that girl’s debt.”

“I was already in her debt. And have you forgotten she’s Grisha? She won’t talk. Not unless she wants to put herself in danger.”

Adrik glanced up at the factory looming over the valley. “We should destroy this place. It would be a mercy.”

“No,” Nina said. “There has to be a way to get the girls out.”

Adrik looked at her with his moping, melting-candle expression. “You know what parem does. They won’t come back from this. They’re as good as dead.”

“Stop being such a head cold,” Nina retorted. “I came back from it.”

“From one dose. You’re telling us these girls have been dosed for months.”